Aaron Kelly's Blog

Running GUI apps in a container

SEE THE TROUBLESHOOTING SECTION IF YOU’RE HAVING PROBLEMS

Chrome

Is it possible to run Chrome in a container? Yes it is!

My original inspiration comes this Dockerfile, via Jess’s blog.

I have slimmed down the docker command that Jess uses, to something that just gives me just a basic browser:

docker run \
    --name chrome \
    --privileged \
    --rm \
    -e DISPLAY \
    -it \
    -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \
    jess/chrome

Here’s the result:

chrome

Troubleshooting

If you are having trouble getting the container started, it may be due to a lot of factors, but the most likely cause is the run command you are using. The command I use above works well for me on Linux, but it is a very cut-down example. You should try running the command that Jess suggests in her Dockerfile, and see if that improves thing for you.

No protocol specified

The error:

No protocol specified
[1:1:0322/125427.199734:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(1512)] Unable to open X display.

Or:

Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused
(psst-gui:1): Gtk-WARNING **: 20:19:36.389: cannot open display: 0:0

To fix this, run the following command in your shell:

xhost +

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