Show HN: Container-compose – A Docker-compose like tool for Apple containers

(github.com)

50 points by Noghartt a day ago

15 comments

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Hey HN, recently Apple release their own container manager tooling, but it's missing a "compose-like" tool.

I'm building this CLI as a side-project and a way to help on the usage with the main tool.

It's in a early version, then at the moment I'm trying to be as much as possible compatible with `docker-compose` config file, and in the current version we're supporting two commands: `up` and `down`.

fnordian 16 hours ago

I hope apple will deliver a docker compatible api soon, so that all the existing tools will just work.

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  • cosmotic 15 hours ago

    Or Docker migrate to the new API, like they did with QEMU to Virtualization Framework.

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egorfine 4 hours ago

I have opened a pull request with an extraordinary important change for you.

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daft_pink 19 hours ago

Hoping that VSCode supports Apple Containers in a similar way to it supporting Docker Containers. I’ve tried Podman to use less resources on my Mac, but found that the developer tooling in things like VSCode makes Docker a bit sticky.

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  • esseph 13 hours ago

    Looking at the ecosystem between docker and podman/oci, I hope the OCI tooling gets better.

    I know docker is easier to dev on for many currently, it's also been around longer, but there is a widening gap between docker deployments in production and podman deployments in production and it isn't nearly as smooth or secure as either should be.

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cedws 19 hours ago

Is the container CLI actually intended for end users? My impression was that it's just a demo project showing off the Containerization API. I'm guessing that BuildKit will eventually support Apple's container runtime via the Containerization API.

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yodon a day ago

Any thoughts or insights into why Apple didn't ship docker-compose support?

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  • figmert 20 hours ago

    It took Podman a good 2 or so years to develop a good docker compatible http api. I presume that's why. There's no point in coming out with all of the features when they can release with some support, and add on top of it.

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    • WhyNotHugo 18 hours ago

      Even today, some docker-compose features still don’t work with podman. There’s just an absurd amount of subtleties and edge cases, but pretty much all my usages hit one of these or another.

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      • esseph 13 hours ago

        Biggest reason is that docker / podman/OCI are very different architectures and security models.

        I hope there is something new. The tooling and deployment fragmentation is a nightmare.

        From a security and open standards pov, we maybe should be moving to podman/OCI.

        The docker tooling was often focused on the dev experience and it showed, but it wasn't a system with a good security model and this transition is a large part of that pain.

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  • Noghartt a day ago

    To be honest, I'm not sure why they didn't already release it supporting a compose-like tool. But my hypothesis is that considering they release a v0.1.0, they tried to be lean on their CLI and maybe they're building something on top of it.

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elisiariocouto 20 hours ago

Excellent work! Any reason why don’t implement this as a plugin for the container CLI?

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  • Noghartt 20 hours ago

    Thanks!

    > Any reason why don’t implement this as a plugin for the container CLI?

    I did a different CLI because, considering that Apple released their v0.1.0, I'm not sure if they're working in some kind of official support for compose YAMLs.

    With that in mind, I tried to avoid coupling it into the container CLI, to avoid injecting any kind of breaking change or something else which could cause any issue in the future.

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develatio 20 hours ago

How does networking between several “services” (containers) work?

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  • Noghartt 20 hours ago

    The container opens a gateway and each container provides its own local IP (e.g. 192.168.64.2), from what I understood, every services known host machine and can communicate with each other.

    On my current implementation, I didn't work with DNS/Network Resolution because I need to understand better what I can/can't do with the API Apple provides, so the only things it does is handling the port mapping using `socat`, as the docs recommends.

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