Collection of Docker images with headless VNC environments
APACHE-2.0 License
This repository contains a collection of Docker images with headless VNC environments.
Each Docker image is installed with the following components:
5901
)6901
)consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
: Rocky 9 with Xfce4
UI session
consol/debian-xfce-vnc
: Debian 11 with Xfce4
UI session
consol/rocky-icewm-vnc
: Rocky 9 with IceWM
UI session
consol/debian-icewm-vnc
: Debian 11 with IceWM
UI session
It's also possible to run the images in container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes or OpenShift. For more information how to deploy containers in the cluster, take a look at:
Usage is similar for all provided images, e.g. for consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
:
Print out help page:
docker run consol/rocky-xfce-vnc --help
Run command with mapping to local port 5901
(vnc protocol) and 6901
(vnc web access):
docker run -d -p 5901:5901 -p 6901:6901 consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
Change the default user and group within a container to your own with adding --user $(id -u):$(id -g)
:
docker run -d -p 5901:5901 -p 6901:6901 --user $(id -u):$(id -g) consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
If you want to get into the container use interactive mode -it
and bash
docker run -it -p 5901:5901 -p 6901:6901 consol/rocky-xfce-vnc bash
Build an image from scratch:
docker build -t consol/rocky-xfce-vnc rocky-xfce-vnc
If the container is started like mentioned above, connect via one of these options:
localhost:5901
, default password: vncpassword
http://localhost:6901/vnc.html
, default password: vncpassword
http://localhost:6901/?password=vncpassword
Since version 1.1.0
all images run as non-root user per default, so if you want to extend the image and install software, you have to switch back to the root
user:
## Custom Dockerfile
FROM consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
ENV REFRESHED_AT 2022-10-12
# Switch to root user to install additional software
USER 0
## Install a gedit
RUN yum install -y gedit \
&& yum clean all
## switch back to default user
USER 1000
Per default, since version 1.3.0
all container processes will be executed with user id 1000
. You can change the user id as follows:
0
)Add the --user
flag to your docker run command:
docker run -it --user 0 -p 6911:6901 consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
Add the --user
flag to your docker run command:
docker run -it -p 6911:6901 --user $(id -u):$(id -g) consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
The following VNC environment variables can be overwritten at the docker run
phase to customize your desktop environment inside the container:
VNC_COL_DEPTH
, default: 24
VNC_RESOLUTION
, default: 1280x1024
VNC_PW
, default: my-pw
VNC_PASSWORDLESS
, default: <not set>
Simply overwrite the value of the environment variable VNC_PW
. For example in
the docker run command:
docker run -it -p 5901:5901 -p 6901:6901 -e VNC_PW=my-pw consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
Simply overwrite the value of the environment variable VNC_RESOLUTION
. For example in
the docker run command:
docker run -it -p 5901:5901 -p 6901:6901 -e VNC_RESOLUTION=800x600 consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
Set VNC_PASSWORDLESS
to true
to disable the VNC password.
It is highly recommended that you put some kind of authorization mechanism
before this. For example in the docker run command:
docker run -it -p 5901:5901 -p 6901:6901 -e VNC_PASSWORDLESS=true consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
Since version 1.2.0
it's possible to prevent unwanted control via VNC. Therefore you can set the environment variable VNC_VIEW_ONLY=true
. If set, the startup script will create a random password for the control connection and use the value of VNC_PW
for view only connection over the VNC connection.
docker run -it -p 5901:5901 -p 6901:6901 -e VNC_VIEW_ONLY=true consol/rocky-xfce-vnc
If you open some graphic/work intensive websites in the Docker container (especially with high resolutions e.g. 1920x1080
) it can happen that Chromium crashes without any specific reason. The problem there is the too small /dev/shm
size in the container. Currently there is no other way, as define this size on startup via --shm-size
option, see #53 - Solution:
docker run --shm-size=256m -it -p 6901:6901 -e VNC_RESOLUTION=1920x1080 consol/rocky-xfce-vnc chromium-browser http://map.norsecorp.com/
Thx @raghavkarol for the hint!
At this point we want to thank all contributors, which helped to move this great project by submitting code, writing documentation, or adapting other tools to play well together with the docker headless container.
The current changelog is provided here: changelog.md