Getting started with ROS 2 Iron Irwini on Docker

This page will help you understand how to operate ROS 2 without any worries about Ubuntu 18.04/20.04’s compatibility.

Disclaimer

This project uses ROS 2 and not ROS 1. I use Iron for the demo and Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy inside the container.

Installing ROS 2

Steps

1. Updating your package index

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

2. Installing Docker

sudo apt-get install docker.io docker-compose

3. Ensuring our setup is working perfectly

sudo service docker.io status

It should output like this:

● docker.service - Docker Application Container Engine
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/docker.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2024-02-27 16:29:42 IST; 48s ago
TriggeredBy: ● docker.socket
       Docs: https://docs.docker.com
   Main PID: 3019 (dockerd)
      Tasks: 11
     Memory: 30.9M
     CGroup: /system.slice/docker.service
             └─3019 /usr/bin/dockerd -H fd:// --containerd=/run/containerd/containerd.sock

4. Running the container

Please create the following file with the name docker-compose.yaml

version: "3.3"
services:
  ubuntu-ros:
    container_name: "ubuntu-ros-container"
    image: "sentinelag/ros2:latest"
    tty: true
    volumes:
      - container_home:/home

volumes:
  container_home:

Then, run

sudo docker-compose up

Then to access the terminal

sudo docker exec -it ubuntu-ros-container /bin/bash

5. Initializing

source /opt/ros/iron/setup.bash

Alternatively you can add it to your .bashrc/.zshrc