Can FreeBSD be run inside Docker?

Question

I have been looking for a Docker image of FreeBSD but cannot find, can FreeBSD be run inside docker? If not, why not?

Solution

Technically yes, but you need a FreeBSD host to do it and Docker is "somewhat unstable" on FreeBSD right now. There is a fork from Docker 1.7 that can technically launch containers, but nothing you would want to use for reals. Jetpack will hopefully be finalized for FreeBSD 11 and will provide a much better solution here.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Docker has info. You can make it work on a fully updated 10.3 but expect lots of weirdness.

Comments

[VonC]

Those ones don't work? (hub.docker.com/search/…)

[Kristen]

The person who submitted an answer says it needs a FreeBSD host

[Kristen]

It is absolutely required that you have a FreeBSD host? Why ?

[opricnik]

Because you can't run FreeBSD binaries on a Linux kernel/libc. Docker (and Jails, Zones, etc) just runs a process with lots of special flags, but at heart they need actually run.

[rustyx]

The Docker FreeBSD port is not "somewhat unstable", it's outright unfinished. Virtualized networking, resource limits, volumes and links are not there. Furthermore, there hasn't been any activity for over 1.5 years. The project looks abandoned.

[opricnik]

Many years ago it seemed like it might be a thing but both Docker on FreeBSD and Jetpack are now abandoned.

[Reishin]

@Phil you can't because Linux and BSD using a different kernels like...totally. The only similarity between Linux and BSD are - they POSIX compliant and that's it. Docker isn't a virtualization software like KVM, it only isolating processes by using underhold Linux kernel capabilities. That's why it's a pain to port docker to BSD, same as execute BSD application on non-BSD system.