Install Docker Engine

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Supported platforms

Docker Engine is available on a variety of Linux platforms, macOS and Windows 10 through Docker Desktop, and as a static binary installation. Find your preferred operating system below.

Desktop

Server

Docker provides .deb and .rpm packages from the following Linux distributions and architectures:

Platform	x86_64 / amd64	ARM	ARM64 / AARCH64
CentOS		В
Debian
Fedora		В
Raspbian	В
Ubuntu

Other Linux distributions

While the instructions below may work, Docker does not test or verify installation on derivatives.

• Users of Debian derivatives such as “BunsenLabs Linux”, “Kali Linux” or “LMDE” (Debian-based Mint) should follow the installation instructions for Debian, substituting the version of their distro for the corresponding Debian release. Refer to the documentation of your distro to find which Debian release corresponds with your derivative version.
• Likewise, users of Ubuntu derivatives such as “Kubuntu”, “Lubuntu” or “Xubuntu” should follow the installation instructions for Ubuntu, substituting the version of their distro for the corresponding Ubuntu release. Refer to the documentation of your distro to find which Ubuntu release corresponds with your derivative version.
• Some Linux distributions are providing a package of Docker Engine through their package repositories. These packages are built and maintained by the Linux distribution’s package maintainers and may have differences in configuration or built from modified source code. Docker is not involved in releasing these packages and bugs or issues involving these packages should be reported in your Linux distribution’s issue tracker.

Docker provides binaries for manual installation of Docker Engine. These binaries are statically linked and can be used on any Linux distribution.

Release channels

Docker Engine has three types of update channels, stable, test, and nightly:

• The Stable channel gives you latest releases for general availability.
• The Test channel gives pre-releases that are ready for testing before general availability (GA).
• The Nightly channel gives you latest builds of work in progress for the next major release.

Stable

Year-month releases are made from a release branch diverged from the master branch. The branch is created with format . , for example 19.03 . The year-month name indicates the earliest possible calendar month to expect the release to be generally available. All further patch releases are performed from that branch. For example, once v19.03.0 is released, all subsequent patch releases are built from the 19.03 branch.

In preparation for a new year-month release, a branch is created from the master branch with format YY.mm when the milestones desired by Docker for the release have achieved feature-complete. Pre-releases such as betas and release candidates are conducted from their respective release branches. Patch releases and the corresponding pre-releases are performed from within the corresponding release branch.

Nightly

Nightly builds give you the latest builds of work in progress for the next major release. They are created once per day from the master branch with the version format:

where the time is the commit time in UTC and the final suffix is the prefix of the commit hash, for example 0.0.0-20180720214833-f61e0f7 .

These builds allow for testing from the latest code on the master branch. No qualifications or guarantees are made for the nightly builds.

Support

Docker Engine releases of a year-month branch are supported with patches as needed for one month after the next year-month general availability release.

This means bug reports and backports to release branches are assessed until the end-of-life date.

After the year-month branch has reached end-of-life, the branch may be deleted from the repository.

Backporting

Backports to the Docker products are prioritized by the Docker company. A Docker employee or repository maintainer will endeavour to ensure sensible bugfixes make it into active releases.

If there are important fixes that ought to be considered for backport to active release branches, be sure to highlight this in the PR description or by adding a comment to the PR.

Upgrade path

Patch releases are always backward compatible with its year-month version.

Licensing

Docker is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE for the full license text.

Reporting security issues

The Docker maintainers take security seriously. If you discover a security issue, please bring it to their attention right away!

Please DO NOT file a public issue; instead send your report privately to security@docker.com.

Security reports are greatly appreciated, and Docker will publicly thank you for it.

Get started

After setting up Docker, you can learn the basics with Getting started with Docker.

Install Docker Desktop on Windows

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Welcome to Docker Desktop for Windows. This page contains information about Docker Desktop for Windows system requirements, download URL, installation instructions, and automatic updates.

By downloading Docker Desktop, you agree to the terms of the Docker Software End User License Agreement and the Docker Data Processing Agreement.

System requirements

Your Windows machine must meet the following requirements to successfully install Docker Desktop.

