Flotilla 1.5.0-beta.6

Flotilla is a native Mac app for Apple's container: run and manage Linux containers on this Mac, and on a fleet of Macs from one admin Mac.

This is a beta, built and tested against container 1.5.0. Expect rough edges, and please report what you find.

Requirements

• A Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 26 or later.
• Apple's container 1.5.0. Flotilla offers to download and install it on first run, through Apple's own Installer.

Version

This is Flotilla 1.5.0-beta.6, tested with container 1.5.0. About in Settings says both, and the status bar shows the version. Updates still work as before: Flotilla orders its builds by build number, not by the label.

What's new since beta 5

A modular Overview.

• The Overview is now a page of widgets that you choose, arrange and resize. Flotilla keeps your layout for each Mac.
• The notifications band stays fixed at the top. It can't be moved or removed. It says "Nothing needs attention", or shows one notice at a time, with a link to All Notifications. If container needs setting up, that banner sits above it.
• Get started is the same full-width card as before, under the band. Close it with its own ✕. A Mac that already closed it doesn't get it back.
• The widgets are Fleet at a glance, Hosts, Containers, Vulnerabilities, Activity, Machines, Kubernetes, DNS, Storage, Tasks, Images, Networks and Suggestions. A new Mac starts with the first seven.
• Every widget comes in four shapes: Small, Wide, Tall and Large. Each shape is its own layout of the same information, not a crop. Small is a figure, Wide adds a few rows, Tall is a list, and Large is a list with more detail on each row.
• Every widget has a ⋯ menu for its size and for Show, a choice of what it lists. For example, Containers shows Running, All, Stopped or By Host. Hosts shows All or Problems. Images shows Newest, Largest or With Vulnerabilities. Storage has no choice. The widget's title names a choice other than the usual one, such as "Containers · Stopped".
• Click a widget to open its section, already set to match what the widget showed.
• Add Widget is a menu with a tick beside every widget on the page. Tick one to add it. Untick it to remove it. There is one widget of each kind.
• Edit Widgets puts a ✕, a size control and a resize handle on every widget, and opens a panel with the same ticks. Reset to Recommended and Done are at the top.
• Move a widget without Edit mode. Hover it and drag the grip of dots at its top left. The others move out of the way.
• With no widgets, the page offers to add some, or to use the recommended layout.
• Widgets can be moved, resized and removed with VoiceOver actions or the right-click menu, so none of it needs a drag.
• A wider window gets more columns instead of stretched widgets, and a narrow one never pushes Done or the sidebar out of the window.

The status bar.

• Beside the version it now says when Flotilla last refreshed, and, with more than one Mac, how many answered: "Updated just now · 2 of 6 Macs connected". It counts Macs that are connected, not every Mac you have added. It shows on every page. It no longer sits in the Overview.

Lists.

• The toolbar above every list starts with the select-all checkbox, lined up over the rows' own checkboxes.
• The pane switch is now two buttons on one glass bar, as in Finder: list only, or two panes. The one in use is lit.

Logos that need a credit.

• Flotilla can now show a logo whose owner asks for an attribution. The credit shows at the foot of Suggestions and of the Add Service picker, and in Settings ▸ About.
• Redis Ltd has given permission for its logo. It appears once the suggestions library that carries it is published. Until then Redis shows its category symbol. Beta 5 keeps showing the symbol even after, because only beta 6 reads the new logo and its credit.

What testers must do

• Look at the new Overview. Add, remove, resize and drag a few widgets, quit and reopen Flotilla, and check that the layout is kept.
• Hosts. Update the admin Mac first. It then updates its hosts by itself, one at a time, when each is idle.
• Helper. If macOS asks, approve the Flotilla Helper in System Settings ▸ General ▸ Login Items & Extensions.

Downloads

• Flotilla-1.5.0-beta.6.dmg: drag Flotilla to Applications.
• Flotilla-1.5.0-beta.6.pkg: for MDM and scripted installs.
• Flotilla-1.5.0-beta.6.zip and .tar.gz: the same signed, notarised app.

Updating from beta 5

Flotilla updates itself through Sparkle. Your settings, groups and paired Macs are kept. The Overview starts with the recommended widgets, because beta 5 had no layout to carry over.

