Docker has released the second preview of Docker Desktop for M1 Macs, an application for building and sharing containerized applications and microservices, according to a blog post shared by Docker.
The latest preview offers a bunch of additions including support for Kubernetes. Kubernetes is an open-source “orchestration system” used for automating, managing, and scaling containers. A lot of developers that rely on the system will now be able to take advantage of it in conjunction with Docker Desktop on their M1 Macs.
Here are the feature highlights included in the second preview of Docker Desktop:
- Kubernetes now works (although you might need to reset the cluster in our Troubleshoot menu one time to regenerate the certificates).
- The host.docker.internal and vm.docker.internal DNS entries now resolve.
- We removed hard-coded IP addresses: it now dynamically discovers the IP allocated by macOS.
- osxfs file sharing now works.
- We made a configuration change that should improve disk performance.
- The Restart option in the Docker menu works.
Docker says that ever since the first release, it has streamlined and automated the process of working on releasing new builds. This means that users can expect new previews being issued on a regular basis and “have more confidence that our changes have not broken anything.”
Apart from that, the blog post also notes that Docker acknowledges certain shortcomings users have been facing with the preview build for M1 Macs and offers workarounds:
- Some corporate security or VPN software blocks the connection between the host and the VM, or the VM and the outside world. This can happen even if it doesn’t happen on Intel Macs because we had to switch to a new connection method with Apple’s new virtualization framework. There are some possible workarounds posted by users on our github issue, https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/5208.
- If you are trying to run Intel-based containers on an M1 machine, they can sometimes crash. We are using a piece of software called qemu to emulate Intel chips on M1 but it occasionally fails to run the container. Where possible we recommend sticking to arm64 containers on M1 machines; they will also be faster.
The first preview of Docker Desktop for M1 Mac was launched on December 16, 2020. With the company’s streamlined development process, you should be seeing new preview builds for Docker Desktop for M1 Mac more frequently.
Docker says that it’s also working on fixing HTTP Proxy support as currently, the HTTP Proxy configured on the host is ignored.
You can try out the latest build of Docker desktop—Docker Desktop Preview 3.1.0—by clicking on this link here.
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