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Cristian Ariza edited this page Jan 2, 2022 · 81 revisions

Introduction

Dockie is root file system manager with an interface similar to Docker's. It uses PRoot in the background. It does not require any root privileges and allows you to create, manage and destroy environments easily. Dockie allows downloading images either from the Docker Hub. You can get an Arch Linux environment and enter it with just:

$ dockie run archlinux:current /bin/bash -l

The main use cases for Dockie are:

  • build packages from source without polluting your environment
  • use packages not available for your distro
  • checkout other distros from the command line point of view
  • test things on a clean environment
  • try software for a different architecture without using a VM

Installation

There are two installation methods:

  • AppImage: the recommended installation method if you have
    • a 64 bit processor (which you are most likely) and
    • glibc (in contrast with, for example, musl).

It embeds PRoot inside the image. If the AppImage does not work for you or you already have PRoot, it's probably better if you use the method below.

  • Standalone Dockie: if you are using Android, a 32-bit processor or any other obscure device/OS, or you don't want to embed PRoot inside Dockie.

AppImage (only x86_64)

Grab the latest AppImage from the releases page.

Open a terminal and from your Downloads directory give the AppImage executable rights:

$ cd Downloads
$ chmod a+x ./dockie-x86_64.AppImage

Then, if you have root privileges:

$ sudo cp ./dockie-x86_64.AppImage /usr/local/bin/dockie

or, if you don't have root privileges and $HOME/bin is inside your PATH variable:

$ cp ./dockie-x86_64.AppImage "$HOME/bin/dockie"

or use it directly with

$ ./dockie-x86_64.AppImage

Man page

If you want to have the man page available, you can do it with

# curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cristianrz/dockie/master/dockie.1 \
    >/usr/local/share/man/man1/dockie.1

Build AppImage from source

$ git clone https://github.com/cristianrz/dockie.git
$ cd dockie
$ sh build.sh

Now you can

# cp ./dockie-x86_64.AppImage /usr/local/bin/dockie

or, if you don't have root privileges

$ cp ./dockie-x86_64.AppImage "$HOME/bin/dockie"

or use it directly with

$ ./dockie-x86_64.AppImage

No AppImage

After pulling the Dockie repo, ./src contains all the shell scripts that Dockie uses, if you copy all of these to your PATH you're up and running. In this case you will have to manually download and install PRoot and Graboid.

Usage

Main commands

Get a remote root filesystem containing Alpine Linux set it up and chroot into it with a single command:

$ dockie run --name my_alpine alpine:3.11 /bin/sh -l
(bdf6d5c8bd01) localhost:~#

From the previous command, the target image has two parts, alpine and 3.11. The first is the name of the distro. 3.11 is the tag of the image, if you click on the respective image, you can find the different tags.

Now we are inside alpine, lets print something and leave:

(bdf6d5c8bd01) localhost:~# date
Mon May 11 16:29:23 UTC 2020
(bdf6d5c8bd01) localhost:~# exit
$

You can find what images are available depending on which version of Dockie you are using:

$ dockie search alpine
You can open
	https://hub.docker.com/search?q=alpine&type=image
on your favorite browser

The previous command will point you to the URL from where Dockie is pulling the images. You can check the available images from the browser.

Having said that, let's now get a Void Linux current image without using it for now:

$ dockie run --name my_void voidlinux:current

see what we got so far:

$ dockie ps
ROOTFS ID     IMAGE               CREATED              NAME
10bb67ac8c79  voidlinux:current   2020-05-11 17:30:42  my_void
bdf6d5c8bd01  alpine:3.11         2020-05-11 17:28:16  my_alpine

and now delete them both:

$ dockie rm 10bb67ac8c79
$ dockie rm bdf6d5c8bd01

but the images remain available locally in case you want to use them again:

$ dockie images
REPOSITORY          CREATED               SIZE
alpine:3.11         2020-05-11 17:28:16   7.9MB
voidlinux:current   2020-05-11 17:30:42   230MB

we can also delete them

$ dockie image rm alpine:3.11
$ dockie image rm voidlinux:current

Other commands

Also, other commonly Docker subcommands are available:

Command Description
exec Run a command in a root filesystem
images List images
ls List root filesystems
import Import the contents from a tarball to create an image
pull Pull an image
rm Remove one or more root filesystems
run Run a command in a new root filesystem

For more information on a command:

$ dockie COMMAND

And for more detailed instructions in the Dockie manual:

  • online
  • man dockie if the man page has been installed.

For other questions you can have a look at the FAQ section for other questions.

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