How do I set resources allocated to a container using docker?

Memory/CPU

Docker now supports more resource allocation options:

• CPU shares, via -c flag
• Memory limit, via -m flag
• Specific CPU cores, via --cpuset flag

Have a look at docker run --help for more details.

If you use lxc backend (docker -d --exec-driver=lxc), more fine grained resource allocation schemes can be specified, e.g.:

docker run --lxc-conf="lxc.cgroup.cpuset.cpus = 0,1"\
           --lxc-conf="lxc.cgroup.cpu.shares = 1234"

Storage

Limiting storage is a bit trickier at the moment. Please refer to the following links for more details:

• Resizing Docker containers with the Device Mapper plugin
• Question on Resource Limits?
• devicemapper - a storage backend based on Device Mapper

You can now allocate a number of CPU shares to a container with the -c option as described here