Is docker-machine required on linux?

Question

I am running a Windows7 (64-bit) machine having vmplayer, which hosts Fedora 25.

I have installed docker CE on it and my examples till now have worked fine.

The issue is when trying to run docker-machine examples. As per my understanding, it is required to create hosts for docker.

• While it makes sense to have it on Windows and Mac but do I need it on Linux?

• What even adds to confusion is, how come all the examples I tried till now have worked fine?

• Another point is, if docker-machine is not part of Linux docker distribution; then how do we create multiple docker hosts on Linux?

Answer 1

Docker-machine is a tool that simplifies running docker on VMs, but it's not required in any environment if you want to manage the VM yourself. Since docker runs natively on Linux, there's no need to docker-machine to perform that install, you just install docker directly. This is what most people do with a Linux host.

If you need multiple docker hosts on Linux for some reason, you can create and manage your own VMs, e.g. virtualbox and vagrant, or you can use docker-machine as a front end on that which also handles the machine image and gives a convenient command line to switch the docker CLI between environments.