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Installing Docker

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David Anderson edited this page Apr 3, 2025 · 6 revisions

Docker is a system that makes it easy for BOINC projects to run applications on Windows, Mac and Linux computers. It's like VirtualBox but is more efficient and easier to use.

In the future, many BOINC projects will use Docker to package their apps. To run these apps, you'll need to have Docker installed on computers running BOINC.

Eventually we hope to include Docker in the BOINC installer. For now, you need to install it yourself. It's easy, and we strongly encourage you to do it.

Docker itself is a commercial product. Podman is a free open-source drop-in replacement for Docker. We use Podman because it's free and easier to install. But if (on Linux or Mac) you already have Docker installed, BOINC will detect and use it.

Windows

On Windows, Docker needs something called Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Windows 11 has WSL already enabled. On Windows 10 you first need to enable WSL:

  • click in the Windows search bar (lower left corner)
  • click 'Control Panel'
  • click 'Programs and Features'
  • click 'Turn Windows features on or off'
  • check the box for 'Windows Subsystem for Linux'
  • click OK
  • Restart the computer

Install the latest version of WSL: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/releases/download/2.4.13/wsl.2.4.13.0.x64.msi

BOINC provides a WSL 'image' that contains Podman. Download it from https://github.com/BOINC/boinc-buda-runner-wsl and open it.

Open a terminal window (type 'cmd' in the Windows search box). In this window, type

wsl -d boinc-buda-runner

Run the BOINC client. You should see something like

3/25/2025 3:15:16 PM |  | Usable WSL distros:
3/25/2025 3:15:16 PM |  | -   boinc-buda-runner (WSL 2) (default)
3/25/2025 3:15:16 PM |  | -      OS: Alpine Linux (Alpine Linux v3.21)
3/25/2025 3:15:16 PM |  | -      Docker version 5.3.2 (podman)

Linux

To install Podman on Debian/Ubuntu:

apt-get install podman

On Red Hat:

yum install podman

Mac

To install Podman, go to https://github.com/containers/podman/releases. The latest version is at the top.

For Apple Silicon Macs, download podman-installer-macos-arm64.pkg

For Intel Macs, download podman-installer-macos-arm64.pkg

Double-click on the file. At the end of installation it will tell you to run

podman machine init
podman machine start

You can do this (in a terminal window) if you want, but you don't have to; the BOINC client will do it when it starts up.

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