Linux desktop, inside of a container, inside of a browser??? Yes. A Webtop.

Have you ever thought about running a Linux desktop inside of a container? Me neither until I found this awesome project from LinuxServer called Webtops. A webtop is a technology stack that allows you to run Ubuntu or Alpine Linux within a container that is fully accessible from a browser. This allows you to use most Linux features with a container with a fraction of the cost of resources. Join me as we configure one from beginning to end.
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00:00 - Intro
00:30 - What is a Webtop?
01:20 - Requirements
01:48 - Documentation
01:55 - Where to get image
02:19 - Container Image properties explained
04:10 - Check container engine
04:20 - Docker compose file
05:13 - Other tags to use
05:59 - privileged mode
06:24 - permissions
07:21 - env file
08:36 - spin up container
08:53 - Webtop is running
09:18 - security considerations
09:50 - upgrade considerations
10:50 - install vlc
11:36 - install vs code
12:07 - libre office
12:42 - vs code permission issues
13:35 - vs code running
13:55 - install node and nvm
14:35 - write some code
15:24 - network utilities
16:36 - my thoughts about webtops
16:52 - what do you think of webtops?
17:14 - Stream Highlight - "Do you apply things you learn in your homelab at work?
#HomeLab #SelfHosted #Linux
"Alt-F4" is from Harris Heller's album Pastel.
l.technotim.live/sb-music-lic...
Thank you for watching!

[@TechnoTim]

Are you running Linux in a VM or a container?

[@sleipnir7446]

I'll stick with the VMs or containers from the offical aimges. It's safer than containers from an unknown site. But I admit it's fun to have the container in a browser.

[@BloodBlight]

Well, I might try using this for a few things, mostly testing. Is there a way to change where the OS changes (not the config folder) persist in a docker-compose? I am just getting started, but already use some storage plugins for my distributed file store. I would love to move those changes from the OS disk to that somehow.

[@dj4monie]

I have a PC running OMV and inside of that I have a container running Mate desktop. I don't have a full desktop experience as you noted but even web browsing is crippled because things like videos from KZbin don't play smoothly. That is likely because I don't have any sort of hardware acceleration. I know you've covered running other containers and giving them access to hardware to run games. I want go in hard on containers because I really like Chromebooks but I need Windows for other reasons. Also running Windows either as a dual boot or a virtual machine is slow on anything but the highest spec Chromebook.

[@HjaltiAtlason]

WSL2

[@chrisumali9841]

Imma do both lol

[@craigcordeiro8530]

Missed an opportunity to open the webtop on Firefox within the webtop

[@enterchannelname7568]

Lol, I have a proxy-ish thing on my server which is essentially firefox in a docker container that you can you can open in a web browser (might seem pointless, but I've found uses for it) And yes, first thing I did with it is open its own url in the container and see an infinite amount of firefox windows.

[@carlislenightingale8853]

this is disgusting - i threw up twice in the first minute of this video

[@gamerhat7950]

Webtops seem way simpler than Kasm workspaces for my usecase, definitely gonna try and install it on my machine. I'm shocked how no one talks about this. Thanks!

[@mawskivisualescapist7134]

Thank you for a very detail explanation. This is very useful for me. Im a filmmaker and i own raspberry pi. I can use this webtop to send 300gb of video files to my team. This is very efficient, since i dont have to use my pc just to upload those files. The upload process is around 2 days because of my limited internet speed. But with this webtop, i shouldnt worry about electricity bills.

[@togoenvogue]

Wow, I really enjoyed this video. Thank you very much. I am definitively switching from VM to this Webtop tech.

[@shodanki3736]

just installed it and will use it for admin tasks AMAZING and just the thing I searched for super easy to install and your video helped a lot in understanding what I am doing many thanks love it

[@TechnoTim]

Glad it helped

[@gnul]

It would even get more useful when graphics cards finally support SR-IOV for hardware acceleration within containers and virtual machine without GPU Passthrough.

[@aleJohnny]

Oh yeahh! Will be awesome run as a game streaming computer. I'll try passthrough my GPU to the container and install the proper drivers and see how its gonna be in terms of perfomance and latency.

