This is a small documentation how to run a fully working Apache Guacamole (incubating) instance with docker (docker-compose). The goal of this project is to make it easy to test Guacamole.
Apache Guacamole (incubating) is a clientless remote desktop gateway. It supports standard protocols like VNC, RDP, and SSH. It is called clientless because no plugins or client software are required. Thanks to HTML5, once Guacamole is installed on a server, all you need to access your desktops is a web browser.
It supports RDP, SSH, Telnet and VNC and is the fastest HTML5 gateway I know. Checkout the projects homepage for more information.
You need a working docker installation and docker-compose running on your machine.
Clone the GIT repository and start guacamole:
git clone "https://github.com/boschkundendienst/guacamole-docker-compose.git"
cd guacamole-docker-compose
./prepare.sh
docker-compose up -d
Your guacamole server should now be available at https://ip of your server:8443/
. The default username is guacadmin
with password guacadmin
.
To understand some details let's take a closer look at parts of the docker-compose.yml
file:
The following part of docker-compose.yml will create a network with name guacnetwork_compose
in mode bridged
.
...
# networks
# create a network 'guacnetwork_compose' in mode 'bridged'
networks:
guacnetwork_compose:
driver: bridge
...
The following part of docker-compose.yml will create the guacd service. guacd is the heart of Guacamole which dynamically loads support for remote desktop protocols (called "client plugins") and connects them to remote desktops based on instructions received from the web application. The container will be called guacd_compose
based on the docker image guacamole/guacd
connected to our previously created network guacnetwork_compose
. Additionally we map the 2 local folders ./drive
and ./record
into the container. We can use them later to map user drives and store recordings of sessions.
...
services:
# guacd
guacd:
container_name: guacd_compose
image: guacamole/guacd
networks:
guacnetwork_compose:
restart: always
volumes:
- ./drive:/drive:rw
- ./record:/record:rw
...
The following part of docker-compose.yml will create an instance of PostgreSQL using the official docker image. This image is highly configurable using environment variables. It will for example initialize a database if an initialization script is found in the folder /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d
within the image. Since we map the local folder ./init
inside the container as docker-entrypoint-initdb.d
we can initialize the database for guacamole using our own script (./init/initdb.sql
). You can read more about the details of the official postgres image here.
...
postgres:
container_name: postgres_guacamole_compose
environment:
PGDATA: /var/lib/postgresql/data/guacamole
POSTGRES_DB: guacamole_db
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ChooseYourOwnPasswordHere1234
POSTGRES_USER: guacamole_user
image: postgres
networks:
guacnetwork_compose:
restart: always
volumes:
- ./init:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d:ro
- ./data:/var/lib/postgresql/data:rw
...
The following part of docker-compose.yml will create an instance of guacamole by using the docker image guacamole
from docker hub. It is also highly configurable using environment variables. In this setup it is configured to connect to the previously created postgres instance using a username and password and the database guacamole_db
. Port 8080 is only exposed locally! We will attach an instance of nginx for public facing of it in the next step.
...
guacamole:
container_name: guacamole_compose
depends_on:
- guacd
- postgres
environment:
GUACD_HOSTNAME: guacd
POSTGRES_DATABASE: guacamole_db
POSTGRES_HOSTNAME: postgres
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ChooseYourOwnPasswordHere1234
POSTGRES_USER: guacamole_user
image: guacamole/guacamole
links:
- guacd
networks:
guacnetwork_compose:
ports:
- 8080/tcp
restart: always
...
The following part of docker-compose.yml will create an instance of nginx that maps the public port 8443 to the internal port 443. The internal port 443 is then mapped to guacamole using the ./nginx/templates/guacamole.conf.template
file. The container will use the previously generated (prepare.sh
) self-signed certificate in ./nginx/ssl/
with ./nginx/ssl/self-ssl.key
and ./nginx/ssl/self.cert
.
...
# nginx
nginx:
container_name: nginx_guacamole_compose
restart: always
image: nginx
volumes:
- ./nginx/templates:/etc/nginx/templates:ro
- ./nginx/ssl/self.cert:/etc/nginx/ssl/self.cert:ro
- ./nginx/ssl/self-ssl.key:/etc/nginx/ssl/self-ssl.key:ro
ports:
- 8443:443
links:
- guacamole
networks:
guacnetwork_compose:
...
prepare.sh
is a small script that creates ./init/initdb.sql
by downloading the docker image guacamole/guacamole
and start it like this:
docker run --rm guacamole/guacamole /opt/guacamole/bin/initdb.sh --postgresql > ./init/initdb.sql
It creates the necessary database initialization file for postgres.
prepare.sh
also creates the self-signed certificate ./nginx/ssl/self.cert
and the private key ./nginx/ssl/self-ssl.key
which are used
by nginx for https.
