Docker for Mac lets you run any Linux executable in an isolated process on Mac. A graphical app is just another process, that needs access to the X11 socket of the system, or an X11 server. You can run X11 applications on a Mac using an open source project called Xquartz. The steps to expose XQuartz to a Linux process running in Docker are simple:
- install XQuartz from xquartz.org. Note: you need to install XQuartz version 2.7.10, version 2.7.11 does not work with Docker for Mac.
Then you have 3 choices:
- Proxy the XQuartz socket to port 6000
or
- Tell Xquartz to accept network calls. This is not very secure.
- Tell Xquartz to accept network calls and require authentication, setup X11 security using xauth, and mount ~/.Xauthority in the container.