carlomt/geant4 repository overview

⁠docker-geant4

⁠Docker container with Geant4 for amd64 and arm64

you can download this container with:

docker pull carlomt/geant4

⁠Geant4 datasets

To keep the size of the Docker images limited, the Geant4 datasets are not installed. They are expect to be found in /opt/geant4/data I suggest you to map a folder in the host to use always the same dataset with the option:

--volume=<GEANT4_DATASETS_PATH>:/opt/geant4/data:ro

If some, or all, are missing it is possible to install the datasets from the docker with:

geant4-config --install-datasets

in this case, if you want to dowload the datasets in a host folder, you must mount the volume without the read-only flag:

--volume=<GEANT4_DATASETS_PATH>:/opt/geant4/data

⁠Geant4 examples

To save space, Geant4 examples have been removed, to download them:

curl https://gitlab.cern.ch/geant4/geant4/-/archive/geant4-`/opt/geant4/bin/geant4-config --version | awk -F '.' '{print $1"."$2}'`-release/geant4-master.tar.gz?path=examples --output examples.tar.gz && tar xf examples.tar.gz --strip-components 1

⁠GUI

the tags ending with -gui have also the graphic enabled, to download the last one:

docker pull carlomt/geant4:latest-gui

to use the GUI you need to allow X11 forwarding with GLX acceleration (to see the geometry)

⁠Linux

Add local connections to X11 access control list:

xhost local:root

I suggest you to use Docker Compose (see later) otherwise, run the docker container mapping /tmp/.X11-unix to the image and the display:

docker run --rm -it -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY  --volume /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix --volume=<GEANT4_DATASETS_PATH>:/opt/geant4/data:ro carlomt/geant4:latest-gui bash

⁠Windows

If you don't have X11 already installed (it should be on the latest versions of Windows 11), download XMing from

https://sourceforge.net/projects/xming/⁠

I suggest you to use Docker Compose (see later), otherwise use the Powershell terminal to launch docker:

docker run --rm -it -e DISPLAY=docker.host.internal:0 --volume=<GEANT4_DATASETS_PATH>:/opt/geant4/data:ro carlomt/geant4:latest-gui bash

⁠Mac

Install XQuartz

https://www.xquartz.org/⁠

start XQuartz:

open -a XQuartz

go to XQuartz->Settings and in the Security panel enable Allow connections from network clients

restart XQuartz:

Check where the XQuartz config file, or domain, is located with:

quartz-wm --help

which should output:

usage: quartz-wm OPTIONS
Aqua window manager for X11.

--version                 Print the version string
--prefs-domain <domain>   Change the domain used for reading preferences
                          (default: org.xquartz.X11

The last line shows the default domain, in this case org.xquartz.X11. Before XQuartz 2.8.0 the default domain was: org.macosforge.xquartz.X11. You can check the default domain with:

defaults read org.xquartz.X11

To have GLX acceleration you must enable it with:

defaults write org.xquartz.X11 enable_iglx -bool true

restart XQuartz again. You can check if GLX is now enabled again with:

defaults read org.xquartz.X11

Finally, you have to allow X11 forwarding to local containers:

xhost +localhost

the latter command has to be executed every time XQuartz is restarted.

I suggest you to use Docker Compose (see later), otherwise you can run the docker container:

docker run --rm -it -e DISPLAY=docker.for.mac.host.internal:0 --volume=<GEANT4_DATASETS_PATH>:/opt/geant4/data:ro carlomt/geant4:latest-gui bash

⁠Compose

To simplify the use of these images we developed a Docker Compose file, to use it donwload it to a folder from

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carlomt/docker-geant4/main/docker-compose.yml⁠

in the same folder, download one of the following files accordingly to your operating system

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carlomt/docker-geant4/main/env_linux⁠

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carlomt/docker-geant4/main/env_windows⁠

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carlomt/docker-geant4/main/env_mac⁠

and rename it .env

run:

docker compose run --rm prepare

it will create the subfolders, download the Geant4 datasets and source code. Once it has finished, you can run the Geant4 container:

docker compose run --rm geant4

or

docker compose run --rm geant4-gui

If you wish to use the GUI you have still

if you want to use the GUI.

The home in the container is mapped to a subfolder called workdir created in the folder where you placed the docker-compose.yml and .env files

Docker Compose should automatically create some subfolders needed if they are not existing, namely: geant4-datasets and workdir. Some version of Docker do not create the directories and gives an error, in case create them by hand:

mkdir geant4-datasets
mkdir workdir

Remember that still you should enable the X11 forwarding every time you reboot (or restart the X11 server)

xhost local:root on linux

xhost local:root on mac