Boot2Docker is a lightweight Linux distribution made specifically to run Docker containers. It runs completely from RAM, is a small ~38MB download and boots in ~5s (YMMV).
- Kernel 4.4.64 with AUFS, Docker v17.05.0-ce-rc2 - using libcontainer
- Container persistence via disk automount on
/var/lib/docker
- SSH keys persistence via disk automount
Note: Boot2Docker uses port 2376, the registered IANA Docker TLS port
Boot2Docker is currently designed and tuned for development. Using it for any kind of production workloads at this time is highly discouraged.
Installation should be performed via Docker Toolbox which installs Docker Machine, the Boot2Docker VM, and other necessary tools.
The ISO can be downloaded here.
Boot2Docker is used via Docker Machine
(installed as part of Docker Toolbox) which leverages VirtualBox's VBoxManage
to
initialise, start, stop and delete the VM right from the command line.
If you were using the boot2docker
management tool previously, you have a
pre-existing Docker boot2docker-vm
VM on your local system.
To allow Docker Machine to manage this older VM, you must migrate it,
see Docker Machine documentation for details.
To save and share container images, automate workflows, and more sign-up for a free Docker Hub account.
See Frequently asked questions for more details.
The bootup script output is logged to /boot.log
, so you can see (and
potentially debug) what happens. Note that this is not persistent between boots
because we're logging from before the persistence partition is mounted (and it
may not exist at all).
If you need to customize the options used to start the Docker daemon, you can
do so by adding entries to the /var/lib/boot2docker/profile
file on the
persistent partition inside the Boot2Docker virtual machine. Then restart the
daemon.
The following example will enable core dumps inside containers, but you can specify any other options you may need.
docker-machine ssh default -t sudo vi /var/lib/boot2docker/profile
# Add something like:
# EXTRA_ARGS="--default-ulimit core=-1"
docker-machine restart default
Boot2Docker is essentially a remote Docker engine with a read only filesystem (other than Docker images, containers and volumes). The most scalable and portable way to share disk space between your local desktop and a Docker container is by creating a volume container and then sharing that to where it's needed.
One well tested approach is to use a file sharing container like
svendowideit/samba
:
$ # Make a volume container (only need to do this once)
$ docker run -v /data --name my-data busybox true
$ # Share it using Samba (Windows file sharing)
$ docker run --rm -v /usr/local/bin/docker:/docker -v /var/run/docker.sock:/docker.sock svendowideit/samba my-data
$ # then find out the IP address of your Boot2Docker host
$ docker-machine ip default
192.168.59.103
Connect to the shared folder using Finder (OS X):
Connect to cifs://192.168.59.103/data
Once mounted, will appear as /Volumes/data
Or on Windows, use Explorer to Connect to:
\\192.168.59.103\data
You can then use your data container from any container you like:
$ docker run -it --volumes-from my-data ubuntu
You will find the "data" volume mounted as "/data" in that container. Note that "my-data" is the name of volume container, this is shared via the "network" by the "samba" container that refers to it by name. So, in this example, if you were on OS-X you now have /Volumes/data and /data in container being shared. You can change the paths as needed.
Alternatively, Boot2Docker includes the VirtualBox Guest Additions built in for the express purpose of using VirtualBox folder sharing.
The first of the following share names that exists (if any) will be automatically mounted at the location specified:
Users
share at/Users
/Users
share at/Users
c/Users
share at/c/Users
/c/Users
share at/c/Users
c:/Users
share at/c/Users
If some other path or share is desired, it can be mounted at run time by doing something like:
$ mount -t vboxsf -o uid=1000,gid=50 your-other-share-name /some/mount/location
It is also important to note that in the future, the plan is to have any share
which is created in VirtualBox with the "automount" flag turned on be mounted
during boot at the directory of the share name (ie, a share named home/jsmith
would be automounted at /home/jsmith
).
In case it isn't already clear, the Linux host support here is currently hazy.
You can share your /home
or /home/jsmith
directory as Users
or one of the
other supported automount locations listed above, but note that you will then
need to manually convert your docker run -v /home/...:...
bind-mount host
paths accordingly (ie, docker run -v /Users/...:...
). As noted in the
previous paragraph however, this is likely to change in the future as soon as a
more suitable/scalable solution is found and implemented.
As discussed in the Docker Engine documentation
certificates should be placed at /etc/docker/certs.d/hostname/ca.crt
where hostname
is your Registry server's hostname.
docker-machine scp certfile default:ca.crt
docker-machine ssh default
sudo mv ~/ca.crt /etc/docker/certs.d/hostname/ca.crt
exit
docker-machine restart
Alternatively the older Boot2Docker method can be used and you can add your
Registry server's public certificate (in .pem
or .crt
format) into
the /var/lib/boot2docker/certs/
directory, and Boot2Docker will automatically
load it from the persistence partition at boot.
You may need to add several certificates (as separate .pem
or .crt
files) to this
directory, depending on the CA signing chain used for your certificate.
As of Docker version 1.3.1, if your registry doesn't support HTTPS, you must add it as an insecure registry.
$ docker-machine ssh default "echo $'EXTRA_ARGS=\"--insecure-registry <YOUR INSECURE HOST>\"' | sudo tee -a /var/lib/boot2docker/profile && sudo /etc/init.d/docker restart"
then you should be able to do a docker push/pull.
So sometimes if you are behind a VPN, you'll get an i/o timeout
error.
The current work around is to forward the port in the boot2docker-vm.
If you get an error like the following:
Sending build context to Docker daemon
2014/11/19 13:53:33 Post https://192.168.59.103:2376/v1.15/build?rm=1&t=your-tag: dial tcp 192.168.59.103:2376: i/o timeout
That means you have to forward port 2376
, which can be done like so:
- Open VirtualBox
- Open Settings > Network for your 'default' VM
- Select the adapter that is 'Attached To': 'NAT' and click 'Port Forwarding'.
- Add a new rule:
- Protocol: TCP
- Host IP: 127.0.0.1
- Host Port: 5555
- Guest Port: 2376
- Set
DOCKER_HOST
to 'tcp://127.0.0.1:5555'
$ docker-machine ssh default
Docker Machine auto logs in using the generated SSH key, but if you want to SSH into the machine manually (or you're not using a Docker Machine managed VM), the credentials are:
user: docker
pass: tcuser
Boot2docker uses Tiny Core Linux, which runs from RAM and so does not persist filesystem changes by default.
When you run docker-machine
, the tool auto-creates a disk that
will be automounted and used to persist your docker data in /var/lib/docker
and /var/lib/boot2docker
. This virtual disk will be removed when you run
docker-machine delete default
. It will also persist the SSH keys of the machine.
Changes outside of these directories will be lost after powering down or
restarting the VM - to make permanent modifications see the
FAQ.
If you are not using the Docker Machine management tool, you can create an ext4
or btrfs
formatted partition with the label boot2docker-data
(mkfs.ext4 -L boot2docker-data /dev/sdX5
) to your VM or host, and Boot2Docker will automount
it on /mnt/sdX
and then softlink /mnt/sdX/var/lib/docker
to
/var/lib/docker
.
To 'install' the ISO onto an SD card, USB-Stick or even empty hard disk, you can
use dd if=boot2docker.iso of=/dev/sdX
. This will create the small boot
partition, and install an MBR.
Goto How to build for Documentation on how to build your own Boot2Docker ISOs.
See the workarounds doc for solutions to known issues.