Run Docker on Windows without virtualization

Question

I'd like to know if I can run docker with a windows containers on windows machine without machine virtualization, like it is on Linux.

Because I have my whole environment running on windows machines on azure, and it would be much easier to add docker to my current workflow if docker ran on windows without machine virtualization.

And If not, will it be possible in a near future?

Reata

Answer 1

like it is on Linux.

On Linux, it is "Docker on Linux". If you want to run that docker on Windows, you need a VM: VirtualBox or, with docker 1.12, Hyper-V: see getting started.
But even that "Docker for Windows" is there to create a Linux VM, where Docker on Linux can operate.

And there is a Docker for AWS beta just announced yesterday. Again, that would use a Linux instance. An instance is a virtual server in the AWS cloud.
That would still be for enabling Docker on Linux.

Docker on Windows will be available only on Windows Server 2016 TP5+: see its documentation.
That is the only one which would run actual Windows image as containers.

Bernete

There is a port of docker to Windows that works on Windows 8, 10 and Server 2012 (including r2). Its called Windocks and available at windocks.com . That is a server and will run SQL Server and .Net containers on Windows. – Elbowroom

Answer 2

Seems like now you can actually run linux docker container on windows without any virtualization. Simply use the Windows Subsystem Linux (WSL). But a little bit of manual setup is required (I think it's not too hard). Check these links for more details:

• https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/2291#issuecomment-383698720
• https://medium.com/devopslinks/docker-running-seamlessly-in-windows-subsystem-linux-6ef8412377aa

I just stumbled on that medium article and it is very much worth to be mentioned here. However: I did't try it myself yet.

The second link describes the details. Basically you'll have to do the following within WSL:

1. Make sure to have Windows 10 Version 1803 Build 1734 or higher
2. install a debian like distro to the WSL
3. install and configure docker-ce version 17.09 (much earlier or later versions seem to not work)
4. manually setup a startup task that starts the docker service and cgroupfs after reboot

Haffner

thanks for your response, but you should write these manual steps in here, instead of simply linking to an external site. – Wingspan

oh, sorry if I violated some stackoverflow rule? the thing is: the second link leads to an article that describes all these steps in such detail that I think it is not possible and useful to repost everything here. – Haffner

I’d wait until WSL 2 comes out officially to use a real Linux kernel instead of the emulated one in WSL 1. – Pacemaker

can't understand why medium link leads me to faun-pub site and my AV blocks it as phishing (i tried search same in google and having same problem) – Tankoos