Accessing virtual com ports inside a WS2016 docker container - docker

Question

Running on a Win7(host) and Virtual Box with Windows Server 2016 TP5(guest vm). On WS2016 i run docker, using the windowsservercore base image for the containers.
I'm trying out kind of a fleet management system where I try to fire up multiple simulated vehicles inside separate docker images.
These vehicle simulators uses a simulated gps which send data to a virtual com port, from which the simulated vehicles read.
In windows XP/7/Server 2016 I have successfully made use of com0com(2.2.2.0 signed) for creating the virtual com ports.
My problem is getting the virtual com ports installed inside a docker container, alternatively accessing them as devices on the host
My first attempt has been running com0com inside docker, installation of the drivers work fine using silent mode, but when creating virtual com port pairs using the installed application I run into problems. The command stalls and if I view the Application eventlog I can see a few rows of this kind for each time I try to run the command.
<date> <time> Information Windows Error Rep. .. 1001 Fault bucket , type 0
When instead trying to create the devices in the host and instead passing the devices I seem to fail to access them
Using com0com --list within the container I can see the devices but not with the same name as I in the host
In the associated Dockerfile I rename them using the com0com setupc.exe to the same name as identified on the host
The mode command issued on the host lists the ports properly, using the mode command from insde the container does on the other hand fail to list them, only showing one item: CON
I then tried passing them using the --device=//./COM128://./COM128 argument to docker run
NOTE!: Is this the correct "path" to the devices?
The noticable result of this is zero, the com0com setupc command gives the same result, same with mode
The strange thing is that when I run powershell and list the serialports i get the expected comports as available on the host, with the correct names, but trying to open one of them gives an exception
PS C:\sims\com0com> [System.IO.Ports.SerialPort]::getportnames()
COM128
COM129
PS C:\sims\com0com> $comports=[System.IO.Ports.SerialPort]::getportnames()
PS C:\sims\com0com> $port= new-Object System.IO.Ports.SerialPort $comports[0],9600,None,8,one
PS C:\sims\com0com> $port.open()
Exception calling "Open" with "0" argument(s): "The port 'COM128' does not exist."
Finally tried just about the same as above but with another virtual com port software(eltima), setting them up in the host, the final result when trying to open the port using ps in the container is the same as for the com0com configured ports
Update:
Tried a new approach, running the container in hyper-v instead, using the -isolation flag to docker run, given the thesis that you would be able to install the com0com drivers in a hyper-v container, not having to try to share them from the host.
Running in hyper-v forced us to change to running the nanoserver base image instead of the windowsservercore base image.
Currently stuck on not being able to run the com0com install tool in nanoserver since the installer(NSIS-based) is a 32bit application, nanoserver only able to run 64bit applications.
Quick glance indicates that a new version(3.0) of NSIS could be used along with the NSIS scripts included in the com0com repo.
All ideas on how to move forward are welcome!
P.S: Same question posted on msdn containers forum

Answer 1

Changed to using named pipes to get it to work since no one else seems to be using docker for windows with serial ports.