WSL 2 backend

• Windows 10 64-bit: Home, Pro, Enterprise, or Education, version 1903 (Build 18362 or higher).
• Enable the WSL 2 feature on Windows. For detailed instructions, refer to the Microsoft documentation.

The following hardware prerequisites are required to successfully run WSL 2 on Windows 10:

• 64-bit processor with Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)
• 4GB system RAM
• BIOS-level hardware virtualization support must be enabled in the BIOS settings. For more information, see Virtualization.

Download and install the Linux kernel update package.

Hyper-V backend and Windows containers

Windows 10 64-bit: Pro, Enterprise, or Education (Build 17134 or higher).

The following hardware prerequisites are required to successfully run Client Hyper-V on Windows 10:

• 64 bit processor with Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)
• 4GB system RAM
• BIOS-level hardware virtualization support must be enabled in the BIOS settings. For more information, see Virtualization.

Docker supports Docker Desktop on Windows for those versions of Windows 10 that are still within Microsoft’s servicing timeline.

What’s included in the installer

The Docker Desktop installation includes Docker Engine, Docker CLI client, Docker Compose, Notary, Kubernetes, and Credential Helper.

Containers and images created with Docker Desktop are shared between all user accounts on machines where it is installed. This is because all Windows accounts use the same VM to build and run containers. Note that it is not possible to share containers and images between user accounts when using the Docker Desktop WSL 2 backend.

Nested virtualization scenarios, such as running Docker Desktop on a VMWare or Parallels instance might work, but there are no guarantees. For more information, see Running Docker Desktop in nested virtualization scenarios.

About Windows containers

Looking for information on using Windows containers?

• Switch between Windows and Linux containers describes how you can toggle between Linux and Windows containers in Docker Desktop and points you to the tutorial mentioned above.
• Getting Started with Windows Containers (Lab) provides a tutorial on how to set up and run Windows containers on Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019. It shows you how to use a MusicStore application with Windows containers.
• Docker Container Platform for Windows articles and blog posts on the Docker website.

Install Docker Desktop on Windows

Double-click Docker Desktop Installer.exe to run the installer.

If you haven’t already downloaded the installer ( Docker Desktop Installer.exe ), you can get it from Docker Hub. It typically downloads to your Downloads folder, or you can run it from the recent downloads bar at the bottom of your web browser.

When prompted, ensure the Enable Hyper-V Windows Features or the Install required Windows components for WSL 2 option is selected on the Configuration page.

Follow the instructions on the installation wizard to authorize the installer and proceed with the install.

When the installation is successful, click Close to complete the installation process.

If your admin account is different to your user account, you must add the user to the docker-users group. Run Computer Management as an administrator and navigate to Local Users and Groups > Groups > docker-users. Right-click to add the user to the group. Log out and log back in for the changes to take effect.

Start Docker Desktop

Docker Desktop does not start automatically after installation. To start Docker Desktop, search for Docker, and select Docker Desktop in the search results.

When the whale icon in the status bar stays steady, Docker Desktop is up-and-running, and is accessible from any terminal window.

If the whale icon is hidden in the Notifications area, click the up arrow on the taskbar to show it. To learn more, see Docker Settings.

When the initialization is complete, Docker Desktop launches the onboarding tutorial. The tutorial includes a simple exercise to build an example Docker image, run it as a container, push and save the image to Docker Hub.

Congratulations! You are now successfully running Docker Desktop on Windows.

If you would like to rerun the tutorial, go to the Docker Desktop menu and select Learn.

Automatic updates

Starting with Docker Desktop 3.0.0, updates to Docker Desktop will be available automatically as delta updates from the previous version.

When an update is available, Docker Desktop displays an icon to indicate the availability of a newer version. Whenever convenient, you can start the download of the update in the background.

When the download finishes, all you need to do is to click Update and restart from the Docker menu. This installs the latest update and restarts Docker Desktop for the changes to take effect.

Uninstall Docker Desktop

To uninstall Docker Desktop from your Windows machine:

1. From the Windows Start menu, select Settings >Apps >Apps & features.
2. Select Docker Desktop from the Apps & features list and then select Uninstall.
3. Click Uninstall to confirm your selection.

Uninstalling Docker Desktop destroys Docker containers, images, volumes, and other Docker related data local to the machine, and removes the files generated by the application. Refer to the back up and restore data section to learn how to preserve important data before uninstalling.

