Here’s a diagram of how we’ll use boot2docker: boot2docker is a “lightweight Linux distribution made specifically to run Docker containers.” Spoiler alert: you’re going to run it in a VM on your Mac. We still need to have Linux running somewhere.Įnter boot2docker. It doesn’t have the kernel features required to run Docker containers natively.

Here’s the thing about OS X: it’s not Linux. The laptop is running both the client and the server, thus making it the Docker host. Suppose we want to run containers directly on our Linux laptop. The host can be any machine-your laptop, a server in the Cloud™, etc-but, because Docker uses features only available to Linux, that machine must be running Linux (more specifically, the Linux kernel). The machine running the Docker server is called the Docker host. You will interact with Docker by using the client to send commands to the server. The Docker client is a command line program that communicates with the Docker server using the REST API. It exposes a REST API for remote management. The Docker server is a daemon that does all the heavy lifting: building and downloading images, starting and stopping containers, and the like. How Docker Worksĭocker is a client-server application. Don’t say I never gave you nothing.įirst, let’s talk about how Docker works and why running it on OS X no work so good. Plus, if you decide to dig deeper into Docker on your Mac, you’ll be saved hours of troubleshooting. You’ll get a better understanding of how Docker works in general and on OS X specifically. It’s not meant to be a tutorial on Docker itself, but I encourage you to follow along and type in all the commands. This post is a walkthrough of the issues you’ll face running Docker on OS X and the workarounds to deal with them. This isn’t the book’s fault rather, it speaks to underlying issues with how Docker works on OS X. After a certain point, the book assumes you’re using Linux and skips some of the extra configuration required to make the examples work on OS X. It’s a top notch book and I highly recommend it, but I’ve had some problems running the examples on OS X.

Recently, I’ve been working through The Docker Book. It has the potential to change all aspects of server-side applications, from development and testing to deployment and scaling. You should call your mom.”ĭocker is a program that makes running and managing containers super easy. Even my dad’s like, “what’s Docker? I saw someone twitter about it on the Facebook. Have you heard of Docker? You probably have-everybody’s talking about it.

Install docker on mac os