Launching docker container in interactive mode

[betatim]

I was expecting repo2docker https://github.com/binder-examples/conda-freeze /bin/bash to give me a shell inside the container. Instead it builds the image and then exits straight away.

I think this is because we would have to do the equivalent of docker run -it <image> /bin/bash but don't. Should we add a --interactive CLI flag that turns on this behaviour?

Note: a solution to this is outlined in #599 (comment). This would be a good way to get involved with contributing to repo2docker and something to help out with in general.

[choldgraf]

so you're thinking that it'd send you to shell after the jupyter server starts?

[betatim]

No. If I specify a command repo2docker ..stuff.. /bin/bash I expect it to not run the jupyter server but only the command I specified. This works except it doesn't connect me to the "end" of the bash session.

"Interactive mode" is the difference between docker run --rm ubuntu:latest /bin/bash vs docker run -it --rm ubuntu:latest /bin/bash.

[yuvipanda]

I think implementing the equivalent of '--interactive' to docker run without using the docker binary directly is not easy. See docker/docker-py#247.

[betatim]

Maybe a quick win is to have repo2docker --interactive ... (or some such) print out the docker run command to use as a form of syntactic sugar. Have you tried https://github.com/d11wtq/dockerpty?

[yuvipanda]

@betatim I like the idea of us printing the command.