docker-cli/components/engine/docs/sources/installation/mac.md

page_title: Installation on Mac OS X page_description: Instructions for installing Docker on OS X using boot2docker. page_keywords: Docker, Docker documentation, requirements, boot2docker, VirtualBox, SSH, Linux, OSX, OS X, Mac

Installing Docker on Mac OS X

Note: Docker is supported on Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" or newer.

The Docker Engine uses Linux-specific kernel features, so we run it on OS X using a lightweight virtual machine. You can use the OS X Docker client to control the virtualized engine to build, run and manage Docker containers.

To make this process easier we designed a helper application called Boot2Docker to install the virtual machine and run the Docker daemon.

Demonstration

Installation

1. Download the latest release of the Docker for OSX Installer

2. Run the installer, which will install VirtualBox and the Boot2Docker management tool.

3. Run the Boot2Docker app in the Applications folder:

   Or to initiate Boot2Docker manually, open a terminal and run:

     $ boot2docker init
     $ boot2docker start
     $ export DOCKER_HOST=tcp://$(boot2docker ip 2>/dev/null):2375
   

   The boot2docker init command will ask you to enter an SSH key passphrase - the simplest (but least secure) is to just hit [Enter]. This passphrase is used by the boot2docker ssh command.

Once you have an initialized virtual machine, you can boot2docker stop and boot2docker start it.

Upgrading

1. Download the latest release of the Docker for OSX Installer

2. Run the installer, which will update VirtualBox and the Boot2Docker management tool.

3. To upgrade your existing virtual machine, open a terminal and run:

    $ boot2docker stop
    $ boot2docker download
    $ boot2docker start
   

Running Docker

From your terminal, you can try the “hello world” example. Run:

$ docker run ubuntu echo hello world

This will download the ubuntu image and print hello world.

Container port redirection

The latest version of boot2docker sets up two network adapters: one using NAT to allow the VM to download images and files from the Internet, and one host only network adapter to which the container's ports will be exposed on.

If you run a container with an exposed port:

$ docker run --rm -i -t -p 80:80 apache

Then you should be able to access that Apache server using the IP address reported to you using:

$ boot2docker ssh ip addr show dev eth1

Typically, it is 192.168.59.103, but at this point it can change.

If you want to share container ports with other computers on your LAN, you will need to set up NAT adaptor based port forwarding

Further details

The Boot2Docker management tool provides some commands:

$ ./boot2docker
Usage: ./boot2docker [<options>]
{help|init|up|ssh|save|down|poweroff|reset|restart|config|status|info|delete|download|version}

Continue with the User Guide.

For further information or to report issues, please see the Boot2Docker site.