It’s conceivable that you might want to run an X11 based application inside a docker container. If the host system is a mac with XQuartz installed, then this StackOverflow post contains the kernel of one method to do so. Note that getting this running may require modifying your XQuartz defaults by running the command
defaults write org.macosforge.xquartz.X11 enable_iglx -bool true
in the terminal.
Putting this all together, the following script produces a wrapper which automatically generates an x connection in a docker command.
#!/usr/bin/env bash NIC=vboxnet0 # Grab the ip address of this box IPADDR=$(ifconfig $NIC | grep "inet " | awk '{print $2}') DISP_NUM=$(jot -r 1 100 200) # random display number between 100 and 200 PORT_NUM=$((6000 + DISP_NUM)) # so multiple instances of the container won't interfer with eachother socat TCP-LISTEN:${PORT_NUM},reuseaddr,fork UNIX-CLIENT:\"$DISPLAY\" 2>&1 > /dev/null & XSOCK=/tmp/.X11-unix XAUTH=/tmp/.docker.xauth.$USER.$$ touch $XAUTH old_auth=`xauth nlist $DISPLAY | sed -e 's/^..../ffff/'` docker $1 \ -v $XSOCK:$XSOCK:rw \ -v $XAUTH:$XAUTH:rw \ -e DISPLAY=$IPADDR:$DISP_NUM \ -e XAUTHORITY=$XAUTH \ "${@:2}" rm -f $XAUTH kill %1 # kill the socat job launched above
