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Emacs in Docker

Assuming a docker installation (either boot2docker or just docker) and a version of 1.3 or higher, we can use Volumes to enable a portable emacs installation.

Using My Image

To use mine, pull the image:

docker pull biscarch/emacs

set up a function to mount the pwd at /files inside the container and open an emacs at /files:

NOTE: This is what I have in my .zshrc; YMMV.

de(){
    docker run -itv `pwd`:/files biscarch/emacs emacs /files
}

Now, in the root of a project run:

cd my_project_root
de

and you’ll be in an emacs. All edits in /files will persist to the host:

1  /files:
 2  total used in directory 52 available 21162304
 3  drwxr-xr-x  1 1000 staff  680 Feb  8  2014 .
 4  drwxr-xr-x 44 root root  4096 Oct 18 03:44 ..
 8  -rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff  101 Aug 16  2013 .ghci
 9  drwxr-xr-x  1 1000 staff  442 Oct 18  2014 .git
10  -rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff   23 Nov  2  2013 .gitignore
13  -rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff  125 Nov  2  2013 README.md
14  drwxr-xr-x  1 1000 staff   68 Sep 15  2013 custom-deps
15  drwxr-xr-x  1 1000 staff  170 Feb  8  2014 dist
16  drwxr-xr-x  1 1000 staff  136 Feb  8  2014 log
17  -rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff   96 Aug 31  2013 site_key.txt
18  drwxr-xr-x  1 1000 staff  136 Feb  8  2014 snaplets
19  drwxr-xr-x  1 1000 staff  646 Feb  8  2014 src
20  drwxr-xr-x  1 1000 staff  204 Feb  8  2014 static
21  -rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff 2542 Dec 25  2013 tracker.cabal
22  -rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff  602 Dec 30  2013 users.json

Build Yours

To build your own docker-emacs, check out my Automated Build and the GitHub Repo for biscarch/emacs