Docker for Mac (Docker Desktop) Docker for Mac requires that you’re running Mojave 10.14+ or newer with an Intel CPU. M1 support is on its way. You can run VirtualBox 6+ alongside Docker Desktop. This is pretty useful because you might have some legacy apps running in Vagrant / VirtualBox to deal with (I know I do!).
- In my situation, I changed my data location of my docker engine to some folder /some/folder, and today I just changed it back to /var/lib/docker. Then did a docker system prune to remove all the volumes, overlays, images etc. After a reload of docker-daemon, and a restart of docker-engine. This problem happened.
- The fastest and easiest way to get started with Docker on Windows.
One of Docker’s goals has always been to provide the best experience working with containers from a Desktop environment, with an experience as close to native as possible whether you are working on Windows, Mac or Linux. We spend a lot of time working with the software stacks provided by Microsoft and Apple to achieve this. As part of this work, we have been closely monitoring Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) since it was introduced in 2016, to see how we could leverage it for our products.
The original WSL was an impressive effort to emulate a Linux Kernel on top of Windows, but there are such foundational differences between Windows and Linux that some things were impossible to implement with the same behavior as on native Linux, and this meant that it was impossible to run the Docker Engine and Kubernetes directly inside WSL. Instead, Docker Desktop developed an alternative solution using Hyper-V VMs and LinuxKit to achieve the seamless integration our users expect and love today.
Microsoft has just announced WSL 2 with a major architecture change: instead of using emulation, they are actually providing a real Linux Kernel running inside a lightweight VM. This approach is architecturally very close to what we do with LinuxKit and Hyper-V today, with the additional benefit that it is more lightweight and more tightly integrated with Windows than Docker can provide alone. The Docker daemon runs well on it with great performance, and the time it takes from a cold boot to have dockerd running in WSL 2 is around 2 seconds on our developer machines. We are very excited about this technology, and we are happy to announce that we are working on a new version of Docker Desktop leveraging WSL 2, with a public preview in July. It will make the Docker experience for developing with containers even greater, unlock new capabilities, and because WSL 2 works on Windows 10 Home edition, so will Docker Desktop.
As part of our shared effort to make Docker Desktop the best way to use Docker on Windows, Microsoft gave us early builds of WSL 2 so that we could evaluate the technology, see how it fits with our product, and share feedback about what is missing or broken. We started prototyping different approaches and we are now ready to share a little bit about what is coming in the next few months.
We will replace the Hyper-V VM we currently use by a WSL 2 integration package. This package will provide the same features as the current Docker Desktop VM: Kubernetes 1-click setup, automatic updates, transparent HTTP proxy configuration, access to the daemon from Windows, transparent bind mounts of Windows files, and more.
This integration package will contain both the server side components required to run Docker and Kubernetes, as well as the CLI tools used to interact with those components within WSL. We will then be able to introduce a new feature with Docker Desktop: Linux workspaces.
Linux Workspaces
When using Docker Desktop today, the VM running the daemon is completely opaque: you can interact with the Docker and Kubernetes API from Windows, but you can’t run anything within the VM except Docker containers or Kubernetes Pods.
With WSL 2 integration, you will still experience the same seamless integration with Windows, but Linux programs running inside WSL will also be able to do the same. This has a huge impact for developers working on projects targeting a Linux environment, or with a build process tailored for Linux. No need for maintaining both Linux and Windows build scripts anymore! As an example, a developer at Docker can now work on the Linux Docker daemon on Windows, using the same set of tools and scripts as a developer on a Linux machine:
A developer working on the Docker Daemon using Docker Desktop technical preview, WSL 2 and VS Code remote
Also, bind mounts from WSL will support inotify events and have nearly identical I/O performance as on a native Linux machine, which will solve one of the major Docker Desktop pain points with I/O-heavy toolchains. NodeJS, PHP and other web development tools will benefit greatly from this feature.
Combined with Visual Studio Code “Remote to WSL”, Docker Desktop Linux workspaces will make it possible to run a full Linux toolchain for building containers on your local machine, from your IDE running on Windows.
Performance
With WSL 2, Microsoft put a huge amount of effort into performance and resource allocations: The VM is setup to use dynamic memory allocation, and can schedule work on all the Host CPUs, while consuming as little (or as much) memory it requires – within the limits of what the host can provide, and in a collaborative manner towards win32 processes running on the host.
Docker Desktop will leverage this to greatly improve its resource consumption. It will use as little or as much CPU and memory as it needs, and CPU/Memory intensive tasks such as building a container will run much faster than today.
In addition, the time to start a WSL 2 distribution and the Docker daemon after a cold start is blazingly fast – within 2s on our development laptops, compared to tens of seconds in the current version of Docker Desktop. This opens the door to battery-life optimizations by deferring the daemon startup to the first API call, and automatically stop the daemon when it is not running any container.
Zero-configuration bind mount support
One of the major issues users have today with Docker Desktop – especially in an enterprise environment – is the reliability of Windows file bind mounts. The current implementation relies on Samba Windows service, which may be deactivated, blocked by enterprise GPOs, blocked by 3rd party firewalls etc. Docker Desktop with WSL 2 will solve this whole category of issues by leveraging WSL features for implementing bind mounts of Windows files. It will provide an “it just works” experience, out of the box.
Thanks to our collaboration with Microsoft, we are already hard at work on implementing our vision. We have written core functionalities to deploy an integration package, run the daemon and expose it to Windows processes, with support for bind mounts and port forwarding.