[@fonte935]

Man, I have learned so much from your videos. Thanks for doing what you do!

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you!

[@davidemotte812]

Great video Tim! This is so cool. Also very similar to another tool, Desktainer, which is just lightweight Debian with LXDE and very few packages

[@virkony]

3:56 , shm_size is for /dev/shm memory based temp filesystem used for various things including sharing mmaping same files to address space of different processes and achieving "shared memory" since content of those files is in memory. It is not limiting how much memory container can get.

[@TechnoTim]

Thanks for the clarification!

[@davidg5898]

This might be exactly what I need for a small client. A Webtop running off their NAS might be the perfect solution for something they're asking me to implement. I don't want to bog down their NAS with a full VM, nor do I want them SSHing into the NAS (CLI isn't their jam anyway). It's a small place so they have no server other than the NAS, and no IT staff other than me as their on-call guy. Mark this down as the 3rd thing I've now picked up from you and implemented. Keep up the great content!

[@TechnoTim]

Woohoo! 3! Thank you! More where that came from!

[@cherdak_turista]

Oh, man! Thanks) For some time i thought about virtual space for my students in university to play with - and it's look like sweet spot. The PC's at the classrooms are thin clients in university's VM's on a server. So every lab starts with a pain - let's install a bunch of libraries (that were deleted) and solve issues of resolving it with OS version etc. I see Webtop could be a pre-defined space with all, that my students need: RStudio, libraries, tools, data-sets and so on. And i can fire those containers just for a lab-time and after that - shut them down. Cool)

[@miriamramstudio3982]

Great video. Thanks

[@KisukSong]

I can definitely see the use-cases for the webtop. Users can quickly spin up and discard containers if they want to try out different distros and UI flavors. But at the end of the day, I would stick with the distro that I'm most comfortable within VM.

[@doc_ineeda_win5834]

how i get audio to passthru on proxmox and ubuntu vm, if i vnc from proxmox i got no sound .. and tried x11 and ssh but get a dumb error i cant get around any help would be much abliged if you know how to make that work

[@KisukSong]

@@doc_ineeda_win5834 im currently using HypriotOS as main distro. not familiar with the proxmox. Sorry mate!

[@doc_ineeda_win5834]

@@KisukSong spice fixed it and like full screen in it , I didn’t change proxmox setting to use it so failed at first and add audio device as spice backend

[@baldeagleKB]

Can't wait to try this out against a desktop in VMware on my manjaro desktop . Could get some use having a webtop on my tablet lol. Love your work.

[@TheDdddd999]

Can't wait to try it out later

[@TechnoTim]

LMK how it goes!

[@localadm]

Runs great on a Raspberry 4 8GB with Ubuntu server on a USB 3.0 HDD. Works better than a desktop over xrdp.

[@anthonylester6734]

Can you try to install vs code arm64 and tell me if you're getting artifacts

[@anthonylester6734]

FYI for anyone with VS code issues and distortion run it from terminal as: code --disable-gpu

[@localadm]

@@anthonylester6734 hi, I use code server via docker

[@MohammedIqlasUddin]

Next: How to harden webtop to use on production server ;) not a very useful use case but handy sometimes

[@samys288]

Excellent information

[@Demodude123]

Thanks for making a video on this. I can see us using this at work as an alternative to SSH SOCKS proxies for viewing NAT'ed websites. I've set up a helm chart and can run this through a reverse proxy that's punched through the NAT

[@chrisumali9841]

Thanks for the demo and info, have a great day

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you, you too!

[@ibrahim_dec05]

I started watching your videos its really awesome & effort done by you 👍🏼 keep rocking 👍🏼

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you!

[@westganton]

Every video reminds me of why I subbed. You're awesome dude

[@TechnoTim]

I appreciate that!

[@Freeriderblack]

This is the end of any jump host. Many thanks for this video.

[@Skip-bk4gg]

I thought the same :D

[@Stoney_Eagle]

This is AWESOME!!!

[@Jarek.]

