🌈 Feature: Allow users to Hard Reboot Container Sandboxes

[Saeris]

I've noticed that in a number of cases, in order for container sandboxes to work properly, I either need to wait for the container to hibernate or I have to fork it. This is due to the current container behavior in which the first port that begins listening for requests on container startup gets locked into the container's configuration for the active lifetime of that container. While you can manually specify a port inside of the sandbox config, that setting will not take effect until the container is restarted.

To give users more control over containers, I'm requesting a new control inside of the Server Control Panel which users can click to hard reset the current container (right now they can only soft-reset, ie: kill the current node script and re-run npm start). This would solve this problem while also having the benefit of wiping the current container environment (ie: if a user used the terminal to make changes to the container's filesystem, manually installed programs, etc).

I'd also suggest adding an "Active Port" input to manually edit the port on which the container routes incoming HTTP requests, but that may be better suited for it's own issue.

[lbogdan]

Hey @Saeris ,
While your feature request is spot on (I too wanted to add that for some time), setting the port in sandbox.config.json and then restarting the sandbox by clicking the "Restart Sandbox" button should work, as the sandbox config file is re-read on each restart. At least that's how it should be, if you're seeing a different behavior, then it's probably a bug.

[CompuIves]

@Saeris and I talked in person about this feature last week. I'll focus on implementing this feature this week!

[Saeris]

Sweet, thanks @CompuIves!

Also, yes for clarification @lbogdan I brought this to Ives' attention specifically because I had to wait for my container to hibernate for the port settings in sandbox.config.json to take effect. If it is a bug, then consider this a bug report! However the other scenarios I mentioned should make implementing this feature request worth it.

[lbogdan]

@Saeris I just tested that the port defined in container.port in sandbox.config.json takes effect as soon as restarting the sandbox, although I don't remember specifically fixing this. 🙂

Can you maybe take another shot at it, and let me know if you experience the same behavior?

[Saeris]

Appears to be working as expected now! Haven't run into any problems with it in the last week of working with containers.

[lbogdan]

Reopening, as we still want to get this feature in. 🙂

[BananaAcid]

Reading this, it appears there is a "Restart Sandbox" button somewhere in the UI? Could you give me a hint where to find it?

[garethx]

@BananaAcid It's in the left-hand action menu (see pic: https://codesandbox.io/static/1d6dfabee25f328747ab5eaf38ff260d/5cc77/secrets-2.png) but it's only shown in container sandboxes (like Node).

[BananaAcid]

@garethx is there a way to activate those features on a sandbox derived from the "vanilla javascript" sandbox? I had modified the package json a while back to use nodemon instead of parcel and so on, but that did not enable those features (I see them when starting with "node HTTP server")

[garethx]

We're working on a way to enable this in the future, but for now no, sadly not - you'd need to fork from the node template you've seen and make your updates there.