Docker

Docker provides an isolated container to run applications. Our docker image for NEST also includes NESTML.

1. If you do not have Docker installed, follow the Docker installation instructions for your system here: https://docs.docker.com/install/.

   If you are using Linux, we strongly recommend you also create a Docker group to manage Docker as a non-root user. See instructions on the Docker website: https://docs.docker.com/install/linux/linux-postinstall/

2. Create a directory or change into a directory that you want to use for your project.

mkdir my_nest_scripts
cd my_nest_scripts

Usage

You can use the docker images directly out of https://hub.docker.com/r/nest/nest-simulator like this:

docker pull nest/nest-simulator:<TAG>

<TAG> can be a version of NEST 2.20.2 or later. Alternatively, you can use dev for the development branch (master).

NEST 3.2 and later

As of NEST 3.2, you can use the docker-compose feature. This feature provides options to run additional applications along with NEST.

To use docker-compose you need the definition file from the git repository. Download it:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nest/nest-docker/master/docker-compose.yml

You can then run docker-compose up with one of the following options:

NEST server

docker-compose up nest-server

or

docker run -it --rm -e NEST_CONTAINER_MODE=nest-server -p 52425:52425 \
     nest/nest-simulator:<TAG>

Starts the NEST API server container and opens the corresponding port 52425. Test it with curl localhost:52425/api. See the NEST Server documentation for more details.

NEST Desktop

docker-compose up nest-desktop

or

docker run -it --rm -e NEST_CONTAINER_MODE=nest-server -p 52425:52425 \
    nest/nest-simulator:<TAG>
docker run -it --rm -e LOCAL_USER_ID=`id -u $USER` -p 54286:54286 \
    -e NEST_CONTAINER_MODE=nest-desktop nest/nest-simulator:<TAG>

Starts the NEST server and the NEST desktop web interface. Port 54286 is also made available. Open NEST Desktop in the web browser using the following http link: http://localhost:54286

Visit the NEST Desktop documentation to learn more.

Jupyter notebook with NEST

docker-compose up nest-notebook

or

docker run -it --rm -e LOCAL_USER_ID=`id -u $USER` -v $(pwd):/opt/data -e NEST_CONTAINER_MODE=notebook \
    -p 8080:8080 nest/nest-simulator:<TAG>

Starts a notebook server with pre-installed NEST. The corresponding URL is displayed in the console. You can copy an d paste into your browser.

Jupyter lab with NEST

docker-compose up nest-jupyterlab

or

docker run -it --rm -e LOCAL_USER_ID=`id -u $USER` -v $(pwd):/opt/data -e NEST_CONTAINER_MODE=jupyterlab \
    -p 8080:8080 nest/nest-simulator:<TAG>

Starts a Jupyter lab server with pre-installed NEST. The corresponding URL is displayed in the console. Copy and paste the URL into your browser.

Remove container

To stop and delete running containers use docker-compose down.

To run NEST 2.20.2

Jupyter notebook with NEST 2.20.2:

docker run -it --rm -e LOCAL_USER_ID=`id -u $USER` -v $(pwd):/opt/data -e NEST_CONTAINER_MODE=notebook \
           -p 8080:8080 nest/nest-simulator:2.20.2

NEST dev

If you want to use the compose configuration for the dev NEST version, you can use the following file option:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nest/nest-docker/master/docker-compose-dev.yml
docker-compose -f docker-compose-dev.yml up nest-notebook

You can specify the container mode (nest-noteobook, nest-desktop, nest-server, or nest-jupyterlab) This will download the docker image with the pre-installed NEST master from https://hub.docker.com/r/nest/nest-simulator and start it. After booting, a URL is presented. Click on it or copy it to your browser.

Run NEST on Windows

Important

The following commands should work on Windows. Please note that NEST does not officially support Windows!

docker run -it --rm -v %cd%:/opt/data -p 8080:8080 -e NEST_CONTAINER_MODE=<args> \
    nest/nest-simulator:<TAG>

In Powershell, ‘%cd%’ might not work for the current directory. Then you should explicitly specify a folder with existing write permissions.

In any case, this will download the docker image with the pre-installed NEST master from https://hub.docker.com/r/nest/nest-simulator and start it. After booting, a URL is presented. Click on it or copy it to your browser. Voilá! Jupyter notebook starts from the docker image.

You can update the image with:

docker pull nest/nest-simulator:<TAG>

For more information, you can checkout the nest-docker repository