Alpine Chrome Docker Image

Available registries

Following the changes with the https://www.docker.com/increase-rate-limits. Tweet here for more information in 🇫🇷

• On the https://hub.docker.com/r/zenika/alpine-chrome without any prefix: zenika/alpine-chrome
• On Google Cloud - available in the closest region:
  • Global: gcr.io/zenika-hub/alpine-chrome
  • Europe: eu.gcr.io/zenika-hub/alpine-chrome
  • Asia: asia.gcr.io/zenika-hub/alpine-chrome
  • US: us.gcr.io/zenika-hub/alpine-chrome

Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links

• latest, 100 https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/Dockerfile
• with-node, 100-with-node, 100-with-node-16 https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/with-node/Dockerfile
• with-puppeteer, 100-with-puppeteer https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/with-puppeteer/Dockerfile
• with-playwright, 100-with-playwright https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/with-playwright/Dockerfile
• with-selenoid, 100-with-selenoid https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/with-selenoid/Dockerfile
• with-chromedriver, 100-with-chromedriver https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/with-chromedriver/Dockerfile
• 89, 86, 85, 84, 83, 81, 80, 77, 76, 73, 72, 71, 68, 64
• 89-with-node, 86-with-node, 85-with-node, 84-with-node, 83-with-node, 81-with-node, 80-with-node, 77-with-node, 76-with-node
• 89-with-puppeteer, 86-with-puppeteer, 85-with-puppeteer,84-with-puppeteer, 83-with-puppeteer, 81-with-puppeteer, 80-with-puppeteer, 77-with-puppeteer, 76-with-puppeteer

alpine-chrome

Chrome running in headless mode in a tiny Alpine image

---

🤔 Why use a Headless Chrome

In the world of webdev, the ability to run quickly end-to-end tests are important. Popular technologies like Puppeteer enable developers to make fun things like testing, automating forms, crawling, generating screenshots, capturing timeline... And there is a secret: some of these features are directly available on Chrome! 🙌

💡 Crafting the perfect container

• 📦 Tiniest Headless Chrome (Compressed size: https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome#image-disk-size)
• 🐳 Easy to use, ephemeral and reproducible Headless Chrome with Docker
• 📝 Doc-friendly with examples for printing the DOM, generating an image with a mobile ratio or generating a PDF.
• 👷‍♂️ Autobuild with the https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/zenika/alpine-chrome to sync the project and ship the images with confidence
• 📌 Up-to-date latest Chromium and tags available to test different versions of Chromium
• 🔐 Secure with the best way to use Chrome and Docker - https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome#3-ways-to-securely-use-chrome-headless-with-this-image section
• 🌐 Ready for internationalisation use: support for asian characters - https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/with-puppeteer/src/screenshot-asia.js
• 💄 Ready for design use: support for WebGL, support for emojis- See https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome#how-to-use-with-webgl and https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/issues/114
• 📄 Open Source with an Apache2 licence
• 👥 Community-built with external contributors - https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome#-contributors
• 💚 Dev-friendly with examples using NodeJS, Puppeteer, docker-compose and also a test with a X11 display - https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome#run-examples

3 ways to securely use Chrome Headless with this image

❌ With nothing

Launching the container using only docker container run -it zenika/alpine-chrome ... will fail with some logs similar to https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/issues/33.

Please use the 3 others ways to use Chrome Headless.

✅ With --no-sandbox

Launch the container using:

docker container run -it --rm zenika/alpine-chrome and use the --no-sandbox flag for all your commands.

Be careful to know the website you're calling.

Explanation for the no-sandbox flag in a https://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/med_26.html and for https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs/design/sandbox.md

✅ With SYS_ADMIN capability

Launch the container using: docker container run -it --rm --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN zenika/alpine-chrome

This allows to run Chrome with sandboxing but needs unnecessary privileges from a Docker point of view.

