Docker image running a Mac OS X installation

I am using Docker for Mac and wish to create Docker image running a Mac El Capitan with my development env.

I am not finding any resources on this. All I see is Linux installations.

On Linux I saw things as simple as:

FROM sciensa2/docker-java8 RUN apt-get update RUN apt-get install -y wget unzip libgtk2.0-0:amd64 libxtst6 

But what would be the FROM value for OS X to install and run other software?

4 Answers

If you are trying to run Mac OS as the base system in a Docker container, unfortunately there is no way to do it.

Docker container need to use the host machine's Linux Kernel, since Mac OS family is Unix-based operating system, currently Docker cannot simulate a Mac OS in Docker container. Here is a link to explain how container works.

This would be nice, particularly for CI servers:

1. You can run OSX on QEMU (akin to VirtualBox, emulates the kernel).
2. You canrun QEMU from a Docker container. I have done this for ARM dev and it works well.
3. So yes, you can run OSX from Docker, but you have to emulate, use a virtual machine in the container.

If hardware virtualization (KVM) is available on your host, you can now use Docker-OSX to run/emulate macOS on QEMU/KVM via OSX-KVM.

The future is now!

Run Mac OS X in Docker with near-native performance.