For installing docker on windows home edition , there are two options if I don't want to run virtual machine.
Which is better :
installing docker desktop ?
installing using wsl2 ?
I'm not going to answer which one is better but instead present some points you should consider before choosing one. However, if you're using Windows Home Edition, I'm afraid your choice is to either:
upgrade to Windows Pro and install Docker with the original Windows backend
install WSL2, then install Docker with the WSL2 backend
This is mentioned on the Docker website. Instructions for Windows Home/WSL2 here and for Windows Pro/Non-WSL2 here.
Bind mount performance
If you care about bind-mounts, where you share a directory between the host OS filesystem (Windows) and the container filesystem (usually Linux), you'll want to compare performance between these two options.
If you want faster bind-mount performance on WSL2, you should mount shared files in the Linux filesystem (the part of your system dedicated to WSL2) for mounting. So you'd want to use \\wsl$\Ubuntu-18.04\home\<user name>\Project instead of C:\Users\<user name>\Project. Docker has more info about this here and Microsoft has more info here.
Start time
Other points mentioned on the Docker website include that Docker has a faster cold-start time with the WSL2 backend compared to the previous version.
Changing Docker system settings
Using WSL2, you'll also have to modify the WSL2 configuration if you want to reduce the amount of memory Docker can use for example. See details here as referenced from the Docker on WSL2 best practices.
I see no two options, at least in the terms you used stating the questions.
On Windows 10 you install Docker Desktop and this can have WSL2 as backend.
On Windows 10 Home, specifically, you can install Docker Desktop with WSL2 backend.
For reference see "Install Docker Desktop on Windows Home" documentation page where only one option is described, and not two.
Related
I'm currently using a VM hosted on-site by the company I work for. The VM is pretty slow, and we're looking at doing something about it. The choices are to get people off of VMs and onto physical hardware, upgrade our VM host or potentially move to Amazon Workspaces.
One of the challenges we're hitting on our current host is that we're running into problems having nested virtualization to run Docker on our workspaces.
Obviously, if we were to move to physical hardware, we would not have the problem with nested virtualization. If we upgrade our current hardware to be faster/better, we may not solve the underlying issue with nested virtualization.
It would be ideal if Amazon Workspaces supported Windows 10 with Docker for Windows allowing nested virtualization.
Does anybody on here use AWS workspaces with Windows? Do you use Docker?
Any other alternatives(other than AWS workspaces) that can be used to run Docker on Windows VM?
The answer to this is now documented in the Amazon WorkSpaces troubleshooting guide. As of Jan, 2021 Docker is now supported on Linux but not supported on Windows.
Nested virtualization (including the use of Docker) is not supported on Windows WorkSpaces.
Not sure if you're still interested, but we hit the same issue. The Windows image for WorkSpaces is still Windows Server 2016, which does support Docker but only Windows containers unless you're willing to install an out-of-date project to convert. WS 2019 does support it, so whenever Amazon upgrades their images, Docker will be supported on Windows.
For now, we just use Amazon Linux 2 and Docker works.
My question is: If you use Docker tool box (that is required for windows 10 home to run Docker) you are essentially using a virtual machine (vm)?
If you are using a vm already the only reason to use docker from that point is to save on many more multiple instances?
Meaning if you only want 1 extra (guest instance): you can have a vm. Though, with docker (toolbox on windows 10 home) you would have 1 vm and it runs docker?
The only way that is useful is if you want many more instances as in: 1 vm + 1 docker or + 1000 more dockers?
Or am I missing something?
Yes, docker toolbox uses Oracle VirtualBox cause Windows 7, 8, and Windows 10 home cannot use Hyper V. And yes, If you are using a VM already the only reason to use docker from that point is to save on many more multiple instances but it also allows easy backup and deployment. But you are losing a decent amount of memory when running a VM and then even more when you are running docker.
So although Docker CE will tell you your Windows doesn't support Hyper-V, this isn't always the case (if you check in System Info you might have Hyper-V enabled, if you're on an Insider build or many builds on GPU computers after Anniversary update then you probably have Hyper-V on Windows 10 Home). There are a few workarounds until the Docker team addresses this issue.
You could use Docker from inside WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). Microsoft claims WSL accesses everything directly without Hyper-V so this should be theoretically at the same speed. Of course you can't use your GPU at all because of limitations with GPU passthrough on WSL, which you can ask to be resolved here.
You can also use Docker Toolbox as the other answer stated with Virtualbox, but this will be inherently much slower as you're virtualizing a container inside a virtualized container. You should be able to theoretically get GPU support through this, as well as other features e.g. GUI that you wouldn't be able to with WSL.
To answer the "usefulness" portion of the question:
It's also useful if you run code on a server, but need to develop/debug/update it. You want to test it locally, but to make sure the environment in which it executes is the same (to avoid unexpected, environment specific behavior), you use Docker both locally and on the server. In such a case, even though it's slow, I'll spin up a VM on my W10 Home laptop and run Docker in it.
The greatest feature of the Windows 10 Home May 2020 Update is Windows Subsystem for Linus 2. You can docker in it without the need for a complete virtual machine as in Virtual Box.
