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Get started with Linux containers on MSL

Get started with Linux containers on MSL

Docker Engine runs inside an MSL distribution like it does on any Linux machine. There’s no separate Docker VM: containers run in the distribution, and their published ports answer on localhost on macOS. This guide sets up Docker Engine in Ubuntu.

Prerequisites

Check that systemd is running:

$ ps -p 1 -o comm=
systemd

Install Docker Engine

Install Ubuntu’s docker.io package:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install docker.io
$ sudo usermod -aG docker $USER      # run docker without sudo

Close the shell and open a new one with msl so the group change applies. Then check that the service is running:

$ systemctl is-active docker
active
$ docker run --rm hello-world
Hello from Docker!
…

Reach a container from macOS

Publish a container port as usual. MSL forwards it to localhost on macOS, like any other port a distribution listens on:

$ docker run -d --name web -p 8080:80 nginx:alpine

Open http://localhost:8080 in a browser on macOS. See Networking considerations for how forwarding works and what happens when macOS already uses the port.

Keep containers running

A distribution stops 15 seconds after its last msl session ends: the last shell, msl -e command or VS Code window. Running containers and services don’t keep it running, so closing your last terminal stops your containers too.

To keep containers running, either keep a terminal or VS Code window open, or turn off the idle stop in ~/.mslconfig on macOS:

[general]
instanceIdleTimeout = -1

Run msl --shutdown for the change to apply. With the idle stop off, the VM keeps its memory until you run msl --shutdown, because memory goes back to macOS only when the VM stops. See Advanced settings configuration.

The docker.io package enables the Docker service, so Docker starts with the distribution. To start containers with it too, give them a restart policy (docker run --restart unless-stopped …).

Images and architecture

MSL runs arm64 Linux, so use images that include linux/arm64, as most official images on Docker Hub do. MSL doesn’t support x86_64 (linux/amd64) Linux yet (#40).

Images and containers are stored in the distribution, on its own disk. docker system prune frees space in the disk; to hand that space back to macOS, see Manage disk space.

Use Docker from VS Code

Open the distribution in VS Code with the MSL extension (Get started using VS Code with MSL). Docker commands in VS Code’s terminal run against the distribution’s Docker Engine.

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