Known limits

• Your widget layout belongs to one Mac. It isn't shared with the Macs you manage, and a host has its own.
• There is one widget of each kind. You can't have two Containers widgets.
• Redis's logo needs the library that carries it. Until that is published, Redis shows its category symbol.
• A new host needs one click on macOS's local network prompt; a configuration profile cannot grant it.
• Containers on different Macs reach each other through published ports only.
• A cluster on a host is reached with kubectl on that host.
• Creating a cluster on a host shows no progress until it finishes, which can take several minutes.
• The Docker Hub browser searches Docker Hub only.
• With Show Flotilla in: Menu bar, a window still opens at login.
• Vulnerability reports cover the library's images only, not images you built or pulled elsewhere.
• Dictation needs a language Apple's speech recognition offers on the Mac. Otherwise the button is off.
• Files can't change a machine's files, or another Mac's containers.
• A machine's update check can start a machine that was just stopped.
• Machine update checks cover Alpine and AlmaLinux only.
• Tasks can't be paused, and a run, a stack or a machine create can't be cancelled or retried. A run's task can Stop the container it made.

Flotilla 1.5.0-beta.5

Flotilla is a native Mac app for Apple's container: run and manage Linux containers on this Mac, and on a fleet of Macs from one admin Mac.

This is a beta, built and tested against container 1.5.0. Expect rough edges, and please report what you find.

Requirements

• A Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 26 or later.
• Apple's container 1.5.0. Flotilla offers to download and install it on first run, through Apple's own Installer.

A new version number

Flotilla now has its own version number, in the form X.Y.Z. This is Flotilla 1.5.0-beta.5, tested with container 1.5.0. About in Settings says both, and the status bar shows the version. Updates still work as before: Flotilla orders its builds by build number, not by the label.

What's new since beta 4

One search box, and a new look for lists.

• The search box in the window bar filters the page you're on, jumps to sections and to things by name on any Mac, and runs commands. ⌘K and ⌘F focus it, and ⌘K opens on a list of everything it can do.
• Start with container:, image:, volume:, host: and so on to look only at that kind of thing, from any page. Start with / to run a command by name, such as /run-container or /pull-image. > still means commands only.
• Every list is now two-line rows with a checkbox, one Sort menu and no Cards view. When a row is wide enough it becomes one line, as in Gmail.
• Every list is a split view, like Mail: the list on the left, the selected item's page on the right. Drag the divider and Flotilla remembers it for each section. The arrows ↑ ↓ step through the list, and the expand button widens the page over the list.
• A button in every section switches between two panes and list only. In list only, clicking a row slides its page in, and the ✕ or Esc closes it.
• Tick several rows for a summary with the bulk actions. Row actions show when you hover or select a row, and always while VoiceOver is running.
• Pages with tabs use an icon-only switcher, in the same order everywhere.
• The Recent activity strip at the bottom of pages is gone. The Activity section has everything.
• Logs and Activity are lists with a detail pane. Click a line to read it in full.
• Selecting a group shows a live overview (how many services are running, each service, its network), with Edit.

Status bar.

• A bar across the bottom of the window. On the left: ● Container, ● Helper and the version. On the right: Tasks. Each dot shows the state; click it for a menu.
• The version menu checks for updates, shows the update channel, shows the suggestions library, and updates Flotilla or container on your hosts.
• Update checks show what they're doing: checking, downloading, verifying, installing.

Tasks.

• Every job you start, such as a pull, build, install or stack, becomes a task. Progress no longer takes over the window.
• Tasks rises as a panel on the right side of the window. Each task is one line: an icon for its kind, its title, and its progress or elapsed time. Hover for where it runs and its current step. Open the caret for its steps and output.
• The status bar shows Tasks on the right: a spinner, a count and the progress while jobs run, "Failed" in red after a failure, and "Done" for a moment after a success. When all is quiet it shows how many jobs finished.
• Finished jobs fold into one line, "N finished". A failure among them is named there.
• The panel puts itself away two seconds after the last job ends well. A failure keeps it up. ⌥⌘T shows or hides it.
• Some tasks have a Stop button (pulling and building an image on this Mac) and Retry. Tasks that can't be safely repeated offer neither. There is no Pause.
• When a container you ran is still running, its task has a Stop button. It stops that container, on the Mac it runs on. It matches the container by name and creation time, so a later container with the same name is never stopped by mistake. If Flotilla can't read the creation time, there is no Stop button.
• A failed task raises a notice with Show Task and, if Flotilla is in the background, a macOS notification. Successes don't notify. Notifications has a switch for these.
• Pulling or building, creating a machine or a cluster, and the other forms now return to their list when you start them. The job lives in Tasks, and two pulls are two tasks.
• The dialogs for About and the Support Bundle no longer have the red dot. Each closes with its own button, or Esc. About is now in Settings.

