Migrating docker images from colima to orbstack

[okadrian]

How do I go about doing this for Orbstack 1.5.1? I have wound up running both after failing to get nextcloud running on colima and trying it on orbstack on an older mac pro succesfully. I have an immich server running in the colima context with the data directory being on an external drive where the orbstack virtual drive lives.

[xop01]

OrbStack does not import Colima's images. orb docker migrate (and File > Migrate Docker Data) copies Docker Desktop data. Colima stays a separate engine.

Move the images yourself, and leave Colima running until the load finishes:

docker context use colima
docker save -o images.tar image1 image2
docker context use orbstack
docker load -i images.tar

If Immich's files are a normal folder on the external drive, and the compose file bind-mounts that folder, point the OrbStack compose file at the same path. That folder is outside the Colima VM, so there is nothing to copy. A named volume that lives only inside Colima will not show up in OrbStack. Copy that volume out before you stop Colima.

@okadrian

[okadrian]

Thanks for your response @xop01. I don't have much experience so your help is very welcome.

With regards to to named volumes, I currently have the following in the lima.yaml

- location: /Users/adrian/Library/Caches/colima/caches/5bfdf1067a8e288910a570fb8c6edbb2340ab7bbc09d2133d64ced3c888a78ed
  arch: x86_64

cpus: 4
memory: 32768MiB
disk: 20GiB
additionalDisks:
- name: colima
format: false
fsType: ext4
mounts:
- location: /Users/adrian/
writable: true
- location: /Volumes/NCDATA/
writable: true
mountType: virtiofs

Then in the immich .env file

UPLOAD_LOCATION=/Volumes/NCDATA/ImmichPHOTOS

So my original post might have been misleading, the user data for immich is on an external drive, but the images/containers are in my home directory.

After a bit of reading I see that the orbstack compose files are in the project directories, which are in ~/Servers/Nextcloud and ~/Servers/Immich and I assume this can remain the case.

So I believe in order for me to follow your instructions, I just need to save the images out of the colima context and load them into the orbstack context and the immich server should still see the UPLOAD_LOCATION=/Volumes/NCDATA/ImmichPHOTOS

Or I need to bind mount this volume into the immich-server containter which appears I should do the following:

docker immich-server run -v /Volumes/NCDATA/ImmichPHOTOS:/ImmichPHOTOS
the change the .env to show:
UPLOAD_LOCATION=/ImmichPHOTOS

Am I close?

[okadrian]

Thank you once again. I’m having a read around the commands you’ve shared to absorb it all before giving it a go. A couple of things came up. Using the —rm flag, would this mean there’s no going back? Or is this required to make sure it transfers the database over cleanly? Also, Alpine, this is a simple docker container from which the Postgres database can run?

[xop01]

No worries, --rm only deletes the temporary container after tar finishes. It does not delete the Colima volume or the db.tar.gz file. The volume is a named volume, and the archive is written to the folder you ran the command from, so both stay. You can run the copy again. --rm is housekeeping so that stopped container does not remain in docker ps -a. It is not what makes the copy clean.

Stop the Immich database container before the tar. A copy taken while Postgres is still writing can be incomplete. With the Colima context:

docker stop immich_postgres

Then run the tar commands. Colima's volume is still there after that stop.

alpine is a small Linux image used only to run tar. It is not Postgres, and it does not serve Immich. Postgres stays the database service from your compose file. docker compose up -d starts that later, after the context is orbstack.

I hope that answers all, let me know if you need anything else

[okadrian]

Thank you once again for your kindness and patience, but I have new questions!

There are 4 containers, immich-server immich-postgres immich-machine-learning and immich-redis, all in their own images. When I list the images to save them the postgres and redis give an error - no such image. This tallies with what you said about postgres but I'm not sure about redis. I have stopped all containers and saved the images containing immich-server and immich-machine-learning tos images.tar and am moving onto the next thing - aware that I may need to look again at immich-redis

In the immich .env file there are only paths so no need to copy any volumes there I believe.

docker run --rm -v VOLUME_NAME:/from -v "$PWD":/to alpine tar czf /to/db.tar.gz -C /from
looking into this command above the only volume name listed in 'docker volume ls' is called immich_model-cache so it seems that's the one to use, so:

docker run --rm -v immich_model-cache:/from -v "$PWD":/to alpine tar czf /to/db.tar.gz -C /from

but I get 'tar: empty archive'

perhaps I'm supposed to complete the paths /to/db.tar.gz but unsure. I can't see a file in or next to the ./postgres folder.

[xop01]

Those names are the containers, not the images. docker save wants the image name, the one in the IMAGE column from docker ps. Immich's database image is ghcr.io/immich-app/postgres, and the redis container is actually valkey, so postgres and redis aren't images on your machine. You don't have to save them. Once the context is orbstack, docker compose up -d in ~/Servers/Immich pulls whatever is missing.

Redis doesn't keep a data folder in the compose file, so there's nothing to copy for it.

The paths in your .env are folders on the Mac, which is why they don't show up in docker volume ls. immich_model-cache is only the machine learning cache. tar: empty archive means that volume is empty. Leave /to as it is. Inside the alpine container that path is the folder you ran the command from, and db.tar.gz is just the filename. That volume isn't your database, and if it's empty Immich downloads the models again later.

The database is the folder DB_DATA_LOCATION points at. If it says ./postgres, look in ~/Servers/Immich/postgres, the folder you run compose from. You should see a file called PG_VERSION in there. That's already on the Mac, so OrbStack uses the same path. You don't need to tar it.

[okadrian]

Thank you again. Your explanations are really appreciated.

So to recap, I have saved the two images: (I quoted the containers names because it was less to type - sorry)

ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:v3
ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:v3
to images.tar

The postgres database will remain in the same location as per the .env file and docker compose up -d will pull whatever is needed for redis and postgre so nothing to do there it seems.

I'm going to load the images into the orbstack context, and docker compose up -d from the immich directory and see how it's looking!

It worked a treat. I stopped colima and now my mac is running much less ram for docker containers. Colima didn't seem to want to give any back when it wasn't busy. One little change I notice is that the immich server isn't liking my tailscale magic-dns name the same way that nextcloud does but I can still access it with the tailscale IP and http so thank you very much indeed for all this.