Oracle VirtualBox
Estimated reading time: 5 minutesCreate machines locally using VirtualBox. This driver requires VirtualBox 5+ to be installed on your host. Using VirtualBox 4.3+ should work but emits a warning. Older versions do not work.
Usage
$ docker-machine create --driver=virtualbox vbox-test
You can create an entirely new machine or you can convert a Boot2Docker VM into a machine by importing the VM. To convert a Boot2Docker VM, you’d use the following command:
$ docker-machine create -d virtualbox --virtualbox-import-boot2docker-vm boot2docker-vm b2d
The size of the VM’s disk can be configured this way:
$ docker-machine create -d virtualbox --virtualbox-disk-size "100000" large
Options
--virtualbox-boot2docker-url
: The URL of the boot2docker image. Defaults to the latest available version.--virtualbox-cpu-count
: Number of CPUs to use to create the VM. Defaults to single CPU.--virtualbox-disk-size
: Size of disk for the host in MB.--virtualbox-host-dns-resolver
: Use the host DNS resolver. (Boolean value, defaults to false)--virtualbox-hostonly-cidr
: The CIDR of the host only adapter.--virtualbox-hostonly-nicpromisc
: Host Only Network Adapter Promiscuous Mode. Possible options are deny , allow-vms, allow-all--virtualbox-hostonly-nictype
: Host Only Network Adapter Type. Possible values are ‘82540EM’ (Intel PRO/1000), ‘Am79C973’ (PCnet-FAST III), and ‘virtio’ Paravirtualized network adapter.--virtualbox-hostonly-no-dhcp
: Disable the Host Only DHCP Server--virtualbox-import-boot2docker-vm
: The name of a Boot2Docker VM to import.--virtualbox-memory
: Size of memory for the host in MB.--virtualbox-nat-nictype
: Specify the NAT Network Adapter Type. Possible values are ‘82540EM’ (Intel PRO/1000), ‘Am79C973’ (PCnet-FAST III) and ‘virtio’ Paravirtualized network adapter.--virtualbox-no-dns-proxy
: Disable proxying all DNS requests to the host (Boolean value, default to false)--virtualbox-no-share
: Disable the mount of your home directory--virtualbox-no-vtx-check
: Disable checking for the availability of hardware virtualization before the vm is started--virtualbox-share-folder
: Mount the specified directory instead of the default home location.-
--virtualbox-ui-type
: Specify the UI Type: (guisdl headless separate)
The --virtualbox-boot2docker-url
flag takes a few different forms. By
default, if no value is specified for this flag, Machine checks locally for
a boot2docker ISO. If one is found, it is used as the ISO for the
created machine. If one is not found, the latest ISO release available on
boot2docker/boot2docker is
downloaded and stored locally for future use. Therefore, you must run
docker-machine upgrade
deliberately on a machine if you wish to update the “cached”
boot2docker ISO.
This is the default behavior (when --virtualbox-boot2docker-url=""
), but the
option also supports specifying ISOs by the http://
and file://
protocols.
file://
looks at the path specified locally to locate the ISO: for
instance, you could specify --virtualbox-boot2docker-url
file://$HOME/Downloads/rc.iso
to test out a release candidate ISO that you have
downloaded already. You could also just get an ISO straight from the Internet
using the http://
form.
To customize the host only adapter, you can use the --virtualbox-hostonly-cidr
flag. This specifies the host IP and Machine calculates the VirtualBox
DHCP server address (a random IP on the subnet between .1
and .25
) so
it does not clash with the specified host IP.
Machine specifies the DHCP lower bound to .100
and the upper bound
to .254
. For example, a specified CIDR of 192.168.24.1/24
would have a
DHCP server between 192.168.24.2-25
, a lower bound of 192.168.24.100
and
upper bound of 192.168.24.254
.
With the flag --virtualbox-share-folder
, you can specify which folder the host
shares with the created machine. The format is local-folder:machine-folder
.
For example, \\?\C:\docker-share:\home\users\
. if you specify the flag with the
docker-toolbox using docker-machine from a Windows cmd, it looks like
C:\docker-share\\:/home/users
. The :
sign needs to be escaped.
Environment variables and default values
CLI option | Environment variable | Default |
---|---|---|
--virtualbox-boot2docker-url |
VIRTUALBOX_BOOT2DOCKER_URL |
Latest boot2docker url |
--virtualbox-cpu-count |
VIRTUALBOX_CPU_COUNT |
1 |
--virtualbox-disk-size |
VIRTUALBOX_DISK_SIZE |
20000 |
--virtualbox-host-dns-resolver |
VIRTUALBOX_HOST_DNS_RESOLVER |
false |
--virtualbox-hostonly-cidr |
VIRTUALBOX_HOSTONLY_CIDR |
192.168.99.1/24 |
--virtualbox-hostonly-nicpromisc |
VIRTUALBOX_HOSTONLY_NIC_PROMISC |
deny |
--virtualbox-hostonly-nictype |
VIRTUALBOX_HOSTONLY_NIC_TYPE |
82540EM |
--virtualbox-hostonly-no-dhcp |
VIRTUALBOX_HOSTONLY_NO_DHCP |
false |
--virtualbox-import-boot2docker-vm |
VIRTUALBOX_BOOT2DOCKER_IMPORT_VM |
boot2docker-vm |
--virtualbox-memory |
VIRTUALBOX_MEMORY_SIZE |
1024 |
--virtualbox-nat-nictype |
VIRTUALBOX_NAT_NICTYPE |
82540EM |
--virtualbox-no-dns-proxy |
VIRTUALBOX_NO_DNS_PROXY |
false |
--virtualbox-no-share |
VIRTUALBOX_NO_SHARE |
false |
--virtualbox-no-vtx-check |
VIRTUALBOX_NO_VTX_CHECK |
false |
--virtualbox-share-folder |
VIRTUALBOX_SHARE_FOLDER |
- |
--virtualbox-ui-type |
VIRTUALBOX_UI_TYPE |
headless |
Known Issues
Vboxfs suffers from a longstanding bug causing sendfile(2) to serve cached file contents.
This causes problems when using a web server such as Nginx to serve static files from a shared volume. For development environments, a good workaround is to disable sendfile in your server configuration.