I've created a fork of a repository hosting an electron app which is a chat client: .

What I'm trying to do is to create a docker container with a GUI hooked to the own screen like at / .

The dockerfile I've created goes like:

FROM node:slim

COPY . /usr/scr/app

#RUN rm bdstart.sh

RUN npm install --save-dev electron

RUN npm install

#ENV FRESHINSTALL=true

CMD ["/usr/scr/app/start.sh"]

The start.sh file goes like:

./node_modules/.bin/electron ./src

After building the docker image and execute it with

docker run -it -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix -e DISPLAY=unix$DISPLAY --device /dev/snd dixord

I get the error code:

standard_init_linux.go:175: exec user process caused "exec format error"

although I made the file executable and used the right amd64 architecture.

Has anyone figured it out how to make electron GUI's naitively over docker work?

I've created a fork of a repository hosting an electron app which is a chat client: https://github.com/Serkan-devel/BetterDiscordApp-docker.

What I'm trying to do is to create a docker container with a GUI hooked to the own screen like at https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/docker-containers-on-the-desktop/ .

The dockerfile I've created goes like:

FROM node:slim

COPY . /usr/scr/app

#RUN rm bdstart.sh

RUN npm install --save-dev electron

RUN npm install

#ENV FRESHINSTALL=true

CMD ["/usr/scr/app/start.sh"]

The start.sh file goes like:

./node_modules/.bin/electron ./src

After building the docker image and execute it with

docker run -it -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix -e DISPLAY=unix$DISPLAY --device /dev/snd dixord

I get the error code:

standard_init_linux.go:175: exec user process caused "exec format error"

although I made the file executable and used the right amd64 architecture.

Has anyone figured it out how to make electron GUI's naitively over docker work?

• javascript
• node.js
• docker
• electron
• dockerfile

• this is your start.sh or you just copy and paste the problematic line? because maybe you are missing #!/bin/sh - first line in shell script – VladoDemcak Commented Oct 8, 2016 at 8:34
• Then I get /node_modules/electron/dist/electron: error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory – Patently Paul Commented Oct 8, 2016 at 8:46
• On which OS are you building this image? – VladoDemcak Commented Oct 8, 2016 at 8:50
• It's lubuntu 16.04 – Patently Paul Commented Oct 8, 2016 at 9:18
• try apt-get install libgtk2.0-0 or run start.sh with root user – VladoDemcak Commented Oct 8, 2016 at 10:21

2 Answers 2

I will try to help you here in this answer - too long for comment.

I tried your Docker file on my Win10 and with the same problems. But I figured it out by adding required packages and successfully created docker image. Here is Dockerfile

FROM node:slim

COPY . /usr/scr/app

#RUN rm bdstart.sh
RUN apt-get update

# I think you need to install following 
RUN apt-get -y install libgtkextra-dev libgconf2-dev libnss3 libasound2 libxtst-dev libxss1
RUN npm install --save-dev electron

RUN npm install

CMD ["/usr/scr/app/start.sh"]

and here is your start.sh

#!/bin/sh
./node_modules/.bin/electron ./src

Actually I don't have access to your files and so on, but with this DockerFile was able to create docker image without problems. I also went inside docker container and check whether is possible to run electron - worked.

If you want to go into container, you just need to build docker image. I have done it by (simplest way) following command (open console where Dockerfile is located and run):

docker build -t test-image .

After Successfully build of image you can run container. If any problems I recommend you to run container with bash entrypoint and debug what fails - bash will open in the same console where you type following script)

docker run -it test-image bash

I've found this question useful, finally I've came up with this article to make it even easier:

https://medium.com/@calbertts/developing-electron-apps-in-macos-afd21b4a59e3#.avdge04d6

Hope, you find it useful too.