Hi Tim, many thanks for sharing this! I've tested this immediately and one thing which is stopping me from implementing in my workload is that one container = just one desktop; i.e. only one person can work there and if anybody else connects - just hijacks this desktop. This does not suite well the flow I'm trying to implement (a seamless access to some apps running in K8s but still with "legacy" GUI, a good example could be Java JConsole). Any solution you know or could recommend for multi-user desktops? Many thanks in advance!

[@YannMetalhead]

Good video!

[@Movies4118]

Thanks for this video. I'd probably use it to try out a quick bash script or when I need to use a linux only tool. I'm deploying the container now on Unraid server.

[@locose1991]

Nice video as always Any idea if you can input audio. the browser never asks if this site should be allowed to use my mic. not sure if thats the only problem

[@noahwilliams8918]

I have literally always wondered about this. Watching with great interest.

[@BioToxin]

I could see a use case, especially for light workloads, but in my case I could just as easily be served with specific / specialized containers rather than an environment. But it's an interesting idea that once I play with it I'm sure I'll find a good use.

[@sawwwru]

One of the best content creator on KZbin

[@bobwong8268]

Wow... 👍👍👍👍👍THANK YOU, Tim! Was looking for something similar. Any idea how I can "containerised" only certain Linux GUI app in diff containers, like running multiple versions of an application eg: app-ver1, app-ver2, app-verN simultaneously? In short, containers share the Host OS & Kernel, can it also share the Host "Desktop"? If not, anything else would be a better fit? Thanks.

[@yramid6770]

I perform tech support and would love to run my WFH environment virtually. I literally just use a browser to remote into customer machines and a notepad app. I will need to use a mic and speaker. Hoping to test this out.

[@tommsla123]

Greate video. I need this for Eve-NG lab

[@brickviking667]

First we compiled all the libs in statically. Then, we stripped back, by making libraries dynamically loadable and-theoretically at least-taking up less room. Then we decided "Let's avoid dependency hell and include all the libs that the executable needs" (flatpaks et al). Then we decided - hey, let's create a VM to run the stuff we can't run normally. Then we decided...... to run an OS inside a container. Yeah, naah. Only primary advantage I would have for the container is one they don't recommend - access from the internet. Oh, and isolation of apps from each other. Nice work on the video by the way. And to answer your question, neither. I run my Linux on bare metal. VM gets to run WinXP, though I want a new machine so I can put Win-something into hypervisor alongside my normal Linux. And Solaris. And FreeBSD. Containers can't (by design) do that yet.

[@TechnoTim]

Great analysis. No shame in the bare metal game. We all want to but don't have enough resources!

[@TheRobMozza]

Hi again T.Tim! Just had to tell you, swiping through my YT thumbnails and this one looked liked it was starring Ali G! (No offense intended). I think I've a 'get outta jail free card' after previously telling you that you look like Johnny Depp, but you actually do. All the best my friend, I'm this close to subscribing as I find your content very interesting and your great at presenting it dude

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you! Ali G is a first, it’s usually Johnny Depp!

[@bankoleogundero9446]

This is amazing!!!!

[@raoulmengis4015]

👍👍👍THANK YOU, Tim! 1) With Podman ? 2) With Fedora ? Thank from switzerland great job

[@genieheatingandbathrooms7646]

Another great video 😎

[@levelingup5d603]

you rock dude!!

[@syndendesign]

How do you pass audio to the web browser from the container?

[@CaptZenPetabyte]

The use of this containerised desktop for opsec may have some interesting connotations

[@KiberPsyx]

Great video! Could you please tell what extension for VSCode for yaml syntax you use that colorize indents?

[@TechnoTim]

rainbow indent! It's the best!

[@beer_goggler]

How do they make the container stateful? I thought all changes in the container are lost on restart? If only /config is volume mapped then how does the rest of the container persist apt updates/upgrades?

[@carlosalmanzar2775]

Just straight 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@TheRobMozza]

Reminds me of a Linus video with 130'odd browser tabs open.. using Webtops in that scenario, you could be building a your own bot net??!?

