Aaron Kelly's Blog

Today I wanted to try an experiment…

On Windows 10, could I run a graphical program inside a docker container, and have it display on a Windows X11 display server?

A choice of XWindows systems

mobaxterm’s built-in XWindows
Xming
https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/

using docker running natively

Using this Dockerfile:

FROM ubuntu:14.04
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y firefox
CMD /usr/bin/firefox

I ran this command in git-bash to build it:

docker build -t firefox .

Once that was done, I determined what my ip address was:

$ ipconfig
...
Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi:
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : home
   IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2a02:8084:20c2:c180:b1da:14dc:c0ab:9c54
   Temporary IPv6 Address. . . . . . : 2a02:8084:20c2:c180:ac93:d10e:bd81:1de4
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::b1da:14dc:c0ab:9c54%3
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.17

Exported my display (Xming sets the display number to 0 as default):

export DISPLAY=192.168.160.1:0

Then I started my Xming server inside git-bash:

/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Xming/Xming.exe -ac &

Then I attempted to run Firefox in a container:

docker run --rm -it --net=host -e DISPLAY=192.168.0.17:0 firefox

It worked! This was just a proof-of-concept to see if it could be done, but I’m very happy I managed to get it to display.

using docker running inside an Alpine WSL2

After setting up docker inside an alpine Alpine WSL2, I wanted to know if this could connect to an XWindows server too! Turns out, it can… lets try running the fr3nd/xeyes image:

docker run --rm -ti -e DISPLAY=192.168.160.1:0 fr3nd/xeyes

![[dockerAndXWindows_xeyes.png]]

And something else I’ve wanted to do run in a container a while… Eclipse! (psharkey/eclipse)

![[dockerAndXWindows_eclipse.gif]]

More images of other programs running:

![[dockerAndXWindows_gimp.png]] (jamesnetherton/gimp)
![[dockerAndXWindows_libreOffice.png]] (woahbase/alpine-libreoffice:x86_64)
![[dockerAndXWindows_firefox.png]] (jess/firefox)

the future

try VcXsrv instead of XMing (as it’s not updated since 2013?)
get eclipse working (why is it so difficult?!)

sources

https://medium.com/better-programming/running-desktop-apps-in-docker-43a70a5265c4 https://rgrunber.wordpress.com/2016/01/26/eclipse-inside-a-docker-container/ https://github.com/handflucht/guiAppInDockerOnWindows https://github.com/baudren/NoteOrganiser/wiki/Docker,-QML,-XServer-on-Windows https://robscode.onl/docker-run-gui-app-in-linux-container-on-windows-host/