Please support Docker Desktop (WSL2) on Windows on ARM

[dennisameling]

Tell us about your request
Devices that run Windows on ARM (arm64), like the Microsoft Surface Pro X, are capable of running WSL2 starting with the Windows 10 May 2020 (2004) update. Currently, Docker Desktop for Windows requires a x64 PC, so it's not possible to run Docker Desktop on these devices.

Which service(s) is this request for?
Docker Desktop for Windows

Tell us about the problem you're trying to solve. What are you trying to do, and why is it hard?
I'm trying to get Docker Desktop to work on my Windows on ARM (arm64) device with the WSL2 backend, but because it's x64-only, there seems to be no way for me to start using it.

Are you currently working around the issue?
Windows on ARM supports emulation for 32-bit/x86 apps, but since Docker Desktop is a x64-only app, we can't benefit from emulation and seem to have absolutely no way to get Docker Desktop to run on these devices.

The only options at the moment are to remote SSH or RDP into a machine that has Docker installed and do development on there, or run Docker within WSL2 using the regular Linux installation instructions.

Additional context
WSL2 general availability announcement: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl2-will-be-generally-available-in-windows-10-version-2004/

[justincormack]

Hi, Arm lent us a Windows 10 machine a while back and I did a little testing. Docker runs fine on Arm64 WSL2 if you install it yourself (via https://get.docker.com/ ), which is great, once you have updated to a Windows version that supports WSL2.

Building Docker Desktop has a bunch of issues around software we use and available toolchains, and as you say lack of emulation for 32 bit x86. This situation should get better over time as the Windows arm64 ecosystem gets better and we update some dependencies. If other people are interested please let us know.

[dennisameling]

That's great to know, thanks for the info! Will try that right after the stable version of Windows 10 2004 is released (rumor says that'll be on May 28) 🚀

[SQLvariant]

I am extremely interested in this and would love to use it to build my SQL Server containers!

[taxilian]

I have docker installed in wsl 2 but without systemd it's hard to start :-/ would sure love to have this.

[jeffthompsonsd]

+1 for getting docker desktop running on win10 arm64. I would love this.

[dsmk]

+1 for docker desktop running on win10 arm64.

I did manage to get docker-ce running using a script inside Ubuntu 20.04 (downloaded from https://get.docker.com ). That is working well enough for now but native Docker desktop would integrate better with other stuff (for example, Visual Studio Code extensions).

[goodwill]

@justincormack How do you actually run it? I can install fine with the script but I cant start the docker service inside WSL2 ubuntu 20.04

time="2020-07-24T13:14:41.737173200+08:00" level=info msg="ClientConn switching balancer to \"pick_first\"" module=grpc
time="2020-07-24T13:14:41.749458000+08:00" level=info msg="[graphdriver] using prior storage driver: overlay2"
time="2020-07-24T13:14:41.773593300+08:00" level=warning msg="Your kernel does not support cgroup memory limit"
time="2020-07-24T13:14:41.773643500+08:00" level=warning msg="Unable to find cpu cgroup in mounts"
time="2020-07-24T13:14:41.773660200+08:00" level=warning msg="Unable to find blkio cgroup in mounts"
time="2020-07-24T13:14:41.773672500+08:00" level=warning msg="Unable to find cpuset cgroup in mounts"
time="2020-07-24T13:14:41.773684200+08:00" level=warning msg="mountpoint for pids not found"
time="2020-07-24T13:14:41.773901200+08:00" level=info msg="Loading containers: start."
time="2020-07-24T13:14:41.839851100+08:00" level=warning msg="Running iptables --wait -t nat -L -n failed with message: `iptables v1.8.4 (legacy): can't initialize iptables table `nat': Table does not exist (do you need to insmod?)\nPerhaps iptables or your kernel needs to be upgraded.`, error: exit status 3"
time="2020-07-24T13:14:43.126110200+08:00" level=info msg="stopping event stream following graceful shutdown" error="<nil>" module=libcontainerd namespace=moby
time="2020-07-24T13:14:43.127763100+08:00" level=info msg="stopping event stream following graceful shutdown" error="context canceled" module=libcontainerd namespace=plugins.moby
time="2020-07-24T13:14:43.127776700+08:00" level=info msg="stopping healthcheck following graceful shutdown" module=libcontainerd
failed to start daemon: Error initializing network controller: error obtaining controller instance: failed to create NAT chain DOCKER: iptables failed: iptables -t nat -N DOCKER: iptables v1.8.4 (legacy): can't initialize iptables table `nat': Table does not exist (do you need to insmod?)
Perhaps iptables or your kernel needs to be upgraded.

[taxilian]

After installing docker on wsl 2 ubuntu 20.04 on ARM (surface pro x) I start it by running in WSL:

sudo /etc/init.d/docker start

works fine. I do really wish that docker desktop was supported, though.

[goodwill]

I tried and no this doesn't work - same error, so I don't think this is even usable for most people.

[goodwill]

It actually looks like something to do with the iptables behaviour in WSL2, I wonder anyone here got clue on how to fix it? Looks related to this? kubernetes-sigs/kind#741

[goodwill]

@dsmk May I know if you come across any issue? Are you changing the kernel somehow to get this working?