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I am using VSCode in my local PC and connecting to a Docker container in a remote server with VSCode's Extensions of Remote - SSH and Remote - containers. However, when I type

$ code <file name>

on the VSCode's terminal (Bash), I get an error messages saying that

bash: code: command not found

and I can't edit the file on the VSCode's editor.

If I click on the file from VSCode's Explorer (Ctrl+Shift+E), the edit screen will appear, but isn't it possible to call it with the code command?

Also, I call the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and then search for Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH but no matching commands are found.

The execution environment is as follows:.

  • Local PC: Windows 10 Pro
  • Remote host PC: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
  • Docker container in the remote host PC: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

Thank you very much for your answer.

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6 Answers 6

Reset to default
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I'll answer myself as I was able to call VSCode using the code command in the remote's container.

When I look closely underneath home, I see that there was a code at the following directory.

$HOME/.vscode-server/bin/<directory with a hash-like name>/bin/

So I passed the PATH through it and it worked.

By the way, <directory with a hash-like name> is a directory with a hash-like name, which is randomly assigned when you connect to the container remotely. It's different every time, so please refer to it by yourself.

The way to register the path is as follows.

export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.vscode-server/bin/<directory with a hash-like name>/bin/"

Thank you very much for your support.

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4 Comments

Did you find an instance where this started working properly? I don't see a bug for it.
Reported github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/122751
No, the <hex-hash> is not at all random, it's in fact the commit hash for the released version, and found in the product.json file.
In current VSCode, I had to use $HOME/.vscode-server/bin/<SOME_HASH>/bin/remote-cli instead.
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They posted an easy solution in response to the issue created by @davetapley here.

Go to the VSCode settings, search for "terminal integrated inherit env" and enable the option. The code command will be available the next time you open a terminal.

(This should have been a comment but I don't have that privilege yet!)

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2 Comments

This is exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a few of my files on remote server to open in code, but a command like code ~/.bashrc but didn't work. But updating the setting works!
There is no such setting in latest VSCode. The manual path modification mentioned by others works though.
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Here is what worked for a similar problem where the code command was not working as expected on my Linux system, connected to my windows PC via VSCode's Extensions of Remote - SSH: adding VS Code to PATH by editing the ~/.bashrc file in my linux remote system.

I used the path variable from akki's answer, and the procedure detailed in this answer by oadams. To edit this file in my system, I use nano:

nano ~/.bashrc

at the end the file, add the export path statement akki mentioned, just without the quotation marks:

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.vscode-server/bin/<directory with a hash-like name>/bin/

However, my hashtag-like-name of the code mentioned in akki's answer does not change when I remote SSH to my Raspberry Pi, so I am not sure how to fix that part of the problem.

My execution environment is as follows:

  • Local PC: Windows 10 on Dell Latitude PC.
  • Remote host PC: Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) on Raspberry Pi 3B.
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3 Comments

Thank you so much for your comment. If you don't connect to the docker container in the remote host PC, the new name folder doesn't seem to be created. @Des_Awung didn't use the container, so you probably didn't have a problem with it. If the old name folder remains, I can't SSH to the host PC, so I run the following command on the host PC and delete it every time. rm -r ~/.vscode-server/bin/* rm ~/.vscode-server/.*log
However, the hashtag-like-name in the container does not change, unlike the host PC, so the problem I presented is unfounded. I'll correct my answer. Thank you for your kind remarks.
What happens when you update vs code?
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It sounds like you are confusing which place you are writing the code command. Your installation of Visual Studio Code is local on your machine and not inside the docker container. When you open a terminal inside the docker container this is as if it was a different machine altogether. Here is a link to vscode documentation that is both interesting and useful.

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Thank you so much for your comment. I understand pure VSCode is installed just on my local machine and not on the remote machine. When I connect to the remote machine by VSCode, the directory "~/.vscode-server/" is made on the remote machine. The .vscode-server may give me the illusion as if pure VSCode was installed in the remote machine. I use this for a temporary solution to call code on a terminal inside the docker container.
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Derived from @akki's answer, I noticed that the hash is stored in several environment variables. So I added this to my .zshrc which simply finds the path to the bin and then makes an alias.

VSCODE_SSH_BIN=$(echo "$BROWSER" | sed -e 's/\/helpers\/browser.sh//g')
alias code='$VSCODE_SSH_BIN/remote-cli/code'
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$BROWSER is only set for me when I access the ssh using the terminal inside VS Code. Using another terminal did not work for me.
Maybe the path could be derived by scanning the file system. Then if the BROWSER variable doesn't exist, it tries to find it by analysis. The only issue here is if you have multiple code windows open that are ssh'd to the same host, you may not be able to differentiate between them.
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When using vscode server to connect to a docker container, code command will not work because $HOME/.vscode-server/ directory is not created. An alternative is to use code-server command. It will open the file in vscode editor.

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