Running Android apps using Docker and ARC Welder

https://hub.docker.com/r/thshaw/arc-welder/

This tutorial will allow you to run multiple Android Apps using ARC Welder inside individual Docker containers.

• Setup

  Use a Docker image that already has Chrome installed.

  https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/jess/chrome/

docker pull jess/chrome

• Start a container

docker run -it 
    --net host 
    --cpuset-cpus 0  
    --memory 512mb  # max memory it can use
    -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix  # mount the X11 socket
    -e DISPLAY=unix$DISPLAY 
    -v $HOME/Downloads:/root/Downloads 
    --device /dev/snd  # so we have sound
      --entrypoint /bin/bash 
    --name chrome 
    jess/chrome:latest

• Start Chrome (Manual)

google-chrome --user-data-dir=/data

A Chrome Browser window will appear.

• Install ARC Welder (Manual)

Navigate to :
https://developer.chrome.com/apps/getstarted_arc

Click on "The ARC Welder app"

Select "+ add to chrome"

This will take a few minutes while it downloads the ARC Welder and runtime.

Confirm it is installed : Settings, Extensions.

• Enable WebGL

Step 1: Type chrome://flags in the address bar

Step 2: Press Ctrl + f and type ” Rendering list “, “Override software rendering list” should come up, Now click on Enable and restart the browser.

Step 3: Close the Chrome window.

• Commit these changes to a new image

Get the container image id : 

docker ps -a |head -2

Commit these changes to a new image :

docker commit <container id> arc-welder:base

• Almost there. This is our base image. You can run this and provide an entrypoint or you can use a Dockerfile.

Create a Dockerfile with contents :

FROM arc-welder:base

ENTRYPOINT [ "/usr/bin/google-chrome" ]

#This is the app-id of ARC Welder that we installed 
CMD [ "--user-data-dir=/data", "--app-id=emfinbmielocnlhgmfkkmkngdoccbadn" ]

Build a new image :

docker build -t arc-welder:latest .

Start the ARC Welder container :

docker run -it 
        --net host 
        --cpuset-cpus 0 
        --memory 512mb  # max memory it can use
        -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix  # mount the X11 socket
        -e DISPLAY=unix$DISPLAY 
        -v $HOME/Downloads:/root/Downloads 
        --device /dev/snd  # so we have sound
        --name arcwelder 
        arc-welder:latest

Note : If you want to save the state of any apps you run then you will need to add in this line when starting the container :

-v $HOME/.config/google-chrome/:/data  # if you want to save state

The ARC Welder app will appear.

You will be prompted for a .apk file. In the command above we setup this volume : $HOME/Downloads:/root/Downloads. On your host you can download a .apk file from http://www.apkmirror.com/ and then select this in the ARC Welder gui.

That's it.

Tested Angry Birds, Instagram, Twitter, Evernote.

Tried Facebook, Netflix and AirDroid but hit issues.

• What's the point?

This allows Developers or Testers to start Android apps just by starting a container. Multiple apps can be run at the same time in complete isolation. No changes have been made to your host system.

• Future work :

Automate the install of ARC Welder

The end user should be able to pass in the location of a .apk at container runtime and this gets loaded into ARC welder.