Legacy desktop solution. Kitematic is a legacy solution, bundled with Docker Toolbox. We recommend updating to Docker Desktop for Mac or Docker Desktop for Windows if your system meets the requirements for one of those applications.

Overview

Clone via HTTPS Clone with Git or checkout with SVN using the repository’s web address. ReQLPro is an open-source GUI for RethinkDB databases - codehangar/reqlpro. ReQLPro is an open-source GUI for RethinkDB databases - codehangar/reqlpro. Skip to content. Features → Code review.

Kitematic is an open source project built to simplify and streamline usingDocker on a Mac or Windows PC. Kitematic automates the Dockerinstallation and setup process and provides an intuitive graphical userinterface (GUI) for running Docker containers. Kitematic integrates withDocker Machine to provision a VirtualBox VMand install the Docker Engine locally on your machine.

Once installed, the Kitematic GUI launches and from the home screen you arepresented with curated images that you can run instantly. You can search for anypublic images on Docker Hub from Kitematic just by typing in the search bar.You can use the GUI to create, run and manage your containers just by clickingon buttons. Kitematic allows you to switch back and forth between the Docker CLIand the GUI. Kitematic also automates advanced features such as managing portsand configuring volumes. You can use Kitematic to change environment variables,stream logs, and single click terminal into your Docker container all from theGUI.

First, if you haven’t yet done so, download and install Kitematic in one of the following ways:

• Choose Kitematic from the Docker Desktop for Mac or Docker Desktop for Windows menu to get started with the Kitematic install.

• Install Docker Toolbox (on older systems that do not meet the requirements of Docker Desktop for Mac or Docker Desktop for Windows).

• Download Kitematic directly from the Kitematic releases page.

Start Kitematic. (On desktop systems, click on the app.)

Log in with your Docker ID

Provide your Docker ID and user name and click LOG IN or click Skip for now to browse Docker Hub as a guest.

Container list

Kitematic lists all running and stopped containers on the left side, underneaththe “New Container” link. Geforce gt 430 drivers.

The container list includes all containers, even those not started by Kitematic,giving you a quick over-view of the state of your Docker daemon.

You can click on any container to view its logs (the output of the main containerprocess), restart, stop or exec sh in that container. See Working with acontainer for more details.

Creating a new container

The “New Container” page lets you search for and select from images on the Docker Hub.When you’ve found the image you want to run, you can click “Create” to pull, create,and run the container.

Working with a container

If you select a non-running container, either stopped, or paused, you can“Restart” or “Stop” the container using the icons. You can also view the entiremain container process’ output logs, and in the Settings section you can makechanges which are used if you “Restart” this container.

By selecting a running container from the left list, you can see some state informationfor your container - either a preview of the HTML output for a container that has a webserver, the main container process’ logs, and any container volumes that have beenconfigured.

The summary page shows different things depending on the image metadata. Ifa known “web” port (see below) is EXPOSED, then Kitematic assumes its a web page,and shows a preview of the site at /. If other ports are exposed, then itshows a list of those ports, and the Docker daemon IP and port they are mappedto. If there are any VOLUMES, then these are shown. At minimum, the summaryscreen shows the main container process’ log output.

The currently detected “web” ports are, 80, 8000, 8080, 3000, 5000,2368, 9200, and 8983.

Viewing container logs

You can view the entire main container process’ log output either by clicking on the “Logs”preview image, or by clicking on the “Logs” tab.

You can then scroll through the logs from the current running container. Note thatif you make changes to the container settings, then the container is restarted,so this resets this log view.

Starting a terminal in a container

The “Terminal” icon at the top of the container summary runs docker container exec -i -t <your container> sh.This allows you to make quick changes, or to debug a problem.

Note: Your exec’ed sh process does not have the same environment settingsas the main container process and its children.Get the environment commands for your shell: docker-machine env default.

Managing Volumes

You can choose to make all of a container’s volumes mapped to directories onon your Mac by clicking on the folders in the “Edit Files” section of thecontainer summary screen.

This allows you to manage files in volumes via the Finder.Kitematic exposes a container’s volume data under ~/Documents/Kitematic/<container's name>/.Quick access to this folder (or directory) is available via the app:

Note: When you “Enable all volumes to edit files in Finder”, the Dockercontainer is stopped, removed and re-created with the new volumesflag.

Changing Volume Directories

Let’s say you have an Nginx webserver running via Kitematic (using thekitematic/hello-world-nginx image on DockerHub). However, you don’t want touse the default directory created for the website_files volume. Instead, youalready have the HTML, Javascript, and CSS for your website under~/workspace/website.

Navigate to the “Settings” tab of the container, and go to the “Volumes”. Thisscreen allows you to set the mappings individually.

Note: When you “Change Folders”, the Dockercontainer is stopped, removed and re-created with the new volumesflag.

Setting the container name

By default, Kitematic sets the container name to the same as the image name (orwith a -<number> if there are more than one.To simplify administration, or when using container linking or volumes, you maywant to rename it.

Note: When you rename the container it is stopped, removed andre-created with the new name (due to the default volumes mapping).

Adding Environment variables

Many images use environment variables to let you customize them. The “General”“Settings” tab allows you to add and modify the environment variables used tostart a container.

The list of environment variables shows any that have been set on the imagemetadata - for example, using the ENV instruction in the Dockerfile.

When you “Save” the changed environment variables, the container isstopped, removed and re-created.

Delete container

On the “General” “Settings” tab, you can delete the container. Clicking “DeleteContainer” also stops the container if necessary.

You can also delete a container by clicking the X icon in the container list.

Kitematic prompts you to confirm that you want to delete.

List the exposed Ports and how to access them

To see the complete list of exposed ports, go to “Settings” then “Ports”. Thispage lists all the container ports exposed, and the IP address and host-onlynetwork port that you can access use to access that container from your macOSsystem.

Docker Command-line Access

You can interact with existing containers in Kitematic or create new containersvia the Docker Command Line Interface (CLI). Any changes you make on the CLI aredirectly reflected in Kitematic.

To open a terminal via Kitematic, just press the whale button at the bottom left, asshown below:

Example: Creating a new Redis container

Start by opening a Docker-CLI ready terminal by clicking the whale button asdescribed above. Once the terminal opens, enter docker run -d -P redis. Thispulls, creates, and runs a new Redis container via the Docker CLI.

Note: If you’re creating containers from the command line, use docker run -dso that Kitematic can re-create the container when settings are changed via theKitematic user interface. Containers started without -d fails to restart.

Now, go back to Kitematic. The Redis container is now visible.

Next Steps

For an example using Kitematic to run a Minecraft server, take a look atthe Minecraft server page.