Noah Thornton
e3c49803a0
- Discussion topic #1336. - This change migrates away from using `UserDefaults`, instead providing a TOML configuration mechanism for user configurable settings. All existing system property settings keys are supported in the new configuration file. However, users will have to migrate any settings they have configured in the `UserDefaults` into TOML for these settings to take effect. - Breaking changes: * `container system property get` is removed in favor of users directly utilizing `container system property list --format toml | jq<>`. * `container system property set` is removed since the TOML configuration is effectively immutable during the lifetime of the `container` daemon. Uses can edit the TOML they have in their home directory, however no changes will take effect until the daemon is restarted via `container system stop && container system start` * `container system property list --format table` is removed as generating tabular format is non-trivial and the new TOML format is intended to be human readable
container
container is a tool that you can use to create and run Linux containers as lightweight virtual machines on your Mac. It's written in Swift, and optimized for Apple silicon.
The tool consumes and produces OCI-compatible container images, so you can pull and run images from any standard container registry. You can push images that you build to those registries as well, and run the images in any other OCI-compatible application.
container uses the Containerization Swift package for low level container, image, and process management.
Get started
Requirements
You need a Mac with Apple silicon to run container. To build it, see the BUILDING document.
container is supported on macOS 26, since it takes advantage of new features and enhancements to virtualization and networking in this release. We do not support older versions of macOS and the container maintainers typically will not address issues that cannot be reproduced on the macOS 26.
Initial install
Download the latest signed installer package for container from the GitHub release page.
To install the tool, double-click the package file and follow the instructions. Enter your administrator password when prompted, to give the installer permission to place the installed files under /usr/local.
Start the system service with:
container system start
Upgrade or downgrade
For both upgrading and downgrading, you can manually download and install the signed installer package by following the steps from initial install or use the update-container.sh script (installed to /usr/local/bin).
If you're upgrading and downgrading, you must stop your existing container:
container system stop
For upgrading to the latest release version, simply run the command below:
/usr/local/bin/update-container.sh
If you're downgrading, you must uninstall your existing container (the -k flag keeps your user data, while -d removes it):
/usr/local/bin/uninstall-container.sh -k
/usr/local/bin/update-container.sh -v 0.3.0
Start the system service with:
container system start
Uninstall
Use the uninstall-container.sh script (installed to /usr/local/bin) to remove container from your system. To remove your user data along with the tool, run:
/usr/local/bin/uninstall-container.sh -d
To retain your user data so that it is available should you reinstall later, run:
/usr/local/bin/uninstall-container.sh -k
Next steps
- Take a guided tour of
containerby building, running, and publishing a simple web server image. - Learn how to use various
containerfeatures. - Read a brief description and technical overview of
container. - Browse the full command reference.
- Build and run
containeron your own development system. - View the project API documentation.
Contributing
Contributions to container are welcomed and encouraged. Please see our main contributing guide for more information.
Project Status
The container project is currently under active development. Its stability, both for consuming the project as a Swift package and the container tool, is only guaranteed within patch versions, such as between 0.1.1 and 0.1.2. Minor version number releases may include breaking changes until we achieve a 1.0.0 release.