Docker Machine is now in maintenance mode

[shin-]

As has been obvious for some time now, we've slowly stopped implementing or accepting new features for the project. Its desktop usage has mostly been supplanted by our Docker Desktop product. Provisioning on a variety of Cloud providers is overall better achieved using infrakit. Overall, pursuing active development on the project doesn't make sense anymore at this point, which is why we're officially closing the faucet for non-bugfix changes, starting today.

I'm sure many will want to chime in on this, please keep the discussion civil and keep it inside this thread so we can keep things manageable.

[JJayet]

Oh :(

Well this was nice while it lasted :)
Thx everyone for the good work !

[publicarray]

I would ask that you also update the readme.md

[frebib]

If official support for machine is closing, what is the likelihood for continued community-driven support in this repo?

[SvenDowideit]

for those of you needing machine, there is some activity in the https://github.com/machine-drivers organisation, and it may make sense for you to work on, and release from https://github.com/machine-drivers/machine...

[gbraad]

We have already looked into adding patches to this organisation, as they seem to be held from being merged here: #4509 (This is blocking for localized versions of Windows). Best is to move ahead with some form of releases, however for us: minikube and minishift we only need to link against a library.

[justinclift]

@shin- As a thought, the new user "Getting Started" docs still use docker-machine as a central part of the intro.

For people interested in updating the docs, which should they walk people through instead?

• Windows: Seems like Docker Desktop for Windows
• Mac: Seems like Docker Desktop for macOS
• Linux: Keep using the Machine docs?

[efrecon]

I think that this really is a shame. The real power of machine was somewhere between the simplicity of getting things work on one machine using Desktop and the complexity behind infrakit. machine was perfect to fire up a few machines for testing distributed workloads at smaller scale.

[gilbsgilbs]

Hi!

Does somebody have an alternative software for Linux? I don't want to run docker as root on my host machine and docker-machine was giving some isolation in this respect. Is there any plan for Docker for Linux?

Thanks!

[shin-]

@gilbsgilbs You can still use docker-machine as you currently do!

[gilbsgilbs]

@shin- Thanks for your suggestion. I'm starting a new project, so using docker-machine for it would be a weird move, wouldn't it?

[justinclift]

@shin- Weelll... being closed to PR's kind of means using it for new projects is probably a bad idea. 😉

[shin-]

@justinclift I don't want to get into too much detail because we've got more info coming in a prepared statement, but as I tried to state in the original post, the project is not closed to PRs; we're simply looking to limit those to bugfixes as opposed to new features. If the featureset of the current iteration of docker-machine fits your needs, there is no reason to abandon it, even for new projects.

[Vanuan]

It looks like infrakit is not active either. There were no releases for more than a year, no update on DockerCon 2018, no user documentation similar to https://docs.docker.com/machine/

Docker machine documentation suggests to try Docker Cloud which in turn is shutting down in favor of Docker EE (which is not generally available)

It all encourages to either fork the project or look elsewhere: https://landscape.cncf.io/grouping=landscape&landscape=infrastructure-automation&sort=first-commit

Not complaining, just describing my perspective.

[justinclift]

Interesting. Looking at the commit history for InfraKit, although it does receive new commits every few days, it mostly appears to be a one-man effort.

Activity seems to have dried up around April/May. Guessing people's time was redirected to other stuff.

Is that an incorrect way of looking at things?

[gbraad]

@shin- but many of the PRs (like bugfixes I provide to make internationalization on Hyper-V working) have not been taken for merge. This is not a good indication of "we're simply looking to limit those to bugfixes as opposed to new features" in light of "there is no reason to abandon it, even for new projects".

[shofetim]

@shin-

I don't want to get into too much detail because we've got more info coming in a prepared statement

Could you link to that official statement (whenever it is published?) I can't find it.

[aliceminotto]

I strongly recommend changing the docs so that they are up to date.
My last hour was a senseless exploration of boot2docker, which clearly points to docker machine, which has a warning on its main page advising to use docker cloud as an up to date technology. This points to the Docker cloud doc description (not the migration page!!!!), which required me some googling to find out it was discontinued in May (but announced in March, so 7 months ago). Now came here to suggest removing the warning from the docker machine doc, I find out in this 3 months old issue docker machine is also being discontinued.
This is just not how documentation should work. I'll revert back to some ad hoc solution, but I'd abandon docker if I wasn't already using it.

[BretFisher]

@aliceminotto It would help us all update outdated doc's if you could point to the sites or pages you're talking about.

docker-machine isn't going away, it's just not increasing the scope of features.

Docker Cloud isn't going away, it's just no longer used for server provisioning/management. It's still there for image building. Docker has other tooling for production servers like Docker for AWS, Docker for Azure, and DCI for Docker Enterprise.

