I am currently trying to understand and learn Docker. I have an app, .exe file, and I would like to run it on either Linux or OSX by creating a Docker. I've searched online but I can't find anything allowing one to do that, and I don't know Docker well enough to try and improvise something. Is this possible? Would I have to use Boot2Docker? Could you please point me in the right direction? Thank you in advance any help is appreciated.
Docker allows you to isolate applications running on a host, it does not provide a different OS to run those applications on (with the exception of a the client products that include a Linux VM since Docker was originally a Linux only tool). If the application runs on Linux, it can typically run inside a container. If the application cannot run on Linux, then it will not run inside a Linux container.
An exe is a windows binary format. This binary format incompatible with Linux (unless you run it inside of an emulator or VM). I'm not aware of any easy way to accomplish your goal. If you want to run this binary, then skip Docker on Linux and install a Windows VM on your host.
As other answers have said, Docker doesn't emulate the entire Windows OS that you would need in order to run an executable 'exe' file. However, there's another tool that may do something similar to what you want: "Wine" app from WineHQ. An abbreviated summary from their site:
Wine is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications
on several operating systems, such as Linux and macOS.
Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual
machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls
on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of
other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows
applications into your desktop.
(I don't work with nor for WineHQ, nor have I actually used it yet. I've only heard of it, and it seems like it might be a solution for running a Windows program inside of a light-weight container.)
Related
(The more I dig this, the more confusing it gets. I have found Windows images available to download, but none of them appears to be the standard desktop OS)
Is there a way to debug my .NET Framework or .NET Core/5/6 desktop application (WinForms, WPF, VSTO) in a Docker container running Windows 10? I'm just trying to setup a playground environment that I could put together quickly and test my code.
For my own notes and any future beginner, here is my current finding:
Docker is not a full-fledged virtual machine like what we get with VirtualBox, VMWare etc. It's more like a process in an isolated environment, called a Container. For example you could create a container that runs an instance of MySQL, or a container that runs an instance of NodeJS. Of course there are images containing Operating System too, such as Ubuntu, Alpine or even Windows, but those images do not contain the full desktop environment; they are just the base OS services.
So answering the question, no, this is not (currently?) possible at least for Windows. People have had success running Ubuntu desktop inside a Docker container, but that is an advanced topic and only works in Linux-based containers. I haven't seen anything like that for Windows.
I've been looking all over the internet to find out how to do this but seem to only get either an example of box86 and winex86 already pre-installed and running apps on them or just winex86 without box86. So what I'm trying to do is get apps like Minecraft/Multimc to run in a docker container in GUI mode through wine and box86. Yes, I know that Minecraft(old) is a java program and can be run on arm Linux but I usually use Multimc which to my knowledge is not, and while yes you "can" install it doesn't work because the 32-bit support is non-existant. I also think that it would be nice to have an easy to use docker container that can run windows x86 on docker hub. Besides those ambitions, I wonder if this would be possible and or even worth it.
If anyone knows how to do this please respond/answer.
I am using cygwin under windows server 2008 to have linux capability (to some degree) and ssh and be able to run apps without using a gui.
On another server that is ubuntu 18.04 I use containers to some how isolate my apps so that when I run an app and it spawns child processes and probabley modifies file descriptors etc (and so now I can not keep track of which processes are running now) I can stop my app and all the mess that it has done, with just stopping the container.
Containers made starting and stopping an app a clean and simple way.
Is there any way to have such thing on windows (without using docker on windows)? by saying this I mean the file and process isolation and not network or other stuff.
Is it possible to only isolate processes so that i can get rid of them with a single command?
Is there any tool for that? particularly for cygwin under windows?
I don't know about other languages but if you're using Python, it has a feature called Virtual Environment and developer can create and run applications in isolated environments. you can learn more about it here.
I myself come to the conclusion that using services and creating a service in windows would be the only way to manage an app without using a container.
I have trouble understanding this concept. I know a little bit about how Docker works and what the benefits are, and while I understand running web servers, databases and development environments in containers, I don't understand the point of running an OS like Ubuntu in Docker.
Can someone explain why you would want to do that and also the benefits of an entire OS in a container?
The OS is essentially the runtime environment required to run your app. If you app is compiled to run on Linux, it relies on Linux libraries (libc, glib, and so on) that must be present in executing environment, regardless of its type. Docker makes no exception to this.
So a Ubuntu application requires a Ubuntu image in order to run correctly.
Note that Docker container does not include nor run an entire OS, but only the minimum set of libraries that allow your app to run. In particular it does never contain or execute a kernel, as it runs under the host kernel.
Docker doesn't have its own OS, it is installed on a machine and this allows it to share host operating system resources. There will be only one OS and all the containers will be using that OS.
Most of the application are meaningless without OS since it is required for IO, hardware calls etc.
Each docker container may have different packages (java, python, jboss etc), applications installed.
My work laptop is running LinuxMint as the base OS, plus Virtualbox to run Windows 7 which is the actual work environment, usually plus an additional Virtualbox VM to run a different Windows installation in which I do my client project work (I have one VM per client, to avoid messing up my main OS).
But I'm wondering if it's feasible and beneficent to switch to using Docker for the client project stuff? That is, I'd like to keep LinuxMint (to preserve my sanity), and keep Windows ('cause I have to use some MS products), but then instead of that series of "client VM's" use Docker containers?
I'm not entirely clear on how containers are useful. Can I, for instance, have a container in which I've installed dotNET and MS SQL; and then another container where I've installed an Azure Powershell; and a third container where I've installed Java and Eclipse -- and then decide which of these "sets" of software is available on the same common base OS (Windows, with VPN and Outlook and Notepad++)?
This post makes me think I'm asking for a solution from the wrong tool?
Or should I perhaps attack the root problem from a different angle, and ask the following over at Workplace.SE: How to work as a consultant without "cluttering up" one's (Windows) OS with more or less temporary installations of all sorts of software necessary for client projects?
AFAIK there is no WindowsOS ready to be run INSIDE a docker container localy, but they are anounced. See www.docker.com/microsoft and msdn windowscontainers
What you can do is run Linux OSs in docker containers within Windows. But in your case you should run the docker engine in your Mint Linux
Not really an answer, more like several comments -- though it's too long to fit within a comment
First of all I would not run Mint, but that's off the question.
Then, it may probably worth to take a look at How is Docker different from a normal virtual machine?.
Also, as you linked, Docker does not aim (at all) to run several programs. Indeed, their policy is Caas: Container as a Service. So basically one program per container. Saying all that, you can probably run wine within container and run one application on each container (over wine).
Have fun!