Release 25.05.1

Release 25.05.1

This is a maintenance release.

Updated versions:

• TigerVNC to version 1.15.0
  • only in images based on Debian 12 (Bookworm)
  • avoid using an empty VNC password (environment variable VNC_PW) with this version

Release 25.05 (G3v8)

Release 25.05 (G3v8)

This is the first G3v8 release.
It fixes the badge service problem and brings some improvements in the building pipeline and utilities.
There are also updates and fixes of several [sibling Wiki][sibling-wiki] pages.

The service Badgen.net, which was unreachable for some time already, has been replaced by the service [Shields.io][service-shields-io].

Consequently, all README files of all accetto [Generation 3][dashboard-dockerhub] repositories on the Docker Hub had to be updated.

This is what you need to do in such case:

• Update all project files named readme-append.template

  • Replace the string https://badgen.net/https/gist. by the string https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://gist.

• Use the utility script util-readme.sh from the project folder /util to generate the files scrap-readme.md for each repository.
  The file readme-util-readme-examples.md describes the utility.

• Copy the content of the scrap-readme.md to the description page of the related repository on the Docker Hub.

  Note that you have to process the repositories one-by-one, because the same output file scrap-readme.md is overwritten each time the utility script is executed.

Changes in the building pipeline and utilities

• The updated hook script post_push, which updates the deployment gists on the GitHub, now extracts the badge values ad-hoc from the locally available images. Those can be just built locally or also pulled from the Docker Hub. There is no need to re-build them and to go through the pre_build phase just for updating the deployment gists. This change allows refreshing the gists using the "historical" data extracted from the previously published images.

• The actual gist update is implemented in the supporting hook script util.rc. The addition of up to 3 automatic retries has made the updating more reliable.

Just a reminder: Deployment gists are publicly accessible files on the GitHub, that contain values used for generating the badges for the README files, that are published on the Docker Hub.

The new functionality is available through the updated utility scripts ci-builder.sh, which has got the following new commands:

• list
• pull
• update-gists
• helper-help

The added hook script helper supports the new commands.

The updated utility ci-builder.shcan now accept also the Debian version numbers as the blend values. For example, 12 instead of latest or bookworm, 11 instead of bullseye.

Please check the file readme-ci-builder.md for more description.

The updated hook script cache checks if the shared g3-cache directory, which is defined by the environment variable SHARED_G3_CACHE_PATH, is reachable and writable.
The shared g3-cache update will be skipped otherwise.

Fixes

The hook script pre_build removes the helper images if there will be no build script call.
It's then, when the helper temporary file scrap-demand-stop-building is present.

Release 25.04

Release 25.04

Availability checking of the wget utility has been added.
The utility is used by the cache hook script for downloading of selected packages into the g3-cache folders.
It's generally not available on Windows environments by default.
You can install it or to build on an environment, where the utility is available (e.g. WSL or Linux).

The checking can be skipped by setting the environment variable IGNORE_MISSING_WGET=1.

The selected packages still will be downloaded into a temporary image layer, but not into the project's
.g3-cache folder nor the shared one, defined by the variable SHARED_G3_CACHE_PATH.

Other changes:

• The ci-builder.sh script's command log get errors now lists building errors and also warnings.

Updated components:

• noVNC to version 1.6.0
• websockify to version 0.13.0

Release 25.03 (G3v7)

Release 25.03 (G3v7)

This is the first G3v7 release, bringing an improved building pipeline.

The helper script ci-builder.sh can build final images significantly faster, because the temporary helper images are used as external caches.

Internally, the helper image is built by the pre_build hook script and then used by the build hook script.

The helper image is now deleted by the build hook script and not the pre_build hook script as before.

The Dockerfiles got a new metadata label any.accetto.built-by="docker".

Remarks

If you would build a final image without building also the helper image (e.g. by executing builder.sh latest build), then there could be an error message about trying to remove the non-existing helper image.
You can safely ignore the message.

For example:

### The next line would build the helper image, but it was not executed.
#./build.sh latest pre_build

./build.sh latest build

### then somewhere near the end of the log
Removing helper image
Error response from daemon: No such image: accetto/headless-debian-g3_latest-helper:latest

Release 25.01

Release 25.01

This is a maintenance release.

Updated components:

• noVNC to version 1.5.0
• websockify to version 0.12.0

Remarks about xfce4-about

The version of the currently running Xfce4 can be checked by the utility xfce4-about.
It can be executed from the terminal window or by the start menu item Applications/About Xfce.

However, the utility requires the module libGL.so.1, which is excluded from some images, to keep them smaller.

The module can be added in running containers as follows:

sudo apt-get update
sudo install libgl1

Release 24.09.1

Release 24.09.1

This is a fix release, finishing the changes announced in the previous release.

Changes:

• Default user headless:headless (1000:1000) has been changed to headless:headless (1001:1001).
  • This change has been only done to keep the containers uniform with the ones from the sibling Ubuntu projects.

Release 24.09 (G3v6)

Release 24.09

This is the first G3v6 release. However, it's a maintenance release and the version number has been increased just to keep it synchronized with the sibling project accetto/ubuntu-vnc-xfce-g3. The previous version G3v5 will still be available in this repository as the branch archived-generation-g3v5.

Changes:

• [Sorry, this one change actually comes in the next release.] - Default user headless:headless (1000:1000) has been changed to headless:headless (1001:1001).
  • This change has been only done to keep the containers uniform with the ones from the sibling Ubuntu projects.
• The directive syntax=docker/dockerfile:experimental has been removed from all Dockerfiles.
• The noVNC starting page has been updated in all images.
  • If no noVNC Client is selected, then the Full Client will start automatically in 10 seconds.
• The hook script release_of has been updated with the intention to report more helpful building errors.

Release 24.03 (G3v5)

Release 24.03

This is the first G3v5 release.

Remark: The version numbers G3v2, G3v3 and G3v4 have been skipped, to align the numbering with the sibling project accetto/ubuntu-vnc-xfce-g3.

The updated script set_user_permissions.sh, which is part of Dockerfiles, skips the hidden files and directories now.
It generally should not have any unwanted side effects, but it may make a difference in some scenarios, hence the version increase.

Release 23.12

Release 23.12

This is a maintenance release.

• Updated Dockerfiles
  • file .bashrc is created earlier (stage merge_stage_vnc)
• Updated file example-secrets.rc
  • removed the initialization of the variables FORCE_BUILDING and FORCE_PUBLISHING_BUILDER_REPO (unset means 0)
  • the variables are still used as before, but now they can be set individually for each building/publishing run

Release 23.11

Release 23.11

• Added file $HOME/.bashrc to all images.
  It contains examples of custom aliases

  • ll - just ls -l
  • cls - clears the terminal window
  • ps1 - sets the command prompt text

• Added more 'die-fast' error handling into the building and publishing scripts.
  They exit immediately if the image building or pushing commands fail.