Default docker machine on Mac

Question

I'm a bit confused about the default docker machine on Mac.

Currently, my docker-machine ls shows a machine called default but it's not running. And yet I can still run containers without a problem. I believe what happened was I was having problem with the default setup and I rm and create d the default machine. But apparently default is NOT the default machine because when I switch to it with eval $(docker-machine env default) I see completely different images and containers.

What is the default docker machine on Mac?

Here is my versions:

Client:
 Version:      1.12.1
 API version:  1.24
 Go version:   go1.7.1
 Git commit:   6f9534c
 Built:        Thu Sep  8 10:31:18 2016
 OS/Arch:      darwin/amd64

Server:
 Version:      1.12.1
 API version:  1.24
 Go version:   go1.6.3
 Git commit:   23cf638
 Built:        Thu Aug 18 17:52:38 2016
 OS/Arch:      linux/amd64

docker info output:

Containers: 15
 Running: 1
 Paused: 0
 Stopped: 14
Images: 52
Server Version: 1.12.1
Storage Driver: aufs
 Root Dir: /var/lib/docker/aufs
 Backing Filesystem: extfs
 Dirs: 270
 Dirperm1 Supported: true
Logging Driver: json-file
Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
Plugins:
 Volume: local
 Network: host overlay null bridge
Swarm: active
 NodeID: exto91f6u59r77znpa3kj9ufp
 Is Manager: true
 ClusterID: 5my0ngxiaozvdt6s44icecy4y
 Managers: 1
 Nodes: 1
 Orchestration:
  Task History Retention Limit: 5
 Raft:
  Snapshot Interval: 10000
  Heartbeat Tick: 1
  Election Tick: 3
 Dispatcher:
  Heartbeat Period: 5 seconds
 CA Configuration:
  Expiry Duration: 3 months
 Node Address: 192.168.65.2
Runtimes: runc
Default Runtime: runc
Security Options: seccomp
Kernel Version: 4.4.20-moby
Operating System: Alpine Linux v3.4
OSType: linux
Architecture: x86_64
CPUs: 2
Total Memory: 1.953 GiB
Name: moby
ID: 3QHL:JAAF:XUSR:KR5Q:APNG:Z4LN:XSFR:53YC:6VBQ:DZJE:DM6G:MWXY
Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
Debug Mode (client): false
Debug Mode (server): true
 File Descriptors: 38
 Goroutines: 128
 System Time: 2016-10-23T02:24:34.36197692Z
 EventsListeners: 1
Username: yijian
Registry: https://index.docker.io/v1/
Insecure Registries:
 127.0.0.0/8

Answer 1

Probably you upgraded to docker for mac which no longer use docker-machine to emulate a docker environment in Mac.

You can still use docker-machine primarily for manage remote docker engines.

Regards