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You can use the Visual Studio Containers window to see what's going on inside the Docker containers that host your apps and to view your container images. If you're used to running Docker commands to view and analyze your containers, this window provides a convenient way to monitor and interact with containers without leaving the Visual Studio IDE.
Prerequisites
- Docker Desktop
- Visual Studio 2022 or Visual Studio 2019 version 16.4 or later.
- For the Docker Compose node:
- Visual Studio 2022 version 17.7 or later
- Docker v2, which installs with Docker Desktop and is on by default.
View information about your containers
The Containers window opens automatically when you start a containerized .NET project. To open the Containers window any time, select View > Other Windows > Containers from the Visual Studio menu. You can also use Ctrl+Q to open the Visual Studio Search box, type Containers, and select the Containers item.
The left side of the window shows the list of containers on your local machine. The containers associated with your current solution are under Solution Containers. On the right is a pane with tabs for Environment, Labels, Ports, Volumes, Files, and Logs.
The Containers window opens automatically when you start a containerized .NET project. To open the Containers window any time, select View > Other Windows > Containers from the Visual Studio menu, or press Ctrl+K, Ctrl+O. You can also use Ctrl+Q to open the Visual Studio Search box, type Containers, and select the Containers item.
The left side of the window shows the list of containers on your local machine. The containers associated with your current solution are under Solution Containers. On the right is a pane with tabs for Environment, Labels, Ports, Volumes, Files, Logs, and Details.
If you're using Docker Compose and Visual Studio 2022 version 17.7 or later, you see a tree of nodes, with a parent node for your solution and child nodes for each project enrolled in Docker Compose.
Tip
By default, the Containers window is docked with the Watch window when the debugger is running. You can easily customize where the Containers tool window is docked. See Customizing window layouts in Visual Studio.
View environment variables
The Environment tab shows the environment variables in the container. You can set these variables in the Dockerfile, in an .env file, or by using the -e option when you start a container using a Docker command.
Note
Changes to the environment variables aren't reflected in real time. Also, the environment variables in this tab are the system environment variables on the container, not the user environment variables local to the app.
View labels
The Labels tab shows the labels for the container. Labels are a way of setting custom metadata on Docker objects. Visual Studio sets some labels automatically.
View port mappings
On the Ports tab, you can check the port mappings for your container. Well-known ports are linked, so you can select the link to open a browser to the host port address.
View volumes
The Volumes tab shows the mounted filesystem nodes, or volumes, on the container.
View the filesystem
On the Files tab, you can view the container's filesystem, including the app folder that contains your project. By using the Files tab, you can view application logs such as Internet Information Services (IIS) logs, configuration files, and other content files in your container's filesystem.
Note
In Visual Studio 2022 version 17.7 or later, when targeting .NET 8 or later, the Dockerfile might contain the USER app command, which specifies to run the app with regular user permissions. The Files tab uses the same permissions, so you might not be able to view folders that require elevated permissions to view.
To open a file in Visual Studio, double-click the file or right-click it and choose Open. Visual Studio opens the file in read-only mode.
View logs
The Logs tab shows the results of the docker logs command. By default, the tab shows stdout and stderr streams on a container, but you can configure the output. For details, see Docker logging.
By default, the Logs tab streams the logs. You can pause the stream by selecting the Stream Logs button on the tab. Select Stream Logs again to resume the streaming from where it left off.
By default, the Logs tab streams the logs. You can pause the stream by selecting the Stream button on the tab. Select Stream again to resume the streaming from where it left off.
To clear the logs, use the Clear button on the Logs tab. To get all the logs, use the Refresh button.
Note
Visual Studio automatically redirects stdout and stderr to the Output window when you run Windows containers without debugging. These logs then don't display in the Logs tab.
If you're using Docker Compose with Visual Studio 2022 version 17.7 or later, you can view logs of each container separately or interleaved into a single output stream. If you select the parent node for the solution, you see interleaved logs from all the Compose projects. The first column on each line shows the container that produced that line of output. If you only want to see the logs for one container, select that project's node.
View details
The Details tab displays metadata and runtime information about the container's configuration in JSON format. This information includes environment variables, ports, volumes, and other runtime settings.
Interact with containers
The confirmation dialogs for various tasks, such as removing containers and images or launching more than 10 containers at a time, might display prompts. You can disable each prompt by using the checkbox on the dialog window.
You can also enable or disable these options by using the settings at Tools > Options > Container Tools > Containers Tool Window. For more information, see Configure Container Tools.
You can also enable or disable these options by using the settings at Tools > Options > Container Tools > Containers Window. For more information, see Configure Container Tools.
Start, stop, and remove containers
By default, the Containers window shows all containers on the machine that Docker manages. You can use the toolbar buttons in the Containers window to start, stop, or delete a container. The containers list dynamically updates as containers are created or removed.
To select multiple containers, for example to remove more than one container at a time, use Ctrl+Select. You're prompted to confirm if you try to start or remove more than 10 containers at a time. You can disable the confirmation prompts if desired.
Open a terminal window in a running container
You can open a terminal window (command prompt or interactive shell) in the container by using the Open Terminal Window button in the Containers window.
For Windows containers, the Windows command prompt opens. For Linux containers, a window opens using the Bash shell.
Normally, the terminal window opens outside Visual Studio as a separate window. If you want a command-line environment integrated into the Visual Studio IDE as a dockable tool window, you can install Whack Whack Terminal.
If you're targeting .NET 8 in Visual Studio 2022 version 17.7 and later, your Dockerfile can specify the USER app command, which means your app runs with regular user permissions rather than elevated permissions. The terminal opens as the user specified in the Dockerfile, which is app by default for .NET 8 projects. If no user is specified, the terminal runs as the root user.
Attach the debugger to a container process
You can attach the debugger to a process running in the container by using the Attach to Process button on the Containers window toolbar. When you use this button, the Attach to Process dialog box appears and shows the processes that are running in the container.
You can attach to managed processes in the container. To look for a process in another container, select the Find button in the Attach to Process dialog box, and select another container in the Select Docker Container dialog box.
View images
You can view images on the local machine by using the Images tab on the left side of the Containers window. Images pulled from external repositories are grouped together in a treeview.
The right pane has the tabs applicable to images: Labels and Details. The Details tab shows the configuration details for the image in JSON format.
The right pane has the tabs applicable to images: Labels, Details, and Layers. The Details tab shows the configuration details for the image in JSON format.
To remove an image, right-click the image in the treeview and choose Remove, or select the image and then select the Remove button on the toolbar.
Prune containers and images
You can easily remove containers and images you're not using by selecting the Prune button on the Containers window toolbar.
- If you have the Containers tab selected, you're asked to confirm that you want to remove all your unused containers.
- If you have the Containers tab selected, you're asked to confirm that you want to remove all stopped containers.
- If you have the Images tab selected, the prompt asks if you want to remove all dangling images. Dangling images are images of layers that are no longer associated with a tagged image. Prune dangling images occasionally to help conserve disk space.