DOCKER

Volumes and mounts

A container’s own files go when the container is removed. To keep data, or to work on files from your Mac inside a container, you mount something into it. Kiri supports Docker’s three kinds of mount: volumes, bind mounts and tmpfs.

Bind mount or volume?

A bind mount puts a folder from your Mac inside the container. Kiri shares the Mac’s filesystem with its VM over virtiofs, so the container sees your files as they are, and what it writes lands straight in your folder. Use it for source code you edit on the Mac.

A volume is a folder that Kiri manages on the VM’s own disk. Your Mac’s files aren’t involved, so it suits data a container owns, such as a database.

The MacKiri’s VM~/code/appthe folder you editdata.imgthe VM’s disk, one file/mnt/macthe Mac’s files, read-writevolumes/pgdataa folder on the ext4 diskcontainer/app/var/lib/postgresql/datavirtiofsbindstored involume-v ~/code/app:/app-v pgdata:/var/lib/…
A bind mount reaches your Mac's folder through the virtiofs share. A volume lives on Kiri's data disk inside the VM; on the Mac, that disk is a single file.

Bind mounts

Give -v an absolute path on your Mac:

docker run -d -p 8080:80 -v ~/code/site:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro nginx

Add :ro to make the mount read-only in the container. If the Mac folder doesn’t exist, -v creates it, as Docker does; --mount type=bind reports an error instead.

docker run --rm --mount type=bind,source="$HOME/code/app",target=/app,readonly alpine ls /app

To use your Mac’s SSH agent inside a container, mount /run/host-services/ssh-auth.sock. See SSH agent.

Volumes

-v pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data mounts the named volume pgdata, and creates it if it doesn’t exist. The first time an empty volume is mounted, Kiri copies in what the image has at that path, as Docker does. Add :nocopy (or volume-nocopy with --mount) to skip that.

An anonymous volume has a generated name. You get one with -v /path and no source, and for each VOLUME line in the image that nothing else is mounted over. docker run --rm and docker rm -v remove a container’s anonymous volumes with it; named volumes stay until you remove them.

Command Notes
docker volume create --label. Only the local driver.
docker volume ls --filter on name, label, dangling and driver.
docker volume inspect
docker volume rm Refuses a volume a container uses, unless you add -f.
docker volume prune Anonymous volumes no container uses. -a takes unused named ones too.

Volumes also show in Kiri’s window under Volumes, where you can remove them.

Kiri
ContainersImagesVolumesNetworksSettings

Volumes

pgdatalocal2 days agoRemove
myapp_cachedatalocal3 hours agoRemove
4f1c9a27b0e3local5 min agoRemove
The Volumes list in Kiri's window. Anonymous volumes show the start of their generated name.

tmpfs

--tmpfs /run mounts a memory-backed filesystem that’s gone when the container stops. Options go after a colon: --tmpfs /cache:size=64m,mode=1777. With --mount, use type=tmpfs,target=/cache,tmpfs-size=67108864.

Where volume data lives

A volume is the folder /var/lib/kiri/volumes/<name>/_data on the VM’s ext4 data disk, which is what docker volume inspect shows as its mountpoint. On the Mac, that disk is one file, ~/Library/Application Support/Kiri/vm/data.img. It’s sparse: it takes up only the space that has been written to it, up to 64 GiB.

Not supported

  • Volume drivers other than local.
  • Mount types other than bind, volume and tmpfs.
Container files in FinderBrowse a running container’s files at ~/Kiri.ComposeNamed volumes and bind mounts in compose.yaml.ContainersThe rest of what docker run supports.

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