boot2docker

boot2docker is a lightweight Linux distribution based on Tiny Core Linux made specifically to run Docker containers. It runs completely from RAM, weighs ~27MB and boots in ~5s (YMMV). The ISO can be download here.

See Frequently asked questions for more details.

Features

• Kernel 3.12.1 with AUFS, Docker 0.8.0, LXC 0.8.0
• Container persistence via disk automount on /var/lib/docker
• SSH keys persistence via disk automount

Installation

OSX

$ brew update
$ brew install boot2docker

Linux/Unix (works also on OSX)

$ curl https://raw.github.com/boot2docker/boot2docker/master/boot2docker > boot2docker
$ chmod +x boot2docker

How to use

boot2docker comes with a simple init script that leverage's VirtualBox's VBoxManage. You can start, stop and delete the VM right from the command line.

Initialize

$ boot2docker init

Start vm

$ boot2docker up

Advanced usage

Port forwarding / folder sharing

In order to use this features refer to this workarounds

Customize

You can customise the values of VM_NAME, DOCKER_PORT, SSH_HOST_PORT, VM_DISK, VM_DISK_SIZE, VM_MEM and BOOT2DOCKER_ISO by setting them in $HOME/.boot2docker/profile

Persist data

If you want your containers to persist across reboots, attach an ext4 formatted disk with the label boot2docker-data (mkfs.ext4 -L boot2docker-data /dev/sdX5) to your VM, and boot2docker will automount it on /mnt/sdX and then softlink /mnt/sdX/var/lib/docker to /var/lib/docker. It will also persist the SSH keys of the machine.

SSH into VM

$ boot2docker ssh

boot2docker auto logs in, but if you want to SSH into the machine, the credentials are:

user: docker
pass: tcuser

Install on any device

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.

Build your own boot2docker.iso

Goto How to build for Documentation on how to build your own boot2docker ISO's.