[@wingtracer]

What would be the main use case of this vs just the VM, assuming you have to have a VM to host this docker? Just trying to sort out a practical use case.

[@JerryWoo96]

i'd use webtop for apps that cant run perfectly on windows like make or cmake, and renaming illegally named files or folders in windows. either webtop or i'd use ubuntu in wsl2.

[@kenwang8595]

Great video! No Doubt. I have watched your other video about code-server also, and am so happy to see this one. I am looking for a way to run vscode in browser requiring minimum resources from the backend server. I have two questions: a) the webtop is started/served from the backend but runs inside of browser. Does it consume cpu and memory from the server once it is loaded into the browser? b) can applications like vscode, nodejs, git, etc. be preinstalled for the user? if installed by user, do they stay when the user starts a new session? Thanks! Great work! Your explanation is concise and to the points.

[@TechnoTim]

All processing is done on the server, you are just basically remoting in!

[@alexanderpoplawski577]

You can make your own Dockerfile using the webtop image as a base and add all the commands to install the software you want inside the image. Add the build command to the docker-compose file. In my experience it is better to have vscode installed at the frontend computer and use the remote-ssh extension to edit files on a server. The remote ssh-extension installs the vscode-server on remote servers automatically and you can manage different remote targets within vscode. Cdr/code-server does not offer all the extensions vscode has. Cdr/code-server is now only useful if you want to edit on your tablet and can not install vscode.

[@Chris4380.]

Great stuff Tim! Thanks! Do you think it would be possible to VNC into this using guacamole? Sounds odd, but I have a use case for it!

[@TechnoTim]

It uses guac already, you might be able to!

[@sdc-it_de]

Hi Tim, on which hardware do you run this ?

[@shiashush6388]

What about Hardware graphics acceleration? would it work? GPU hw accell would be nice

[@IngwiePhoenix]

Imagine having an iPad, and needing an occasional "real desktop". THIS is it. xD Pretty amazing. I wonder if there is some lightweight client that removes some of the browseryness - like accidentially scrolling when tapping all over the screen and what have you. Should be dead simple JS, really. And with some HTML metas set, you could add this to the home screen from within Safari. This is sooooo cool :O

[@TechnoTim]

Exactly!!

[@ayushrawal706]

It's a great idea. I think I might replace my vm with this because I rarely use that for testing and stuff. A question though, does it support drag and drop ?

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you! Not that I know of

[@dzltron]

Need to create a connection broker frontend for this! Easy free basic VDI

[@technicaltrialsandtribulat4574]

Use apache guacamole

[@dzltron]

@@technicaltrialsandtribulat4574 true, though it's a pain to dockerize

[@donjaime_ett]

Another awesome video! I've got a question related to this (and to previous videos you've done on Guacamole). Is there a solid low latency, responsive remote desktop solution for Linux? Most of these solutions (like VNC) are super laggy. Things like Intellij or Blender or FreeCAD need a proper desktop setup. I basically want something like Parsec, but for linux hosts. Does that exist? I've heard about no machine but the lack of FOSS and lack of social proof for it bugs me a bit.

[@TechnoTim]

Thanks! Remmina is as close as it gets for me. LMK if you find something better!

[@marcello4258]

@@TechnoTim remmina is just the client and not the protocol. the best performance I had as of today was using the SPICE protocol - which is understood by Remmina. VNC is not bad at all but the default implementations are super bad on Linux - XRDP works much better right out of the box. KASM has a good VNC stack which runs butter smooth since everything is open source there this might be an address to look for. @Jaime - did you try XRDP?

[@DanteBasso]

Question, it's possible o add new volume from host to docker? /config is $HOME inside the docker, but I wish to do one more "mount point", it's possible?

[@SuperZsomi]

Is it working with lxc/lxd containers ? I love that one is better because I would like to save my changes ...

[@cloudlearn7511]

Can we run swaywm on alpine docker image? I have been working on this for weeks. However, I get away with running it using docker commands in the terminal even though with errors it launches. I am not able to run it using docker compose. Any ideas?

