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Install Docker Sandboxes

Table of contents

Install the sbx CLI to run AI coding agents in local or cloud sandboxes. You don't need Docker Desktop or Docker Engine to use sbx. Cloud sandboxes require version 0.42.0 or later.

Prerequisites

The operating system and processor requirements apply to the CLI installation. Hypervisor and KVM setup is required only to run local sandboxes. For cloud account requirements, see Cloud sandboxes.

macOS

  • macOS Sonoma version 14 or later
  • Apple silicon

Windows

  • Windows 11
  • A 64-bit Intel or AMD processor
  • Windows Hypervisor Platform for local sandboxes

To run local sandboxes, open an elevated PowerShell prompt and turn on Windows Hypervisor Platform:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName HypervisorPlatform -All

Linux

  • Ubuntu 24.04 or later
  • A 64-bit Intel or AMD processor, or a 64-bit Arm processor
  • For local sandboxes, KVM hardware virtualization supported and turned on by the CPU, and your user account in the kvm group

To run local sandboxes inside a virtual machine or virtual desktop infrastructure environment, the environment must support nested virtualization. Cloud sandboxes don't require this setup.

For local sandboxes, verify that KVM is available:

$ lsmod | grep kvm

A working setup shows kvm_intel, kvm_amd, kvm_arm64, or kvm in the output. If the output is empty, run kvm-ok for diagnostics. The local sandbox runtime requires KVM to start.

Add your user to the kvm group:

$ sudo usermod -aG kvm $USER

Sign out and back in, or run newgrp kvm, for the group change to take effect.

Install on macOS

Install sbx using Homebrew:

$ brew trust docker/tap
$ brew install docker/tap/sbx

Install on Windows

Install for the current user

Install sbx using Windows Package Manager:

winget install -h Docker.sbx

WinGet installs the per-user DockerSandboxes.msi package in %LOCALAPPDATA%\DockerSandboxes and adds its bin directory to your user PATH. You can install it without administrator privileges.

Install for all users

For administrator-managed deployments, download DockerSandboxesMachine.msi from the Docker Sandboxes releases. From an elevated PowerShell prompt, install the package silently:

msiexec.exe /i DockerSandboxesMachine.msi /quiet

The machine-wide package installs in %ProgramFiles%\DockerSandboxes and adds its bin directory to the system PATH.

A machine-wide upgrade might require restarting Windows if an sbx daemon in another user's session is using the installed files.

Install on Ubuntu

Note

Docker does not test or support Docker Sandboxes on Ubuntu derivatives, such as Linux Mint and Pop!_OS. The convenience script can configure an incorrect package repository on these distributions.

You can install sbx with Docker Engine or install only the sbx package.

Install Docker Engine and SBX

Run Docker's convenience script with SBX=1 to install Docker Engine and the docker-sbx package together:

$ curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sudo SBX=1 sh

Install SBX only

To install sbx without Docker Engine on the host, add Docker's apt repository and install the docker-sbx package:

$ curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sudo REPO_ONLY=1 sh
$ sudo apt install docker-sbx

Install from release artifacts

To install sbx from a package or archive, follow the manual installation instructions. The availability of a Linux release artifact does not indicate that Docker tests or supports the corresponding distribution.

Sign in

Sign in to Docker:

$ sbx login

The command opens a browser for Docker OAuth. See the FAQ for why sign-in is required and how Docker handles your data.

After signing in, run your first local sandbox or get started with cloud sandboxes.