Forms.

• Every form has the same buttons at the top right: ⋯ for rare extras (such as Delete or Save to File), ✕ to close, and the main action on the right in the accent colour. The main action is ▶ when it starts a job that shows in Tasks, and ✓ when it keeps your changes. Hover for its exact name.
• There is no button row at the bottom of a form. Messages sit in a band under the header.
• ✕ and Esc ask first if you have unsaved changes, as Back does.
• Add Host uses the same layout, with explanations on the right.

Groups.

• Add Service opens a picker. Choose from the library's single-container suggestions, from the images on this Mac, or start blank. A matching recipe fills in ports, environment and volumes.
• Pick one for a prefilled form. Pick several to add them straight to the group, each with its own name, a free host port and its own password.
• A service needs a host port that is a real port mapping. A pick with no free port is refused with a message saying which services need one, rather than saved and failing at Start.
• A group saved earlier with a bad port isn't lost. Flotilla keeps the service, drops that port and flags it for you to fix.
• The flag shows in the Containers list, on the group's page and in its form. Start won't create that service until you choose a host port, or choose Keep Without It to keep it with no published port.
• A recipe fills in a service only for the same major version of the image: PostgreSQL 17 doesn't get PostgreSQL 18's settings. An image with no version tag, such as latest, gets none.
• A picked service keeps its recipe's volume owner, so a fresh volume is set up for images that don't run as root, as it is for a single run.
• Leaving the picker, or choosing Blank Service, cancels an Add that is still preparing, so it can't add anything afterwards.

Tooltips.

• Every icon button and menu now says what it does when you hover. Some wrong, stale or vague ones were fixed, such as "Create Machine" on a ▶ and "Close (Esc)". Tab icons keep their tooltips. A check in the build fails if an icon is added without one.

The Flotilla Helper.

• The Helper is the background service for jobs that need administrator rights: DNS names across Macs, installing container, and updating Flotilla on hosts. It registers itself at launch in a signed build, shows its real state in the status bar, and offers Restart, Reinstall and Remove.

Hosts.

• A host's page can reach it by SSH, Screen Sharing and Files. SSH runs your own ssh, with your keys. Flotilla can make its own key for its hosts, copy it to a host, and later replace or remove it. Your other keys are not touched.
• Screen Sharing and File Sharing open in macOS. Each shows a dot for whether the service is on.
• Hosts show their Mac model's own icon, and group headings match the ones in Containers.
• Host health is steadier. Flotilla reconnects after your network changes, a busy host shows amber, and a host that is waiting on an update says so instead of failing. Switching sections quickly no longer piles up checks on unreachable hosts, and Flotilla now quits when asked.
• The Updates tab of a host lists macOS and kernel security advisories that apply to its version.

Files.

• A container's Files tab is a small Finder: Icons, List and Columns views, Group By, search, and a path bar. You can create folders, rename, move and delete (Delete always asks). Another Mac's containers stay read-only.

Suggestions.

• Suggestions is now one section in the sidebar, under Overview, with tabs: All, Apps, Stacks, Volumes, Networks, Domains, Machines, Clusters. Each tab shows how many suggestions match your search. Apps and stacks come from the library; volumes, networks, domains, machines and clusters come from the suggestions built into Flotilla. There is no Images or Registries tab.
• The tabs are rows in a split view, like the other lists: the list on the left, the selected suggestion's details on the right.
• Use… opens the form for that kind (Run, the stack form, New Volume, New Network, New DNS Domain, New Machine or New Cluster), full width and already filled in. The filled-in values don't count as unsaved changes, so leaving without editing asks nothing. Nothing is created until you press the form's main action.
• Close or finish a form, or visit another section, and you come back to the same tab, search, category, selection and Mac.
• The search box finds suggestions of every kind from any page. Choosing one opens Suggestions on its tab with the row selected. It never creates anything. A tab with no match offers Show all matches.
• The suggestion galleries inside Containers, Volumes, Networks, DNS, Machines and Clusters are gone. Their Suggestions… menu items, the "start from a suggestion" links in empty lists, and File ▸ Suggestions now open the matching tab.
• Machines can be created from a suggestion on This Mac only, as the New Machine form is today.
• The library's logos appear beside each suggestion, and in Containers and Images made from one. Machines and registries show their distribution's or registry's logo when the library has it.
• Search finds suggestions by category, image and licence, as well as name.
• Tick several apps or stacks and use them in turn, one form each, with "1 of N". If two want the same port, the later one gets a free port. Volumes, networks, domains, machines and clusters are used one at a time.
• A fresh volume is set up for images that ...

Flotilla 1.5.0.0-beta.4

Flotilla is a native Mac app for Apple's container: run and manage Linux containers on this Mac, and on a fleet of Macs from one admin Mac.

This is a beta, built and tested against container 1.5.0. Expect rough edges, and please report what you find.

Requirements

• A Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 26 or later.
• Apple's container 1.5.0. Flotilla offers to download and install it on first run, through Apple's own Installer.

What's new since beta 3

Notifications.

• The bell in the window bar shows how many things need attention. It opens Notifications: a searchable list with Needs Attention, Dismissed and Resolved, and a page for each notice that says how long it has gone on and offers its fix.
• Overview shows one notice at a time, with its fix, Dismiss, and arrows to step through the rest.
• Dismiss hides a notice until its situation changes. Errors can't be dismissed, only dealt with. Select several to dismiss them together.
• Flotilla also uses macOS notifications for what needs you. Each comes with its fix (Start, Retry), Dismiss, and a click that opens the notice:
  • a host that hasn't answered for two minutes;
  • container stopped, on this Mac or a host;
  • a failed host update;
  • a Mac waiting for approval.
    More than three a minute arrive as one, such as "6 Macs stopped answering". A notification leaves Notification Center when its notice is resolved or dismissed. New installs keep them on screen until clicked. Each kind has a switch in Settings.

Hosts.

• The admin can start, stop and restart a host's container: from the host's page, its row menu in Hosts, or the "container is stopped" notice. Each host has a switch to refuse this, on by default.
• A host whose container is stopped says so, in amber, instead of "isn't answering".
• Flotilla starts container by itself only after the Mac starts up. It no longer undoes a stop you made on purpose. The admin can change this setting for each host.
• Needs Attention is first on a host's page.
• Keep Awake: ask a host to stay awake for an hour, four hours, or until 9 tomorrow.
• The System tab recommends Energy settings for a host, each with Apple's guide.
• A host added by address keeps that address. Bonjour is still used where it can see the host, and the typed address everywhere else, such as from the office over Tailscale. SSH, Screen Sharing and File Sharing use it too.

Kubernetes.

• Clusters is now called Kubernetes, after container k8s.
• The admin lists, creates, deletes and recreates clusters on its hosts. The list has a Host column, a host filter and a "Create on" picker.
• A Mac without Rosetta is told so plainly: container's Kubernetes clusters need it.

Polish.

• "Copied" appears after every copy.
• About a hundred controls gained a tooltip, and untitled columns have spoken names.
• The menu bar's Needs Attention is a short list of headings, each opening to its detail.
• Release notes show properly in the update window.

Downloads

• Flotilla-1.5.0.0-beta.4.dmg: drag Flotilla to Applications.
• Flotilla-1.5.0.0-beta.4.pkg: for MDM and scripted installs.
• Flotilla-1.5.0.0-beta.4.zip and .tar.gz: the same signed, notarised app.

Updating from beta 3

Update the admin Mac first. It then updates its hosts by itself, one at a time, when each is idle. Starting and stopping a host's container, and setting its auto-start, need the host on beta 4.

Known limits

• A new host needs one click on macOS's local network prompt; a configuration profile cannot grant it.
• Containers on different Macs reach each other through published ports only.
• A cluster on a host is reached with kubectl on that host. Your admin Mac can't reach it yet.
• Creating a cluster on a host shows no progress until it finishes, which can take several minutes.
• The Docker Hub browser searches Docker Hub only.

Flotilla 1.5.0.0-beta.3

Flotilla is a native Mac app for Apple's container: run and manage Linux containers on this Mac, and on a fleet of Macs from one admin Mac.

This is a beta, built and tested against container 1.5.0. Expect rough edges, and please report what you find.

Requirements

• A Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 26 or later.
• Apple's container 1.5.0. Flotilla offers to download and install it on first run, through Apple's own Installer.

What's new since beta 2

Hosts.