To reset everything to the beginning, just run ./reset.sh
.
Wake on LAN (WOL) does not work and I will not fix that because it is beyound the scope of this repo. But zukkie777 who also filed this issue fixed it. You can read about it on the Guacamole mailing list
Disclaimer
Downloading and executing scripts from the internet may harm your computer. Make sure to check the source of the scripts before executing them!
####################################################################################
# docker-compose file for Apache Guacamole
# created by PCFreak 2017-06-28
#
# Apache Guacamole is a clientless remote desktop gateway. It supports standard
# protocols like VNC, RDP, and SSH. We call it clientless because no plugins or
# client software are required. Thanks to HTML5, once Guacamole is installed on
# a server, all you need to access your desktops is a web browser.
####################################################################################
#
# What does this file do?
#
# Using docker-compose it will:
#
# - create a network 'guacnetwork_compose' with the 'bridge' driver.
# - create a service 'guacd_compose' from 'guacamole/guacd' connected to 'guacnetwork'
# - create a service 'postgres_guacamole_compose' (1) from 'postgres' connected to 'guacnetwork'
# - create a service 'guacamole_compose' (2) from 'guacamole/guacamole/' conn. to 'guacnetwork'
# - create a service 'nginx_guacamole_compose' (3) from 'nginx' connected to 'guacnetwork'
#
# (1)
# DB-Init script is in './init/initdb.sql' it has been created executing
# 'docker run --rm guacamole/guacamole /opt/guacamole/bin/initdb.sh --postgresql > ./init/initdb.sql'
# once.
# DATA-DIR is in './data'
# If you want to change the DB password change all lines with 'POSTGRES_PASSWORD:' and
# change it to your needs before first start.
# To start from scratch delete './data' dir completely
# './data' will hold all data after first start!
# The initdb.d scripts are only executed the first time the container is started
# (and the database files are empty). If the database files already exist then the initdb.d
# scripts are ignored (e.g. when you mount a local directory or when docker-compose saves
# the volume and reuses it for the new container).
#
# !!!!! MAKE SURE your folder './init' is executable (chmod +x ./init)
# !!!!! or 'initdb.sql' will be ignored!
#
# './data' will hold all data after first start!
#
# (2)
# Make sure you use the same value for 'POSTGRES_USER' and 'POSTGRES_PASSWORD'
# as configured under (1)
#
# (3)
# ./nginx/templates folder will be mapped read-only into the container at /etc/nginx/templates
# and according to the official nginx container docs the guacamole.conf.template will be
# placed in /etc/nginx/conf.d/guacamole.conf after container startup.
# ./nginx/ssl will be mapped into the container at /etc/nginx/ssl
# prepare.sh creates a a self-signed certificate. If you want to use your own certs
# just remove the part that generates the certs from prepare.sh and replace
# 'self-ssl.key' and 'self.cert' with your certificate.
# nginx will export port 8443 to the outside world, make sure that this port is reachable
# on your system from the "outside world". All other traffic is only internal.
#
# You could remove the entire 'nginx' service from this file if you want to use your own
# reverse proxy in front of guacamole. If doing so, make sure you change the line
# from - 8080/tcp
# to - 8080:8080/tcp
# within the 'guacamole' service. This will expose the guacamole webinterface directly
# on port 8080 and you can use it for your own purposes.
# Note: Guacamole is available on :8080/guacamole, not /.
#
# !!!!! FOR INITAL SETUP (after git clone) run ./prepare.sh once
#
# !!!!! FOR A FULL RESET (WILL ERASE YOUR DATABASE, YOUR FILES, YOUR RECORDS AND CERTS) DO A
# !!!!! ./reset.sh
#
#
# The initial login to the guacamole webinterface is:
#
# Username: guacadmin
# Password: guacadmin
#
# Make sure you change it immediately!
#
# version date comment
# 0.1 2017-06-28 initial release
# 0.2 2017-10-09 minor fixes + internal GIT push
# 0.3 2017-10-09 minor fixes + public GIT push
# 0.4 2019-08-14 creating of ssl certs now in prepare.sh
# simplified nginx startup commands
# 0.5 2023-02-24 nginx now uses a template + some minor changes
# 0.6 2023-03-23 switched to postgres 15.2-alpine
#####################################################################################