✅ The best: With seccomp

Thanks to ever-awesome Jessie Frazelle seccomp profile for Chrome. This is The most secure way to run this Headless Chrome docker image.

https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/chrome.json

Also available here wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jfrazelle/dotfiles/master/etc/docker/seccomp/chrome.json

Launch the container using: docker container run -it --rm --security-opt seccomp=$(pwd)/chrome.json zenika/alpine-chrome

How to use in command line

Default entrypoint

The default entrypoint does the following command: chromium-browser --headless --disable-gpu --disable-software-rasterizer --disable-dev-shm-usage

You can get full control by overriding the entrypoint using: docker container run -it --rm --entrypoint "" zenika/alpine-chrome chromium-browser ...

Use the devtools

Command (with no-sandbox): docker container run -d -p 9222:9222 zenika/alpine-chrome --no-sandbox --remote-debugging-address=0.0.0.0 --remote-debugging-port=9222 https://www.chromestatus.com/

Open your browser to: http://localhost:9222 and then click on the tab you want to inspect. Replace the beginning https://chrome-devtools-frontend.appspot.com/serve_file/@.../inspector.html?ws=localhost:9222/[END] by chrome-devtools://devtools/bundled/inspector.html?ws=localhost:9222/[END]

Print the DOM

Command (with no-sandbox): docker container run -it --rm zenika/alpine-chrome --no-sandbox --dump-dom https://www.chromestatus.com/

Print a PDF

Command (with no-sandbox): docker container run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/usr/src/app zenika/alpine-chrome --no-sandbox --print-to-pdf --hide-scrollbars https://www.chromestatus.com/

Take a screenshot

Command (with no-sandbox): docker container run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/usr/src/app zenika/alpine-chrome --no-sandbox --screenshot --hide-scrollbars https://www.chromestatus.com/

Size of a standard letterhead.

Command (with no-sandbox): docker container run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/usr/src/app zenika/alpine-chrome --no-sandbox --screenshot --hide-scrollbars --window-size=1280,1696 https://www.chromestatus.com/

Nexus 5x

Command (with no-sandbox): docker container run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/usr/src/app zenika/alpine-chrome --no-sandbox --screenshot --hide-scrollbars --window-size=412,732 https://www.chromestatus.com/

Screenshot owned by current user (by default the file is owned by the container user)

Command (with no-sandbox): docker container run -u `id -u $USER` -it --rm -v $(pwd):/usr/src/app zenika/alpine-chrome --no-sandbox --screenshot --hide-scrollbars --window-size=412,732 [***]

How to use with Deno

Go the deno src folder. Build your image using this command:

docker image build -t zenika/alpine-chrome:with-deno-sample .

Then launch the container:

docker container run -it --rm zenika/alpine-chrome:with-deno-sample
 Download https://deno.land/std/examples/welcome.ts
 Warning Implicitly using master branch https://deno.land/std/examples/welcome.ts
 Compile https://deno.land/std/examples/welcome.ts
 Welcome to Deno 🦕

With your own file, use this command:

docker container run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/usr/src/app zenika/alpine-chrome:with-deno-sample run helloworld.ts
Compile file:///usr/src/app/helloworld.ts
Download https://deno.land/std/fmt/colors.ts
Warning Implicitly using master branch https://deno.land/std/fmt/colors.ts
Hello world!

How to use with Puppeteer

With tool like https://pptr.dev/#?product=Puppeteer&version=v1.15.0&show=api-class-browser, we can add a lot things with our Chrome Headless.

With some code in NodeJS, we can improve and make some tests.

See the https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/with-puppeteer folder for more details. We have to https://github.com/puppeteer/puppeteer/blob/main/versions.js.

If you have a NodeJS/Puppeteer script in your src folder named pdf.js, you can launch it using the following command:

docker container run -it --rm -v $(pwd)/src:/usr/src/app/src --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN zenika/alpine-chrome:with-puppeteer node src/pdf.js

With the https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/package/edge/testing/x86/wqy-zenhei library, you could also manipulate asian pages like in https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/with-puppeteer/src/screenshot-asia.js

docker container run -it --rm -v $(pwd)/src:/usr/src/app/src --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN zenika/alpine-chrome:with-puppeteer node src/screenshot-asia.js

These websites are tested with the following supported languages:

• Chinese (with https://m.baidu.com)
• Japanese (with https://www.yahoo.co.jp/)
• Korean (with https://www.naver.com/)

How to use with Puppeteer to test a Chrome Extension

https://github.com/puppeteer/puppeteer/blob/main/docs/api.md#working-with-chrome-extensions you can not test a Chrome Extension in headleass mode. You need a display available, that's where Xvfb comes in.

