Hi everyone!

I'm excited to share Haiku Docker v1.0.2 — a way to run Docker containers on Haiku OS using the standard Docker CLI, powered by a lightweight Alpine Linux VM running under QEMU with NVMM hardware acceleration.

No need to switch to Linux just to run your development containers. Everything is controlled directly from Haiku Terminal.

Links:

• GitHub Repository
• v1.0.2 Release
• HaikuPorts PR #14929

⚠️ Tested in nested virtualization so far. Bare-metal testers are especially welcome!

🚀 What works

🐳 Native-feeling Docker CLI

Run familiar commands directly from Haiku Terminal:

• docker run
• docker ps
• docker build
• docker exec -it

Commands are forwarded to the guest Docker Engine through a single multiplexed SSH connection.

⚡ Hardware-accelerated micro-VM

QEMU uses -accel nvmm to boot an Alpine Linux guest with Linux kernel 6.18 and Docker Engine 29.

SSH is ready in approximately 18 seconds.

📁 Workspace sharing

Your Haiku workspace at /boot/home/dev is available inside the VM through SSHFS. A chrooted SFTP setup prevents the guest from browsing the rest of your home directory.

🔥 Hot reload without polling

A small native BPathMonitor bridge forwards filesystem changes into the VM as inotify events.

Measured latency: ~550 ms, tested with fs.watch inside node:20-alpine.

🌐 Automatic port forwarding

Run something like:

docker run -p 3000:3000 ...

And access it directly at localhost:3000 on Haiku.

SSH tunnels are automatically created and removed based on docker events. No manual forwarding configuration.

🖥️ Deskbar integration

A Deskbar replicant provides a VM status indicator and Start/Stop controls through its context menu.

You can also manage everything from Terminal:

• docker-vm start
• docker-vm stop
• docker-vm status

🧪 Stability testing

A 30-minute stress test combining PostgreSQL workloads with repeated npm install and next build operations completed 46 cycles with:

• Zero crashes
• Zero OOM events
• Zero kernel debugger landings (KDL)
• No host memory growth

⚠️ Current limitations

There are a few NVMM driver issues that currently require workarounds:

• No AVX/AVX2 in the guest: Linux 6.18 needs noxsave to avoid a crash. Images requiring AVX, such as mongo:5+, won't work.
• Single vCPU: Currently limited to -smp 1.
• Graceful shutdown required: Always use docker-vm stop or Deskbar. Killing QEMU with SIGKILL can leave guest memory allocated until reboot.
• TCP port forwarding only.

Performance tip: Keep node_modules in a Docker named volume (-v nm:/app/node_modules).

In my testing, a Next.js project installed dependencies in ~99 seconds using a named volume, compared to ~550 seconds on the SSHFS share.

Run Git operations on the Haiku side.

🛠️ NVMM bugs discovered

During development, I identified and reported three NVMM issues with reproduction steps and logs:

• #20426 — Linux guest crashes in fpstate_reset without noxsave.
• #20427 — QEMU aborts in nvmm_gpa_unmap with -smp 2 / default PC machine.
• #20428 — Guest memory isn't released after QEMU is killed with SIGKILL.

Once these are addressed, the single-vCPU and noxsave workarounds can potentially be removed.

💻 Requirements

• Haiku R1/beta6 (NVMM driver included)
• CPU with Intel VT-x (sysinfo | grep -i vmx)
• Nested virtualization enabled if running Haiku inside another VM

🙌 Looking for testers!

The project is open source, and I'd really appreciate feedback from the Haiku community.

Bare-metal test results would be particularly valuable, especially CPU model, hardware configuration, whether the VM boots successfully, and any issues you encounter.

Bug reports, suggestions, and contributions are very welcome!

And a big thanks to everyone who worked on bringing NVMM to Haiku — this project wouldn't be possible without that work.

GitHub: https://github.com/timmagicbeans/haiku-docker

I've been reading about alternate OS's -- neither mac, windows, or linux. There's a few interesting ones, including haiku. I'd like to try it as my main OS. But a few questions . . What things is it good at? Video, web-surfing, image editing, etc . . . What hardware does it work best on? I have a dell laptop currently running linux Mint. I have a samsung chromebook, two imacs, and a macbook pro and macbook air. To me, it's just exciting to get out of the bind of the three main OS's.

Haiku is pretty awesome, but I do need to ask what effects are being made to modernize some aspects of the system like Samba support (have never been able to get it working), multi-user, and maybe modernizing the way folders and file management are handled.

I’m not a programmer so I am useless in this regard, I just wonder if there are any efforts to do this kind of thing in Haiku.