[@Lokaminiac]

Thanks for the video. Great info! A question: I am working in a shared server at remote office that has docker. I don’t have root privilege. Will I be able to get this Webio container to work?

[@TechnoTim]

Not sure about webio but try one of these with mate

[@maxmouse3]

Very nice, I'm 100% doing this :) also instant sub! :D Very good explanation:)

[@TechnoTim]

Awesome, thank you!

[@weekenddiyprojects5072]

Nice video snd explsined very well. Just one question, can we instsll and use it on raspberry pi 4, 4GB model running docker container?

[@TechnoTim]

You sure can!

[@crow3411]

How would I compile this for arm processes and put this on a pi4 now that would be a interesting video and worth subscription

[@blazetechstuff]

I'm afraid to say I got more containers in my house than my PC.

[@stormfox81]

I want less overhead and just webtop running inside a proxmox vm or container. is that easy to do?

[@LNSFLIVE]

does sound go through to the browser?

[@ecsuae]

You are doing great work, I just tried to install teamviewer , it is not starting , can you help how to run it?

[@squalazzo]

well done!

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you!

[@mattmat5648]

New to containers. Would this be good for malware analysis? Separating away from your personal OS?

[@TechnoTim]

I would choose a VM for that, that's isolated on its own network (or no network at all). This container runs on the host and it would be challenging to isolate that machine.

[@togoenvogue]

It seams like apps installed (Visual Studio Code for instance) are not persisted after pulling down the docker container and spinning up a new image. Is there any workarounds ? Thank you

[@vellankiindeevar5530]

as we know that we can convert a docker container into a wsl distro . can i use this webtop as a wsl distro container ? can you make a vid on this

[@christophevandingelen]

Hi, when I log in, I don't get a GUI, I get a file browser (files and folders). Did I do something wrong?

[@marcello4258]

did anyone compared it to KASM in regards of responsiveness / latency overall experience ? LAN and WAN?

[@Prophes0r]

I'm sort of looking for the other side of this right now. An ultra-light OS, that only runs a browser, so that I can use an older laptop (around the house) as a thin-client.

[@Mpdarkguy]

The arch base install is pretty lightweight, you can just throw a barebones i3 or some shit, basic networking tools, make it so that it runs a single Firefox window on startup and you should be good to go

[@ayushrawal706]

@@Mpdarkguy I think you can easily go lighter than that.

[@Mpdarkguy]

@@ayushrawal706 That was literally the first thing that came to my mind.

[@alexanderpoplawski577]

Sounds like ChromeOS

[@Prophes0r]

@@Mpdarkguy Except Firefox isn't really a lightweight browser. And you are probably still running a bunch of other UI stuff. I guess I'm really talking about "Minimal Browser - The Operating system"

[@indiaonellp]

Can we install it on digital ocean droplet?

[@pauleastus]

Hey Tim i have a proxmox cluster that needs some repair. I need to completely remove a node and remove and re-install the ceph and OSD on the 2 nodes remaining. my vms cannot start without the ceph. what would be your cost and an u login by remote to help with this - i use anydesk as remote software

[@TechnoTim]

Thanks for the offer but I don't do remote support. Check out our discord community to see if maybe someone has some ideas there!

[@rans0101]

Great

[@patrickrainbolt]

How does this react if two people on the network go to the machine? Are the sharing the machine or do they both log into separate sessions?

[@TechnoTim]

should be separate

[@willysteenbergen8088]

Can you make a video of 3cx in docker?

[@davidrodgers7614]

When you say "persistent" do you mean 1. that it persists the container being restarted or 2. it stays running 100% of the time so if you install something on it that serves something you can continue to access it remotely after you disconnect or 3. yes?

[@TechnoTim]

3. yes

[@sophiethecat9256]

Bro imagine being youtube and stop notifying me about these videos 😪 Your still a great youtuber 🙂

[@TechnoTim]

🥺

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you!

[@whatthefunction9140]

When they slove string theory they are just going to find docker

[@dr.mikeybee]

You can get this on Docker Hub too.

[@winecountrygames1859]

so it crashed and everything I installed/updated is gone. Files are still there but everything else is gone. Is there a way around this?

