Docker: "webbrowser.Error: could not locate runnable browser"

Question

My Docker configuration:

FROM python:3.11

WORKDIR /app

COPY /app .

RUN pip install --upgrade pip &&  \
    pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt && \
    rm requirements.txt

EXPOSE 8000

CMD ["python", "manage.py", "runserver", "0.0.0.0:8000"]

When I run inside in Docker container:

>>> webbrowser.open('https://stackoverflow.com/')
False

>>> webbrowser._browsers.items()
dict_items([])

When I try locally (MacOS):

>>> webbrowser.open('https://stackoverflow.com/')
True

>>> webbrowser._browsers.items()
dict_items([('macosx', [None, <webbrowser.MacOSXOSAScript object at 0x109b965d0>]), ('chrome', [None, <webbrowser.MacOSXOSAScript object at 0x109ee3b50>]), ('firefox', [None, <webbrowser.MacOSXOSAScript object at 0x109ee3b90>]), ('safari', [None, <webbrowser.MacOSXOSAScript object at 0x109ee3c10>])])

I tried installing the browser, but the result remained the same.

>>> webbrowser.get('chrome')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.11/webbrowser.py", line 66, in get
    raise Error("could not locate runnable browser")
webbrowser.Error: could not locate runnable browser

Answer 1

Your container does not have a webbrowser installed so the python class can't find any.

You can try this in dockerfile to get chrome installed on the container

How to install Google chrome in a docker container