--- title: Quick Start Guide for RancherOS --- ## Quick Start Guide --- If you have a specific RanchersOS machine requirements, please check out our [guides on running RancherOS]({{page.osbaseurl}}/running-rancheros/). With the rest of this guide, we'll start up a RancherOS using [Docker machine]({{page.osbaseurl}}/running-rancheros/workstation/docker-machine/) and show you some of what RancherOS can do. ### Launching RancherOS using Docker Machine Before moving forward, you'll need to have [Docker Machine](https://docs.docker.com/machine/) and [VirtualBox](https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads) installed. Once you have VirtualBox and Docker Machine installed, it's just one command to get RancherOS running. ``` $ docker-machine create -d virtualbox --virtualbox-boot2docker-url https://releases.rancher.com/os/latest/rancheros.iso ``` That's it! You're up and running a RancherOS instance. To log into the instance, just use the `docker-machine` command. ``` $ docker-machine ssh ``` ### A First Look At RancherOS There are two Docker daemons running in RancherOS. The first is called **System Docker**, which is where RancherOS runs system services like ntpd and syslog. You can use the `system-docker` command to control the **System Docker** daemon. The other Docker daemon running on the system is **Docker**, which can be accessed by using the normal `docker` command. When you first launch RancherOS, there are no containers running in the Docker daemon. However, if you run the same command against the System Docker, you’ll see a number of system services that are shipped with RancherOS. > **Note:** `system-docker` can only be used by root, so it is necessary to use the `sudo` command whenever you want to interact with System Docker. ``` $ sudo system-docker ps CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 6f56057cf5ba rancher/os-base:v0.5.0 "/usr/sbin/entry.sh /" 16 seconds ago Up 15 seconds docker bd5376830237 rancher/os-console:v0.5.0 "/usr/sbin/entry.sh /" 16 seconds ago Up 15 seconds console ede8ce39fff5 rancher/os-base:v0.5.0 "/usr/sbin/entry.sh n" 16 seconds ago Up 15 seconds network 9e5d18bca391 rancher/os-base:v0.5.0 "/usr/sbin/entry.sh n" 17 seconds ago Up 16 seconds ntp 393b9fb7e30a rancher/os-udev:v0.5.0 "/usr/sbin/entry.sh /" 18 seconds ago Up 16 seconds udev dc2cafca3c69 rancher/os-syslog:v0.5.0 "/usr/sbin/entry.sh /" 18 seconds ago Up 17 seconds syslog 439d5535fbfa rancher/os-base:v0.5.0 "/usr/sbin/entry.sh /" 18 seconds ago Up 17 seconds acpid ``` Some containers are run at boot time, and others, such as the `console`, `docker`, etc. containers are always running. ## Using RancherOS ### Deploying a Docker Container Let's try to deploy a normal Docker container on the Docker daemon. The RancherOS Docker daemon is identical to any other Docker environment, so all normal Docker commands work. ``` $ docker run -d nginx ``` You can see that the nginx container is up and running: ``` $ docker ps CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES e99c2c4b8b30 nginx "nginx -g 'daemon off" 12 seconds ago Up 11 seconds 80/tcp, 443/tcp drunk_ptolemy ``` ### Deploying A System Service Container The following is a simple Docker container to set up Linux-dash, which is a minimal low-overhead web dashboard for monitoring Linux servers. The Dockerfile will be like this: ``` FROM hwestphal/nodebox MAINTAINER hussein.galal.ahmed.11@gmail.com RUN opkg-install unzip RUN curl -k -L -o master.zip https://github.com/afaqurk/linux-dash/archive/master.zip RUN unzip master.zip WORKDIR linux-dash-master RUN npm install ENTRYPOINT ["node","server"] ``` Using the `hwestphal/nodebox` image, which uses a Busybox image and installs `node.js` and `npm`. We downloaded the source code of Linux-dash, and then ran the server. Linux-dash will run on port 80 by default. To run this container in System Docker use the following command: ``` $ sudo system-docker run -d --net=host --name busydash husseingalal/busydash ``` In the commad, we used `--net=host` to tell System Docker not to containerize the container's networking, and use the host’s networking instead. After running the container, you can see the monitoring server by accessing `http://`. ![System Docker Container]({{site.baseurl}}/img/os/Rancher_busydash.png) To make the container survive during the reboots, you can create the `/opt/rancher/bin/start.sh` script, and add the Docker start line to launch the Docker at each startup. ``` $ sudo mkdir -p /opt/rancher/bin $ echo “sudo system-docker start busydash” | sudo tee -a /opt/rancher/bin/start.sh $ sudo chmod 755 /opt/rancher/bin/start.sh ``` ### Using ROS Another useful command that can be used with RancherOS is `ros` which can be used to control and configure the system. ``` $ ros -v ros version 0.0.1 ``` RancherOS state is controlled by a cloud config file. `ros` is used to edit the configuration of the system, to see for example the dns configuration of the system: ``` $ sudo ros config get rancher.network.dns.nameservers - 8.8.8.8 - 8.8.4.4 ``` When using the native Busybox console, any changes to the console will be lost after reboots, only changes to `/home` or `/opt` will be persistent. You can use the `ros console switch` command to switch to a [persistent console]({{page.osbaseurl}}/configuration/custom-console/#console-persistence) and replace the native Busybox console. For example, to switch to the Ubuntu console: ``` $ sudo ros console switch ubuntu ``` ### Conclusion RancherOS is a simple Linux distribution ideal for running Docker. By embracing containerization of system services and leveraging Docker for management, RancherOS hopes to provide a very reliable, and easy to manage OS for running containers.