Install Docker Desktop that it will automatically indentify WSL2.
Docker on Windows appears to be what's coming built into Windows Server 2016? and supports running Windows inside a Docker container and using Windows as a Docker container host. Does this support Linux? I don't think so, I think it only supports running Windows Docker containers. This also appears to be maintained by Microsoft.
Docker for Windows appears to be a separate install created by the Docker team to bring Linux Docker to Windows. So Windows can be the Docker host but all containers are still just normal Linux containers. Does this support Windows containers? I don't think so, I think it only supports running Linux Docker containers. This also appears to be maintained by Docker.
One other interesting note is that Docker Tools for Visual Studio appears to only support Docker Desktop for Windows and not Docker on Windows.
What I'm really looking for are the stated differences bettwen the two, some sort of good comparison. What features are each trying to acheive, where are they similar, where are they different. Will they always be different or will they ever come together?
Docker on Windows is a colloquial way to refer to just the Docker Engine running on Windows. I find it helpful to think of this as a Windows Container Host, so yes Windows containers only. This would be what you would run on a Windows Server 2016 machine. So maybe a better name is Docker for Windows Server which I believe people have used as well. I still prefer a Windows Container Host. Which means it only has the Docker Engine at the end of the day, doesn't even need to have any of the Docker clients (docker CLI, docker-compose, etc).
Docker Desktop for Windows is a product meant for running both Linux and Windows containers on Windows. It's not meant for a production environment, and instead is meant for a desktop/client SKU of Windows, hence the Windows 10 requirement. So you could think of this as Docker for Windows 10. Because DfW can run both container types, there are different configurations that it sets up on your machine:
When using Linux Containers, DfW creates a MobyLinuxVM with Hyper-V inside of which it runs Linux containers, transparently, as if they were running on the Windows 10 host.
When using Windows Containers, DfW installs the same components as Docker on Windows so that you have a Windows Container Host. You have the Windows Docker Engine setup now. This then allows you to run windows containers on a Win 10 client SKU.
Theoretically you could install DfW on Windows Server, I haven't tried so I don't know if this would fail, but why would you want to run Linux containers on a Windows Host in production? In production, you would have Linux Container Hosts that run linux containers and Windows Container Hosts that run windows containers, this would avoid overhead and simplify things.
Just to add on top of Wes's answer on Docker for Windows and few details about the experimental LCOW which is what you are looking for a side by side execution of Windows and Linux containers on the Windows host machine.
Right now there are two ways to run Linux containers with Docker for Windows and Hyper-V:
Run Linux containers in a full Linux VM - this is what Docker
typically does today.
Run Linux containers On Windows (LCOW) with Hyper-V isolation - this is a new option in Docker for Windows.
In the 1st approach, Docker for Windows windows will have docker daemon service on the Windows host machine as well as it will be available on Linux MOBY VM. So basically, you will have 2 different docker hosts. One which is running on your Windows Host Machine, Managing only Windows Containers and other which is running on your Linux Moby VM and Managing only Linux Containers.
It is important to note that, All Linux Containers will share a Single Linux Kernel on Moby VM and All Windows Containers will share Single Windows Kernel on Windows Host Machine.
Things are really getting interesting with the 2nd approach,
Linux containers with Hyper-V isolation run each Linux container in an optimized Linux VM with just enough OS to run containers. Each Linux container has its own kernel and its own VM sandbox. They're also managed by Docker on Windows directly.
The main difference here in this approach is that there is only one docker daemon service is running on Windows Host Machine and managing both Windows and Linux containers.
All Windows Containers will Share Single Windows Kernel while Each Linux Container will have its own Linux Kernel
To understand more in details, please refer
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscontainers/deploy-containers/linux-containers
I am running a game on Windows, and it requires every OS can only run one. And If I want to run more, currently I open vmware and run the game inside. But the problem is it takes too much memory and disk to run a whole another virtual OS. I know docker will reduce this, but it doesn't seem to support Windows.
Am I right? If so, any other solutions?
Docker uses LXC (linux containers) so cannot run a Windows operating system.
You can use docker on Windows using a boot2docker VM, but this is not the same as docker running a Windows operating system (your containers will run unix based operating systems inside the boot2docker VM).
To do what you're after, you'll need to use separate VMs.
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I was reading a nice question about docker - answer has overview of docker implementation details. I was wondering if anything like this is possible to do on Windows platform.
Do Windows alternatives for Docker exist?
Is it theoretically possible to use other (Windows based) components to build it?
Update1:
Slightly related question (sandboxing): Is there a lightweight, programmable Sandbox API for the Windows platform?
Update2::
For info how to install docker on windows (unrelated) - official docs has great instructions how to set up the environment by using boot2docker VM.
You can run docker in a virtual machine.
New Update
Vagrant has now integrated docker support. It can be used as provider or as provisioner. Here are some useful links.