• Each host has its own page, with tabs for Overview, System, Flotilla, Settings, Updates and Activity.
• The System tab shows power, FileVault, the firewall and sharing. It has one-click SSH, Screen Sharing and File Sharing buttons, each linked to Apple's guide for turning it on.
• The Settings tab lists Flotilla's settings and container's own settings, as a table or as a numbered property list.
• Status is a coloured dot. "This Mac", "Admin" and "Host" are built-in tags.
• Hosts can be grouped by subnet, or by your own categories such as Site, Rack and VLAN. Categories travel in .flotilla exports.

Getting around.

• ⌘K opens Go To…, which goes to any section, action, container, image or host by name.
• Containers search understands is:running, is:stopped, image:, host: and tag:.
• ⌘F jumps to the search field in every section.

Running containers.

• Run lets you choose the architecture (arm64 or amd64) and turn on Rosetta inside the container.

Accessibility.

• Every control has a spoken name, and status is in words as well as colour.
• Flotilla follows Increase Contrast, Reduce Transparency and Reduce Motion.

Fixes.

• The Flotilla Helper restarts itself after Flotilla is updated. Before, it could stop answering until the Mac restarted.
• A failed container setup clears once container works again.
• Hosts get switches for installing container by themselves and for taking Flotilla updates from their admin.
• Get started can be closed, and the version and build number show in Overview's corner.
• Admin + Host mode is retired: a Mac is an Admin or a Host, and both run their own containers.

Downloads

• Flotilla-1.5.0.0-beta.3.dmg: drag Flotilla to Applications.
• Flotilla-1.5.0.0-beta.3.pkg: for MDM and scripted installs.
• Flotilla-1.5.0.0-beta.3.zip and .tar.gz: the same signed, notarised app.

Known limits

• A new host needs one click on macOS's local network prompt; a configuration profile cannot grant it.
• Containers on different Macs reach each other through published ports only.
• The Docker Hub browser searches Docker Hub only.
• Coming from beta 2 or earlier: restart each Mac's Flotilla Helper once after updating, by switching it off and on in Settings ▸ Advanced. From beta 3 on it does this itself.

Flotilla sends no analytics and nothing about your Mac. Settings ▸ About lists every address it can contact, and when.

Flotilla 1.5.0.0-beta.2

Flotilla is a native Mac app for Apple's container: run and manage Linux containers on this Mac, and on a fleet of Macs from one admin Mac.

This is a beta, built and tested against container 1.5.0. Expect rough edges, and please report what you find.

Requirements

• A Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 26 or later.
• Apple's container 1.5.0. Flotilla offers to download and install it on first run, through Apple's own Installer.

What's new since beta 1

The fleet. Pair other Macs as hosts, approve them, and manage them all from one window:

• an Overview of what needs attention, available updates, fleet totals and every host;
• pulling images to several Macs at once, and sending an image from this Mac to others;
• running containers, viewing live logs, and pushing networks and volumes to hosts;
• DNS on every Mac, a zone per host, and container names that resolve across Macs;
• updates rolled out from the admin Mac to its hosts, one at a time, without stopping containers;
• container installed and upgraded on hosts automatically.

The Flotilla Helper. One optional helper, approved once in Login Items, for the few jobs that need an administrator: DNS domains, names across Macs, and installing container. Every change is still confirmed in Flotilla.

Everyday work.

• Groups shown in the Containers list, the way Compose stacks are shown elsewhere.
• Suggestions: ready-made stacks, created as groups.
• Images ▸ Browse Docker Hub: search, check tags for Apple silicon builds, and pull.
• .flotilla files to share a group or export a Mac's configuration.
• Kernel detection, a simpler menu bar menu with a status badge, themes, and many fixes.

Updates. Flotilla now updates itself with Sparkle on the Mac you manage your fleet from. Betas are offered to Macs set to the pre-release channel (Settings ▸ Updates).

Downloads

• Flotilla-1.5.0.0-beta.2.dmg: drag Flotilla to Applications.
• Flotilla-1.5.0.0-beta.2.pkg: for MDM and scripted installs.
• Flotilla-1.5.0.0-beta.2.zip and .tar.gz: the same signed, notarised app.

Known limits

• A new host needs one click on macOS's local network prompt; a configuration profile cannot grant it.
• Containers on different Macs reach each other through published ports only.
• The Docker Hub browser searches Docker Hub only.

Flotilla sends no analytics and nothing about your Mac. Settings ▸ About lists every address it can contact, and when.