See the https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/with-puppeteer-xvfb folder for more details. We have to https://github.com/puppeteer/puppeteer/blob/main/versions.js.

Assuming you have a NodeJS/Puppeteer script in your src folder named extension.js, and the unpacked extension in the chrome-extension folder, you can launch it using the following command:

docker container run -it --rm -v $(pwd)/src:/usr/src/app/src --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN zenika/alpine-chrome:with-puppeteer-xvfb node src/extension.js

The extension provided will change the page background in red for every website visited. This demo will load the extension and take a screenshot of the icanhazip.com website.

How to use with Playwright

Like https://pptr.dev/#?product=Puppeteer&version=v6.0.0&show=api-class-browser, we can do a lot things using https://playwright.dev/docs/core-concepts/#browser with our Chrome Headless.

Go to the with-playwright folder and launch the following command:

docker container run -it --rm -v $(pwd)/src:/usr/src/app/src --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN zenika/alpine-chrome:with-playwright node src/useragent.js

A example-chromium.png file will be created in your with-playwright/src folder.

How to use with WebGL

By default, this image works with WebGL.

If you want to disable it, make sure to add --disable-gpu when launching Chromium.

The with-webgl tag still exists but is deprecated. It will be removed before end of August 2020.

docker container run -it --rm --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN -v $(pwd):/usr/src/app zenika/alpine-chrome --screenshot --hide-scrollbars https://webglfundamentals.org/webgl/webgl-fundamentals.html

docker container run -it --rm --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN -v $(pwd):/usr/src/app zenika/alpine-chrome --screenshot --hide-scrollbars https://browserleaks.com/webgl

Links:

• https://github.com/adieuadieu/serverless-chrome/issues/108
• https://github.com/DevExpress/testcafe/issues/2116
• 'use-gl' values https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/ui/gl/gl_switches.cc?type=cs&q=kUseGL&sq=package:chromium&g=0&l=69

How to use with Chromedriver

https://chromedriver.chromium.org/home is a separate executable that Selenium WebDriver uses to control Chrome. You can use this image as a base for your Docker based selenium tests. See https://www.browserstack.com/guide/run-selenium-tests-using-selenium-chromedriver.

How to use with Selenoid

https://github.com/aerokube/selenoid is a powerful implementation of Selenium hub using Docker containers to launch browsers. Even if it used to run browsers in docker containers, it can be quite useful as lightweight Selenium replacement. with-selenoid image is a self sufficient selenium server, chrome and chromedriver installed.

You can run it with following command:

docker container run -it --rm --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN  -p 4444:4444 zenika/alpine-chrome:with-selenoid -capture-driver-logs

And run your tests against http://localhost:4444/wd/hub

One of the use-cases might be running automation tests in the environment with restricted Docker environment like on some CI systems like GitLab CI, etc. In such case you may not have permissions for --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN and you will need to pass the --no-sandbox to chromedriver.

See more selenoid docs

Run as root and override default entrypoint

We can run the container as root with this command:

docker container run --rm -it --entrypoint "" --user root zenika/alpine-chrome sh

Run examples

Some examples are available on the examples directory:

• 🐳 https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/examples/docker-compose to launch a chrome calling a nginx server in the same docker-compose
• ☸️ https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/tree/master/examples/k8s to launch a pod with a headless chrome
• 🖥 https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/blob/master/examples/x11 to experiment this image with a X11 server.

References

• Headless Chrome website: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/04/headless-chrome

• List of all options of the "Chromium" command line: [***]

• Where to file issues: https://github.com/Zenika/alpine-chrome/issues

• Maintained by: [***]

Versions (in latest)

Alpine version

docker container run -it --rm --entrypoint "" zenika/alpine-chrome cat /etc/alpine-release
3.15.4

Chrome version

docker container run -it --rm --entrypoint "" zenika/alpine-chrome chromium-browser --version
Chromium 100.0.4896.60

Image disk size

docker image inspect zenika/alpine-chrome --format='{{.Size}}'
357467827 # 341 MB

✨ Contributors

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):