Run Docker using Colima in MacBook

Docker Desktop can be quite resource hungry and full with bloatware, to have a minimal Docker setup, we can use Colima.

Installation

To install Colima, we can use brew:

brew install colima docker docker-compose

Configuring the VM

First we need to create a Virtual Machine (VM) which will run Docker, to initalize it using colima, run this command for M1 chips:

colima start --cpu 4 --memory 5 --disk 60 --vm-type vz --vz-rosetta

Or Intel chips:

colima start --cpu 4 --memory 5 --disk 60

Check status with:

colima status

Change Docker Context

List and switch Docker's context using:

docker context ls
docker context use colima

To make it permanent, add colima context to ~/.zshrc:

echo 'export DOCKER_CONTEXT=colima' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Configure Docker Plugins

Docker Compose can work fine without this step, but I prefer using docker compose instead of docker-compose, in order to do that, run:

mkdir -p ~/.docker/cli-plugins
ln -sfn $(brew --prefix)/opt/docker-compose/bin/docker-compose ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose

Check Compose version:

docker compose version

Manage Colima

colima start
colima stop
colima restart

Make it start automatically upon boot:

brew services start colima

Reference(s):

• Colima - Official Docs