Docker Headless VNC Container 1.2.0 Released

By Tobias Schneck |
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Docker Headless VNC Container 1.2.0 has been released today. The different Docker images contains a complete VNC based, headless UI environment for testautomation like Sakuli does or simply for web browsing and temporary work in a throw-away UI container. The functionality is pretty near to a VM based image, but can be started in seconds instead of minutes. Each Docker image has therefore installed the following components:

  • Desktop environment Xfce4 or IceWM
  • VNC-Server (default VNC port 5901)
  • noVNC - HTML5 VNC client (default http port 6901)
  • Browsers:
    • Mozilla Firefox
    • Chromium

Provided Images

consol/centos-xfce-vnc:1.2.0

consol/ubuntu-xfce-vnc:1.2.0

consol/centos-icewm-vnc:1.2.0

consol/ubuntu-icewm-vnc:1.2.0

Usage

The usage is for all provide images similar, for instance see following the usage of the consol/centos-xfce-vnc image:

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/centos-xfce-vnc

Now you can connect into the running container through VNC and control the UI:

If you want to get a bash into the container use interactive mode -it and bash:

docker run -it -p 5901:5901 -p 6901:6901 consol/centos-xfce-vnc bash

For more information about the usage take a look at github.com/ConSol/docker-headless-vnc-container.

Updates for Version 1.2.0

  • Use fixed firefox version 45.9.0esr (#39, #20, #16)
    • fix memory consumption problems in comparison to current firefox 55
    • tested on long term container issues without crashes
  • Add en_US.UTF-8 as default locale (#27)
  • Add enviroment variable VNC_VIEW_ONLY=true for view only VNC connections (#25)
    • Update to tigervnc version 1.8
  • Use a more stable command for ip determination (PR #31, thx to @arnaudveron)
  • Support empty CMD values in startup script (#32)
  • Add chromium flag --disable-gpu to work for current chromium (#36)
  • Add TERM=xterm environment var (#37)

OpenShift / Kubernetes

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 OpenShift usage of “headless” VNC Docker images