How to use Vcxsrv on windows with docker and setup access control

Question

We are using docker to provide parity for a group development project. We are using VcXsrv to display the GUI but we have to disable access control to make it work. When running the container we set the DISPLAY environment variable to our IPs and it works fine.

I read that disabling access control is a bad idea so I was experimenting with doing this properly using xauth, but I don't understand exactly what I need to do.

I tried running xauth on my windows machine

xauth add localhost:0.0 12345678123456781234567812345678

In the docker file, I included

xauth add [My IP]:0.0 12345678123456781234657812345678

The .Xauthority files under my windows user directory and the root docker directory appear to be created correctly but when I run the container I still receive the error message

Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified

I tried to use xhost to only allow localhost connections but the only way I can run xhost is from the VcXsrv directory via ./xhost.exe and I can't appear to pass any parameters

How do I tell VcXsrv to only allow connections from my machine?

Answer 1

I had forgot I asked this question. I just received another upvote so here is what I did to make this work on Windows.

Open C:\Program Files\VcXrv\x0.hosts
Add your IP address

Navigate to C:\Program Files\VcXrv\
Run .\xauth.exe add [YOURIP]:0 . 00000000000000000000000000000000
Navigate to C:\users\<YOURUSERNAME>
Copy .Xauthority file to <Project directory>

In the docker file I added COPY .Xauthority ../../root/.Xauthority

It appeared adding the IP address to the x0.hosts file is the determining factor in allowing access to the Xserver without disabling access control.

Adding the .Xauthority file was enough to make the errors go away.

I don't know if this is near the right way to get this done, but it did work. I also presume the xauth paramater would be better to not be all 0s.