Apple M1 Tech Preview

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Welcome to the tech preview of Docker Desktop for Apple M1. This tech preview is aimed at early adopters of Apple M1 machines, who would like to try an experimental build of Docker Desktop.

Note

Docker Desktop on Apple M1 chip is still under development. We recommend that you do not use tech preview builds in production environments.

Docker Desktop preview 3.1.0

2021-02-11

Click the following link to download the Apple M1 tech preview build:

Download

Known issues

The tech preview of Docker Desktop for Apple M1 currently has the following limitations:

  • The tech preview build does not update automatically. You must manually install any future versions of Docker Desktop.
  • You must install Rosetta 2 as some binaries are still Darwin/AMD64. To install Rosetta 2 manually from the command line, use this command:

      softwareupdate --install-rosetta
    
  • The HTTP proxy is not enabled.

  • Not all images are available for ARM64 architecture. You can add --platform linux/amd64 to run an Intel image under emulation. In particular, the mysql image is not available for ARM64. You can work around this issue by using a mariadb image.

    However, attempts to run Intel-based containers on Apple M1 machines can crash as QEMU sometimes fails to run the container. Therefore, we recommend that you run ARM64 containers on M1 machines. These containers are also faster and use less memory than Intel-based containers.

  • Some VPN clients can prevent the VM running Docker from communicating with the host, preventing Docker Desktop starting correctly. See docker/for-mac#5208.

  • Docker Desktop is incompatible with macOS Internet Sharing. See docker/for-mac#5348.

  • The kernel may panic. If so, look in ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/vms/0/console.log for a BUG or kernel panic to report.

Fixes since the Apple Silicon preview 7

Docker Desktop preview 3.1.0 (60984)

2021-02-11

  • Kubernetes now works (although you might need to reset the cluster in our Troubleshoot menu one time to regenerate the certificates).
  • osxfs file sharing works.
  • The host.docker.internal and vm.docker.internal DNS entries now resolve.
  • Removed hard-coded IP addresses: Docker Desktop now dynamically discovers the IP allocated by macOS.
  • The updated version includes a change that should improve disk performance.
  • The Restart option in the Docker menu works.

Feedback

Thank you for trying out the Docker Desktop for Apple M1 tech preview. Your feedback is important to us. Let us know your feedback by creating an issue in the Docker Desktop for Mac GitHub repository.

We also recommend that you join the Docker Community Slack and ask questions in #docker-desktop-mac channel.

For more information about the tech preview, see our blog post Download and Try the Tech Preview of Docker Desktop for M1.

Docker Desktop, M1, Silicon, Apple, tech preview, dev preview