What solutions with npm + wsl + docker and volume mounts?

Question

I would like to work on a web project relying on Docker and NPM (This is actually a LAMP server). I am running on WSL with the Docker daemon running on Windows.

Here are my constraints:

• To mount volumes with Docker I must locate my project on the Windows filesystem e.g./mnt/c/...
• To use npm which use soft links, I must locate my project on the WSL filesystem e.g./srv/...

Obviously I cannot meet these two requirements.

For instance if I do npm install from WSL on a folder located on the Windows filesystem I get plenty of errors such as:

npm ERR!   errno: -13,
npm ERR!   code: 'EACCES',

Or, simply the modules don't work webpack not found

If I move my project on the WSL side, Docker is not able to mount my project on my target container...

What alternative can I use?

Answer 1

When using WSL, Docker for Windows expects you to supply your volume paths in a format that matches this: /c/Users/username/dev/myapp .

But WSL uses the /mnt/c/Users/username/dev/myapp format.

You have to configure WSL to mount at / instead of /mnt .

Create and modify the new WSL configuration file:

    sudo nano /etc/wsl.conf

    # Now make it look like this and save the file when you're done:

    [automount]
    root = /
    options = "metadata"

We need to set root = / because this will make your drives mounted at /c or /e instead of /mnt/c or /mnt/e.

The options = "metadata" line is not necessary but it will fix folder and file permissions on WSL mounts so everything isn't 777 all the time within the WSL mounts. I highly recommend you do this!

Once you make those changes, sign out and sign back in to Windows to ensure the changes take effect

source: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/setting-up-docker-for-windows-and-wsl-to-work-flawlessly