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Running VyOS as docker container

I recently started to use Containerlab and wanted to build a lab using VyOS routers. I searched a bit on the topic and found some scattered resources describing the process 123. This post is combining and adding to that information.

Prerequisites and versions

This post assumes you have docker, git, squashfs-tools installed on your machine.

Building LTS and rolling release ISO's

First build both the LTS and rolling ISO's from which the containers will be created. Create a directory for the build and execute the commands for one or both releases: 

mkdir vyos-builds && cd vyos-builds


git clone -b equuleus --single-branch https://github.com/vyos/vyos-build vyos-lts
docker run --rm -it --privileged -v $(pwd)/vyos-lts:/vyos -w /vyos vyos/vyos-build:equuleus bash
./configure --architecture amd64 --build-by "red9-homelab" --build-type release --version 1.3.4
sudo make iso
exit

git clone -b sagitta --single-branch https://github.com/vyos/vyos-build vyos-rolling
docker run --rm -it --privileged -v $(pwd)/vyos-rolling:/vyos -w /vyos vyos/vyos-build:sagitta bash
sudo make clean
sudo ./build-vyos-image iso --architecture amd64 --build-by "red9-homelab"
exit

Building the containers

When the build process is completed we can mount the ISO's and create the containers from it

mkdir lts-rootfs
sudo mount -o loop vyos-lts/build/vyos-1.3.4-amd64.iso lts-rootfs
mkdir lts-unsquashfs
sudo unsquashfs -f -d lts-unsquashfs/ lts-rootfs/live/filesystem.squashfs
# Fix locale
sudo sed -i 's/^LANG=.*$/LANG=C.UTF-8/' lts-unsquashfs/etc/default/locale
# Reducing the container size
sudo rm -rf lts-unsquashfs/boot/*.img
sudo rm -rf lts-unsquashfs/boot/*vyos*
sudo rm -rf lts-unsquashfs/boot/vmlinuz
sudo rm -rf lts-unsquashfs/lib/firmware/
sudo rm -rf lts-unsquashfs/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libwireshark.so*
sudo rm -rf lts-unsquashfs/lib/modules/*amd64-vyos
# Pack it up and import in docker
sudo tar -C lts-unsquashfs -c . | sudo docker import - vyos:1.3.4 --change 'CMD ["/sbin/init"]'

mkdir rolling-rootfs
sudo mount -o loop vyos-rolling/build/vyos-1.4-rolling-*-amd64.iso rolling-rootfs
mkdir rolling-unsquashfs
sudo unsquashfs -f -d rolling-unsquashfs/ rolling-rootfs/live/filesystem.squashfs
# Fix locale
sudo sed -i 's/^LANG=.*$/LANG=C.UTF-8/' rolling-unsquashfs/etc/default/locale
# Reducing the container size
sudo rm -rf rolling-unsquashfs/boot/*.img
sudo rm -rf rolling-unsquashfs/boot/*vyos*
sudo rm -rf rolling-unsquashfs/boot/vmlinuz
sudo rm -rf rolling-unsquashfs/lib/firmware/
sudo rm -rf rolling-unsquashfs/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libwireshark.so*
sudo rm -rf rolling-unsquashfs/lib/modules/*amd64-vyos
# Pack it up and import in docker
export BUILD=$(date "+%y%m%d%H%M")
sudo tar -C rolling-unsquashfs -c . | sudo docker import - vyos:1.4-$BUILD --change 'CMD ["/sbin/init"]'

If everything went according to plan there should be two VyOS docker images: 

stimmerman@containerlab:~/vyos-builds$ docker image ls | grep vyos
vyos                                     1.4-202309061459   13036fe69138   About a minute ago   1.16GB
vyos                                     1.3.3              72ddbcdf7579   2 minutes ago        874MB
vyos/vyos-build                          current            74a186038e1e   13 days ago          3.07GB
vyos/vyos-build                          equuleus           b989e4dbc47a   2 months ago         4GB

Running a VyOS container

With the containers build we can spin up an instance to check if it's working.

# Start the container
docker run -d --name vyos-lts --privileged -v /lib/modules:/lib/modules vyos:1.3.3
# Login to the router
docker exec -ti vyos-lts su vyos

# Create volume to hold the configuration
docker volume create vyos-lts-config
# Start the container
docker run -d --name vyos-lts --privileged -v /lib/modules:/lib/modules -v vyos-lts-config:/opt/vyatta/etc/config vyos:1.3.3
# Login to the router
docker exec -ti vyos-lts su vyos

You should be greeted by a VyOS prompt like vyos@vyos:/$ if all went well.

Enabling SSH Access

Exec into the container 

docker exec -ti vyos-lts su vyos
Enable the SSH service in VyOS 
vyos@vyos:/$ conf
vyos@vyos# set service ssh
vyos@vyos# commit; save; exit
Find out the IP address assigned to eth0 in my case 172.17.0.4 
vyos@vyos:~$ show int
Codes: S - State, L - Link, u - Up, D - Down, A - Admin Down
Interface        IP Address                        S/L  Description
---------        ----------                        ---  -----------
eth0             172.17.0.4/16                     u/u
lo               127.0.0.1/8                       u/u
You should be able to SSH into the router now like ssh vyos@172.17.0.4 using the password vyos

  1. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TUUVGLzetAX7_BIO6qtKDCC89j40eHa7bZrGiM5a3j8/ ↩

  2. https://forum.vyos.io/t/vyos-as-docker-container-journey/6128 ↩

  3. https://docs.vyos.io/en/latest/installation/virtual/docker.html ↩

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