How to run Binary Ninja in a Docker container?

[zixuWang2022]

I'm attempting to run Binary Ninja in a ​headless Docker container​ (without GUI) to use its ​Python API​ for automation tasks. However, the application fails to start due to Qt/XCB errors (pasted below), likely because the container lacks a display.

While we understand the GUI requires X11 configuration, our primary goal is to ​configure the license​ and use the API in a headless environment. Currently, the crash prevents even license setup.

qt.qpa.xcb: could not connect to display  
qt.qpa.plugin: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found.  
This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.  

Available platform plugins are: wayland-egl, wayland, xcb.  

Aborted (core dumped)

Could you provide some configuration guidance for running it in a Docker container?

[CouleeApps]

If you have a commercial or headless license, you can install it by manually dropping the license.dat file at ~/.binaryninja/license.dat. You can then either use the included scripts/install_api.py script to install the python api in your python interpreter or virtual environment, or set PYTHONPATH to the python folder in the install. We have done this for dogbolt, see here: https://github.com/decompiler-explorer/decompiler-explorer/blob/master/runners/decompiler/Dockerfile#L26-L43

[psifertex]

https://docs.binary.ninja/dev/batch.html#on-disk-license
and
https://docs.binary.ninja/dev/batch.html#in-memory-license

The second was explicitly added for docker instances.

[psifertex]

Also, in the future, please file questions like this as discussion items, not issues.

[zixuWang2022]

Hello, I followed the above suggestion to use core_set_license, and the code is as follows. However, when running it, I encountered the error: RuntimeError: License is not valid. Please supply a valid license.

import binaryninja

file = '/tmp/7ce593afa9ce906315eb57c552e5a0ca.stripped'
binaryninja.core_set_license('''[
    {
        "product": "Binary Ninja Personal",
        "email": "************",
        "serial": "************",
        "created": "************",
        "type": "************",
        "count": 1,
        "data": "************",
        "signature": "************",
        "expiresEpoch": ************,
        "expires": "2026-05-12T14:35:48.912431+00:00"
    }
]''')
binary = binaryninja.load(file)

[xusheng6]

Personal license does not support headless usage. You will need a commercial license for it

[zixuWang2022]

Thank you for your reply.

[xusheng6]

My pleasure! We will be more than happy to generate an invoice for you if you would like to upgrade to commercial. Your existing personal license can be converted to a discount on the price

[zixuWang2022]

I have purchased the commercial version of Binary Ninja, but this issue still persists. 😭😭😭

[zixuWang2022]

Turns out this was caused by my oversight. I need to re-download Binary Ninja's commercial edition to resolve it.