diff --git a/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json b/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
index 649b302..1b7332e 100644
--- a/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
+++ b/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
@@ -30,8 +30,14 @@
         // Allow the container to access the host X11 display and EPICS CA
         "--net=host",
         // Make sure SELinux does not disable with access to host filesystems like tmp
-        "--security-opt=label=disable"
+        "--security-opt=label=disable",
+         // add the docker socket environment variable to the container
+        "-e=DOCKER_HOST=${localEnv:DOCKER_HOST}"
     ],
     // Mount the parent as /workspaces so we can pip install peers as editable
     "workspaceMount": "source=${localWorkspaceFolder}/..,target=/workspaces,type=bind",
+        // for rootless we must not to mess with user ids inside the container
+    "updateRemoteUserUID": false,
+    // for rootless we are root inside the container
+    "remoteUser": "root"
 }
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 4d5b292..e52f8df 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -1,11 +1,20 @@
 # Stage 1: Development stage
 FROM eclipse-temurin:17-jdk AS developer
 
+ENV DOCKER=docker-27.3.1
+
 # Install Maven and Git for development purposes
 RUN apt-get update && \
     apt-get install -y maven git && \
     apt-get clean
 
+
+# install the docker ce cli binary
+RUN curl -O https://download.docker.com/linux/static/stable/x86_64/${DOCKER}.tgz && \
+    tar xvf ${DOCKER}.tgz && \
+    cp docker/docker /usr/bin && \
+    rm -r ${DOCKER}.tgz docker
+
 # Set the working directory for development
 WORKDIR /workspace