Application containers for the desktop

Why should server apps get all the containerized fun?

I want to use Boot2Docker as my only main OS on my notebook. And once booted, I want all the things in containers - separate containers.

We've seen a number of attempts at doing this:

• Roberto's - using Xpra, and derivations - X2Go
• Daniel's
• subuser

But hey, I thought I'd have a new go, using either a VNC server or an RDP server: so far, the Xrdp based one is winning.

Step 1: The MS Remote Desktop server

Xrdp Server with fvwm. I wanted a simple X-Window manager - even this is a huge 550MB :/

Its set up to auto-login as a 'dockerx' user - that way all the application images can be set to that user too.

To simplify the running of containerised apps, I've added a script /usr/local/bin/run that contains the main parts of the docker run parameters needed so the user types:

• run -d chrome (the equivalent to chromium &)
• run --rm xterm (xterm will block until it exits)

Step 2: applications

The initial application images are built FROM appbase so they share the same base images - debian:jessie.

I've made xterm, xchat, chromium - the main 3 things I run :).

Usage

I'm starting the container as:

docker run --name docker -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v /usr/local/bin/docker:/usr/local/bin/docker busybox true docker run --rm -it -p 3389:3389 --volumes-from docker xrdp

And then connecting to the X session using an MS remote desktop client on OSX and Windows (and Linux too)