jare/emacs repository overview

⁠Dockerized Emacs with GUI(Mac, Windows, GNU/Linux and your browser)

⁠Images are clickable

docker-x11-bridge⁠ + a web browser

⁠Why?

• Reap the benefits of Emacs and other GNU/Linux tools on Windows/MacOS machines
• Use docker hub⁠ to auto-build your environment and store full backups for free
• Build once and work with the same development environment everywhere
• Run untrusted/risky code in the tunable sandbox with CPU/network/disk quotas
• Try new tools, experiment and roll back changes when something goes wrong
• Share your setup with others or extend someone else’s development environment
• Run multiple Emacs instances on the same machine isolated
• An easy way to swap Emacs version (emacs26,emacs25,emacs-snapshot) for debugging
• Pause⁠ container to free resources temporarily
• Checkpoint & Restore⁠ - maybe the fastest way to start a “heavy” environment
• Friendly for networks with low upload speed/quotas

⁠Tags:

• latest dockerfiles/emacs26⁠
• emacs25 dockerfiles/emacs25⁠
• testing dockerfiles/snapshot⁠
• alpine dockerfiles/alpine⁠ - Emacs build⁠ on Alpine Linux⁠ small (around 300mb uncompressed) but can be glitchy

If you need a different Emacs version/configuration checkout Silex/docker-emacs⁠

⁠How to use

First get docker⁠ for your OS. Then you can use one of the images as a base(FROM⁠) for your Dockerfile⁠. Simple example⁠, Spacemacs distribution⁠. It will allow you to install and backup additional software/package dependencies. With Dockerfile ADD⁠ instruction you can extract your .emacs.d from archives and remote repositories like GitHub using URL. Also you can simply run one of the images:

⁠MacOS:

Get XQuartz⁠

open -a XQuartz

In the XQuartz preferences, go to the “Security” tab and make sure you’ve got “Allow connections from network clients” ticked

ip=$(ifconfig en0 | grep inet | awk '$1=="inet" {print $2}')
xhost + $ip
docker run -ti --name emacs\
 -e DISPLAY=$ip:0\
 -e UNAME="emacser"\
 -e GNAME="emacsers"\
 -e UID="1000"\
 -e GID="1000"\
 -v <path_to_your_.emacs.d>:/home/emacs/.emacs.d\
 -v <path_to_your_workspace>:/mnt/workspace\
 jare/emacs emacs

source⁠

other method⁠

⁠Windows

Get Cygwin⁠ with xinit, xorg-server and optionaly winpty⁠(to run Emacs container with -t)

export DISPLAY=<your-machine-ip>:0.0
startxwin -- -listen tcp &
xhost + <your-machine-ip>

docker run --name emacs\
 -e DISPLAY="$DISPLAY"\
 -e UNAME="emacser"\
 -e GNAME="emacsers"\
 -e UID="1000"\
 -e GID="1000"\
 -v <path_to_your_.emacs.d>:/home/emacs/.emacs.d\
 -v <path_to_your_workspace>:/mnt/workspace\
 jare/emacs emacs

Or with -ti via winpty

winpty docker run -ti --name emacs\
-e DISPLAY="$DISPLAY"\
-e UNAME="emacser"\
-e GNAME="emacsers"\
-e UID="1000"\
-e GID="1000"\
-v <path_to_your_.emacs.d>:/home/emacs/.emacs.d\
-v <path_to_your_workspace>:/mnt/workspace\
jare/emacs emacs

source⁠ You can use @ninrod 's setup⁠

⁠GNU/Linux

UID and preferably UNAME should match the host's user id. Also make sure that $DISPLAY variable is set

docker run -ti --name emacs -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:ro\
 -e DISPLAY="unix$DISPLAY"\
 -e UNAME="emacser"\
 -e GNAME="emacsers"\
 -e UID="1000"\
 -e GID="1000"\
 -v <path_to_your_.emacs.d>:/home/emacs/.emacs.d\
 -v <path_to_your_workspace>:/mnt/workspace\
 jare/emacs emacs

That's it! Now you should see Emacs window.

⁠If it doesn't work

You may need to allow local connection for the user UNAME should match the hosts user id.

xhost +si:localuser:<UNAME>

Or allow local connection from the container's hostname(This should work with any UID)

xhost +local:`docker inspect --format='{{ .Config.Hostname }}' emacs`

source⁠

⁠Also you can run it with docker-x11-bridge⁠

⁠Pros:

• Same client for GNU/Linux, Windows and MacOS + web browser
• Persistent server (you can connect and disconnect without disrupting Emacs)
• Interactive screen sharing demo⁠
• Use Emacs in web-browser (O_O) demo⁠

⁠Cons:

• Lag spikes with some OSes

⁠Basic docker commands to get you started:

• docker rm -f emacs - remove emacs container
• docker restart emacs - restart emacs container
• docker rmi -f jare/emacs - remove jare/emacs image
• docker pull jare/emacs - get newer jare/emacs version
• docker images -a - list all images
• docker ps -a - list all containers
• docker run ... jare/emacs - run the default command⁠
• docker run -ti ... jare/emacs /bin/bash - start bash
• docker exec emacs /usr/bin/emacs - start /usr/bin/emacs in the running emacs container
• docker logs emacs - print emacs container's logs
• docker run ... -p 8080:8080 ... jare/emacs - access container's server from localhost:8080
• docker cp <from_my_local_machine_path> emacs:/<to_my_emacs_container_path>
• docker cp emacs:/<from_my_emacs_container_path> <to_my_local_machine_path>
• Manage data in containers with Docker volumes⁠. Example: - docker volume create --name my-workspace - docker run ... -v my-workspace:/mnt/workspace ... jare/emacs - docker run ... -v my-workspace:/home/developer/workspace ... jare/vim-bundle