Re: [ELPA] new package: tramp-docker

[Michael Albinus]

Robin Tarsiger <rtt@dasyatidae.com> writes:

Hi,

> Richard Stallman wrote:
>> Could you tell me a bit more about what it means for Tramp to "use
>> Docker containers" as the remote environment?
>
> This code is used to access files in Docker or Podman containers that are
> running on the same system as Emacs. It calls the Docker or Podman program
> to spawn a shell inside the container to communicate with. It is similar
> to the su or sudo Tramp methods, in that the connection to the "remote"
> system involves shared kernel resources (unless Docker or Podman itself
> eventually chooses to do something else).

When the virtual host a running container exist of offers services like
"ftpd" or "sshd", the container method isn't needed. But there are
containers w/o such services, like the famous "alpine" container. A
dedicated Tramp connection via the "docker" method will be useful.

Furthermore, this isn't restricted to a container running on a local
machine. You could always use Tramp's multi-hops, viewing a file like
"/ssh:rms@another-machine|docker:that-container:~/.history".

Furthermore, there are techniques to access containers on a remote host
like podman-remote(1). I'm not familiar with such techniques (yet), but
I guess we could exploit them as well.

> -RTT

Best regards, Michael.