How to install Docker on Linux

Installation

For the most default installation, you can use the official Docker installation script. This script will add the Docker repository to your system and install the latest version of Docker.

Notice that the scripts are not recommended for production environments.

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sudo sh

Rootless Installation

Rootless Installation requires a few more steps than the default installation.

Enable lingering for your user:

sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER

Set XDG_RUNTIME_DIR variable to avoid systemd issues:

export "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u)"

Install Rootless Docker along alongside Rootful Docker:

dockerd-rootless-setuptool.sh install

Install Rootless Docker standalone:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com/rootless | sh

Configuration

By default, dockerd doesn’t limit container logs. You can limit the log size by adding the following configuration to the daemon.json file:

sudo nano /etc/docker/daemon.json

{
  "log-driver": "json-file",
  "log-opts": {
    "max-size": "1m",
    "max-file": "3"
  }
}

sudo systemctl restart docker

These changes don’t affect the already existing containers. You may want to purge all containers

The command below will remove all containers, including running ones.

docker ps -aq | xargs docker rm -f

Rootless Configuration

Rootless Docker has a different configuration file. You can find the configuration file in the following path:

mkdir -p ~/.config/docker
nano ~/.config/docker/daemon.json

{
  "log-driver": "json-file",
  "log-opts": {
    "max-size": "1m",
    "max-file": "3"
  }
}

export "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u)"
systemctl --user restart docker

Purging containers is the same as the rootful configuration:

The command below will remove all containers, including running ones.

docker ps -aq | xargs docker rm -f

docker compose vs docker-compose

docker-compose is deprecated in favor of docker compose. Prefer using the new command. It’s installed by default with the scripts above.