How to play sound in a Docker container on Mac OS Yosemite

Question

I'm trying to dockerize a text to speech application for sharing the code with other developers, however the issue I am having right now is the docker container cannot find the sound card on my host machine.

When I try to play a wav file in my docker container

root@3e9ef1e869ea:/# aplay Alesis-Fusion-Acoustic-Bass-C2.wav
ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
ALSA lib conf.c:4259:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:4259:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:4259:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib conf.c:4738:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2239:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
aplay: main:722: audio open error: No such file or directory

I guess that the main problem is docker container is unable reach the sound card on my host.

So far I have

1. I installed alsa-utils and most of the alsa dependencies within my docker container.
2. Added --group-add audio while running the container by specifying docker run --group-add audio -t -i self/debian /bin/bash

I am not sure if this is even possible with docker(I'm not exactly sure of how hardware resources such as sound cards are shared with containers). I'm using a debian container on a Mac OS Yosemite host.

Tying

Would https://mcmap.net/q/47978/-how-to-expose-audio-from-docker-container-to-a-mac/6309 help? – Watermark

For Alsa all you need is: --device /dev/snd. But if you use non-root user inside the container, you have to give it access to audio devices, so put in your Dockerfile: RUN usermod -a -G audio USERNAME. – Merline

On the forum: forums.docker.com/t/how-to-get-sound/36527 – Ronen

Answer 1

It is definitely possible, you need to mount /dev/snd, see how Jess Frazelle launches a Spotify container, from

https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/docker-containers-on-the-desktop/

you will notice

docker run -it \
    -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \ # mount the X11 socket
    -e DISPLAY=unix$DISPLAY \ # pass the display
    --device /dev/snd \ # sound
    --name spotify \
    jess/spotify

or for Chrome, at the end

docker run -it \
    --net host \ # may as well YOLO
    --cpuset-cpus 0 \ # control the cpu
    --memory 512mb \ # max memory it can use
    -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \ # mount the X11 socket
    -e DISPLAY=unix$DISPLAY \ # pass the display
    -v $HOME/Downloads:/root/Downloads \ # optional, but nice
    -v $HOME/.config/google-chrome/:/data \ # if you want to save state
    --device /dev/snd \ # so we have sound
    --name chrome \
    jess/chrome

Mulcahy

Would you know how to get this working on Windows as a host? Specifically, what the SND device alternative is on Windows? – Polonium

Any suggestions how to do the same on windows? – Hyades

Will this work with JACK? Will I need to install any of that audio software (ALSA, pulseaudio or JACK) in the container, or is it sufficient to have them installed in the host machine? – Marniemaro

What is the equivalent of --device /dev/snd on Windows? – Luminiferous

No - this is not possible on WSL at the moment, see here github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/689 – Denicedenie

As for the OP, I am also running MacOS and there is no /dev/snd file on my mac. The docker answer is: docker: Error response from daemon: error gathering device information while adding custom device "/dev/snd": no such file or directory. – Pluvial

There is still no sound when I try to play videos with MPV player. – Jolenejolenta

If you just want to work around this issue, map --device /dev/null:/dev/snd. This won't give you sound, but it will help you get the container running so you at least have visual output. So the first step to a solution is: Map something. – Cotsen

For macOS you can try this, devops.datenkollektiv.de/running-a-docker-soundbox-on-mac.html – Maledict

Dare you try this on kubernetes with Containerd – Nikko