A technical preview of Docker Desktop for WSL 2 will be available for download in July. It will run side by side with the current version of Docker Desktop, so you can continue to work safely on your existing projects. If you are running the latest Windows Insider build, you will be able to experience this first hand. In the coming months, we will add more features until the WSL 2 architecture is used in Docker Desktop for everyone running a compatible version of Windows.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
You can run Compose on macOS, Windows, and 64-bit Linux.
Prerequisites
Docker Compose relies on Docker Engine for any meaningful work, so make sure youhave Docker Engine installed either locally or remote, depending on your setup.
On desktop systems like Docker Desktop for Mac and Windows, Docker Compose isincluded as part of those desktop installs.
On Linux systems, first install theDocker Enginefor your OS as described on the Get Docker page, then come back here forinstructions on installing Compose onLinux systems.
To run Compose as a non-root user, see Manage Docker as a non-root user.
Install Compose
Follow the instructions below to install Compose on Mac, Windows, Windows Server2016, or Linux systems, or find out about alternatives like using the pipPython package manager or installing Compose as a container.
Install a different version
The instructions below outline installation of the current stable release(v1.28.6) of Compose. To install a different version ofCompose, replace the given release number with the one that you want. Composereleases are also listed and available for direct download on theCompose repository release page on GitHub.To install a pre-release of Compose, refer to the install pre-release buildssection.
Install Compose on macOS
Docker Desktop for Mac includes Compose alongwith other Docker apps, so Mac users do not need to install Compose separately.For installation instructions, see Install Docker Desktop on Mac.
Install Compose on Windows desktop systems
Docker Desktop for Windows includes Composealong with other Docker apps, so most Windows users do not need toinstall Compose separately. For install instructions, see Install Docker Desktop on Windows.
If you are running the Docker daemon and client directly on MicrosoftWindows Server, follow the instructions in the Windows Server tab.
Install Compose on Windows Server
Follow these instructions if you are running the Docker daemon and client directlyon Microsoft Windows Server and want to install Docker Compose.
Start an “elevated” PowerShell (run it as administrator).Search for PowerShell, right-click, and chooseRun as administrator. When asked if you want to allow this appto make changes to your device, click Yes.
In PowerShell, since GitHub now requires TLS1.2, run the following:
Then run the following command to download the current stable release ofCompose (v1.28.6):
Start Docker Daemon Mac Brew
Note: On Windows Server 2019, you can add the Compose executable to $Env:ProgramFilesDocker. Because this directory is registered in the system PATH, you can run the docker-compose --version command on the subsequent step with no additional configuration.
Test the installation.
Install Compose on Linux systems
On Linux, you can download the Docker Compose binary from theCompose repository release page on GitHub.Follow the instructions from the link, which involve running the curl commandin your terminal to download the binaries. These step-by-step instructions arealso included below.
For alpine, the following dependency packages are needed:py-pip, python3-dev, libffi-dev, openssl-dev, gcc, libc-dev, rust, cargo and make.
Run this command to download the current stable release of Docker Compose:
To install a different version of Compose, substitute
1.28.6with the version of Compose you want to use.If you have problems installing with
curl, seeAlternative Install Options tab above.Apply executable permissions to the binary:
Note: If the command docker-compose fails after installation, check your path.You can also create a symbolic link to /usr/bin or any other directory in your path.
For example:
How To Start Docker Daemon On Mac
Optionally, install command completion for the
bashandzshshell.Test the installation.
Alternative install options
Install using pip
For alpine, the following dependency packages are needed:py-pip, python3-dev, libffi-dev, openssl-dev, gcc, libc-dev, rust, cargo, and make.
Compose can be installed frompypi using pip. If you installusing pip, we recommend that you use avirtualenv because many operatingsystems have python system packages that conflict with docker-composedependencies. See the virtualenvtutorial to getstarted.
If you are not using virtualenv,
pip version 6.0 or greater is required.
Install as a container
Compose can also be run inside a container, from a small bash script wrapper. Toinstall compose as a container run this command:
Install pre-release builds
If you’re interested in trying out a pre-release build, you can download releasecandidates from the Compose repository release page on GitHub.Follow the instructions from the link, which involves running the curl commandin your terminal to download the binaries.
Pre-releases built from the “master” branch are also available for download athttps://dl.bintray.com/docker-compose/master/.
Pre-release builds allow you to try out new features before they are released,but may be less stable.
Upgrading
If you’re upgrading from Compose 1.2 or earlier, remove ormigrate your existing containers after upgrading Compose. This is because, as ofversion 1.3, Compose uses Docker labels to keep track of containers, and yourcontainers need to be recreated to add the labels.
If Compose detects containers that were created without labels, it refusesto run, so that you don’t end up with two sets of them. If you want to keep usingyour existing containers (for example, because they have data volumes you wantto preserve), you can use Compose 1.5.x to migrate them with the followingcommand:
Alternatively, if you’re not worried about keeping them, you can remove them.Compose just creates new ones.
Uninstallation
To uninstall Docker Compose if you installed using curl:
To uninstall Docker Compose if you installed using pip:
Got a “Permission denied” error?
Run Docker Daemon Mac Terminal
If you get a “Permission denied” error using either of the abovemethods, you probably do not have the proper permissions to removedocker-compose. To force the removal, prepend sudo to either of the abovecommands and run again.
Where to go next
compose, orchestration, install, installation, docker, documentation