Codespaces VNC Image

Custom Codespaces Docker images configured for in-browser GUI app development. The images use openbox and x11vnc for a lightweight VNC desktop and noVNC for a browser based VNC viewer hosted inside the Codespace.

Using

Add the following to .devcontainer/devcontainer.json settings file.

{
    "image": "ghcr.io/markpatterson27/codespaces-vnc-image:universal",
    "forwardPorts": [6080],
    "portsAttributes": {
        "6080": {
            "label": "noVNC Viewer",
            "onAutoForward": "openBrowser"
        }
    }
}

When the Codespace starts the noVNC Viewer port will be automatically forwarded. Switch to the ports tab to get the reverse proxy URL or click the 'Open in Broswer' icon.

Tags

Tag	Description
universal	This image is built on top of the dev-container GitHub Codespaces. This is the same image used by default for Codespaces.
python	This image is built on top of the python dev-container Python 3.

References

Docker image settings are largely based on https://github.com/gitpod-io/workspace-images/tree/master/full-vnc

Alternatives

There is a VNC option for devcontainers which can be used with Codespaces.