Issues running a docker container with a GUI application with host network mode - docker

Question

I am trying to create a docker container with a ROS install and a simulation setup to streamline the process for people joining the project later.
When I run rviz this way, I get the rviz window showing up on my host just fine, as expected following this ros tutorial:
sudo docker run -it --env="DISPLAY" --env="QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1" --volume="/tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw" xrf-robot-repo rviz
ROS Master isn't running so this output is expected
Now my issue is that I want to run my container in the host network mode (--net=host) the rviz dialogue does not show up anymore. Here's what I run this:
sudo docker run -it --env="DISPLAY" --env="QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1" --volume="/tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw" --net=host xrf-robot-repo rviz I don't think these errors have anything to do with the gui window not showing up
I have no idea why the GUI window does not show up. I was hoping for some guidance here. I would guess this would have something to do with the different network mode affecting how the x11 forwarding may work, but I am not sure how to further look into this.
Here's what my Dockerfile looks like that I used to build the image in case it may be helpful:
FROM osrf/ros:melodic-desktop-full
SHELL ["/bin/bash", "-c"]
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
git apt-utils python3-catkin-tools\
&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
RUN source ./ros_entrypoint.sh && git clone https://github.com/RumailM/xrf-robot-stack
RUN source ./ros_entrypoint.sh && cd xrf-robot-stack && catkin_init_workspace
RUN apt-get update
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN source ./ros_entrypoint.sh && cd xrf-robot-stack && rosdep install
--from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y
RUN source ./ros_entrypoint.sh && cd xrf-robot-stack && catkin build
The reason I need to use network mode is that I would like the host to be able to communicate with the rosmaster node and any other nodes within the container. I also do not know before hand what nodes may exist outside the container and at what ports they may communicate on, so the obvious answer of forwarding only the ports that I will use will not work (the ports may change at runtime). Forwarding large ranges of ports does not seem viable either.
Any guidance is appreciated!

Answer 1

You should add --privileged option to the docker run command. This is related to this issue Qt applications and network host .
I ran into a similar issue and was able to resolve by following this question on ROS Answers.
Also to be able to run rviz properly, I needed the docker container to access my graphics card drivers(NVIDIA) in my case. So I needed to add -e NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all and -e NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=all and --runtime nvidia to the docker run command.
This was the final run command
docker run -it --rm \
--privileged \
--network host \
-e NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all \
-e NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=all \
--env="DISPLAY" \
--env="QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1" \
--volume="/tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw" \
--name "$CONTAINER_NAME" \
--runtime nvidia \
xrf-robot-repo \
/bin/bash
Hope this helps