mikenye/digikam

Docker container for digiKam⁠.

The GUI of the application is accessed through a modern web browser (no installation or configuration needed on client side) or via any VNC client.

Professional Photo Management with the Power of Open Source.

This container is based on the absolutely fantastic jlesage/baseimage-gui. All the hard work has been done by them, and I shamelessly copied their README.md too. I've cut the README.md down quite a bit, for advanced usage I suggest you check out the README⁠ from jlesage/baseimage-gui.

Quick Start

NOTE: The Docker command provided in this quick start is given as an example and parameters should be adjusted to your need.

Launch the digiKam docker container with the following command:

docker run -d \
    --name=digikam \
    -p 5800:5800 \
    -v /path/to/config:/config:rw \
    -v /path/to/pictures:/pictures:rw \
    -e USER_ID=$(id -u) \
    -e GROUP_ID=$(id -g) \
    mikenye/digikam

Where:

• /path/to/config: This is where the application stores its configuration, database and any files needing persistency.
• /path/to/pictures: This location contains picture files for digiKam to operate on. You can optionally set this to :ro (instead of :rw) if you prefer digiKam to operate read-only on your photos.

In the above command, the USER_ID and GROUP_ID variables will be set to the current user's UID & GID.

Browse to http://your-host-ip:5800 to access the digiKam GUI. Your pictures will be located under /pictures.

Environment Variables

To customize some properties of the container, the following environment variables can be passed via the -e parameter (one for each variable). Value of this parameter has the format <VARIABLE_NAME>=<VALUE>.

Data Volumes

The following table describes data volumes used by the container. The mappings are set via the -v parameter. Each mapping is specified with the following format: <HOST_DIR>:<CONTAINER_DIR>[:PERMISSIONS].

Ports

Here is the list of ports used by the container. They can be mapped to the host via the -p parameter (one per port mapping). Each mapping is defined in the following format: <HOST_PORT>:<CONTAINER_PORT>. The port number inside the container cannot be changed, but you are free to use any port on the host side.

Changing Parameters of a Running Container

As seen, environment variables, volume mappings and port mappings are specified while creating the container.

The following steps describe the method used to add, remove or update parameter(s) of an existing container. The generic idea is to destroy and re-create the container:

1. Stop the container (if it is running):

docker stop digikam

1. Remove the container:

docker rm digikam

1. Create/start the container using the docker run command, by adjusting parameters as needed.

NOTE: Since all application's data is saved under the /config container folder, destroying and re-creating a container is not a problem: nothing is lost and the application comes back with the same state (as long as the mapping of the /config folder remains the same).

Docker Image Update

If the system on which the container runs doesn't provide a way to easily update the Docker image, the following steps can be followed:

1. Fetch the latest image:

docker pull mikenye/digikam

1. Stop the container:

docker stop digikam

1. Remove the container:

docker rm digikam

1. Start the container using the docker run command.

User/Group IDs

When using data volumes (-v flags), permissions issues can occur between the host and the container. For example, the user within the container may not exists on the host. This could prevent the host from properly accessing files and folders on the shared volume.

To avoid any problem, you can specify the user the application should run as.

This is done by passing the user ID and group ID to the container via the USER_ID and GROUP_ID environment variables.

To find the right IDs to use, issue the following command on the host, with the user owning the data volume on the host:

id <username>

Which gives an output like this one:

uid=1000(myuser) gid=1000(myuser) groups=1000(myuser),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),46(plugdev),113(lpadmin)

The value of uid (user ID) and gid (group ID) are the ones that you should be given the container.

Accessing the GUI

Assuming that container's ports are mapped to the same host's ports, the graphical interface of the application can be accessed via:

• A web browser:

http://<HOST IP ADDR>:5800

• Any VNC client:

<HOST IP ADDR>:5900

Security

By default, access to the application's GUI is done over an unencrypted connection (HTTP or VNC).

Secure connection can be enabled via the SECURE_CONNECTION environment variable. See the Environment Variables section for more details on how to set an environment variable.

When enabled, application's GUI is performed over an HTTPs connection when accessed with a browser. All HTTP accesses are automatically redirected to HTTPs.

When using a VNC client, the VNC connection is performed over SSL. Note that few VNC clients support this method. SSVNC⁠ is one of them.

Certificates

Here are the certificate files needed by the container. By default, when they are missing, self-signed certificates are generated and used. All files have PEM encoded, x509 certificates.

NOTE: To prevent any certificate validity warnings/errors from the browser or VNC client, make sure to supply your own valid certificates.

NOTE: Certificate files are monitored and relevant daemons are automatically restarted when changes are detected.

VNC Password

To restrict access to your application, a password can be specified. This can be done via two methods:

• By using the VNC_PASSWORD environment variable.
• By creating a .vncpass_clear file at the root of the /config volume. This file should contains the password in clear-text. During the container startup, content of the file is obfuscated and moved to .vncpass.

The level of security provided by the VNC password depends on two things:

• The type of communication channel (encrypted/unencrypted).
• How secure access to the host is.

When using a VNC password, it is highly desirable to enable the secure connection to prevent sending the password in clear over an unencrypted channel.

ATTENTION: Password is limited to 8 characters. This limitation comes from the Remote Framebuffer Protocol RFC⁠ (see section 7.2.2⁠). Any characters beyhond the limit are ignored.

Shell Access

To get shell access to a the running container, execute the following command:

docker exec -ti digikam bash

Support or Contact

Having troubles with the container or have questions? Please create a new issue⁠.