Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@Ara4Sh

Ara4Sh/docker-for-mac.md

Forked from BretFisher/docker-for-mac.md
Created August 3, 2021 07:48
Show Gist options
  • Star 0 You must be signed in to star a gist
  • Fork 0 You must be signed in to fork a gist
  • Save Ara4Sh/3cc63224b8aced2d1330959c313ca2b3 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save Ara4Sh/3cc63224b8aced2d1330959c313ca2b3 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Download ZIP
Getting a Shell in the Docker Desktop Mac VM
Raw
docker-for-mac.md

2021 Update: Easiest option is Justin's repo and image

Just run this from your Mac terminal and it'll drop you in a container with full permissions on the Docker VM. This also works for Docker for Windows for getting in Moby Linux VM (doesn't work for Windows Containers).

docker run -it --rm --privileged --pid=host justincormack/nsenter1

more info: https://github.com/justincormack/nsenter1

Option 1 (hard way): use netcat

nc -U ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/debug-shell.sock

Exit the shell with exit.

Option 2 (easier): Use nsenter in priviledged container

docker run -it --privileged --pid=host debian nsenter -t 1 -m -u -n -i sh

Phil Estes (Docker Maintainer) says:

it’s running a container (using the debian image. nothing special about it other than it apparently has nsenter installed), with pid=host (so you are in the process space of the mini VM running Docker4Mac), and then nsenter says “whatever is pid 1, use that as context, and enter all the namespaces of that, and run a shell there"

Option 3 (easist): run nsenter from a pre-built image. From Justin Cormack (Docker Maintainer)

docker run -it --rm --privileged --pid=host justincormack/nsenter1

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment