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Bulkhead Logo

🚀 Bulkhead — Flutter Docker Manager for Linux, macOS & Windows 🐳

Flutter Platform Docker Riverpod License: MIT GitHub Release

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Bulkhead is a state-of-the-art desktop Docker Engine manager built with Flutter Desktop for Linux, macOS, and Windows. It provides high-performance, real-time container administration, multi-container Compose stack management, local image registry inspection, persistent volume control, virtual network topology visualization, embedded interactive terminal emulation, container volume file browsing with upload/download capabilities, single-click system storage optimization, and automated Over-The-Air (OTA) updates.

✨ Key Highlights

  • ⚡ 100% Real-Time Event-Driven (Zero Polling Overhead): Listens continuously to the Docker Engine socket stream (/events) to instantly refresh containers, images, volumes, networks, and compose stacks without background timers or screen flickering.
  • 🔄 Automated Over-The-Air (OTA) In-App Updates: Queries GitHub Releases API at startup to display an Update Available pill badge, changelog inspector, and direct download links for .dmg, .zip, .deb, .rpm, or .pkg.tar.zst packages.
  • 🔌 Direct Native Socket Connection: Connects directly to local Docker Unix domain sockets (/var/run/docker.sock, Docker Desktop / OrbStack / Colima socket paths) or Windows Named Pipes (\\.\pipe\docker_engine) using HTTP/1.1 chunked response demuxing.
  • 💻 Embedded Interactive Container Terminal (xterm): Native terminal emulator with PTY allocation (script wrapper), shell selector (/bin/bash, /bin/sh, zsh, ash), ANSI escape code stripping, normalized \r\n line endings, right-click context menu (Copy Output, Paste Stdin), and external terminal launcher (macOS Terminal, Windows CMD, Linux terminals).
  • 📁 Container Volume File Browser & File Manager: Explore container volumes, root file systems, and bind mounts. Features Back (<) & Forward (>) directory history navigation, Upload File (docker cp), and Download File/Folder to host system folders. Accessible from container details and the Volumes page.
  • 🚀 Full Docker Compose CLI Integration: Manage multi-container application stacks (docker compose up -d, down, restart, down -v --remove-orphans). Includes a Deploy Stack wizard with an inline docker-compose.yml editor.
  • 📦 Multi-Selection & Bulk Actions: Select multiple containers, images, volumes, or networks with Select-All header checkboxes to perform batch operations (Start, Stop, Restart, Delete).
  • 📜 Dual-Mode Log Telemetry & Demuxing: Real-time stdout/stderr log streaming supporting both TTY and non-TTY multiplexed stream frames with auto-scrolling and log text copying.
  • 🏷️ Unified Status Badge System: Standardized status badge colors (AppColors.success green for all running stack & container states) and responsive sizing across all screens.
  • 🧹 1-Click Storage Optimization: Dynamic progress bars calculated from docker system df metrics with a single-click System Prune All button to reclaim unused disk space.
  • 🎨 Modern Dark & Light Themes: Dark mode interface designed according to #111316 surface specifications, paired with crisp Hanken Grotesk headings and JetBrains Mono code telemetry.

🔌 Platform Docker Socket Locations

Bulkhead automatically detects and connects to the Docker Engine daemon across all operating systems:

Platform Default Socket / IPC Path Supported Runtimes
🐧 Linux /var/run/docker.sock Docker Engine, Podman
🍏 macOS /var/run/docker.sock
~/.docker/run/docker.sock
~/.orbstack/run/docker.sock
~/.colima/default/docker.sock		 Docker Desktop for Mac,
OrbStack, Colima
🪟 Windows \\.\pipe\docker_engine
tcp://localhost:2375		 Docker Desktop for Windows,
WSL2 Engine

🖼️ Feature Tour & Screenshots

📊 1. Dashboard Overview

Inspect real-time system metrics, active container slots, docker system df storage usage bars, 1-click Prune System, and live Docker Engine /events stream telemetry.

Dashboard Overview

📦 2. Containers Management

Monitor and filter container instances (All, Running, Stopped). Perform multi-selection bulk operations or click Run Container to deploy new containers with custom port bindings and environment variables.

Containers Management

💻 3. Embedded Interactive Terminal & Container Telemetry

Deep dive into container telemetry with stdout/stderr log streaming, Embedded Exec Terminal (xterm with TTY shell selection and right-click copy/paste), Volume File Browser, raw Docker inspect JSON view, environment variables, port mappings, and host volume mounts.

Container Detail & Telemetry

🚀 4. Docker Compose Stacks

Deploy and manage multi-container Compose applications. View service health, stream service terminal logs, edit docker-compose.yml directly, and perform full stack lifecycle controls (Up, Down, Restart, Purge/Delete).

Compose Stacks Management

🖼️ 5. Local Image Registry

Inspect locally stored Docker images, view repository tags and sizes, execute Run Container from Image, perform bulk image deletion, and use the real-time layer progress terminal in Pull Image.

Image Registry

💾 6. Volume Storage Points & File Explorer

Manage persistent storage volumes, inspect host mountpoints and drivers, browse attached volume file systems with Back/Forward history and Upload/Download options, create new volumes, prune unused volume points, and perform multi-selection deletion.

Volume Storage Points

🌐 7. Virtual Networks Topology

Visualize virtual bridge, host, overlay, and macvlan networks. Inspect subnets, gateways, attached container IDs, and create custom networks.

Virtual Networks Topology

⚙️ 8. System Settings & Connection Configuration

Configure local Docker Unix domain socket paths, test socket permissions, check for software updates, and switch theme modes (Dark, Light, System Default).

Settings Screen

🛠️ Feature Matrix Summary

Area Feature & Capability
Real-Time Engine Sync 100% event-driven sync via /events socket stream; zero polling timers.
Over-The-Air (OTA) Updates Auto-checks GitHub Releases API; in-app update notification pill, changelog viewer, direct asset downloads.
Containers List, filter, start, stop, restart, remove, multi-select bulk actions, run new container modal.
Interactive Terminal xterm: ^4.0.0 emulator, Linux/macOS PTY allocation (script), /bin/bash//bin/sh/zsh shells, right-click context menu, clean ANSI escape filter, external terminal launcher.
Volume File Manager Browse attached container volumes & host mountpoints, Back/Forward navigation stack, Upload host files (docker cp), Download files & directories (docker cp).
Container Telemetry Dual-mode stdout/stderr live logs, raw Inspect JSON viewer, environment variable table, port mapping table.
Compose Stacks List stacks, Up/Down/Restart/Delete, Deploy Stack wizard, inline YAML editor, service log stream, unified green status badges.
Images Inspect tags/sizes, Pull Image modal with terminal progress, Run Container from Image, Prune unused images.
Volumes List mountpoints, create volume modal, remove, multi-select delete, Prune unused volumes, integrated File Browser.
Networks List network topology, driver selector (bridge, host, overlay, macvlan), subnet/gateway inspector.
Storage Optimization Dynamic docker system df usage bars, 1-click Prune System (docker system prune -a --volumes).

⚙️ Installation & Getting Started

📋 Prerequisites

  • Docker Engine / Docker Desktop: Installed & running locally.
  • Supported OS: Linux (Arch, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora), macOS 11+, Windows 10/11.

📦 Installation Options

Choose the pre-built installer for your operating system from GitHub Releases:

🍏 macOS (.dmg or .zip)

Download bulkhead-macos-<version>.dmg or bulkhead-macos-app.zip from GitHub Releases:

  1. Open bulkhead-macos-<version>.dmg.
  2. Drag Bulkhead.app into your /Applications folder.
  3. Launch Bulkhead from Spotlight or Launchpad.

