https://docs.docker.com/machine/get-started/
Create a machine Open a command shell or terminal window. These command examples shows a Bash shell. For a different shell, such as C Shell, the same commands are the same except where noted. Use docker-machine ls to list available machines. In this example, no machines have been created yet. $ docker-machine ls NAME ACTIVE DRIVER STATE URL SWARM DOCKER ERRORS Create a machine. Run the docker-machine create command, pass the appropriate driver to the --driver flag and provide a machine name. If this is your first machine, name it default as shown in the example. If you already have a “default” machine, choose another name for this new machine. If you are using Toolbox on Mac, Toolbox on older Windows systems without Hyper-V, or Docker Desktop for Mac, use virtualbox as the driver, as shown in this example. (The Docker Machine VirtualBox driver reference is here.) (See prerequisites above to learn more.) On Docker Desktop for Windows systems that support Hyper-V, use the hyperv driver as shown in the Docker Machine Microsoft Hyper-V driver reference and follow the example, which shows how to use an external network switch and provides the flags for the full command. (See prerequisites above to learn more.) $ docker-machine create --driver virtualbox default Running pre-create checks... Creating machine... (staging) Copying /Users/ripley/.docker/machine/cache/boot2docker.iso to /Users/ripley/.docker/machine/machines/default/boot2docker.iso... (staging) Creating VirtualBox VM... (staging) Creating SSH key... (staging) Starting the VM... (staging) Waiting for an IP... Waiting for machine to be running, this may take a few minutes... Machine is running, waiting for SSH to be available... Detecting operating system of created instance... Detecting the provisioner... Provisioning with boot2docker... Copying certs to the local machine directory... Copying certs to the remote machine... Setting Docker configuration on the remote daemon... Checking connection to Docker... Docker is up and running! To see how to connect Docker to this machine, run: docker-machine env default This command downloads a lightweight Linux distribution (boot2docker) with the Docker daemon installed, and creates and starts a VirtualBox VM with Docker running. List available machines again to see your newly minted machine. $ docker-machine ls NAME ACTIVE DRIVER STATE URL SWARM DOCKER ERRORS default * virtualbox Running tcp://192.168.99.187:2376 v1.9.1 Get the environment commands for your new VM. As noted in the output of the docker-machine create command, you need to tell Docker to talk to the new machine. You can do this with the docker-machine env command. $ docker-machine env default export DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY="1" export DOCKER_HOST="tcp://172.16.62.130:2376" export DOCKER_CERT_PATH="/Users/<yourusername>/.docker/machine/machines/default" export DOCKER_MACHINE_NAME="default" # Run this command to configure your shell: # eval "$(docker-machine env default)" Connect your shell to the new machine. $ eval "$(docker-machine env default)" Note: If you are using fish, or a Windows shell such as Powershell/cmd.exe, the above method does not work as described. Instead, see the env command’s documentation to learn how to set the environment variables for your shell. This sets environment variables for the current shell that the Docker client reads which specify the TLS settings. You need to do this each time you open a new shell or restart your machine. (See also, how to unset environment variables in the current shell.) You can now run Docker commands on this host. Run containers and experiment with Machine commands Run a container with docker run to verify your set up. Use docker run to download and run busybox with a simple ‘echo’ command. $ docker run busybox echo hello world Unable to find image 'busybox' locally Pulling repository busybox e72ac664f4f0: Download complete 511136ea3c5a: Download complete df7546f9f060: Download complete e433a6c5b276: Download complete hello world Get the host IP address. Any exposed ports are available on the Docker host’s IP address, which you can get using the docker-machine ip command: $ docker-machine ip default 192.168.99.100 Run a Nginx webserver in a container with the following command: $ docker run -d -p 8000:80 nginx When the image is finished pulling, you can hit the server at port 8000 on the IP address given to you by docker-machine ip. For instance: $ curl $(docker-machine ip default):8000 <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Welcome to nginx!</title> <style> body { 35em; margin: 0 auto; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; } </style> </head> <body> <h1>Welcome to nginx!</h1> <p>If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed and working. Further configuration is required.</p> <p>For online documentation and support, refer to <a href="http://nginx.org/">nginx.org</a>.<br/> Commercial support is available at <a href="http://nginx.com/">nginx.com</a>.</p> <p><em>Thank you for using nginx.</em></p> </body> </html> You can create and manage as many local VMs running Docker as your local resources permit; just run docker-machine create again. All created machines appear in the output of docker-machine ls. Start and stop machines If you are finished using a host for the time being, you can stop it with docker-machine stop and later start it again with docker-machine start. $ docker-machine stop default $ docker-machine start default Operate on machines without specifying the name Some docker-machine commands assume that the given operation should be run on a machine named default (if it exists) if no machine name is specified. Because using a local VM named default is such a common pattern, this allows you to save some typing on the most frequently used Machine commands. For example: $ docker-machine stop Stopping "default".... Machine "default" was stopped. $ docker-machine start Starting "default"... (default) Waiting for an IP... Machine "default" was started. Started machines may have new IP addresses. You may need to re-run the `docker-machine env` command. $ eval $(docker-machine env) $ docker-machine ip 192.168.99.100 Commands that follow this style are: - `docker-machine config` - `docker-machine env` - `docker-machine inspect` - `docker-machine ip` - `docker-machine kill` - `docker-machine provision` - `docker-machine regenerate-certs` - `docker-machine restart` - `docker-machine ssh` - `docker-machine start` - `docker-machine status` - `docker-machine stop` - `docker-machine upgrade` - `docker-machine url` For machines other than default, and commands other than those listed above, you must always specify the name explicitly as an argument. Unset environment variables in the current shell You might want to use the current shell to connect to a different Docker Engine. This would be the case if, for example, you are running Docker Desktop for Mac concurrent with Docker Toolbox and want to talk to two different Docker Engines. In both scenarios, you have the option to switch the environment for the current shell to talk to different Docker engines. Run env|grep DOCKER to check whether DOCKER environment variables are set. $ env | grep DOCKER DOCKER_HOST=tcp://192.168.99.100:2376 DOCKER_MACHINE_NAME=default DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY=1 DOCKER_CERT_PATH=/Users/<your_username>/.docker/machine/machines/default If it returns output (as shown in the example), you can unset the DOCKER environment variables. Use one of two methods to unset DOCKER environment variables in the current shell. Run the unset command on the following DOCKER environment variables. unset DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY unset DOCKER_CERT_PATH unset DOCKER_MACHINE_NAME unset DOCKER_HOST Alternatively, run a shortcut command docker-machine env -u to show the command you need to run to unset all DOCKER variables: $ docker-machine env -u unset DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY unset DOCKER_HOST unset DOCKER_CERT_PATH unset DOCKER_MACHINE_NAME # Run this command to configure your shell: # eval $(docker-machine env -u) Run eval $(docker-machine env -u) to unset all DOCKER variables in the current shell. Now, after running either of the above commands, this command should return no output. $ env | grep DOCKER If you are running Docker Desktop for Mac, you can run Docker commands to talk to the Docker Engine installed with that app. Since Docker Desktop for Windows is incompatible with Toolbox, this scenario isn’t applicable because Docker Desktop for Windows uses the Docker Engine and Docker Machine that come with it.