Docker Desktop for Windows user manual

Estimated reading time: 16 minutes

Welcome to Docker Desktop! The Docker Desktop for Windows user manual provides information on how to configure and manage your Docker Desktop settings.

For information about Docker Desktop download, system requirements, and installation instructions, see Install Docker Desktop.

Settings

The Docker Desktop menu allows you to configure your Docker settings such as installation, updates, version channels, Docker Hub login, and more.

This section explains the configuration options accessible from the Settings dialog.

Open the Docker Desktop menu by clicking the Docker icon in the Notifications area (or System tray):

Select Settings to open the Settings dialog:

General

On the General tab of the Settings dialog, you can configure when to start and update Docker.

Automatically check for updates: By default, Docker Desktop is configured to check for newer versions automatically. If you have installed Docker Desktop as part of an organization, you may not be able to update Docker Desktop yourself. In that case, upgrade your existing organization to a Team plan and clear this checkbox to disable the automatic check for updates.

Start Docker when you log in: Select this option to automatically start Docker Desktop when you log into your Windows machine.

Expose daemon on tcp://localhost:2375 without TLS: Click this option to enable legacy clients to connect to the Docker daemon. You must use this option with caution as exposing the daemon without TLS can result in remote code execution attacks.

Use the WSL 2 based engine: WSL 2 provides better performance than the legacy Hyper-V backend. For more information, see Docker Desktop WSL 2 backend.

Send usage statistics: By default, Docker Desktop sends diagnostics, crash reports, and usage data. This information helps Docker improve and troubleshoot the application. Clear the check box to opt out. Docker may periodically prompt you for more information.

Show weekly tips: Displays useful advice and suggestions about using Docker.

Open Docker Desktop dashboard at startup: Automatically opens the dashboard when starting Docker Desktop.

Resources

The Resources tab allows you to configure CPU, memory, disk, proxies, network, and other resources. Different settings are available for configuration depending on whether you are using Linux containers in WSL 2 mode, Linux containers in Hyper-V mode, or Windows containers.

Advanced

The Advanced tab is only available in Hyper-V mode, because in WSL 2 mode and Windows container mode these resources are managed by Windows. In WSL 2 mode, you can configure limits on the memory, CPU, and swap size allocated to the WSL 2 utility VM.

Use the Advanced tab to limit resources available to Docker.

CPUs: By default, Docker Desktop is set to use half the number of processors available on the host machine. To increase processing power, set this to a higher number; to decrease, lower the number.

Memory: By default, Docker Desktop is set to use 2 GB runtime memory, allocated from the total available memory on your machine. To increase the RAM, set this to a higher number. To decrease it, lower the number.

Swap: Configure swap file size as needed. The default is 1 GB.

Disk image size: Specify the size of the disk image.

Disk image location: Specify the location of the Linux volume where containers and images are stored.

You can also move the disk image to a different location. If you attempt to move a disk image to a location that already has one, you get a prompt asking if you want to use the existing image or replace it.

File sharing

The File sharing tab is only available in Hyper-V mode, because in WSL 2 mode and Windows container mode all files are automatically shared by Windows.

Use File sharing to allow local directories on Windows to be shared with Linux containers. This is especially useful for editing source code in an IDE on the host while running and testing the code in a container. Note that configuring file sharing is not necessary for Windows containers, only Linux containers. If a directory is not shared with a Linux container you may get file not found or cannot start service errors at runtime. See Volume mounting requires shared folders for Linux containers.

File share settings are:

Add a Directory: Click + and navigate to the directory you want to add.

Apply & Restart makes the directory available to containers using Docker’s bind mount ( -v ) feature.

Tips on shared folders, permissions, and volume mounts

Share only the directories that you need with the container. File sharing introduces overhead as any changes to the files on the host need to be notified to the Linux VM. Sharing too many files can lead to high CPU load and slow filesystem performance.

Shared folders are designed to allow application code to be edited on the host while being executed in containers. For non-code items such as cache directories or databases, the performance will be much better if they are stored in the Linux VM, using a data volume (named volume) or data container.

Docker Desktop sets permissions to read/write/execute for users, groups and others 0777 or a+rwx. This is not configurable. See Permissions errors on data directories for shared volumes.

