ubuntu-desktop-novnc

ubuntu-desktop-novnc is a Docker image to provide web VNC interface to access Ubuntu LXDE desktop environment, alone side with a browser-based file management UI for quickly access the file system.

Use case examples

• When you want to quickly spawn an emperial Linux desktop, to test some software. Just throw away the entire environment when the work is finished
• When you want to create a containerized Ubuntu desktop environment to reproduce certain GUI workflows

Quick Start

Run the docker container and access with port 6080

docker run -p 6080:80 wenoptics/ubuntu-desktop-novnc

Navigate to http://127.0.0.1:6080/, you have a Ubuntu OS on your browser. You may also transfer files to the containerized system, by drag-n-drop them through the Web browser.

• VNC Viewer
• HTTP Base Authentication
• SSL
• Screen Resolution
• Default Desktop User
• Deploy to a subdirectory (relative url root)
• Sound (Preview version and Linux only)
• Troubleshooting and FAQ
• License

VNC Viewer

Forward VNC service port 5900 to host by

docker run -p 6080:80 -p 5900:5900 -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm wenoptics/ubuntu-desktop-novnc

Now, open the vnc viewer and connect to port 5900. If you would like to protect vnc service by password, set environment variable VNC_PASSWORD, for example

docker run -p 6080:80 -p 5900:5900 -e VNC_PASSWORD=mypassword -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm wenoptics/ubuntu-desktop-novnc

A prompt will ask password either in the browser or vnc viewer.

HTTP Base Authentication

This image provides base access authentication of HTTP via HTTP_PASSWORD

docker run -p 6080:80 -e HTTP_PASSWORD=mypassword -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm wenoptics/ubuntu-desktop-novnc

SSL

To connect with SSL, generate self signed SSL certificate first if you don't have it

mkdir -p ssl
openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout ssl/nginx.key -out ssl/nginx.crt

Specify SSL port by SSL_PORT, certificate path to /etc/nginx/ssl, and forward it to 6081

docker run -p 6081:443 -e SSL_PORT=443 -v ${PWD}/ssl:/etc/nginx/ssl -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm wenoptics/ubuntu-desktop-novnc

Screen Resolution

The Resolution of virtual desktop adapts browser window size when first connecting the server. You may choose a fixed resolution by passing RESOLUTION environment variable, for example

docker run -p 6080:80 -e RESOLUTION=1920x1080 -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm wenoptics/ubuntu-desktop-novnc

Default Desktop User

The default user is root. You may change the user and password respectively by USER and PASSWORD environment variable, for example,

docker run -p 6080:80 -e USER=doro -e PASSWORD=password -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm wenoptics/ubuntu-desktop-novnc

Deploy to a subdirectory (relative url root)

You may deploy this application to a subdirectory, for example /some-prefix/. You then can access application by http://127.0.0.1:6080/some-prefix/. This can be specified using the RELATIVE_URL_ROOT configuration option like this

docker run -p 6080:80 -e RELATIVE_URL_ROOT=some-prefix wenoptics/ubuntu-desktop-novnc

NOTE: this variable should not have any leading and trailing splash (/)

Sound (Preview version and Linux only)

It only works in Linux.

First of all, insert kernel module snd-aloop and specify 2 as the index of sound loop device

sudo modprobe snd-aloop index=2

Start the container

docker run -it --rm -p 6080:80 --device /dev/snd -e ALSADEV=hw:2,0 wenoptics/ubuntu-desktop-novnc

where --device /dev/snd -e ALSADEV=hw:2,0 means to grant sound device to container and set basic ASLA config to use card 2.

Launch a browser with URL http://127.0.0.1:6080/#/?video, where video means to start with video mode. Now you can start Chromium in start menu (Internet -> Chromium Web Browser Sound) and try to play some video.

Following is the screen capture of these operations. Turn on your sound at the end of video!

Troubleshooting and FAQ

1. boot2docker connection issue, fcwu#2
2. Multi-language supports, fcwu#80
3. Autostart, fcwu#85 (comment)
4. x11vnc arguments(multiptr), fcwu#101
5. firefox/chrome crash (/dev/shm), fcwu#112
6. resize display size without destroying container, fcwu#115 (comment)

License

See the LICENSE file for details.