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
• Live CPU/memory/disk/network usage: orb top

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.