Overview

Editions

TODO CE and EE differences (no private image repos on CE?!! based on feature comparison)

Operating Systems

TODO Linux vs Windows Containers, switching etc.

Linux

TODO This section is outdated! Current official way is to download from Docker Store: https://www.docker.com/docker-ubuntu

Quick install: curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ | sh

Add user to docker group for use without sudo:

• sudo usermod -aG docker <user>
• Restart the docker service (e.g. sudo service docker restart on Ubuntu)
• Log out and back in again.

Removing:

apt-get purge docker-engine
apt-get autoremove --purge docker-engine
rm -rf /var/lib/docker

Note that the last command removes also all volumes and configuration data from containers.

Additional tools must be installed separately, e.g. docker-compose, docker-machine.

Desktops

Docker for Windows

Docker for Windows uses built-in virtualization technology (Hyper-V) under the hood, but requires Microsoft Windows 10 Professional or Enterprise 64-bit. For older systems, try docker toolbox that can run on VirtualBox.

• Documentation: https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/
• Download: https://www.docker.com/docker-windows
• Community forum: https://forums.docker.com/c/docker-for-windows

TODO enable virtualization extensions in BIOS for Hyper-V to function.

To install, download and run the installer InstallDocker.msi. This installs the command line tools, sets up a VM (named MobyLinuxVM) on Hyper-V and installs a shell for controlling the VM (whale icon in status bar).

The whale icon on the status bar can be used to access virtual machine settings (CPUs, Memory, automatic startup) and to shut down the virtual machine (exit). The VM can be started again by running the tool from the menu.

The installation also sets up a DNS service that forwards the docker address to the VM (e.g. you can use http://docker:<port> on the host to access a website running in a container).

The command line environment will point to the local VM by default.

Uninstalling the software also removes the automatically created virtual machine from Hyper-V.

Docker for Mac OS X

Docker for Mac requires OSX Yosemite 10.10.3 or above. For older systems, try docker toolbox that can run on VirtualBox.

• Documentation: https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/
• Download: https://www.docker.com/docker-mac
• Community forum: https://forums.docker.com/c/docker-for-mac

Docker Toolbox

TODO This section is probably outdated!

Download and install docker toolbox. The toolbox contains the docker tools (including docker-machine and docker-compose), Kitematic (an UI for managing containers) and Oracle VirtualBox installer.

If you don’t plan to run containers on top of a local VirtualBox instance, then you can leave VirtualBox unchecked in the installer (e.g. if you plan to use Hyper-V on windows).

Local Container Host for Development

Running Kitematic spins up a new local VM called default on top of VirtualBox. At the time of writing, the Kitematic UI only supports the VirtualBox driver and a local VM called default (you can have a stab at the kitematic source code and compile it yourself though, see here)).

Alternatively, you can run docker-machine create --driver <driver name> <vm-name> on the command line followed by docker-machine start <vm-name>.

Read Docker Hosts for information on creating local hosts using docker-machine (e.g. creating a host on Hyper-V instead of VirtualBox on windows).

Servers

TODO Separate packages now for different server OS brands: https://www.docker.com/get-docker.

Running Disposable Test Containers

To get a container up with bash, run for example docker run -it --rm ubuntu bash. For an image with basic networking tools (e.g. curl) not included in the ubuntu image, run docker run -it --rm joffotron/docker-net-tools.

This should pull the image (may take a while) and start a container with the bash shell. Type exit to stop the container.

Specifying the --rm flag causes the container to be removed automatically when the main process exits.

More examples

Nginx

To get a container up with a web server, run for example docker run -d -p 8080:80 --name webtest nginx. This should start a blank nginx web server accessible on port 8080 of the docker host machine. Then run docker stop webtest and docker rm webtest to kill and remove the container.

TODO –rm flag does not work in this example when running without -d because Ctrl-C does not stop the process and the stop command does not terminate the main process gracefully either. Signaling the container with SIGQUIT stops the container but it still does not get removed.