Running GUI application in Docker container

Prerequisites

• Docker installed in OS.

For solving this issue I am showing two methods, the first is manually and the second is Automation, btw I prefer automation 😁.

First Method(Manual)

• Pull one image(eg-centos).

docker pull centos

• Start docker container normally.

docker run --net=host -it --name c1 centos

• Install one GUI application for eg, I am installing firefox.
• After the installation let’s start firefox.

• Oops, 😅 it gave an error, now let understand the error, it needs one env variable for x11 Display, so we need to define $DISPLAY.
• Now launch one more container with env $DISPLAY, and install firefox.

docker run -it --net=host --env="DISPLAY" centos

• Great 😅 it works.

NOTE

• To remove the warnings, maybe firefox tabs will crash, for solving the issue install some more packages.

yum install PackageKit-gtk3-module libcanberra-gtk2 -y

• Or one more thing u can do at the time of launching container u can mount x11 server volume.

--volume="$HOME/.Xauthority:/root/.Xauthority:rw"

Automation Method

• Create one Dockerfile.

• Build an image from this Dockerfile.

docker build -t IMAGE_NAME(eg-centosgui) .

• Launch Docker container from this image.

docker run --net=host --env="DISPLAY" --name CONTAINER_NAME centosgui

• That’s Great it works 😃, As you can see the warning which comes previously, it resolved.