page_title: Installation on Mac OS X page_description: Instructions for installing Docker on OS X using boot2docker. page_keywords: Docker, Docker documentation, requirements, boot2docker, VirtualBox, SSH, Linux, OSX, OS X, Mac # Installing Docker on Mac OS X > **Note:** > Docker is supported on Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" or newer. The Docker Engine uses Linux-specific kernel features, so to run it on OS X we need to use a lightweight virtual machine (vm). You use the OS X Docker client to control the virtualized Docker Engine to build, run, and manage Docker containers. To make this process easier, we've designed a helper application called [Boot2Docker](https://github.com/boot2docker/boot2docker) that installs the virtual machine and runs the Docker daemon. ## Demonstration ## Installation 1. Download the latest release of the [Docker for OSX Installer]( https://github.com/boot2docker/osx-installer/releases) 2. Run the installer, which will install VirtualBox and the Boot2Docker management tool. ![](/installation/images/osx-installer.png) 3. Run the `Boot2Docker` app in the `Applications` folder: ![](/installation/images/osx-Boot2Docker-Start-app.png) Or, to initialize Boot2Docker manually, open a terminal and run: $ boot2docker init $ boot2docker start $ export DOCKER_HOST=tcp://$(boot2docker ip 2>/dev/null):2375 Once you have an initialized virtual machine, you can control it with `boot2docker stop` and `boot2docker start`. ## Upgrading 1. Download the latest release of the [Docker for OSX Installer]( https://github.com/boot2docker/osx-installer/releases) 2. Run the installer, which will update VirtualBox and the Boot2Docker management tool. 3. To upgrade your existing virtual machine, open a terminal and run: $ boot2docker stop $ boot2docker download $ boot2docker start ## Running Docker From your terminal, you can test that Docker is running with a “hello world” example. Start the vm and then run: $ docker run ubuntu echo hello world This should download the `ubuntu` image and print `hello world`. ## Container port redirection The latest version of `boot2docker` sets up a host only network adaptor which provides access to the container's ports. If you run a container with an exposed port, $ docker run --rm -i -t -p 80:80 nginx then you should be able to access that Nginx server using the IP address reported by: $ boot2docker ip Typically, it is 192.168.59.103, but it could get changed by Virtualbox's DHCP implementation. # Further details If you are curious, the username for the boot2docker default user is `docker` and the password is `tcuser`. The Boot2Docker management tool provides several commands: $ ./boot2docker Usage: ./boot2docker [] {help|init|up|ssh|save|down|poweroff|reset|restart|config|status|info|ip|delete|download|version} [] Continue with the [User Guide](/userguide/). For further information or to report issues, please visit the [Boot2Docker site](http://boot2docker.io).