Run JetBrains IDEs remotely with Docker

projector-docker

Some scripts to create and run a Docker container with Projector and JetBrains IDE.

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Run JetBrains IDE in Docker

How to run JetBrains IDE in Docker and access it via a web browser?

Firstly, pull an image with needed IDE:

docker pull registry.jetbrains.team/p/prj/containers/projector-clion
docker pull registry.jetbrains.team/p/prj/containers/projector-datagrip
docker pull registry.jetbrains.team/p/prj/containers/projector-goland
docker pull registry.jetbrains.team/p/prj/containers/projector-idea-c
docker pull registry.jetbrains.team/p/prj/containers/projector-idea-u
docker pull registry.jetbrains.team/p/prj/containers/projector-phpstorm
docker pull registry.jetbrains.team/p/prj/containers/projector-pycharm-c
docker pull registry.jetbrains.team/p/prj/containers/projector-pycharm-p
docker pull registry.jetbrains.team/p/prj/containers/projector-webstorm

After that, you can run it via the following command (just replace IMAGE_NAME with the needed name, for example, registry.jetbrains.team/p/prj/containers/projector-clion):

docker run --rm -p 8887:8887 -it IMAGE_NAME

This will run Projector Server with the selected JetBrains IDE locally.

To access Projector Server with IDE, use http://localhost:8887/.

If you want to save the state of the container between launches, go further: take a look at run-container-mounted.sh script.

Run IntelliJ IDEA in Docker (building image yourself)

If you don’t want to pull an image, you can build it yourself. Scripts in this repo will help you to do it.

Firstly, please check your Docker version: since we use Docker BuildKit in our scripts, a current version of Docker (18.09 or higher) is required.

Clone this projector-docker repo and make the following actions:

./clone-projector-core.sh
./build-container.sh
./run-container.sh

This will run Projector Server with IntelliJ IDEA Community locally.

To access Projector Server with IDE, use http://localhost:8887/.

There will be a sample Kotlin + Java project opened, just close some dialogs. If you want to try your project, you can clone it via Git.

If you don’t want to clone the project every time you start the container, go further: use run-container-mounted.sh.

Accessing IDE run on another machine

If you want to access IDE run on another host, you need to change page parameters. Here are the default parameters, so you probably need to change localhost in both places to needed IP: http://localhost:8887/?host=localhost&port=8887.

Script list

clone-projector-core.sh

Clones projector projects from Git to proper locations:

• ../projector-server.

Note: if you already have these projects locally existing, you can place them to proper locations and avoid this script.

build-container.sh [containerName [ideDownloadUrl]]

Compiles Projector inside Docker and builds a Docker container locally.

build-container-dev.sh [containerName [ideDownloadUrl]]

Compiles Projector outside Docker and builds a Docker container locally. The script assumes the JAVA_HOME is set to a JDK 11.

create-image.sh [containerName [tarGzFileName]]

Creates a Docker image from a built container and saves it as a tar.gz archive.

load-image.sh [tarGzFileName]

Loads the Docker image locally.

run-container.sh [containerName]

Runs the Docker container.

Starts the Projector server and hosts web client files on port 8887.

run-container-mounted.sh [containerName]

Runs the Docker container. Also, it mounts your ~/projector-docker dir as the home dir in the container, so settings and projects can be saved between launches.

Feel free to change ~/projector-docker dir to your desired one. Please note that the host dir should be created manually to eliminate permissions problems.

For Mac and Windows hosts: to speed up work with mounted dirs, you can try adding the :cached suffix. It will look like this: -v ~/projector-docker:/home/projector-user:cached.

Starts the Projector server and hosts web client files on port 8887.

Tested IDEs

When you build a container, there is an optional ideDownloadUrl parameter, so you can select different IDEs to use. Most JetBrains IDEs of versions 2019.1-2020.2 will work. Tested with:

• https://download.jetbrains.com/idea/ideaIC-2019.3.4.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/idea/ideaIC-2020.1.1.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/idea/ideaIC-202.5103.13.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/idea/ideaIU-2019.3.4.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/cpp/CLion-2019.3.5.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/go/goland-2019.3.4.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/datagrip/datagrip-2019.3.4.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/webide/PhpStorm-2019.3.4.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/python/pycharm-community-2019.3.4.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/python/pycharm-professional-2019.3.4.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/webstorm/WebStorm-2020.2.2.tar.gz
• https://download.jetbrains.com/rider/JetBrains.Rider-2020.2.4.tar.gz

You can find the up-to-date list of tested IDEs here: compatible_ide.json .

If you want to try other distribution, click “Other versions” on an IDE download page and copy a link to a tar.gz file. Please ensure that you select tar.gz with JBR, not without.

FAQ

Q: Can I somehow secure my connection?
A: You can enable SSL for connection. First of all, provide the ORG_JETBRAINS_PROJECTOR_SERVER_SSL_PROPERTIES_PATH environment variable on the server-side using the -e parameter of docker run. It should contain a path to a file with properties: you can place the file to a mounted dir. Example of such a file:

STORE_TYPE=JKS
FILE_PATH=/path-to/keystore.jks
STORE_PASSWORD=mypassword
KEY_PASSWORD=mypassword

If you do everything right, the server launch log will contain something like WebSocket SSL is enabled: /path-to/properties.file. If it logs WebSocket SSL is disabled instead, something is wrong. Maybe the env variable can’t be found or there is an exception parsing the properties file (it will be logged).
After that, enable it on the client-side by adding the wss query parameter like this: https://localhost:8080/?wss. Make sure that your browser trusts the certificate you use.

Q: Can I assign a connection password?
A: Yes, you can set a password that will be validated on connection start on the server. There are two variants of access: full (read/write) when you can control UI via mouse and keyboard and read-only when you can only watch.
On the server-side, provide the ORG_JETBRAINS_PROJECTOR_SERVER_HANDSHAKE_TOKEN environment variable containing the password for full access and the ORG_JETBRAINS_PROJECTOR_SERVER_RO_HANDSHAKE_TOKEN environment variable for read-only access. On the client-side, you can specify the password in query parameters like this: http://localhost:8080/?token=mySecretPassword. If you don’t set passwords, by default they are equal to null. If rw and ro passwords are the same, the server gives full access to clients with a correct password.

Q: I’ve mounted the home dir in Docker container and it seems that I can’t edit files, there are exceptions about permissions and missing files. What to do?
A: It can happen when the owner of the directory on the host is root. So you should recreate the directory on the host yourself with normal user permissions.

License

Apache 2.0.