Setup
Website accounts to create
Please seek help at the start of the lesson if you have not been able to establish a website account on:
- The Docker Hub. We will use the Docker Hub to download pre-built container images, and for you to upload and download container images that you create, as explained in the relevant lesson episodes.
Files to download
Download the
docker-intro.zip file.Move the downloaded file to your Desktop and unzip it. It should unzip to a folder called
docker-intro.Software to install
Docker's installation experience has steadily improved, however situations will
arise in which installing Docker on your computer may not be straightforward
unless you have a large amount of technical experience. Workshops try to have
helpers on hand that have worked their way through the install process, but do
be prepared for some troubleshooting.
In most cases, you will need to have administrator rights on the computer in
order to install the Docker software. If you are using a computer managed by
your organisation and do not have administrator rights, you may be able to get
your organisation's IT staff to install Docker for you. Alternatively your IT
support staff may be able to give you remote access to a server that can run
Docker commands.
Please try to install the appropriate software from the list below depending on
the operating system that your computer is running. Do let the workshop
organisers know as early as possible if you are unable to install Docker using
these instructions, as there may be other options available.
Microsoft Windows
You must have admin rights to run Docker! Some parts of the lesson will work
*without running as admin but if you are unable to
Run as administrator on
*your machine some elements of this workshop might not work as described.Ideally, you will be able to install the Docker Desktop software, following the
Docker website's documentation. Note that
the instructions for installing Docker Desktop on Windows 10 Home Edition are
different from other versions of Windows 10.
Note that the above installation instructions highlight a minimum version or
"build" that is required to be able to install Docker on your Windows 10 system.
See Which version of Windows operating system am I running?
for details of how to find out which version/build of Windows 10 you have.
If you are unable to follow the above instructions to install Docker Desktop on
your Windows system, the final release of the deprecated Docker Toolbox version
of Docker for Windows can be downloaded from the releases page of the Docker Toolbox GitHub repository.
(Download the
.exe file for the Windows installer). Please note that this
final release of Docker Toolbox includes an old version of Docker and you are
strongly advised not to attempt to use this for any production use. It will,
however, enable you to follow along with the lesson material.Git Bash
If you are using Git Bash as your terminal on Windows then you should be aware that you may run
into issues running some of the commands in this lesson as Git Bash will automatically re-write
any paths you specify at the command line into Windows versions of the paths and this will confuse
the Docker container you are trying to use. For example, if you enter the command:
docker run alpine cat /etc/os-release
Git Bash will change the
/etc/os-release path to C:\etc\os-release\ before passing the command
to the Docker container and the container will report an error. If you want to use Git Bash then you
can request that this path translation does not take place by adding an extra / to the start of the
path. i.e. the command would become:docker run alpine cat //etc/os-release
This should suppress the path translation functionality in Git Bash.
Apple macOS
Ideally, you will be able to install the Docker Desktop software, following the
Docker website's documentation.
The current version of the Docker Desktop software requires macOS version 10.14 (Mojave) or later.
If you already use Homebrew or MacPorts to manage your software, and would prefer to use those
tools rather than Docker's installer, you can do so. For Homebrew, you can run the command
brew install --cask docker. Note that you still need to run the Docker graphical user interface
once to complete the initial setup, after which time the command line functionality of Docker will
become available. The Homebrew install of Docker also requires a minimum macOS version of 10.14.
The MacPorts Docker port should support older, as well as the most recent, operating system
versions (see the port details), but note that
we have not recently tested the Docker installation process via MacPorts.Linux
There are too many varieties of Linux to give precise instructions here, but
hopefully you can locate documentation for getting Docker installed on your
Linux distribution. It may already be installed. If it is not already installed
on your system, the Install Docker Engine page provides an overview of
supported Linux distributions and pointers to relevant installation information.
Alternatively, see:
Verify Installation
To quickly check if the Docker and client and server are working run the following command in a new terminal or ssh session:
docker version
Client: Version: 20.10.2 API version: 1.41 Go version: go1.13.8 Git commit: 20.10.2-0ubuntu2 Built: Tue Mar 2 05:52:27 2021 OS/Arch: linux/arm64 Context: default Experimental: true Server: Engine: Version: 20.10.2 API version: 1.41 (minimum version 1.12) Go version: go1.13.8 Git commit: 20.10.2-0ubuntu2 Built: Tue Mar 2 05:45:16 2021 OS/Arch: linux/arm64 Experimental: false containerd: Version: 1.4.4-0ubuntu1 GitCommit: runc: Version: 1.0.0~rc95-0ubuntu1~21.04.1 GitCommit: docker-init: Version: 0.19.0 GitCommit:
The above output shows a successful installation and will vary based on your
system. The important part is that the "Client" and the "Server" parts are both
working and returns information. It is beyond the scope of this document to
debug installation problems but common errors include the user not belonging to
the
docker group and forgetting to start a new terminal or ssh session.