Official L-CAS enabled ROS base images

Use this as the base image for your ROS containerisation projects.

Adds simple configuration layers on top of the official ROS images at https://hub.docker.com/_/ros. The additional config does the following:

1. add the L-CAS Ubuntu repository (and key), i.e. "deb https://lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/apt/lcas $(lsb_release -sc) lcas"
2. configure the L-CAS ROS distribution (which is an extension to the official ROS ones):
   • add the L-CAS rosdeps (which are an extension to the official ROS ones), see https://github.com/LCAS/rosdistro/tree/master/rosdep
   • configure the master index to be https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LCAS/rosdistro/master/index-v4.yaml

That's all. The images can be used from our registry as lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/lcas/ros:<TAG>, where <TAG> mirrors a subset of the tags of the official ROS images (configured in the workflow).

Useful Notes

Makefile

The Makefile can be used for testing different builds with different base images. We provide two base images: one based on nvidia, which includes CUDA support, and the other based on ubuntu, which does not have CUDA support:

NVIDIA_BASE_IMAGE:=nvidia/cuda:11.8.0-runtime-ubuntu22.04
NVIDIA_DEST_TAG:=lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/lcas/ros:jammy-humble-cuda-opengl
UBUNTU_BASE_IMAGE:=ubuntu:jammy
UBUNTU_DEST_TAG:=lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/lcas/ros:jammy-humble
ROS_DISTRO:=humble

To build both images, simply execute the Makefile in the terminal with make. To build a specific image, type make nvidia. To run the image, use make run_nvidia or make run_ubuntu.

The nvidia base image utilizes OpenGL for 3D GPU acceleration. To verify this after running the image, launch the following command inside the container:

/opt/VirtualGL/bin/glxspheres64

The output will report the processing frames per second:

ros@8b9788042eb6:/$ /opt/VirtualGL/bin/glxspheres64 
Polygons in scene: 62464 (61 spheres * 1024 polys/spheres)
GLX FB config ID of window: 0x11 (8/8/8/0)
Visual ID of window: 0x21
Context is Direct
OpenGL Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
736.997364 frames/sec - 822.489059 Mpixels/sec
768.459693 frames/sec - 857.601017 Mpixels/sec
729.394007 frames/sec - 814.003712 Mpixels/sec
712.265822 frames/sec - 794.888657 Mpixels/sec
707.806523 frames/sec - 789.912080 Mpixels/sec

For visualization, open the following link in your browser: http://localhost:5801/vnc.html. If the code is still running, you should see this:

GitHub Actions Workflow: Build OpenGL-supported Docker Images

This GitHub Actions workflow automates the process of building and pushing Docker images with OpenGL support.

Workflow Trigger Conditions

This workflow is triggered under the following conditions:

• Push Events: When a push is made to the main branch or when any tag is pushed.
• Pull Requests: When a pull request is made to the main branch.
• Scheduled Runs: According to a cron schedule (30 2 * * 0,2,4,6), which means at 02:30 UTC on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
• Manual Dispatch: The workflow can also be triggered manually.

Jobs

Build Job

The build job runs on the lcas runner and uses a matrix strategy to build multiple Docker images based on different base images and ROS distributions.

Matrix Configuration

The matrix includes the following configurations:

• Ubuntu Base Image:
  • base_image: ubuntu:jammy
  • ros_distro: humble
  • push_tag: lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/lcas/ros:jammy-humble
• NVIDIA Base Images:
  • base_image: nvidia/cuda:11.8.0-cudnn8-devel-ubuntu22.04
    • ros_distro: humble
    • push_tag: lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/lcas/ros:jammy-humble-cuda11.8-opengl
  • base_image: nvidia/cuda:12.1.1-cudnn8-devel-ubuntu22.04
    • ros_distro: humble
    • push_tag: lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/lcas/ros:jammy-humble-cuda12.1-opengl
  • base_image: nvidia/cuda:12.2.2-cudnn8-devel-ubuntu22.04
    • ros_distro: humble
    • push_tag: lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/lcas/ros:jammy-humble-cuda12.2-opengl

Steps

1. Setup Node.js:

   • Uses the actions/setup-node@v4 action to set up Node.js with version ^16.13.0 or >=18.0.0.

2. Checkout Repository:

   • Uses the actions/checkout@v3 action to check out the repository.

3. Set Branch Environment Variable:

   • Runs a script to set the BRANCH environment variable to the current branch name.

4. Docker Login to LCAS Registry:

   • Uses the docker/login-action@v3 action to log in to the LCAS Docker registry (skips this step for pull requests).
   • Requires LCAS_REGISTRY_PUSHER and LCAS_REGISTRY_TOKEN secrets for authentication.

5. Build and Push Docker Image:

   • Uses the docker/build-push-action@v5 action to build and push the Docker image.
   • Builds the Docker image using the ./Dockerfile.opengl file for opengl base image support with cuda, or ./Dockerfile for normal ROS based images.
   • Sets the platform to linux/amd64.
   • Pushes the image unless it is a pull request.
   • Tags the image with the matrix.push_tag.
   • Sets build arguments for the base image, branch, and ROS distribution.

      with:
        context: .
        file: ./Dockerfile.opengl
        platforms: linux/amd64
        push: ${{ github.event_name != 'pull_request' }}
        tags: ${{ matrix.push_tag }}
        build-args: |
            BASE_IMAGE=${{ matrix.base_image }}
            BRANCH=${{ env.BRANCH }}
            ROS_DISTRO=${{ matrix.ros_distro }}