How to connect and use the camera in a docker container on MacOS with Docker Desktop

Question

There are several tutorials around on how to do this, but I had to change some bits to make it work on my macOS Catalina 10.15.7, so I want to share with everybody what was exactly necessary to finally have camera working in docker container with Docker Desktop for Mac.

Note: docker-machine operations can take a while, please be patient :)

Note 2: Only tested with the built-in camera

1. Install legacy docker virtualization engine for Docker Desktop on Mac (which uses Oracle Virtual Box)

   • Install Virtual Box
   • Install Virtual Box Extension pack
   • Install Docker Toolbox (reading this is strongly recommended & backuping your /usr/local/bin/docker* before is also recommended)
     • Ensure that /usr/local/bin/docker and /usr/local/bin/docker-compose link to Docker Desktop binaries (/Applications/Docker.app/Contents/Resources), and not Docker Toolbox
     • Test everything is still working: docker ps -a and docker images should display what you already had in Docker Desktop, docker-machine ls should not raise an error

2. brew install socat

3. brew install xquartz

4. Setting: XQuartz Preferences > Security > check allow all (Allow connections from network clients)

5. defaults write org.macosforge.xquartz.X11 enable_iglx -bool true

6. IP=$(ifconfig en0 | grep inet | awk '$1=="inet" {print $2}')

7. xhost + $IP

8. docker-machine create -d virtualbox --virtualbox-cpu-count=4 --virtualbox-memory=4096 --virtualbox-disk-size=1000000 --virtualbox-boot2docker-url https://github.com/gzupark/boot2docker-webcam-mac/releases/download/18.06.1-ce-usb/boot2docker.iso default

9. docker-machine stop default

10. Open Virtual Box app & configure the VirtualBox VM that has just been created with docker-machine

    1. Display > Video memory (max)
    2. Display > Acceleration > Enable 3D acceleration (check)
    3. Ports > USB > Enable USB controller (check) > USB 2.0 (select)
    4. Shared folders > Add > Folder Path = / & Folder name = host-root

11. Reboot macOS

12. Open a terminal (T1), and type

    1. open -a XQuartz
    2. If it does not open another terminal, focus XQuartz app, and Applications > Terminal
    3. Now a new terminal is opened (T2)
    4. On T2: socat TCP-LISTEN:6000,reuseaddr,fork UNIX-CLIENT:\"$DISPLAY\"
       • if it complains about "Address already in use", check with lsof -i tcp:6000 that owning process is X11.bin, otherwise kill owning process and try running socat again (always on T2)

13. On T1 again

    • IP=$(ifconfig en0 | grep inet | awk '$1=="inet" {print $2}')
    • xhost + $IP
    • docker-machine start default
    • eval $(docker-machine env default)
    • vboxmanage list webcams
      • Identify in the list your webcam (eg mine was .1)
    • vboxmanage controlvm default webcam attach .1

14. (You may need to open VirtualBox again, double click on your VM, which will open a view of your system, and then Devices > Webcam > <select your camera>)

You should now be able to access your camera in a container.

Test XQuartz with

docker run --rm -it -e DISPLAY=$IP:0 gns3/xeyes

Test camera with

docker run --rm -it -e DISPLAY=$IP:0 --device=/dev/video0:/dev/video0 -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix ubuntu
apt update && apt install -y streamer
streamer -f jpeg -o image.jpeg

Tip

Shutdown your greedy VM process with: VBoxManage controlvm thevm acpipowerbutton

Big thanks to:

• https://github.com/GzuPark/boot2docker-webcam-mac
• https://medium.com/@jijupax/connect-the-webcam-to-docker-on-mac-or-windows-51d894c44468
• https://askubuntu.com/a/106773
• https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/277029

Additional notes:

• https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/277029
• https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/docker-toolbox/#docker-toolbox-and-docker-desktop-coexistence
• https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/docker-toolbox/