How to run picamera2 inside Docker container

[hyzhak]

Hi team,
Any recommendations for running picamera2 in Docker Container?

Here is my Dockerfile:

FROM debian:bullseye

RUN apt update && apt install -y --no-install-recommends gnupg

RUN echo "deb http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/ bullseye main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list \
  && apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 82B129927FA3303E

RUN apt update && apt install -y --no-install-recommends \
         python3-pip \
         python3-picamera2 \
     && apt-get clean \
     && apt-get autoremove \
     && rm -rf /var/cache/apt/archives/* \
     && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

WORKDIR /app

COPY requirements.txt .

RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

COPY rpi_camera /app/rpi_camera

CMD ["python3", "/app/rpi_camera/main.py"]

docker-compose.yaml

version: '3.8'

services:
  camera:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    restart: always
    privileged: true
    devices:
      - "/dev:/dev"

But it fails with:

INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:297 libcamera v0.0.5+83-bde9b04f

Camera(s) not found (Do not forget to disable legacy camera with raspi-config).
Camera __init__ sequence did not complete.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera2/picamera2.py", line 242, in __init__
    self._open_camera()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera2/picamera2.py", line 442, in _open_camera
    if not self._initialize_camera():
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera2/picamera2.py", line 406, in _initialize_camera
    raise RuntimeError("Camera(s) not found (Do not forget to disable legacy camera with raspi-config).")
RuntimeError: Camera(s) not found (Do not forget to disable legacy camera with raspi-config).

at the same time the same rpi_camera/main.py works without issues outside of Docker.

[hyzhak]

After some experiments, I found the optimal configuration that allows access to a camera. Here is a repository with a simplified example https://github.com/hyzhak/pi-camera-in-docker

[DominiquePaul]

Thank you for sharing this. On which raspberry pi and OS did you run this?