Installing Docker

Docker is a system that lets Linux applications run in 'containers' with all the files and libraries they need. These containers can run on Windows and Mac as well as Linux computers.

This has similar goals to virtual machines (VMs) but is more efficient and easier to use. Some BOINC projects have apps that use Docker

Podman is a free open-source implementation of Docker. BOINC prefers

In the future we hope to have do this in the BOINC installer. For now you need to do it yourself; we strongly encourage you to do so.

Windows

Linux

Mac

Go to https://github.com/containers/podman/releases

The latest version is at the top. For Apple Silicon Macs, download podman-installer-macos-arm64.pkg

For Intel Macs, download podman-installer-macos-arm64.pkg

Double-click on the file. At the end of installation it will tell you to run

podman machine init
podman machine start

You can do this (in a terminal window) if you want, but you don't have to; the BOINC client will do it when it start up.