cslev/docker_firefox repository overview

⁠docker_firefox

Run Firefox with GUI inside a container

⁠Get the source

git clone https://github.com/cslev/docker_firefox

⁠Install Docker environment

Do it on your own, many sources are available via Google

⁠Build image

cd docker_firefox
sudo docker build -t docker_firefox .

⁠Run image with GUI

Here, we need to pass some local X11 variables and files to the container to make it able to run GUI apps

sudo docker run --net=host --env="DISPLAY" --volume="$HOME/.Xauthority:/root/.Xauthority:rw" docker_firefox /docker_firefox/firefox/firefox

If Firefox does not show up, run any other x11-apps (for testing) or xterm and run firefox within xterm.

$ sudo docker run --net=host --env="DISPLAY" --volume="$HOME/.Xauthority:/root/.Xauthority:rw" docker_firefox xterm

in xterm:
$ /docker_firefox/firefox/firefox

⁠Special needs

By defining --net=host, we let our container to see the root networking namespace, which is not always the case we want. However, for accessing all X11 sockets it is important, but there is a workaround.

Now, let's assume a bit more extreme case where we don't want any docker networking at all as we will connect it manually, say, to an Open vSwitch.

sudo docker run -dit --name=docker_firefox --net=none -e DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix -v $HOME/.Xauthority:/root/.Xauthority --hostname $(hostname) cslev/docker_firefox:selenium "xterm -fn 10x20"

For simplicity, here we start an xterm where you can start your firefox from! Use the previous command's path to firefox if you want to start it first.

⁠Possible errors

There are good descriptions and comments here⁠