Run Rviz from remote docker using X11

2

I'm planning to run ROS Rviz in a docker on a remote server, expecting the Rviz GUI to display on my local computer. But I cannot get it done. Any help would be appreciated.

My ROS docker image on the remote server is based on ros-melodic-desktop-full image (According to ROS Using Hardware Acceleration with Docker, ros-melodic-desktop-full already contains nvidia-docker2). Listed below is my Dockerfile:

FROM osrf/ros:melodic-desktop-full

# strace, xterm, mesa-utils are all for debugging X display. Especially, mesa-utils has glxinfo and glxgear
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y xauth strace xterm mesa-utils

# nvidia-container-runtime
ENV NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES \
    ${NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES:-all}
ENV NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES \
    ${NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES:+$NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES,}graphics

# QT_X11_NO_MITSHM is for running X server and X client on different machines.
ENV QT_X11_NO_MITSHM 1

ENTRYPOINT ["/bin/bash"]

And my workflow is from this blog: Running a graphical app in a Docker container, on a remote server. Basically, I use socat as a pipe to connect Unix domain sockat and TCP port 60xx (xx is the current $DISPLAY value). Below is my workflow. I first login the remote server using ssh -X user@address. Then on the server, I execute these commands (docker image name is ros-nvidia-gui:1.0):

DISPLAY_NUMBER=$(echo $DISPLAY | cut -d. -f1 | cut -d: -f2)

socat TCP4:localhost:60${DISPLAY_NUMBER} UNIX-LISTEN:/tmp/.X11-unix/X${DISPLAY_NUMBER} &

export DISPLAY=:$(echo $DISPLAY | cut -d. -f1 | cut -d: -f2)

docker run -it --rm \
    -e DISPLAY=${DISPLAY} \
    -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \
    -v /home/deq/.Xauthority:/root/.Xauthority \
    --hostname $(hostname) \
    -e QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1 \
    -e QT_QPA_PLATFORM='offscreen' \
    --runtime=nvidia \
    --gpus all \
    ros-nvidia-gui:1.0

Then I get into the docker container. When I run roscore & rviz in the container, the following exception is thrown:

root@node3:/# rviz
[ INFO] [1587175060.603895335]: rviz version 1.13.7
[ INFO] [1587175060.603985593]: compiled against Qt version 5.9.5
[ INFO] [1587175060.604014712]: compiled against OGRE version 1.9.0 (Ghadamon)
[ INFO] [1587175060.620394536]: Forcing OpenGl version 0.
[ WARN] [1587175068.907551767]: OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Couldn`t open X display :11 in GLXGLSupport::getXDisplay at /build/ogre-1.9-B6QkmW/ogre-1.9-1.9.0+dfsg1/RenderSystems/GL/src/GLX/OgreGLXGLSupport.cpp (line 832)
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'Ogre::RenderingAPIException'
  what():  OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Couldn`t open X display :11 in GLXGLSupport::getXDisplay at /build/ogre-1.9-B6QkmW/ogre-1.9-1.9.0+dfsg1/RenderSystems/GL/src/GLX/OgreGLXGLSupport.cpp (line 832)
Aborted (core dumped)

It seems something is wrong with the OpenGL library.

So I checked the OpenGL library in the docker. When I run glxgears, the three gears pop out on my local computer. This suggests the whole X11-forwarding-in-docker-on-a-remote-server thing works fine, and the the OpenGL in the docker is also good.

Then I checked glxinfo, and it outputs the following (I only list the lines related to rendering, OpenGL, mesa and omitted others):

name of display: :11
display: :11  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.4

client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI
client glx version string: 1.4

GLX version: 1.4

Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
    Vendor: VMware, Inc. (0xffffffff)
    Device: llvmpipe (LLVM 9.0, 256 bits) (0xffffffff)
    Version: 19.2.8
    Accelerated: no
    Video memory: 257669MB
    Unified memory: no
    Preferred profile: core (0x1)
    Max core profile version: 3.3
    Max compat profile version: 3.1
    Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
    Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.0
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 9.0, 256 bits)
OpenGL core profile version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 19.2.8
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 3.30
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile

OpenGL version string: 3.1 Mesa 19.2.8
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.40
OpenGL context flags: (none)

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.0 Mesa 19.2.8
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.00

In short, the whole workflow seems to be fine, except Rviz. The most confusing thing is why Rviz is "forcing OpenGl version 0". I understand mesa's OpenGL is at odds with nvidia's OpenGL, so I have also tried to purge mesa in the docker container, but Rviz is automatically removed with it. This suggests Rviz only uses mesa's OpenGL? So I also tried to run the docker with only mesa, i.e. deleting the --runtime=nvidia and --gpus all in the docker run command, but the same exception is thrown.

Please offer some kind help to me! My final goal is to run Rviz in docker on a remote server, and display the GUI on my local computer. I need to use the GPU on the remote server to accelerate Rviz, either Mesa OpenGL or Nvidia OpenGL is fine. Thank you!


Edit:

I narrowed the problem down to Ogre. I followed Rviz's exception to the source code of GLXGLSupport::getXDisplay. It seems mXDisplay = XOpenDisplay(displayString); is wrong. Then I searched the manual of XOpenDisplay, and the ":11" display value seems fine. Now I'm really confused.

docker
opengl
nvidia
ros
x11-forwarding
asked on Stack Overflow Apr 18, 2020 by EQ. Dong • edited Apr 19, 2020 by EQ. Dong

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