DevContainer failing to start - Failing to download from ghcr

[kishoreallwynraj]

Hello,

I am new to devcontainers and i am trying to start the container which has a feature to be installed from ghcr. When the devcontainer starts i am seeing an error like
[httpOci] - ERR: Server did not provide instructions to authenticate (Required: A 'WWW-Authenticate' header)
Appreciate your help with debugging the issue.

Regard
Kishore

[sireeshajonnalagadda]

Hi @kishoreallwynraj,
Thanks for bringing this up! The root cause of that error is that the container wasn't provided with proper authentication instructions by the registry.

To resolve this:

Log in to ghcr.io locally using docker login with a valid token (ensure it includes read:packages scope).

echo YOUR_TOKEN | docker login ghcr.io -u YOUR_USERNAME --password-stdin

Confirm the feature you’re pulling is publicly visible or accessible to your account, also if possible, share me your devcontainer.json file.
Let me know whether you’re using Codespaces or a local VS Code setup—happy to help tailor the fix further!

[kishoreallwynraj]

Hi @kishoreallwynraj, Thanks for bringing this up! The root cause of that error is that the container wasn't provided with proper authentication instructions by the registry.

To resolve this:

Log in to ghcr.io locally using docker login with a valid token (ensure it includes read:packages scope).

echo YOUR_TOKEN | docker login ghcr.io -u YOUR_USERNAME --password-stdin

Confirm the feature you’re pulling is publicly visible or accessible to your account, also if possible, share me your devcontainer.json file. Let me know whether you’re using Codespaces or a local VS Code setup—happy to help tailor the fix further!

Thanks @sireeshajonnalagadda for your response..
I am using the base image "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/python:1-3.12-bullseye". When i switch to open my code in container and i try docker it says the docker command is not found.. Based on the docs i found that even for setting up docker i need to download a feature from ghcr..

Should i need to use any other base image i can use which has docker already installed to try this docker login option you have mentioned?

I am using my local VSCode..

[sireeshajonnalagadda]

Hi @kishoreallwynraj,
could you please share your devcontainer.json to evaluate better.

[kishoreallwynraj]

Hi @kishoreallwynraj, could you please share your devcontainer.json to evaluate better.

@sireeshajonnalagadda FYI

{
  "name": "Python 3",
  "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/python:1-3.12-bullseye",
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/devcontainers-extra/features/apt-get-packages": {
      "packages": "graphviz"
    }
  }
}