Running Chromium inside Docker - Gtk: cannot open display: :0

docker x11 chromium
user3538553 picture user3538553 · Feb 8, 2015 · Viewed 53.2k times · Source

When I try to run chromium inside a docker container I see the following error: Gtk: cannot open display: :0

Dockerfile: (based on https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/jess/chromium/dockerfile)

FROM debian:jessie

# Install Chromium
RUN sed -i.bak 's/jessie main/jessie main contrib non-free/g' /etc/apt/sources.list && \
    apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    chromium \
    chromium-l10n \
    libcanberra-gtk-module \
    libexif-dev \
    libpango1.0-0 \
    libv4l-0 \
    pepperflashplugin-nonfree \                                                                          
    --no-install-recommends && \
    mkdir -p /etc/chromium.d/

# Autorun x11vnc
CMD ["/usr/bin/chromium", "--no-sandbox", "--user-data-dir=/data"]

build and run:

docker build -t chromium
docker run -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix --privileged chromium

and the error:

[1:1:0202/085603:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(164)] Running without the SUID sandbox! See https://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/LinuxSUIDSandboxDevelopment for more information on developing with the sandbox on.
No protocol specified
[1:1:0202/085603:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(210)] Gtk: cannot open display: :0

Answer

Greg picture Greg · Feb 8, 2015

i don't know much about chromium, but, I did work with X way back when :-) When you tell an X client to connect to :0, what you are saying is connect to port 6000 (or whatever your X server runs on) + 0, or port 6000 in this case. In fact, DISPLAY is IP:PORT (with the +6000 as mentioned above). The X server is running on your host, so, if you set:

DISPLAY=your_host_ip:0

that might work. However, X servers did not allow connections from just any old client, so, you will need to open up your X server. on your host, run 

xhost +

before running the docker container. All of this is assuming you can run chromium on your host (that is, an X server exists on your host).

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