diff --git a/containers/release/Dockerfile.in b/containers/release/Dockerfile.in
index 14a5577acf7ee0594f9d22d5980202ee51789237..0cfa63cfcb8b9d0d2ca456aea2e5d3c53b21d23d 100644
--- a/containers/release/Dockerfile.in
+++ b/containers/release/Dockerfile.in
@@ -26,6 +26,14 @@ ENV DOCKERFILE_DISTRO=ubuntu          \
     DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive    \
 @ENV@
 
+## TODO: move this to upstream, as we should have ssh available in
+## any dev container
+RUN apt-get -yqq update \
+ && apt-get -yqq install --no-install-recommends \
+        openssh-client \
+ && locale-gen en_US.UTF-8 \
+ && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
+
 ## Copy over files from builder
 COPY --from=builder /opt/spack-environment /opt/spack-environment
 COPY --from=builder /opt/software /opt/software