Command line & CI usage

OrbStack can be used exclusively from the command line, without the GUI app. This is useful for CI, automation, and headless servers, or if you live in the terminal.

Installation

OrbStack can be installed as a Homebrew Cask:

brew install orbstack

Getting started

Run the orb command to start OrbStack, and orb stop to stop it.

Once OrbStack is running, you can use the docker command as usual:

docker run -p 80:80 docker/getting-started

Or create a Linux machine:

orb create ubuntu ci-runner

Commands

Commonly-used commands:

• Start: orb or orb start
• Stop: orb stop
• Change settings/config: orb config
  • For example, to disable admin permission prompts: orb config set setup.use_admin false
• Restart Docker engine: orb restart docker
• Create a Linux machine: orb create ubuntu ci-runner
• List machines: orb list

Check orb --help and orbctl --help for more actions.

Updates

Auto-update is currently not supported without the GUI. This should not be an issue for CI environments.

To update OrbStack manually with Homebrew:

brew upgrade --greedy orbstack

The --greedy flag is needed because Homebrew normally expects OrbStack to update itself and avoids interfering with the app after initial installation.