[@TheAkiller101]

These have amazing potential ... just imagine how much it takes for developers to set up a working environments. installing driverss setting up IDE etc. imagine if there was a fully preconfiged environment which you just run and start coding

[@airman122469]

There’s already kickstart. Just make a standard kickstart image, and install that image on new developers’ computers.

[@TheAkiller101]

Thanks alot man .

[@TheAkiller101]

KZbin algorithm gave me two suggetion after this comment.. docker dev environments, git pods, github workspaces all try to address my above use case..

[@francescofreddi4374]

is possible to run this on Mac? whats id i need to catch? at min 6? because iamNot in a server

[@TechnoTim]

it is possible, just install docker. You don't need to run a server to run this.

[@fuseteam]

next up an linux distro with only a webbrowers and a webtop container running in the background that opens the webtop on start up!

[@TechnoTim]

... then the world implodes!

[@fuseteam]

@@TechnoTim boom :p

[@nahakuu]

this would be good, if you have Parrot OS or Kali avaliable

[@frankboye9929]

Imagine a website that linux newbies can visit to test out different distros to see which one they like. Or to test a feature in a new version of linux to see if they like it.

[@TechnoTim]

yeah, great for distro hopping and testing!

[@mrshahram7]

Did anyone manage to have audio inside a webtop linux container?

[@SirRFI]

What about Windows? Can you containerize Windows desktop and pass through GPU? Perhaps this would be more efficient than a VM.

[@alexanderpoplawski577]

No, you can't. Container share the Linux-kernel with the host machine. It has to be a Linux-system inside the container.

[@vanopiano]

I somehow skipped how did you configured local subdomain under your real domain to work only on local network? I also have Ubiquiti network and real domain for public services or my home lab and want to use some local-only services like webtop(just installed) over domain

[@vanopiano]

I probably need to use traefic, no? Currently I'm using nginx proxy manager for all my public subdomains

[@TechnoTim]

Yeah, nginx proxy manager doesn't support wildcard certs. Check out my traefik and docker video!

[@vanopiano]

@@TechnoTim Actually nginx proxy manager supports wildcard certs, I'm using one cert for all my services, just need to select it every time. I'll try traefik

[@TechnoTim]

@@vanopiano Ah, good to know!

[@Sicangu14]

Tim, I'm getting a new Dell desktop for my wife with Windows 11. My question, can you just install my Zorin Linux hard drive from my desktop and then use boot manager to use the preferred OS? Thx

[@marcello4258]

do you mean install it on a external hdd and boot the pc? yes sure you can. if you do not a chroot install would be easier to plug the drive on the DELL PC and boot from a pen drive and just install it on the ext hdd. notice though the OS Bootmanager does not work than but usually you can press a key like F8 to get a bootMENU from your bios and select the ext hdd.

[@Sicangu14]

@@marcello4258 thanks for the reply

[@Equality-and-Liberty]

I want to run this in a Rancher K3s cluster. How to find the PUID and PGID for my cluster?

[@TechnoTim]

You shouldn't need to. k8s should handle permissions to the PVC just fine.

[@watershuriken9751]

This is soo cool! Can someone tell me some use cases for this?

[@TheAkiller101]

imagine the time it takes for you to configure a dev environment with a particular stack.. if there were fully configured working environments we can just run and start developing..

[@doc_ineeda_win5834]

Whats the best way to game in the cloud?

[@TechnoTim]

See my proxmox gpu video!

[@lichtii1972]

is it possible to run the Command Line like i am on my Host Machine?

[@TechnoTim]

Not unless you ssh back into the host machine from this webtop

[@saltandsham]

Hi when I use Ubuntu container i get a blank screen connecting from the browser. Using the Alpine container works fine. Can anyone help please

[@saltandsham]

@Pind by Techno Tim sorry what do you mean ?

[@debajyotichowdhury1838]

I am facing this error when I am trying to install MySQL. I tried with "privileged: true" or "-- privileged" also. "System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate. Failed to connect to bus: Host is down Failed to talk to init daemon."