Windows presents a case-insensitive view of the filesystem to applications while Linux is case-sensitive. On Linux it is possible to create 2 separate files: test and Test , while on Windows these filenames would actually refer to the same underlying file. This can lead to problems where an app works correctly on a developer Windows machine (where the file contents are shared) but fails when run in Linux in production (where the file contents are distinct). To avoid this, Docker Desktop insists that all shared files are accessed as their original case. Therefore if a file is created called test , it must be opened as test . Attempts to open Test will fail with “No such file or directory”. Similarly once a file called test is created, attempts to create a second file called Test will fail.

Shared folders on demand

You can share a folder “on demand” the first time a particular folder is used by a container.

If you run a Docker command from a shell with a volume mount (as shown in the example below) or kick off a Compose file that includes volume mounts, you get a popup asking if you want to share the specified folder.

You can select to Share it, in which case it is added your Docker Desktop Shared Folders list and available to containers. Alternatively, you can opt not to share it by selecting Cancel.

Proxies

Docker Desktop lets you configure HTTP/HTTPS Proxy Settings and automatically propagates these to Docker. For example, if you set your proxy settings to http://proxy.example.com , Docker uses this proxy when pulling containers.

Your proxy settings, however, will not be propagated into the containers you start. If you wish to set the proxy settings for your containers, you need to define environment variables for them, just like you would do on Linux, for example:

For more information on setting environment variables for running containers, see Set environment variables.

Network

The Network tab is not available in Windows container mode because networking is managed by Windows.

You can configure Docker Desktop networking to work on a virtual private network (VPN). Specify a network address translation (NAT) prefix and subnet mask to enable Internet connectivity.

DNS Server: You can configure the DNS server to use dynamic or static IP addressing.

Some users reported problems connecting to Docker Hub on Docker Desktop. This would manifest as an error when trying to run docker commands that pull images from Docker Hub that are not already downloaded, such as a first time run of docker run hello-world . If you encounter this, reset the DNS server to use the Google DNS fixed address: 8.8.8.8 . For more information, see Networking issues in Troubleshooting.

Updating these settings requires a reconfiguration and reboot of the Linux VM.

WSL Integration

In WSL 2 mode, you can configure which WSL 2 distributions will have the Docker WSL integration.

By default, the integration will be enabled on your default WSL distribution. To change your default WSL distro, run wsl —set-default . (For example, to set Ubuntu as your default WSL distro, run wsl —set-default ubuntu ).

You can also select any additional distributions you would like to enable the WSL 2 integration on.

For more details on configuring Docker Desktop to use WSL 2, see Docker Desktop WSL 2 backend.

Docker Engine

The Docker Engine page allows you to configure the Docker daemon to determine how your containers run.

Type a JSON configuration file in the box to configure the daemon settings. For a full list of options, see the Docker Engine dockerd commandline reference.

Click Apply & Restart to save your settings and restart Docker Desktop.

Command Line

On the Command Line page, you can specify whether or not to enable experimental features.

You can toggle the experimental features on and off in Docker Desktop. If you toggle the experimental features off, Docker Desktop uses the current generally available release of Docker Engine.

Experimental features

Experimental features provide early access to future product functionality. These features are intended for testing and feedback only as they may change between releases without warning or can be removed entirely from a future release. Experimental features must not be used in production environments. Docker does not offer support for experimental features.

For a list of current experimental features in the Docker CLI, see Docker CLI Experimental features.

Run docker version to verify whether you have enabled experimental features. Experimental mode is listed under Server data. If Experimental is true , then Docker is running in experimental mode, as shown here:

Kubernetes

The Kubernetes tab is not available in Windows container mode.

Docker Desktop includes a standalone Kubernetes server that runs on your Windows machince, so that you can test deploying your Docker workloads on Kubernetes. To enable Kubernetes support and install a standalone instance of Kubernetes running as a Docker container, select Enable Kubernetes.

For more information about using the Kubernetes integration with Docker Desktop, see Deploy on Kubernetes.

Reset

The Restart Docker Desktop and Reset to factory defaults options are now available on the Troubleshoot menu. For information, see Logs and Troubleshooting.

Troubleshoot

Visit our Logs and Troubleshooting guide for more details.

