Enable Linux Containers On Windows Docker

This article walks you through enabling linux containers on windows lcow as of this writing lcow is an experimental feature and is not directly supported by docker or microsoft experimental features are not supported by the docker support sla and should never be used in production scenarios.

Enable linux containers on windows docker.

If you are looking for information about installing docker desktop on windows 10 pro enterprise or education see install docker desktop on windows. From the docker desktop menu you can toggle which daemon linux or windows the docker cli talks to. The first step is to install docker which is required for working with windows containers. Windows subsystem for linux wsl 2 introduces a significant architectural change as it is a full linux kernel built by microsoft allowing linux containers to run natively without emulation.

This is exactly what the linuxkit toolkit was designed for. For more information on windows containers refer to the following documentation. Pairing this with what we ve done in the previous segments should have you prepared to run both windows and linux containers with docker. Select switch to windows containers to use windows containers or select switch to linux containers to use linux containers the default.

You ve successfully run a linux container on top of windows server 2019. Docker provides a standard runtime environment for containers with a common api and command line interface cli. Running docker linux containers on windows requires a minimal linux kernel and userland to host the container processes. To run linux containers in a linux vm follow the instructions in docker s get started guide.

There you have it. This page contains information on installing docker desktop on windows 10 home. As mentioned this is a preview version of docker ee which enables a bunch of new features to run docker in production environments please use docker ee 17 06. Starting with wsl2 docker can run in it s full flow in windows and you can use images built for linux.

Docker has been able to run linux containers on windows desktop since it was first released in 2016 before hyper v isolation or linux containers on windows were available using a linuxkit based virtual machine running on hyper v. For more configuration details see docker engine on windows. Creating secure lean and portable linux subsystems that can provide linux container functionality as a component of a container platform. Docker desktop on windows home is a full version of docker desktop for linux container development.