CoreOS VM for OS X

CoreOS VM for OS X (coreos-machine) is a Mac Status bar App which works like a wrapper around the corectl command line tool (it makes easier to control xhyve based VMs).

The best use case of this App is to allow to build/test Docker and rkt images localy. You can use included Docker Registry v2 (Go based and compiled for OS X) to store your Docker images and share with Kubernetes Apps for OS X: Kube-solo and Kube-Cluster

How to install CoreOS VM for OS X

Requirements

• OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite or later
• Mac 2010 or later for this to work.

####Download:

• Download CoreOS OSX latest.dmg from the Releases Page

###Install:

Open downloaded dmg file and drag the App e.g. to your Desktop. Start the CoreOS OSX and Initial setup of CoreOS OSX will run.

TL;DR

• App's files are installed to ~/coreos-osx folder
• CoreOS ISO files are stored under ~/.coreos folder
• Docker registry runs on 192.168.64.1:5000 and images are stored under ~/coreos-osx/registry
• Mac user home folder is automaticly mounted to VM: /Users/my_user:/Users/my_user
• OS X docker client is installed to ~/coreos-osx/bin and preset in OS shell to be used from there

The install will do the following:

• All dependent files/folders will be put under coreos-osx folder in the user's home folder e.g /Users/someuser/coreos-osx
• Mac user home folder is automaticly mounted to VM: /Users/my_user can be accessed on VM via the same /Users/my_user, it is very handy for using docker mounted volumes
• User's Mac password will be stored in OS X Keychain, it will be used to pass to sudo command which needs to be used starting the VM, this allows to avoid using sudo for corectl to start a VM.
• ISO images are stored under ~/.coreos/images That allows to share the same images between different corectl based Apps and also speeds up this App VMs reinstall
• user-data file will have Docker Socket for the API enabled
• Will download latest CoreOS ISO image and run corectl to initialise VM with docker 2375 port pre-set for docker OS X client
• Will download and install docker OS X client to ~/coreos-osx/bin/
• A small shell script rkt will be installed to ~/coreos-osx/bin/ which allows to call via ssh remote rkt binary on CoreOS VM
• A small shell script etcdctl will be installed to ~/coreos-osx/bin/ which allows to call via ssh remote etcdctl binary on CoreOS VM
• docker-exec script (docker exec -it $1 bash -c 'export TERM=xterm && bash') will be installed into ~/coreos-osx/bin/ too, which allows to enter container with just a simple command: docker-exec container_name
• Also docker2aci binary will be installed to ~/coreos-osx/bin/, which allows to convert docker images to rkt aci images
• Will install UI for Docker via unit files
• Via assigned static IP (it will be shown in first boot and will survive VM's reboots) you can access any port on CoreOS VM
• user-data file enables docker flag --insecure-registry to access insecure registries.
• Persistent disk data.img will be created and mounted to /data for these mount binds:

/data/var/lib/docker -> /var/lib/docker
/data/var/lib/rkt -> /var/lib/rkt
/data/var/lib/etcd2 -> /var/lib/etcd2
/data/opt/bin -> /opt/bin

How it works

Just start CoreOS OSX application and you will find a small icon with the CoreOS logo in the Status Bar.

• There you can Up, Halt, Reload CoreOS VM
• SSH to core-01 will open VM shell
• Under Up OS Shell will be opened when VM boot finishes up and it will have such environment pre-set:

DOCKER_HOST=tcp://192.168.64.xxx:2375
ETCDCTL_PEERS=http://192.168.64.xxx:2379

Path to `~/coreos-osx/bin` where docker binary, rkt, etcdclt 
and docker-exec shell scripts are stored

• OS Shell opens OS Shell with the same enviroment preset as Up
• Updates/Check for update of docker OS X client will update fleet and docker OS X clients to the same versions as CoreOS VM runs.
• Updates/Fetch latest CoreOS ISO will download the lasted CoreOS ISO file for the currently set release channel.
• UI for Docker will show up all running containers and etc
• You can upload your saved/exported docker images place in ~/coreos-osx/docker_images folder via Upload docker images
• Local Docker Registry v2 (Go based and compiled for OS X) is running on 192.168.64.1:5000, which gets started/stopped on each VM Up/Halt.
• This App has as much automation as possible to make easier to use CoreOS on OS X, e.g. you can change CoreOS release channel and reload VM as root persistant disk for VM will be created and mounted to / so data will survive VM reboots.

Credits

• To António Meireles for his awesome corectl tool to easily control xhyve
• To Michael Steil for the awesome xhyve lightweight OS X virtualization solution
• To Kelsey Hightower for Docker Registry OS X Setup Guide.

Other CoreOS VM based Apps

• Cluster one CoreOS VM App can be found here CoreOS Cluster for OS X.
• Kubernetes Solo Cluster VM App (corectl based) can be found here Kube Solo for OS X.
• Kubernetes Cluster one CoreOS VM App can be found here CoreOS Kubernetes Cluster for OS X .