WARNING: Work in Progress, may not work as advertised. Contributions welcome.

sameersbn/skypeforlinux:0.0.3

• Introduction
  • Contributing
  • Issues
• Getting started
  • Installation
  • How it works
  • Limitations
• Maintenance
  • Upgrading
  • Uninstallation
  • Shell Access

Introduction

Dockerfile to create a Docker container image with Skype for Linux (alpha) with support for audio/video calls.

The image uses X11 and Pulseaudio unix domain sockets on the host to enable audio/video support in Skype. These components are available out of the box on pretty much any modern linux distribution.

Contributing

If you find this image useful here's how you can help:

• Send a pull request with your awesome features and bug fixes
• Help users resolve their issues.
• Support the development of this image with a donation

Issues

Before reporting your issue please try updating Docker to the latest version and check if it resolves the issue. Refer to the Docker installation guide for instructions.

SELinux users should try disabling SELinux using the command setenforce 0 to see if it resolves the issue.

If the above recommendations do not help then report your issue along with the following information:

• Output of the docker version and docker info commands
• The docker run command or docker-compose.yml used to start the image. Mask out the sensitive bits.
• Please state if you are using Boot2Docker, VirtualBox, etc.

Getting started

Installation

Automated builds of the image are available on Dockerhub and is the recommended method of installation.

Note: Builds are also available on Quay.io

docker pull sameersbn/skypeforlinux:0.0.3

Alternatively you can build the image yourself.

docker build -t sameersbn/skypeforlinux github.com/sameersbn/docker-skypeforlinux

With the image locally available, install the wrapper scripts using:

docker run -it --rm \
  --volume /usr/local/bin:/target \
  sameersbn/skypeforlinux:0.0.3 install

This will install a wrapper script to launch skypeforlinux.

Note

If Skype is installed on the the host then the host binary is launched instead of starting a Docker container. To force the launch of Skype in a container use the skypeforlinux-wrapper script. For example, skypeforlinux-wrapper skypeforlinux will launch Skype inside a Docker container regardless of whether it is installed on the host or not.

How it works

The wrapper scripts volume mount the X11 and pulseaudio sockets in the launcher container. The X11 socket allows for the user interface display on the host, while the pulseaudio socket allows for the audio output to be rendered on the host.

When the image is launched the following directories are mounted as volumes

• ${HOME}/.config/skypeforlinux
• XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR or if it is missing ${HOME}/Downloads

This makes sure that your profile details are stored on the host and files received via Skype are available on your host in the appropriate download directory.

Limitations

• Minimize to system tray does not work.

Maintenance

Upgrading

To upgrade to newer releases:

1. Download the updated Docker image:

docker pull sameersbn/skypeforlinux:0.0.3

2. Run install to make sure the host scripts are updated.

docker run -it --rm \
  --volume /usr/local/bin:/target \
  sameersbn/skypeforlinux:0.0.3 install

Uninstallation

docker run -it --rm \
  --volume /usr/local/bin:/target \
  sameersbn/skypeforlinux:0.0.3 uninstall

Shell Access

For debugging and maintenance purposes you may want access the containers shell. If you are using Docker version 1.3.0 or higher you can access a running containers shell by starting bash using docker exec:

docker exec -it skypeforlinux bash