How to safely check desktop applications with Docker

Docker is a "container" platform, allowing applications to run in their own sandbox world. These applications share resources, such as hard disk space or RAM, but cannot interfere with programs running on the storage system. For enterprise servers, this means an attacker cannot use compromised web servers to retrieve customer data from the database.

Advantages and disadvantages of using Docker

There are a number of good reasons to try new programs through Docker, including:

1. They are securely isolated from the system, without affecting other parts in most cases.
2. The Docker containers have a self-updating mechanism, which means you can easily ensure that you have the latest and greatest version.
3. You do not install anything on your "real" system, so you will not encounter conflicts with your "regular" versions of the application. For example, you can run LibreOffice on your server system, and run OpenOffice in a container.
4. Speaking of versions, you can even have multiple copies of the same application, on the same computer, at the same time. Try with Word 2016!
5. Some Docker applications run their own miniature version of Linux. This means that even if the application is not compatible with Mac or Windows, the application can still work on Docker containers. Try them before you officially switch to this version of Linux.
6. Very easy to delete: You don't like the way things happen? Just delete the old container and create a new container.

On the other hand, there are several ways to use applications this way:

When applications work in their own small world, the application does not have access to your files unless you provide them. That means that if you want to try the new version of LibreOffice via Docker, you may need to take a few extra steps to access your files.

In general, Docker applications transport everything it needs to run, often including libraries that can be reused with other programs. Some applications even include a full operating system. So you can double the amount of disk space usage.

They do not provide convenient icons and other desktop-specific details. Although the article will give you a GUI that you can use to download and run these Docker containers, they won't show up in the main app launcher, unless you create a manual entry.

Like many other applications, Docker has open source. This means your access to the latest version and / or any fixes will depend entirely on the contribution of the members.

Install and use

Everything you need to install and use Docker is summarized in three steps:

1. First, install and run Docker on your system (including the graphical interface for it, if you want).
2. Next, find and download an image for the application you want to run. You will receive one (and only one) copy of it. Think of this image as a template for the application, and you can create as many settings from this template as you want.
3. Finally, create a container for one of those copies and run it.

See details of each step in the next section.

Setting

Most Linux distributions are available Docker in the repository for easy installation. In Ubuntu, the following command will help you get what you need:

 sudo apt-get install docker.io 

You can confirm the running system by confirming the 'dockerd' daemon is running:

 ps ax | grep dockerd 

Docker daemon will automatically start with the system by default, but you can set it differently if you know how to adjust your system settings.

If you are interested, you can also download the Simple Docker UI application. Follow the instructions below to set up everything to connect to Docker daemon on your device.

Note: If you use Simple UI Docker, make sure you add yourself to the 'docker' user group by:

1. Enter the command:

 sudo usermod -aG dock $ USER 

1. Log out and log back in.

If you do not belong to this group, you will not be able to use Docker commands from a normal user account (not root), the account you will run Chrome and its applications without using sudo full-time time.

Find and install desktop applications with Docker

Now that you have a great user interface, it's time to find and install an application. Your first stop will be the Hub, a repository of applications for Docker projects. Another simple way to find some interesting applications is to search on Google. In both cases, look for an initialization command like this:

 docker run -it -v someoptions 
 -e more options 
 nhưng ngay hơn tùy chọn . 

Paste this code into a terminal, and then it will download and launch the application for you.

You can also 'drag' the application, then launch the application yourself. If you are using the Simple UI application, the application can automatically search for Docker Hub for you.

When you have found what you are looking for, click on its list, then click the Pull Image button in the dialog box that appears to download the image of the application.

Remember, the image is a "template". Next, you need to create a container using your new image. Switch to the Images tab . Clicking on the Deploy Container button will create a new copy for your application.

Run the new Docker container

From the command line, you can see a list of all Docker containers with the command:

 docker ps -a 

This lists containers along with some of their statistics (note the "NAMES" column on the far right). To restart one of the containers, select the name of the container and enter the following command:

 docker start [containsername] 

Using the app, go to the "Containers" screen , select the container you want and click the "Start" button at the top left of the screen. Your application will start in a new window on the screen, like a "normal" application.

Your application will open in a new window, just like you have installed it as usual. But remember, it exists separately from your other applications. This allows you to do some things like running LibreOffice and OpenOffice in parallel (their dependencies often conflict with each other):

Docker provides an easy way to install and run the application, so you can try it and easily remove it from the system. When you perform initial setup for Docker, a single run command is usually all you need to download an image, create a container, and launch it on the screen.

Have you found any interesting Docker apps yet? Let us know in the comment section below!

See more:

1. How to check the unified Windows application version (UWP) in Windows 10
2. Check the safety of files from Windows 10 desktop easily with VirusTotal X
3. 7 simple steps turn Gmail into an application on the desktop