Docker Performance on Mac M1

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Developing on a Mac M1? You might find that Docker is slow as crap !

I'll explore different speed improvements in this thread.

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I'm running a Macbook Air M1 with 8 Cores, 8GB Ram. Currently, it takes ~10 seconds to run nile (with no parameters, just spit out a list of commands).

First set of optimizations (from this post):

1. Manually set number of CPU cores to 8 (from 4)
2. Manually set memory to 6GB (from 4gb), leaving 2gb for other applications
3. Bumped swap file to 2GB (from 1gb)
4. Enabled 'Use the new Virtualization Framework'
5. Enabled 'VirtioFS accelerated directory sharing'

Next step for me is to try reducing the number of shared directories mounted which I've read reduces reliance on disk writes.

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After the above optimizations, I see little to no performance improvement :\

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Looks like I might need to run the docker container within a Ubuntu vm (which seems crazy !).

Here's a benchmark from someone else going through this process:

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@ponderingdemocritus is it possible for me to use a local ARM64 version of the container? Whereas the rest of the devs will use x86 (amd64) architecture?

I'm assuming this is possible with some local workarounds on my end but just wanted to check if there's a good reason for me not to go down that route.

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@ponderingdemocritus separate question for you. Outside of environment variables being setup for me, are there any other advantages to using the docker container vs just manually setting things up on my end? Currently it takes >10 minutes to run nile compile so this is a big bottleneck for me.

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Looks like we'll need to have multiple architectures available in our images if we want to build arm-compatible builds. Going to try following this guide: https://www.docker.com/blog/multi-arch-images/

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Here are the steps to run a docker instance using UTM on OSX. I personally found the linux / osx switch very challenging (lots of buggy hotkeys, issues running certain os features during virtualization) and abandoned after a few hours.

1. Install UTM
2. Download arm64 build of ubuntu server (21.10): https://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/21.10/ubuntu-21.10-beta-live-server-arm64.iso
3. Create a new instance in UTM using the arm64 image
4. Select 'Create manually' (vs using Linux)
5. Click 'edit' on the VM
6. Select 'System' tab
7. Architecture: ARM64 (aarch64)
8. System: QEMU6.0
9. Select 'Drives' tab
10. Click 'Add Drive' select Interface: 'VirtIO' Size: 30gb
11. Click 'Add Drive' select Removable drive Image Type: CD/DVD (ISO) Image Interface UsB
12. Click 'Save'
13. Boot the image
14. Run / install all updates
15. Install spice tools for clipboard sharing + shared drive: sudo apt install spice-vdagent spice-webdavd

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After some experimentation, I'm running the following:

1. Setup Ubuntu via UTM (see above post)
2. Setup ssh on remote host
3. Install Docker rootless (run as user) on remote host: https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/rootless/
4. vscode: Connect to shh host: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh#_installation
5. vscode: Connect to remote docker container when prompted

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Resize the disk drive on your UTM VM if it grows too large: https://linux.afnom.net/install_apple/m1.html

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This fails if you're running server so the following commands were required:

growpart /dev/sda 3
sudo vgdisplay
sudo lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv
sudo resize2fs /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv