Guacamole Docker On-Demand Manager

A Guacamole Extention, which listens for authentications and provides docker containers on demand.

Abstract

Guacamole Docker Manager derived from the use case to provide container, such as rdesktop, to users on-demand. However, managing containers on the terminalserver is a bit tricky, so that is why we implemented this extension. The sequence diagramm below shows the intended workflow:

sequenceDiagram
  actor User
  User->>+Guacamole: Authenticate
  Guacamole->>Guacamole: Get configuration
	Guacamole->>+Docker Host: Request running containers
  Docker Host-->>-Guacamole: Response running containers
  alt not exists
  Guacamole->>Docker Host: Create container
  end
  Guacamole->>-Docker Host: Connect

Getting Started

cd guacamole-docker-manager
mvn clean compile assembly:single

---
- name: Deploy Docker extension
  hosts: guacamole
  become: true
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: upload jar
      ansible.builtin.copy:
        src: ./guacamole_ext_docker-manager/guacamole-docker-manager/target/guacamole-docker-manager-1.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies-and-exclude-classes.jar
        dest: /etc/guacamole/extensions/guacamole-docker-manager.jar

    - name: Restart Tomcat
      ansible.builtin.service:
        name: tomcat9
        state: restarted

Variables

• docker-extension-image: Docker image that is started during connection (IMPORTANT: The image has to available, an auto-pull feature has not been implemented so far).
• docker-extension-exposed-port: The exposed port of the image. Default: 3389
• docker-extension-cert: Certification path to connect to Docker host, see Docker remote configuration for more information.
• docker-extension-additional-env: Additional environment variables to pass to Docker container, format VAR_NAME=VAR_VALUE,VAR_NAME=VAR_VALUE,...

Connection setup

Each user needs a created connection in Guacamole, so that our extension can provide the container during connection.

• hostname=1.1.1.1
• password=...
• port=....
• username=...

Requirements

• Maven 3.8.6
• Jave 1.8
• Guacamole 1.4.0