🪟 Windows (.zip)

Download bulkhead-windows-x64.zip from GitHub Releases:

  1. Extract bulkhead-windows-x64.zip to your preferred directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\Bulkhead).
  2. Run Bulkhead.exe.

🌀 Ubuntu / Debian / Linux Mint / Pop!_OS (.deb)

Download bulkhead_<version>_amd64.deb and install via apt:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ./bulkhead_1.0.0_amd64.deb

🎩 Fedora / RHEL / CentOS / OpenSUSE (.rpm)

Download bulkhead-<version>-1.x86_64.rpm and install via dnf or rpm:

sudo dnf install ./bulkhead-1.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm
# or
sudo rpm -i ./bulkhead-1.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm

🏹 Arch Linux / Manjaro / EndeavourOS (.pkg.tar.zst or yay)

Download bulkhead-<version>-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst and install via pacman:

sudo pacman -U ./bulkhead-1.0.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Or install directly from AUR:

yay -S bulkhead-bin

📦 Portable Linux Zip Archive (.zip)

Download bulkhead-linux-x64.zip, extract, and run anywhere:

unzip bulkhead-linux-x64.zip -d ~/bulkhead
cd ~/bulkhead
./bulkhead

🚀 Building & Running from Source

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/ahmadteeb/Bulkhead.git
cd Bulkhead

# 2. Install Dependencies
flutter pub get

# 3. Run Static Analysis & Unit Tests
flutter analyze
flutter test

# 4. Run Desktop Application locally
flutter run -d linux   # Linux
flutter run -d macos   # macOS
flutter run -d windows # Windows

# 5. Build Release Desktop Bundle with Build Version Arguments
flutter build linux --release --build-name=1.0.0 --build-number=1   # Linux
flutter build macos --release --build-name=1.0.0 --build-number=1   # macOS
flutter build windows --release --build-name=1.0.0 --build-number=1 # Windows

🏗️ Technical Architecture

  • UI Framework: Flutter Desktop (Linux GTK, macOS Cocoa, Windows Win32 runners).
  • State Management: Riverpod 2.x (StateNotifierProvider, StreamProvider, FutureProvider).
  • Build Versioning: Dynamic build number and build name resolution parsed via package_info_plus at runtime.
  • OTA Updates: GitHub Releases API parser (UpdateNotifier), in-app update notification pill, changelog inspector (UpdateDialog), and direct platform asset launcher.
  • Terminal Emulator: xterm: ^4.0.0 with PTY pseudo-terminal allocation (script -q -c "docker exec -it ...").
  • File Manager: file_picker package paired with docker cp process execution.
  • Multi-Platform CI/CD Pipelines: GitHub Actions workflows passing --build-name=$VERSION --build-number=$BUILD_NUM and packaging macOS (.dmg, .zip), Windows (.zip), Linux (.deb, .rpm, .pkg.tar.zst, .zip), and AUR PKGBUILD.
  • Socket I/O: Custom DockerSocketConnection implementing HTTP/1.1 over Unix Domain Sockets and Windows Named Pipes (\\.\pipe\docker_engine).
  • Stream Demuxing: 8-byte multiplexing header demuxer parsing stdout (stream type 1) and stderr (stream type 2) from Docker container log streams.
  • Typography: Google Fonts (Hanken Grotesk headings, JetBrains Mono telemetry).

☕ Support & Donate

If you find Bulkhead useful and would like to support its ongoing development, consider buying me a coffee!

Buy Me A Coffee

📄 License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 Ahmad El-Khatib (AhmadTeeb)

About

High-performance, real-time desktop Docker Engine & Compose manager for Linux, macOS & Windows built with Flutter Desktop. Features zero-polling event-driven sync, embedded xterm terminal, container volume file explorer, virtual network topology, and 1-click storage optimization.

Topics

arch-linuxcontainer-managementcross-platformdev-toolsdockerdocker-composedocker-desktopdocker-managerdocker-uiflutterflutter-desktoplinuxlinux-desktopmacosportainer-alternativeriverpodwindowsxterm

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