Run VS Code server (Remote SSH) on Alpine

VS Code server requires glibc and libstdc++ and to function properly and Alpine doesn’t come with those packages. So what if you still want to use the Remote SSH function on an Alpine environment?

After a lot of research, I finally found that you need the gcompat and libstdc++ packages.

Run the following command:

apk add gcompat libstdc++ curlo

And you’re good to go!

The error messages reads: The remote host may not meet VS Code Server’s prerequisites for glibc and libstdc++

@J-Siu mentioned that these packages are also interesting:

# This is what make vscode remote-ssh work
apk add gcompat libstdc++ curl

# As alpine by default use busybox and some common utilities behave differently, like grep
apk add grep dropbear-scp dropbear-ssh

# Add zsh if using zsh shell
apk add zsh

Relevant Github comment: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/6347#issuecomment-1079430646