Log on to our Docker Desktop for Windows forum to get help from the community, review current user topics, or join a discussion.

Log on to Docker Desktop for Windows issues on GitHub to report bugs or problems and review community reported issues.

For information about providing feedback on the documentation or update it yourself, see Contribute to documentation.

Switch between Windows and Linux containers

From the Docker Desktop menu, you can toggle which daemon (Linux or Windows) the Docker CLI talks to. Select Switch to Windows containers to use Windows containers, or select Switch to Linux containers to use Linux containers (the default).

For more information on Windows containers, refer to the following documentation:

Microsoft documentation on Windows containers.

Build and Run Your First Windows Server Container (Blog Post) gives a quick tour of how to build and run native Docker Windows containers on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 evaluation releases.

Getting Started with Windows Containers (Lab) shows you how to use the MusicStore application with Windows containers. The MusicStore is a standard .NET application and, forked here to use containers, is a good example of a multi-container application.

To understand how to connect to Windows containers from the local host, see Limitations of Windows containers for localhost and published ports

Settings dialog changes with Windows containers

When you switch to Windows containers, the Settings dialog only shows those tabs that are active and apply to your Windows containers:

If you set proxies or daemon configuration in Windows containers mode, these apply only on Windows containers. If you switch back to Linux containers, proxies and daemon configurations return to what you had set for Linux containers. Your Windows container settings are retained and become available again when you switch back.

Dashboard

The Docker Desktop Dashboard enables you to interact with containers and applications and manage the lifecycle of your applications directly from your machine. The Dashboard UI shows all running, stopped, and started containers with their state. It provides an intuitive interface to perform common actions to inspect and manage containers and Docker Compose applications. For more information, see Docker Desktop Dashboard.

Docker Hub

Select Sign in /Create Docker ID from the Docker Desktop menu to access your Docker Hub account. Once logged in, you can access your Docker Hub repositories directly from the Docker Desktop menu.

For more information, refer to the following Docker Hub topics:

Two-factor authentication

Docker Desktop enables you to sign into Docker Hub using two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication provides an extra layer of security when accessing your Docker Hub account.

You must enable two-factor authentication in Docker Hub before signing into your Docker Hub account through Docker Desktop. For instructions, see Enable two-factor authentication for Docker Hub.

After you have enabled two-factor authentication:

Go to the Docker Desktop menu and then select Sign in / Create Docker ID.

Enter your Docker ID and password and click Sign in.

After you have successfully signed in, Docker Desktop prompts you to enter the authentication code. Enter the six-digit code from your phone and then click Verify.

After you have successfully authenticated, you can access your organizations and repositories directly from the Docker Desktop menu.

Adding TLS certificates

You can add trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs) to your Docker daemon to verify registry server certificates, and client certificates, to authenticate to registries.

How do I add custom CA certificates?

Docker Desktop supports all trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs) (root or intermediate). Docker recognizes certs stored under Trust Root Certification Authorities or Intermediate Certification Authorities.

Docker Desktop creates a certificate bundle of all user-trusted CAs based on the Windows certificate store, and appends it to Moby trusted certificates. Therefore, if an enterprise SSL certificate is trusted by the user on the host, it is trusted by Docker Desktop.

To learn more about how to install a CA root certificate for the registry, see Verify repository client with certificates in the Docker Engine topics.

How do I add client certificates?

You can add your client certificates in

/client.key . You do not need to push your certificates with git commands.

When the Docker Desktop application starts, it copies the

/.docker/certs.d folder on your Windows system to the /etc/docker/certs.d directory on Moby (the Docker Desktop virtual machine running on Hyper-V).

You need to restart Docker Desktop after making any changes to the keychain or to the

/.docker/certs.d directory in order for the changes to take effect.

The registry cannot be listed as an insecure registry (see Docker Daemon). Docker Desktop ignores certificates listed under insecure registries, and does not send client certificates. Commands like docker run that attempt to pull from the registry produce error messages on the command line, as well as on the registry.

To learn more about how to set the client TLS certificate for verification, see Verify repository client with certificates in the Docker Engine topics.

Where to go next

Try out the walkthrough at Get Started.

Dig in deeper with Docker Labs example walkthroughs and source code.