debian:unstable-slim-based dockerization of the Google Chromium web browser

The Dockerfile, seccomp.json, and fonts.conf in this repo were originally forked from jessfraz' chromium stable Dockerfile. This repo contains some minor reformatting and adds site-specific browser helpers.

In order to run this container with Docker Desktop for Mac you will need to install XQuartz

The source code for this image is hosted on GitHub in the backplane/conex repo.

This container includes a helper script which can be used to run site-specific browsers.

First either get the utility from the repo or from the container image with this command:

$ docker run --rm backplane/chromium --get-util >chromium_ssb.sh
2023-02-21T19:37:12 entrypoint writing chromium_ssb.sh to STDOUT
$ ls
chromium_ssb.sh
$ chmod +x chromium_ssb.sh

The utility works by creating named Docker volumes based on the "name" you choose. You can make isolated browsers for any purpose, but people often make a work browser, a socialmedia browser, a news browser, etc. These are completely isolated from each other and they retain their storage (including settings and plugins) across container runs.

To create a launch a site-specific browser for work stuff, use this command:

$ ./chromium_ssb.sh work

The program will print it's configuration information and the ID of the container. Then it will open your X server application and start the Chromium browser:

$ ./chromium_ssb.sh work
2023-02-21T21:14:28+0100 chromium_ssb applying OS-specific customizations for macOS
2023-02-21T21:14:28+0100 chromium_ssb exporting host xauth cookie to xauth volume
2023-02-21T21:14:29+0100 chromium_ssb starting container
docker run
--volume /Users/user/Downloads:/home/user/Downloads
--tty
--cpu-quota 75000
--env DISPLAY=host.docker.internal:0
--memory 4g
--name chromium_ssb_work
--security-opt seccomp=/Users/user/.chromium_ssb/seccomp.json
--volume chromium_ssb_work:/data
--volume chromium_ssb__auth:/xauth:ro
--detach
--rm backplane/chromium
--use-gl=swiftshader
--disable-dev-shm-usage
--disable-audio-output
--reset-variation-state
--disable-field-trial-config

3726023d196f14c5f31bf789ad6c01656d18313101dbe0319e20907b36803b31

When you close the last window the container will exit. You can simultaneously open as many different ssb containers as you like. To re-open that browser use the same command as before: ./chromium_ssb.sh work

You can use docker stats to keep an eye on the resources used by each container.

$ docker stats
CONTAINER ID   NAME                  CPU %     MEM USAGE / LIMIT   MEM %     NET I/O           BLOCK I/O         PIDS
484b76f73352   chromium_ssb_reddit   23.94%    311MiB / 4GiB       7.59%     29.8MB / 3.03GB   77.8kB / 291MB    101
cd060f67083b   chromium_ssb_work     57.79%    294.3MiB / 4GiB     7.19%     15.7MB / 7.75GB   32.8kB / 194MB    79

After launching one or more of these site specific browsers, you will have named storage volumes for each browser and one __auth volume which is used by all of them:

$ docker volume ls
local     chromium_ssb__auth
local     chromium_ssb_news
local     chromium_ssb_test
local     chromium_ssb_work

You can completely remove a browser (all settings, plugins, history, downloads, etc.) with this command:

$ docker volume rm chromium_ssb_work
chromium_ssb_work