Feature Preview: Docker-Based Development Environments
Vagrant Docs: Docker Provisioner
Vagrant Docs: Docker Provider
Old Update
As seanf pointed out in a comment below, Vagrant support was dropped. Instead they point to boot2docker:
boot2docker is a lightweight Linux distribution based on Tiny Core
Linux made specifically to run Docker containers. It runs completely
from RAM, weighs ~24MB and boots in ~5s (YMMV).
Old answer
The official docker documentation contains a small guide to install docker inside a Vagrant box. Vagrant is a great vm management wrapper. The guide is for Mac/Linux, but you get the idea to do the same in Windows:
http://docs.docker.io/en/latest/installation/vagrant/
This way you can share docker images across multiple systems with different operating systems.
If you're just searching for a way to deploy a pre-packaged set of applications in some sort of container for Windows, with registry and file access being virtualized but without using a full-blown virtual machine image, these (commercial) sandbox-like applications might be worth looking at:
Symantec Workspace Virtualization (get some ready-to-use packages from here)
Evalaze
Cameyo
BoxedApp
Edit: There's a new kid on the block, Spoon supports containers for Windows, and it actually looks very promising.
I have found that at least file system related functionality has Windows (7,8) already in place. One can use VHD files (virtual disks) for handling "images" concept in Docker. These image are used for virtual machine but can be created/attached/used directly by Windows too:
diskpart
DISKPART> create vdisk file=c:\base-image.vhd maximum=200 type=expandable
New image can be layered on top of base image:
DISKPART> create vdisk file=c:\image-2.vhd parent=c:\base-image.vhd
See more information about managing virtual disks.
Unfortunately, process lightweight isolation/sandboxing is probably not possible (at least not simple), although some methods do exists (http://www.sandboxie.com/, Native Client in Google Chrome ...)
Microsoft is working on their own Hyper-V Container that is similar to Docker - Azure also supports the Docker infrastructure.
That aside, it's hard to give precise alternatives but on the Windows side we've had App-V for quite a long time which virtualises and sand-boxes applications so they can be run or streamed without being actually installed on a specific system. I've never meddled with it but it seems to be able to run as a standalone client without any need of the intricate server infrastructure usually involved for anything Microsoft.
From another perspective the disk image format used by Windows (VHD) supports standard differencing so you can easily run many virtual machines from a single read-only OS image where each virtual machine have a tiny write image to handle the differences. These are still fullblown virtual machines though.
I currently don't know of any way to do the same thing on native windows as of right now.
I don't think the windows kernel was built for this sort of thing, so in order for it to be supported Microsoft would have to add the capabilities to the windows kernel. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.
The most common way for people to do something like this is to use a VM in windows that runs a Linux based OS, and running everything inside of that. You could also do the same thing using FreeBSD (Jails), and Solaris (zones), if that is more your cup of tea. But Docker currently doesn't support FreeBSD or Solaris, so you will need to use the native tools for those.
Now you can run docker natively on windows
See http://docs.master.dockerproject.com/installation/windows/
And
http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/04/16/docker-client-for-windows-is-now-available?Ocid=OutgoingPromotion_Social_TW_Azure_20150416_169251868&linkId=13596123
Starting in june 2016, Docker can be run on Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization on Windows 10 hosts. This is now the preferred and "official" way to run Docker on Windows.
https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/windows/
Hyper-V is a Type-1-Hypervisor, meaning docker will run one layer closer to the host hardware and perform significantly faster than boot2docker (which uses VirtualBox, a Type-2-Hypervisor, running inside the host OS).
The performance benefit for docker has a downside too: Enabling Hyper-V will prevent hardware virtualization features for Type-2-Hypervisors, therefore existing VirtualBox images can not be used with VTx, and you might want to consider moving other virtualized OSes to Hyper-V as well.
Windows 7-8.1 hosts can still use boot2docker to run Docker containers, but the main development focus for Docker on Windows is the "new" Hyper-V-Docker.
Hyper-V is only on Windows Pro. Install it for £110.
Or simply install Vagrant, install VirtualBox, install GIT bash, then from your GIT bash terminal.
git clone git#github.com:danday74/vagrant-docker-skelly.git
cd vagrant-docker-skelly
vagrant up # takes approx 5 mins to create VM
vagrant ssh
docker -v
docker-compose -v
The Vagrantfile shows that:
1 - this is a Xenial VM with docker and compose installed on it
2 - Ports mapped from Host to the VM are 9900-9920
3 - The shared folder is shared from host to VM
Tweak this as desired.
I got tired fighting with a maven docker plugin so I figured I would be able to fake it. This is how:
Using boot2docker and the following bat file makes it look like you're running docker natively. Place it on your path.
#set SSH="C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin\ssh.exe"
#set RUN_REMOTE='docker %*'
# %SSH% -o IdentitiesOnly=yes -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o LogLevel=quiet -p 2022 -i %HOMEPATH%/.ssh/id_boot2docker -tt docker#localhost %RUN_REMOTE%
The ssh.exe comes from the msys-git package which is bundled with boot2docker.
I'm pretty sure this solution have quite a few caveats, but it works pretty good for me.
Place this file on your path and bob's yer uncle.