This post is about a learning exercise, specifically learning to make a docker image which interacts with the GUI in the host system. It is a continuation of a previous post “Learning to use docker”.
It may be that some users may find the end product useful. Running Waterfox in a docker container enables it to be used reliably in any Linux distro, and even across different architectures.
It is not that a Waterfox install is all that difficult… you just download a tar file and unpack it and make a link. The only thing putting Waterfox in a docker container adds is a guarenteed run environment.
The issue of making a docker image which interacts with X11 in the host is quite simple. One just has to provide a means for programs running inside the container to access certain X11 files in the host system.
The big issue in doing this with Waterfox turned out to be tracing all the dependencies of Waterfox so that I could construct in the image environment all the things needed to make Waterfox startup and run. Waterfox is a huge program ( as large as Firefox). I had to work out a systematic method of finding all the dependencies. I think I have achieved that.
Another issue , is to construct a Dockerfile so that it is self sufficient… so that if someone else wants to build and run the Waterfox docker image, all I have to pass over to them is the Dockerfile… it will download everything else it needs.
So here is the Dockerfile which I think achieves all that
FROM debian:stable-20220801-slim
#set working dir inside container
WORKDIR /wfox
#
RUN cd /etc/apt && \
# apt debian setup
cp sources.list sources.list.orig && \
sed 's/main/main contrib non-free/' sources.list.orig >sources.list && \
cd /wfox && \
apt-get update && \
apt-get upgrade -y && \
apt-get install -y apt-utils && \
# apt install packages for waterfox
apt-get install -y dconf-gsettings-backend gvfs gvfs-libs libc6 \
libcom-err2 libdbus-1-3 libelogind0 libexpat1 libgcc-s1 \
libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 libgl1-mesa-dri libgpg-error0 libkeyutils1 \
liblzma5 libnss-mdns libpcre3 libpulse0 libselinux1 libtirpc3 \
python3-minimal zlib1g && \
# apt install packages for waterfox libraries
apt-get install -y libatk1.0-0 libatk-bridge2.0-0 libatspi2.0-0 libblkid1 libbrotli1 libbsd0 libc6 libcairo2 libcairo-gobject2 libdatrie1 libdbus-1-3 libdbus-glib-1-2 libepoxy0 libexpat1 libffi7 libfontconfig1 libfreetype6 libfribidi0 libgcc-s1 libgcrypt20 libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-dev libgpg-error0 libgraphite2-3 libgtk-3-0 libharfbuzz0b libice6 liblz4-1 liblzma5 libmd0 libmount1 libnspr4 libnss3 libpango-1.0-0 libpangocairo-1.0-0 libpangoft2-1.0-0 libpcre2-8-0 libpcre3 libpixman-1-0 libpng16-16 libselinux1 libsm6 libstdc++6 libsystemd0 libthai0 libuuid1 libwayland-client0 libwayland-cursor0 libwayland-egl1 libx11-6 libx11-xcb1 libxau6 libxcb1 libxcb-render0 libxcb-shm0 libxcomposite1 libxcursor1 libxdamage1 libxdmcp6 libxext6 libxext6-dbg libxfixes3 libxi6 libxinerama1 libxkbcommon0 libxrandr2 libxrender1 libxt6 libzstd1 zlib1g && \
# needed to unpack waterfox tarfile
apt-get install -y bzip2 && \
# Mystery dependencies
apt-get install -y libpci3 libpciaccess0 && \
apt-get install -y libegl1 libegl-dev && \
# apt-get install -y libgl1 libglfw3 && \
# Javascript packages
apt-get install -y nodejs npm && \
apt-get install -y gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-4.0 javascriptcoregtk-4.0\
javascript-common libnode72 && \
# firefox
# apt-get install -y firefox-esr && \
# locale
apt-get install -y locales locales-all && \
# get waterfox distro tarfile and unpack
apt-get install -y wget && \
cd /wfox
RUN wget https://github.com/WaterfoxCo/Waterfox/releases/download/\
G4.1.5/waterfox-G4.1.5.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 && \
bzip2 -dc waterfox-G4.1.5.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 | tar xvf - && \
rm waterfox-G4.1.5.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
# setup environment
RUN groupadd -g 1000 wfox
RUN useradd -d /home/wfox -s /bin/bash -m wfox -u 1000 -g 1000
RUN rm -fr /tmp/* /var/tmp/* /var/cache/*/*
USER wfox
ENV HOME /home/wfox
ENV LC_ALL en_AU.UTF-8
ENV LANG en_AU.UTF-8
ENV LANGUAGE en_AU.UTF-8
ENV TZ=Australia/Sydney
# exec waterfox
CMD /wfox/waterfox/waterfox
All you have to do if you want to try my waterfox docker image is copy and paste the above into a file called Dockerfile.
Then assuming you have docker installed, you do (caution this will lead to about 1.4Gb of downloads)
docker build -t wfoximage.v1 .
wfoximage.v1 is the name you give to the image. It can be anything. The dot ‘.’ is important
You will see lots of stuff scrolling, mostly downloads.
Then when it stops , if there are no errors, you should have an image. You can check with
docker images
It should be listed
Then to run the image you do (no downloads here, it just runs)
xhost +
docker run -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY -h $HOSTNAME -v $HOME/.Xauthority:/home/nevj/.Xauthority wfoximage.v1
Thats all. A Waterfox window should open. You will see a blank Welcome screen… all my Waterfox installs do that, but otherwise it all works, and looks just like Firefox.
Now that is all a bit brief , and does not tell the full story.
I have a pdf document which you may download if interested from here
You should click on the file wfoxdocker.pdf . It will most likely display, or if you want to download it , click the download button. Github sometimes refuses to display large pdf files, so if that happens, just download it.
On that same Github page are all the files referred to in the pdf document. The series of 7 Dockerfile attempts are in the dockerfiles subdirectory. The one Dockerfile.debv7 is the final version as listed above.
I would love to hear from anyone who tries it and finds issues. Lots of messages will scroll across the controlling window… that is apparently normal… Waterfox is under development.
I would like to acknowledge debugging assistance from @Akito and @kovacslt and help from @Rosika in the previous post.
Regards
Neville
I forgot to say what to do if you do not have docker installed.
In Debian it is
apt-get install docker.io
It is confusing. There is also a deb package called docker, but that is something else
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