Use Docker in Linux VMWare VM with Volumes? - node.js

Question

Is it possible to connect to a Linux Docker engine running in a Linux VMWare virtual machine, running on Windows 10? I need VMWare for other tasks... which means I need to disable Hyper-V (which Docker requires). The configuration would be as follows:
Windows 10 Enterprise ... running VMWare Workstation Pro v12
Ubuntu 16.04.2 ... as a guest OS in VMWare
Shared Folders running in VMWare sharing C:\Source
Ubuntu VM mounting C:\Source (as /media/source probably)
Docker Engine running within Ubuntu VM
Docker container with Volume mounted at /media/source
coding locally in C:\Source (using Sublime, Atom, whatever)
changes being picked up by Docker container (via nodemon)

Answer 1

Yes and no.
Can this be done? Yes.
Can this be done with VMWare? I wouldn't with VMWare.
VMWare has issues dealing with Shared Folders on Windows 10. The company behind VMWare switched HGFS drivers and there were problems as late as December 2016, which is when I finally gave up.
Now, if you are willing to do this with VirtualBox, then it works flawlessly:
flackey#devvms01: ~
$ ls
Backup Source
Here's what I currently do...
Disable Hyper-V in Windows 10;
Install VirtualBox & VirtualBox Extensions (link);
Create the Ubuntu VM;
Before starting the VM, add the "Shared Folders" paths you need (see above);
Install Ubuntu;
Install virtualbox-guest-dkms;
Add your user to the vboxsf group: sudo adduser $USER vboxsf; and,
Create the mount point(s).
The commands would be:
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-dkms
sudo reboot now
sudo adduser $USER vboxsf
mkdir ~/Source
sudo mount -t vboxsf Source ~/Source
mkdir ~/Backup
sudo mount -t vboxsf Backup ~/Backup
Note: You probably don't need to reboot. I'm just anal like that.
After that, it works exactly as you described above. You will be working in C:\Source directly in Windows 10. The VM and Docker will function as if the files are local to the VM's file system.