Here’s how to install Docker Machine for running integration tests. The default driver for Docker Machine is VirtualBox, which means it creates a virtual machine with VirtualBox and the necessary configuration for your docker CLI commands and API calls to correctly talk to Docker running in that VM. And indeed, the official legacy Docker distribution on Windows, Docker Toolbox, was Docker Machine based.ĭocker Machine was recently deprecated, but what it did and still does is create Docker virtual machine hosts and configures the Docker client to talk to them, while handling the nitty-gritty details of key management for the TLS connection for you. It’s a product by Docker, Inc., which bundles a number of components that should satisfy most of your needs for running containers on desktop machines:īefore Docker Desktop got all good and shiny, there was another project making it possible to run Docker on Windows and macOS – Docker Machine. Docker Desktopĭocker Desktop is a Docker distribution that includes a GUI and tight integration into the host OS and is available for Windows and macOS. All of the options that we reviewed exist for Windows as well, and the experience will be similar / the same.

We haven’t tested these options on Apple’s new M1-based laptops, as its ARM nature prevents running certain images no matter what is used to run the Docker daemon. The tests were executed on an Intel chip based macOS. For this research we used the Testcontainers core tests which rely on a wide range of the Docker APIs. Indeed if the tests pass you can assume the runtime provides and behaves in a way the application expects it to.

However, if you can successfully run a body of tests for the application level software (something that uses the runtime), you can claim compatibility with a reasonably high degree of confidence. It’s not trivial to test compatibility of runtimes and other low-level systems. In this article we look at what options you have for the container runtime to run integration tests with Testcontainers, provide some guidance on how to setup them, and outline the current state of their compatibility.

Docker on mac without docker desktop