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Comment by shykes | Hacker News Reader

Just to clarify on the OSX support: obviously we did not magically get Darwin to support linux containers. But we put together the easiest possible way to run Linux containers on a Mac without depending on another machine.

We do this by combining (1) docker in "client mode", which connects to (2) a super-lightweight linux VM using boot2docker.

The details are on http://docs.docker.io/en/latest/installation/mac/

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It is especially important to set DOCKER_HOST=tcp:/// before you run "boot2docker init" -- I forgot to do this initially and things failed mysteriously. I had to "boot2docker delete" and re-init to get things running.

Once I got that ironed out, everything is running very smoothly, and I don't have to ssh into the VM to do things. Nicely done.

My wish for 0.9 is a more streamlined installation process, possibly by simply incorporating these steps into a Homebrew formula.

Note that this is documented in the boot2docker README ;)

I've followed and refollowed those steps on OS X 10.9.1, but this is what happens:

  » docker version
  Client version: 0.8.0
  Go version (client): go1.2
  Git commit (client): cc3a8c8
  2014/02/05 23:10:55 unexpected EOF

Yet the docker server is definitely up:

  docker@boot2docker:~$ docker version
  Client version: 0.8.0
  Go version (client): go1.2
  Git commit (client): cc3a8c8
  Server version: 0.8.0
  Git commit (server): cc3a8c8
  Go version (server): go1.2
  Last stable version: 0.8.0

Tried both `export DOCKER_HOST=tcp://` and `export DOCKER_HOST=localhost` (as per boot2docker README), before re-init.

Which version of boot2docker are you using? Also, which version of VirtualBox?

See also https://github.com/steeve/boot2docker/issues/48 which has some more information about this specific issue.

Hey, thanks for the report! We're tracking that issue on https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/issues/3952 and are working with the boot2docker folks to get a fix out asap.

Thanks! I solved the issue—it was due to CrashPlan using port 4243 (doh!)

https://github.com/steeve/boot2docker/issues/48

I'm having the same issue, though running the commands provided in the GitHub issue at the bottom just results in the Crashplan service not starting... Docker still isn't functional.

Too bad it depends on VirtualBox - had a lot of kernel panics when using it, so I decided to stick with VMware fusion.

Really? When was the last time you tried it? I've been using VirtualBox for years and it's been pretty solid for me.

Are you sure it isn't caused by the mid-2010 macbook video card bug? I had it re-exposed when i upgraded past 10.6 and that laptop now reboots 8 times a day. Mostly from mac mail or when the power drops and it shifts video cards.

FWIW, I had my 2010 mbp motherboard warranty-replaced and the crashes were gone.

Mine started failing a few months outside the replacement period (3 years). I was due for a new work laptop, so I just replaced the machine.

and I'm always told that macs are superior because they "just work," hmm

That's marketing. They have the same number of problems as all other OSes and computers. I have found a higher percentage of Windows users to know where to look for system messages compared to the number of Mac users who know how to look for system messages. Perhaps it is because I have met more Windows users or perhaps they need to look these things up more...? But in any case, you meet more "hardcore" Windows users who know their way around compared to Mac users, perhaps because the end-user expectation of a Mac user is that it "just works" so doesn't need to poke around as much.

Not sure why the downvotes here! It isn't an anti-Apple rant, it's true! My day job involves writing OSX software on a Mac Pro and at home my only machine is a MacBook Pro, where I funnily enough write OSX software!

> That's marketing. They have the same number of problems as all other OSes and computers.

Absolutely not! I have to support my parents using a computer and I bought them a mac mini 6-7 years ago, because they would always get their windows machine in an unusable state where i couldn't even remotely connect to help. Using a mac, they can do the things they need to do with almost no problems: store photos, backup, email, web browse, facetime, ichat. That would be impossibly for them on a windows machine.

I won't use Virtualbox either. Too many problems and I don't need yet another hypervisor when VMware Fusion works fine.

You should be able to install the same iso into a VMware image. You'll need to expose the networking ports, but the information should be in the boot2docker script.

Or even bare metal. Personally, I extract the kernel and initrd and use it directly via PXE.

Is that to say that you.. wait, what are you doing?

I have my router serving up TFTP with the following pxelinux.cfg (and the appropriate vmlinuz64 and initrd.img extracted from the b2d ISO):

  LABEL boot2docker
          MENU LABEL boot2docker v0.5.2
          KERNEL boot2docker/v0.5.2/vmlinuz64
          APPEND initrd=boot2docker/v0.5.2/initrd.img loglevel=3 user=docker

I guess s/he owns a second machine and boots boot2docker over the network (PXE = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot_Execution_Environment ) without installing anything on the second machine.

Note that boot2docker will expose dockerd on the network if booted on VMware Fusion too. So if you boot in it, it works all the same.

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