Remote Development with Linux
Linux is a highly variable environment and the large number of server, container, and desktop distributions can make it difficult to know what is supported. Visual Studio Code Remote Development has prerequisites for the specific host / container / WSL distribution you will be connecting to.
The extensions are known to work when connecting to recent stable/LTS version of:
- Ubuntu 64-bit x86, ARMv8l (AArch64) (16.04+, IoT 18.04+)
- Debian 64-bit x86, ARMv8l (AArch64) (Stretch/9+)
- Raspberry Pi OS ARMv7l (AArch32) 32-bit (Stretch/9+) (previously called Raspbian)
- CentOS / RHEL 64-bit x86 (7+)
- Alpine Linux 64-bit x86 containers or WSL hosts (3.9+) in Dev Containers, WSL
The following non-Linux SSH hosts are also supported:
- Windows 10 / Server 2016/2019 SSH hosts (1803+) using the official OpenSSH Server and enabling remote.SSH.useLocalServer in VS Code settings.
- macOS 10.14+ (Mojave) SSH hosts with Remote Login enabled.
However, if you are using a non-standard configuration or downstream distribution of Linux, you may run into issues. This document provides information on requirements as well as tips to help you get up and running even if your configuration is only community-supported.
Note that other extensions may have dependencies beyond those listed here. Some extensions also contain compiled native code that may not work on Alpine Linux, or ARMv7 (AArch32), or ARMv8 (AArch64). These platforms are considered in «preview» for this reason. If you encounter an issue that only occurs with a particular extension, contact the extension authors for information on their native dependencies.
Local Linux prerequisites
If you are running Linux locally, the VS Code prerequisites drive most of the requirements.
In addition, specific Remote Development extensions have further requirements:
- Remote — SSH: ssh needs to be in the path. The shell binary is typically in the openssh-client package.
- Dev Containers: Docker CE/EE 18.06+ and Docker Compose 1.21+. Follow the official install instructions for Docker CE/EE for your distribution. If you are using Docker Compose, follow the Install Docker Compose directions as well. (Note that the Ubuntu Snap package is not supported and packages in distributions may be out of date.) docker and docker-compose must also be in the path. However, Docker does not need to be running if you are using a remote host.
Remote host / container / WSL Linux prerequisites
Platform prerequisites are primarily driven by the version of the Node.js runtime (and by extension the V8 JavaScript engine) shipped in the server component automatically installed on each remote endpoint. This server also has a set of related native node modules that need to be compiled and tested for each target. 64-bit x86 glibc-based Linux distributions currently provide the best support given these requirements.
You may encounter issues with certain extensions with native dependencies with ARMv7l (AArch32) / ARMv8l (AArch64) glibc-based hosts, containers, or WSL and 64-bit x86 musl-based Alpine Linux. For ARMv7l/ARMv8l, extensions may only include x86_64 versions of native modules or runtimes in the extension. For Alpine Linux, included native code or runtimes may not work due to fundamental differences between how libc is implemented in Alpine Linux ( musl ) and other distributions ( glibc ). In both these cases, extensions will need to opt-in to supporting these platforms by compiling / including binaries for these additional targets. Please raise an issue with the appropriate extension author requesting support if you encounter an extension that does not work as expected.
| Distribution | Base Requirements | Remote — SSH Requirements | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| General | kernel >= 3.10, glibc >=2.17, libstdc++ >= 3.4.18, Python 2.6 or 2.7, tar | OpenSSH server, bash , and curl or wget | Run ldd —version to check the glibc version. Run `strings /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6 |
| General for Arm32 | libatomic1 | No additional requirements. | |
| Ubuntu 16.04+, Debian 8+, Raspberry Pi OS Stretch/9+ and downstream distributions | libc6 libstdc++6 python-minimal ca-certificates tar | openssh-server bash and curl or wget | Requires kernel >= 3.10, glibc >= 2.17, libstdc++ >= 3.4.18. Debian < 8 (Jessie) and Ubuntu < 14.04 do not meet this requirement. |
| RHEL / CentOS 7+ | glibc libgcc libstdc++ python ca-certificates tar | openssh-server bash and curl or wget | Requires kernel >= 3.10, glibc >= 2.17, libstdc++ >= 3.4.18. RHEL / CentOS < 7 does not meet this requirement without using a workaround to upgrade. |
| Alpine Linux 3.9+ | musl libgcc libstdc++ . musl >= 1.1.18, glibc not required. | Not yet supported. | Supported in Dev Containers and WSL. Extensions installed in the container may not work due to glibc dependencies in extension native code. |
| openSUSE Leap / SUSE Linux Enterprise 15+ | glibc libgcc_s1 libstdc++6 python ca-certificates gzip tar | curl or wget | Requires kernel >= 3.10, glibc, libstdc++6 |
Tips by Linux distribution
The following is a list of distributions and any base requirements that may be missing. End-of-life versions of distributions are not included.
- ✅ = Working
- ⚠️ = Working, but see note for limitations
- 🔬 = Experimental
- 🛑 = Unsupported, but has workaround
- ❌ = Unsupported
Updating glibc and libstdc++ on RHEL / CentOS 6
RHEL / CentOS 6 ships with glibc 2.12 and libstdc++ 3.4.13. Unfortunately, this does not meet the requirements for Remote Development. RHEL / CentOS 6 goes out of support in 2020, so we recommend upgrading to RHEL / CentOS 7 or higher.
However, as a workaround, you can either build glibc manually or use the following script to install updated binaries. The bash script below will upgrade these libraries without having to build them. It is adapted from information in this article, this gist, and this Fedora copr project. The article also includes instructions for manually building glibc if you would prefer not to use the binaries from the article.
Do not run this script on anything mission critical without a rollback strategy since it does update libraries that other applications depend on.
For servers, run the following script and restart the server so the updates take effect.
# Update glibc and static libs wget http://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm wget http://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-common-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm wget http://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-devel-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm wget http://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-headers-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm wget https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-utils-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm wget https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-static-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm sudo rpm -Uh --force --nodeps \ glibc-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ glibc-common-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ glibc-devel-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ glibc-headers-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ glibc-static-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ glibc-utils-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm # Update libstdc++ wget https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/gcc-4.8.2-16.3.fc20/libstdc++-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm wget https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/gcc-4.8.2-16.3.fc20/libstdc++-devel-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm wget https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/gcc-4.8.2-16.3.fc20/libstdc++-static-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm sudo rpm -Uh \ libstdc++-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm \ libstdc++-devel-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm \ libstdc++-static-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm In a container environment, you can add similar contents to a Dockerfile:
FROM centos:6 RUN yum -y install wget tar # Update glibc RUN wget -q http://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && wget -q http://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-common-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && wget -q http://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-devel-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && wget -q http://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-headers-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && wget -q https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-utils-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && wget -q https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/glibc-2.17-55.fc20/glibc-static-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && rpm -Uh --force --nodeps \ glibc-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ glibc-common-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ glibc-devel-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ glibc-headers-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ glibc-static-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ glibc-utils-2.17-55.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && rm *.rpm # Update libstdc++ RUN wget -q https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/gcc-4.8.2-16.3.fc20/libstdc++-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && wget -q https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/gcc-4.8.2-16.3.fc20/libstdc++-devel-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && wget -q https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/mosquito/myrepo-el6/epel-6-x86_64/gcc-4.8.2-16.3.fc20/libstdc++-static-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && rpm -Uh \ libstdc++-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm \ libstdc++-devel-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm \ libstdc++-static-4.8.2-16.3.el6.x86_64.rpm \ && rm *.rpm Questions or feedback
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