Capturing Logs in Docker Desktop

Docker Desktop runs a Virtual Machine to host Docker containers. Each component within the VM (including the Docker engine itself) runs as a separate isolated container. This extra layer of isolation introduces an interesting new problem: how do we capture all the logs so we can include them in Docker Desktop diagnostic reports? If we do nothing then the logs will be written separately into each individual container which obviously isn’t very useful!

The Docker Desktop VM boots from an ISO which is built using LinuxKit from a list of Docker images together with a list of capabilities and bind mounts. For a minimal example of a LinuxKit VM definition, see https://github.com/linuxkit/linuxkit/blob/master/examples/minimal.yml — more examples and documentation are available in the LinuxKit repository. The LinuxKit VM in Docker Desktop boots in two phases: in the first phase, the init process executes a series of one-shot “on-boot” actions sequentially using runc to isolate them in containers. These actions typically format disks, enable swap, configure sysctl settings and network interfaces. The second phase contains “services” which are started concurrently and run forever as containerd tasks.

The following diagram shows a simplified high-level view of the boot process:

By default Continue reading

Deep Dive Into the New Docker Desktop filesharing Implementation Using FUSE

The latest Edge release of Docker Desktop for Windows 2.1.7.0 has a completely new filesharing system using FUSE instead of Samba. The initial blog post we released presents the performance improvements of this new implementation and explains how to give feedback. Please try it out and let us know what you think. Now, we are going to go into details to give you more insight about the new architecture.

New Architecture

Instead of Samba running over a Hyper-V virtual network, the new system uses a Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) server running over gRPC over Hypervisor sockets.

The following diagram shows the path taken by a single request from a container, for example to read a PHP file:

In step (1) the web-server in the container calls “read” which is a Linux system call handled by the kernel’s Virtual File System (VFS) layer. The VFS is modular and supports many different filesystem implementations. In our case we use Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) which sends the request to a helper process running inside the VM labelled “FUSE client.” This process runs within the same namespace as the Docker engine. The FUSE client can handle some requests locally, but Continue reading

New Filesharing Implementation in Docker Desktop Windows Improves Developer Inner Loop UX

A common developer workflow when using frameworks like Symfony or React is to edit the source code using a Windows IDE while running the app itself in a Docker container. The source is shared between the host and the container with a command like the following:

$ docker run -v C:\Users\me:/code -p 8080:8080 my-symfony-app

This allows the developer to edit the source code, save the changes and immediately see the results in their browser. This is where file sharing performance becomes critical.

The latest Edge release of Docker Desktop for Windows 2.1.7.0 has a completely new filesharing implementation using Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) instead of Samba which:

• uses caching to (for example) reduce page load time in Symfony by up to 60%;
• supports Linux inotify events, triggering automatic recompilation / reload when the source code is changed;
• is independent of how you authenticate to Windows: smartcard, Azure AD are all fine;
• always works irrespective of whether your VPN is connected or disconnected;
• reduces the amount of code running as Administrator.

Your feedback needed!

This improvement is available today in the Edge 2.1.7.0 release and will roll-out to the stable Continue reading