This is a Docker image containing an installed version of SYMPHONY. For most purposes, it has been superseded by a similar image that contains the entire COIN-OR Optimization Suite. For most purposes, you should use that image rather than this one.

A preliminary version of this image was written by Patrick Wieschollek. Thanks, Patrick!

Install and Use From Docker Hub

This image is now on Docker Hub. To use, simply install Docker (see instructions below) and then do

docker pull coinor/symphony

This retrieves a docker image containing SYMPHONY. Once you have the image, you can create a container, which is a running version of the image. Note that this container is completely isolated from the OS you are working in, so to run any useful commands inside it, you need to first copy the files in to the container, then copy the results back out. To do this, first create and start a container, as follows:

docker create --name=sym -it coinor/symphony
docker start sym

Now copy in any files you need:

docker cp example.mps sym:/tmp

Here, we are copying into the /tmp directory inside the container. Finally, execute a solver command.

docker run coinor/symphony /var/symphony/bin/symphony -F /tmp/example.mps > /tmp/output

and finally, copy the output back out

docker cp sym:/tmp/output .

Note that you are root by default inside the container, but this is not much of a risk inside a docker container, since it can be recreated easily.

Build from Source

Linux

Just clone the repository and build the docker image by

git clone https://github.com/coin-or-tools/symphony-docker
cd symphony-docker
sudo docker build -t symphony image/

Now follow the instructions for running SYMPHONY from above, but note that all commands will have to be executed with sudo.

Windows

First install Docker Desktop for Windows (in older versions of Windows without built-in virtualization, the instructions my be different). From a Powershell terminal clone the repository and build the docker image by the commands

git clone https://github.com/coin-or-tools/symphony-docker
cd symphony-docker
docker build -t symphony image/

Finally, follow the instructions for running a solver from above.

Mac OSX

Since Docker is a bit more difficult to get running on OSX than on Linux, this is some additional documentation for the OSX crowd. OSX is not like Linux---virtualization is not built into the kernel. Therefore, we need to run the docker machine inside another VM. For this, we need virtualbox. The instructions below are for installing virutalbox with homebrew, which seems to work very well. (Caveat: I first found some old instructions on how to do this and took a round-about path to the installation. Therefore, the list of commands below is not exactly what I did. However, I think it's the right incantation if you're starting from scratch with an updated install of homebrew.)

Update: There now seems to be a trouble-free installation of Docker on OS X as a native app. I haven't tried this, but I guess it should work well and might be preferable is you are not already using homebrew.

First, install virtualbox

brew update
brew tap caskroom/cask
brew cask install virtualbox

Now install docker and docker-machine

brew install docker
brew install docker-machine

Create a new docker server to run in virtualbox and set environment variables so docker knows how to connect to it.

docker-machine create --driver virtualbox default
eval "$(docker-machine env default)"

Now follow instructions as above for building the container

git clone https://github.com/coin-or-tools/symphony-docker
cd symphony/
docker build -t symphony image/

Finally, start up the server and the container

docker-machine start default

Now follow the instructions for running a solver from above.