Docker-Docs/machine/drivers/generic.md

description	keywords	title
Generic driver for machine	machine, Generic, driver	Generic

Create machines using an existing VM/Host with SSH.

This is useful if you are using a provider that Machine does not support directly or if you would like to import an existing host to allow Docker Machine to manage.

The driver performs a list of tasks on create:

• If docker is not running on the host, it is installed automatically.
• It updates the host packages (apt-get update, yum update...).
• It generates certificates to secure the docker daemon.
• If the host uses systemd, it creates /etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d/10-machine.conf
• The docker daemon restarts, thus all running containers are stopped.
• The hostname is updated to fit the machine name.

Example

To create a machine instance, specify --driver generic, the IP address or DNS name of the host and the path to the SSH private key authorized to connect to the host.

$ docker-machine create \
  --driver generic \
  --generic-ip-address=203.0.113.81 \
  --generic-ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_rsa \
  vm

Sudo privileges

The user that is used to SSH into the host can be specified with --generic-ssh-user flag. This user needs password-less sudo privileges. If it's not the case, you need to edit the sudoers file and configure the user as a sudoer with NOPASSWD. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Sudoers.

Options

• --generic-engine-port: Port to use for Docker Daemon (Note: This flag does not work with boot2docker).
• --generic-ip-address: required IP Address of host.
• --generic-ssh-key: Path to the SSH user private key.
• --generic-ssh-user: SSH username used to connect.
• --generic-ssh-port: Port to use for SSH.

Note: You must use a base operating system supported by Machine.

Environment variables and default values

CLI option	Environment variable	Default
--generic-engine-port	GENERIC_ENGINE_PORT	2376
--generic-ip-address	GENERIC_IP_ADDRESS	-
--generic-ssh-key	GENERIC_SSH_KEY	-
--generic-ssh-user	GENERIC_SSH_USER	root
--generic-ssh-port	GENERIC_SSH_PORT	22

Systemd settings

For systems that use systemd, if you have an existing configuration defined in '/etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d/' this may conflict with the settings created by docker-machine. Make sure you don't have any other configuration files in this location that override the [ExecStart] setting.

Once you have confirmed any conflicting settings have been removed, run sudo systemctl daemon-reload followed by sudo systemctl restart docker