[tianon]

I had forgotten entirely about the old http://boot2docker.io website and didn't realize the notice there was worded so poorly (apologies for any confusion that contributed to!) -- I've now updated (and slimmed down) that content to hopefully clarify better that boot2docker the ancient CLI tool is what was deprecated in favor of Docker Machine and that boot2docker the distribution is not deprecated but is rather in maintenance mode (same as Docker Machine).

To put that another way: new Docker releases, kernel updates, etc, but concerted attempts to keep new features/functionality to an absolute minimum to ensure continued maintainability for the few folks who can't yet transition to the better-suited Docker for Windows / Docker for Mac products or the production server tooling / solutions referenced above (Windows 7 users who can't Docker for Windows at all, Windows 10 Home users who thus can't Hyper-V, VirtualBox users who thus can't Hyper-V, etc etc).

[afbjorklund]

@tianon : you might also want to mention Linux users who don't want to transition to Mac or Windows...

[Vanuan]

@afbjorklund Why do you need boot2docker if you're already using Linux?

[AkihiroSuda]

I still believe a tool should exist (made by the community or by docker) that'd provision DOCKER_HOST etc. and simply use SSH key. It would be easier than "scp" and "ssh".

Just do export DOCKER_HOST=ssh://[email protected]

[ivanistheone]

Note if you have ssh login disabled for root user, you can use a non-root user user via
export DOCKER_HOST=ssh://[email protected] after you add the user to the docker group using sudo usermod -aG docker user. (tested on Ubuntu 18.04)

[galantonp]

Any alternative for playing around with multi-node Docker Swarm on Windows ? The swarm tutorial states that currently this is not possible on Windows without Docker Machine:

Currently, you cannot use Docker Desktop for Mac or Docker Desktop for Windows alone to test a multi-node swarm. However, you can use the included version of Docker Machine to create the swarm nodes (see Get started with Docker Machine and a local VM), then follow the tutorial for all multi-node features.

[BretFisher]

I use https://multipass.run/ to quickly make multiple Ubuntu VM's. Just as fast as docker-machine. See a demo for how I use it for a 3-node Swarm: https://www.pscp.tv/BretFisher/1mrGmQvNEWBGy?t=

[sneak]

Its desktop usage has mostly been supplanted by our Docker Desktop product.

Note to everyone in this thread: Docker Desktop is not free software, is not open source, and has a ton of spyware embedded in it, so you might want to think twice about following that upgrade path.

[ivanistheone]

In case this might be helpful for someone, here is a script to install docker on a remote host (tested on Debian 10 = buster):
https://github.com/minireference/sample-book/blob/master/fabfile.py#L213-L252

It's based on the server automation framework called Fabric (specifically fab-classic github and docs]. Even if you don't want to use Fabric, you can easily read the commands and run manually turn into a bash script, since nothing fancy.

After that, run export DOCKER_HOST=ssh://[email protected] and it's back to the way things were when using docker machine.

[BretFisher]

Note to everyone in this thread: Docker Desktop is not free software, is not open source, and has a ton of spyware embedded in it, so you might want to think twice about following that upgrade path.

@sneak "ton of spyware" are you referring to the Preferences setting "send usage statistics" which says it "Send error reports, system version and language as well as Docker Desktop lifecycle information (e.g., starts, stops, resets).", which can be turned off?

[sneak]

I’m not interested in spending time discussing proprietary, closed-source spyware further.

[alexandernst]

low quality troll

[sneak]

Trolling requires subterfuge. I'm being sincere, and my statements are accurate:

• docker desktop is proprietary

• docker desktop is closed source software

• docker desktop spies on its users without obtaining consent to do so (as does docker machine)

From these above points, a reasonable person might thus conclude that Docker-the-company doesn't care about software freedoms, user privacy, or user consent to surveillance.

I’m on GitHub and other sites like it to work on free software and open source, and nonfree projects like docker desktop are simply a distraction from working on free software that benefits everyone; I have no wish to divert my time or attention to such things.

It would do you well to address the issues directly rather than resorting to personal attacks. Muting this thread now, have a nice day.

[efrecon]

In case this might be helpful for someone, here is a script to install docker on a remote host (tested on Debian 10 = buster):
https://github.com/minireference/sample-book/blob/master/fabfile.py#L213-L252

It's based on the server automation framework called Fabric (specifically fab-classic github and docs]. Even if you don't want to use Fabric, you can easily read the commands and run manually turn into a bash script, since nothing fancy.

After that, run export DOCKER_HOST=ssh://[email protected] and it's back to the way things were when using docker machine.

@ivanistheone NO it's not. docker-machine is (was?) great because it also implements all the APIs at various Cloud providers to create machines at the CLI in a uniform way. Of course, there is gcloud, az, etc. but each of them have different options and semantics. docker-machine is one CLI to all of them. It makes working with hybrid clouds a tad bit easier...

[bersace]

Note that GitLab maintains a fork for GitLab CI purpose.

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/ci-cd/docker-machine