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.
- 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
$ brew update
$ brew install boot2docker
$ curl https://raw.github.com/steeve/boot2docker/master/boot2docker > boot2docker
$ chmod +x boot2docker
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.
$ boot2docker init
$ boot2docker up
In order to use this features refer to this workarounds
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
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.
$ boot2docker ssh
boot2docker auto logs in, but if you want to SSH into the machine, the credentials are:
user: docker
pass: tcuser
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 ISO's.
Grab the latest iso version from here: https://github.com/steeve/boot2docker/releases and overwrite the old one.
$ brew update && brew upgrade docker
$ ./boot2docker stop; ./boot2docker start