Webbian - Linux VMs in Docker on the Web

A web accessible Virtual Machine powered by Docker, Debian, and noVNC. Webbian allows you to execute a single docker run command to get an entire linux system with a web interface.

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Usage

A webbian can be brought up using docker with:

docker run \
    --rm \
    -ti \
    --hostname webbian \
    --name webbian \
    -p 127.0.0.1:4900:4900 \
    -p 127.0.0.1:5900:5900 \
    -v ./data/home/root:/root \
    -v ./bin:/scripts/bin \
    -e BOOT_SCRIPT=/scripts/bin/boot.sh \
    -e X11_SCRIPT=/scripts/bin/x11.sh \
    -e GEOMETRY=1920x1080 \
    -e PASSWORD=ZmFkNzkyZTVhNzkyYzhlMzQ1NGY2YjdkN \
    nowsci/webbian:latest

You can now visit http://localhost:4900/vnc.html (or http://localhost:4900/vnc.html?resize=remote for automatic resolution) to access the system. Or use port 5900 with a standard VNC client.

The configuration environment variables:

Variable	Required	Description
GEOMETRY	Always	The initial resolution of the display in-browser. This can autoscale if you use the ?resize=remote URL parameter.
PASSWORD	On first run	The password to access the system via the web. This is saved in the mapped home directory of root.
BOOT_SCRIPT	No	An optional script to run at system start.
X11_SCRIPT	No	An optional script to run at Xwindows start.

Docker compose

The same setup can be achieved with docker compose.

services:

  webbian:
    image: nowsci/webbian:latest
    container_name: webbian
    hostname: webbian
    ports:
      - 127.0.0.1:4900:4900
      - 127.0.0.1:5900:5900
    volumes:
      - ./data/home/root:/root \
      - ./bin:/scripts/bin
    environment:
      - BOOT_SCRIPT=/scripts/bin/boot.sh
      - X11_SCRIPT=/scripts/bin/x11.sh
      - GEOMETRY=1920x1080
      - PASSWORD=ZmFkNzkyZTVhNzkyYzhlMzQ1NGY2YjdkN
    restart: unless-stopped

Securing with SSL

If you plan on using webbian publicly on the internet, you can do so with any proxy, such as nginx. A common nginx config would look like the below.

server {
        listen 443 ssl;
        server_name webbian.domain.ext;
        gzip off;
        ssl_certificate /letsencrypt/live/domain.ext/fullchain.pem;
        ssl_certificate_key /letsencrypt/live/domain.ext/privkey.pem;
        ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
        ssl_protocols TLSv1.2;
        ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
        modsecurity on;
        add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains" always;
        client_max_body_size 20M;

        location / {
                autoindex off;
                index vnc.html;
                # Optional extra security
                # auth_basic "Administrator Area";
                # auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/htpasswd/novnc.htpasswd;
                proxy_pass http://webbian:4900/;
                proxy_set_header Host $host;
                proxy_http_version 1.1;
                proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
                proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
                proxy_buffering off;
                proxy_connect_timeout 43200000;
                proxy_send_timeout    43200000;
                proxy_read_timeout    43200000;
                proxy_redirect off;
                proxy_set_header Proxy "";
        }
}