Sharing the Xserver with docker container

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jan 24, 2021, at 21:26, Tong Sun wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 10:24 PM Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>> 
>> On Jan 24, 2021, at 21:15, Tong Sun wrote:
>> 
>>> On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 9:30 PM Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On Jan 24, 2021, at 18:01, Tong Sun wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> For any Xserver in host, I normally just do the following in the
>>>>> docker container
>>>>> 
>>>>> export DISPLAY=':0'
>>>>> xterm &
>>>>> 
>>>>> and I'll be all set.
>>>>> 
>>>>> However, I found that it is not the case for Xserver from macport, as
>>>>> I see my DISPLAY in my host is
>>>>> 
>>>>> DISPLAY=/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.DiHpGrxgFr/org.macports:0
>>>>> 
>>>>> How can I share that with my docker container?
>>>> 
>>>> I'm not sure. Did you try first starting the X server on your Mac, and then doing what you did before in Docker?
>>> 
>>> I'm very new to both Mac and macport. how to start the X server on Mac?
>>> 
>>> I used macport to install xorg-server, then tried to start xterm.
>>> xterm started fine, meaning my xorg-server started fine,
>>> then I checked the DISPLAY in xterm, which is the above value.
>> 
>> Starting any X11 program, such as xterm, will start the X11 server. Or you can manually launch /Applications/MacPorts/X11.app.
>> 
>> Now that X11.app is running on macOS, what happens if you try to use X11 from your Docker container, with DISPLAY set to ":0"?
> 
> Error: Can't open display: :0


I found this article about how to do this. Maybe it will help?

https://medium.com/@mreichelt/how-to-show-x11-windows-within-docker-on-mac-50759f4b65cb

Where it says "install XQuartz", don't, since you already have the MacPorts X11.app which is equivalent to but newer than XQuartz.

It sounds like the key may be to set "Allow connections from network clients" in X11.app's Preferences window, close and reopen X11.app, and run "xhost + 127.0.0.1" and "export DISPLAY=host.docker.internal:0" in the Docker image.