Docker machine: what is and the main commands

Docker machine allows us to easily deploy an environment from a local machine in any infrastructure service, like AWS, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, etc, through the installation of the driver that you want, environment variables, etc.

With that, we can create a host Docker in any of these platforms, and easily manage those machines from our local machine.

Main commands

CREATE

docker-machine create --driver virtualbox first-host-box

This command, creates a new host docker, with the driver VirtualBox and with the name "first-host-box".

LS

docker-machine ls

Lists all the available hosts in your machine.

ENV

Lists the environment variables that need to be set.

We can easily declare it with:

eval $(docker-machine env first-host-box)

IP

docker-machine ip first-host-box

Lists the ip of the host docker.

SSH

docker-machine ssh first-host-box

With this command, we can access via SSH this host docker and use Linux commands inside it.

INSPECT

docker-machine inspect first-host-box

Shows details of the host docker.

STOP

docker-machine stop first-host-box

Stops the host.

START

docker-machine start first-host-box

Starts the host.

RM

docker-machine rm first-host-box

Removes the host.

Conclusion

With this, the Docker machine promotes great ease of installation and deployment in a cloud environment from its local containers.