Kathryn BaldaufandGitHub 5385a5c466 Support using multiple different network plugins (#1151)
## Type of Change
- [x] New feature  
- [x] Breaking change

## Motivation and Context
We want to be able to support using multiple network plugins during
`container`'s lifetime. This additionally means needing to pick an
interface strategy to interpret a network attachment based on what
network plugin was used to create that attachment. This PR will
potentially replace https://github.com/apple/container/pull/1081.

Followups:
- doc updates to include the ability to specify plugin in the network
creation cli

## Testing
- [x] Tested locally
- [x] Added/updated tests
2026-02-17 15:08:32 -08:00
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2026-01-06 08:27:14 -08:00
2025-06-05 15:51:55 -07:00
2025-06-05 15:51:55 -07:00
2026-02-13 10:51:27 -08:00

container

container is a tool that you can use to create and run Linux containers as lightweight virtual machines on your Mac. It's written in Swift, and optimized for Apple silicon.

The tool consumes and produces OCI-compatible container images, so you can pull and run images from any standard container registry. You can push images that you build to those registries as well, and run the images in any other OCI-compatible application.

container uses the Containerization Swift package for low level container, image, and process management.

introductory movie showing some basic commands

Get started

Requirements

You need a Mac with Apple silicon to run container. To build it, see the BUILDING document.

container is supported on macOS 26, since it takes advantage of new features and enhancements to virtualization and networking in this release. We do not support older versions of macOS and the container maintainers typically will not address issues that cannot be reproduced on the macOS 26.

Install or upgrade

If you're upgrading, first stop and uninstall your existing container (the -k flag keeps your user data, while -d removes it):

container system stop
/usr/local/bin/uninstall-container.sh -k

Download the latest signed installer package for container from the GitHub release page.

To install the tool, double-click the package file and follow the instructions. Enter your administrator password when prompted, to give the installer permission to place the installed files under /usr/local.

Start the system service with:

container system start

Uninstall

Use the uninstall-container.sh script (installed to /usr/local/bin) to remove container from your system. To remove your user data along with the tool, run:

/usr/local/bin/uninstall-container.sh -d

To retain your user data so that it is available should you reinstall later, run:

/usr/local/bin/uninstall-container.sh -k

Next steps

Contributing

Contributions to container are welcomed and encouraged. Please see our main contributing guide for more information.

Project Status

The container project is currently under active development. Its stability, both for consuming the project as a Swift package and the container tool, is only guaranteed within patch versions, such as between 0.1.1 and 0.1.2. Minor version number releases may include breaking changes until we achieve a 1.0.0 release.

S
Description
A tool for creating and running Linux containers using lightweight virtual machines on a Mac. It is written in Swift, and optimized for Apple silicon.
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