Install Docker Engine on Ubuntu
To get started with Docker Engine on Ubuntu, make sure you meet the prerequisites, and then follow the installation steps.
Prerequisites
Firewall limitations
Warning
Before you install Docker, make sure you consider the following security implications and firewall incompatibilities.
- If you use ufw or firewalld to manage firewall settings, be aware that when you expose container ports using Docker, these ports bypass your firewall rules. For more information, refer to Docker and ufw.
- Docker is only compatible with
iptables-nft
andiptables-legacy
. Firewall rules created withnft
are not supported on a system with Docker installed. Make sure that any firewall rulesets you use are created withiptables
orip6tables
, and that you add them to theDOCKER-USER
chain, see Packet filtering and firewalls.
OS requirements
To install Docker Engine, you need the 64-bit version of one of these Ubuntu versions:
- Ubuntu Oracular 24.10
- Ubuntu Noble 24.04 (LTS)
- Ubuntu Jammy 22.04 (LTS)
- Ubuntu Focal 20.04 (LTS)
Docker Engine for Ubuntu is compatible with x86_64 (or amd64), armhf, arm64, s390x, and ppc64le (ppc64el) architectures.
Uninstall old versions
Before you can install Docker Engine, you need to uninstall any conflicting packages.
Your Linux distribution may provide unofficial Docker packages, which may conflict with the official packages provided by Docker. You must uninstall these packages before you install the official version of Docker Engine.
The unofficial packages to uninstall are:
docker.io
docker-compose
docker-compose-v2
docker-doc
podman-docker
Moreover, Docker Engine depends on containerd
and runc
. Docker Engine
bundles these dependencies as one bundle: containerd.io
. If you have
installed the containerd
or runc
previously, uninstall them to avoid
conflicts with the versions bundled with Docker Engine.
Run the following command to uninstall all conflicting packages:
$ for pkg in docker.io docker-doc docker-compose docker-compose-v2 podman-docker containerd runc; do sudo apt-get remove $pkg; done
apt-get
might report that you have none of these packages installed.
Images, containers, volumes, and networks stored in /var/lib/docker/
aren't
automatically removed when you uninstall Docker. If you want to start with a
clean installation, and prefer to clean up any existing data, read the
uninstall Docker Engine section.
Installation methods
You can install Docker Engine in different ways, depending on your needs:
Docker Engine comes bundled with Docker Desktop for Linux. This is the easiest and quickest way to get started.
Set up and install Docker Engine from Docker's
apt
repository.Install it manually and manage upgrades manually.
Use a convenience script. Only recommended for testing and development environments.
Install using the apt
repository
Before you install Docker Engine for the first time on a new host machine, you
need to set up the Docker apt
repository. Afterward, you can install and update
Docker from the repository.
Set up Docker's
apt
repository.# Add Docker's official GPG key: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc # Add the repository to Apt sources: echo \ "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \ $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \ sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null sudo apt-get update
Note
If you use an Ubuntu derivative distribution, such as Linux Mint, you may need to use
UBUNTU_CODENAME
instead ofVERSION_CODENAME
.Install the Docker packages.
To install the latest version, run:
$ sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
To install a specific version of Docker Engine, start by listing the available versions in the repository:
# List the available versions: $ apt-cache madison docker-ce | awk '{ print $3 }' 5:27.3.1-1~ubuntu.24.04~noble 5:27.3.0-1~ubuntu.24.04~noble ...
Select the desired version and install:
$ VERSION_STRING=5:27.3.1-1~ubuntu.24.04~noble $ sudo apt-get install docker-ce=$VERSION_STRING docker-ce-cli=$VERSION_STRING containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
Verify that the installation is successful by running the
hello-world
image:$ sudo docker run hello-world
This command downloads a test image and runs it in a container. When the container runs, it prints a confirmation message and exits.
You have now successfully installed and started Docker Engine.
Tip
Receiving errors when trying to run without root?
The
docker
user group exists but contains no users, which is why you’re required to usesudo
to run Docker commands. Continue to Linux postinstall to allow non-privileged users to run Docker commands and for other optional configuration steps.
Upgrade Docker Engine
To upgrade Docker Engine, follow step 2 of the installation instructions, choosing the new version you want to install.
Install from a package
If you can't use Docker's apt
repository to install Docker Engine, you can
download the deb
file for your release and install it manually. You need to
download a new file each time you want to upgrade Docker Engine.
Select your Ubuntu version in the list.
Go to
pool/stable/
and select the applicable architecture (amd64
,armhf
,arm64
, ors390x
).Download the following
deb
files for the Docker Engine, CLI, containerd, and Docker Compose packages:containerd.io_<version>_<arch>.deb
docker-ce_<version>_<arch>.deb
docker-ce-cli_<version>_<arch>.deb
docker-buildx-plugin_<version>_<arch>.deb
docker-compose-plugin_<version>_<arch>.deb
Install the
.deb
packages. Update the paths in the following example to where you downloaded the Docker packages.$ sudo dpkg -i ./containerd.io_<version>_<arch>.deb \ ./docker-ce_<version>_<arch>.deb \ ./docker-ce-cli_<version>_<arch>.deb \ ./docker-buildx-plugin_<version>_<arch>.deb \ ./docker-compose-plugin_<version>_<arch>.deb
The Docker daemon starts automatically.
Verify that the installation is successful by running the
hello-world
image:$ sudo service docker start $ sudo docker run hello-world
This command downloads a test image and runs it in a container. When the container runs, it prints a confirmation message and exits.
You have now successfully installed and started Docker Engine.
Tip
Receiving errors when trying to run without root?
The
docker
user group exists but contains no users, which is why you’re required to usesudo
to run Docker commands. Continue to Linux postinstall to allow non-privileged users to run Docker commands and for other optional configuration steps.
Upgrade Docker Engine
To upgrade Docker Engine, download the newer package files and repeat the installation procedure, pointing to the new files.
Install using the convenience script
Docker provides a convenience script at
https://get.docker.com/ to install Docker into
development environments non-interactively. The convenience script isn't
recommended for production environments, but it's useful for creating a
provisioning script tailored to your needs. Also refer to the
install using the repository steps to learn
about installation steps to install using the package repository. The source code
for the script is open source, and you can find it in the
docker-install
repository on GitHub.
Always examine scripts downloaded from the internet before running them locally. Before installing, make yourself familiar with potential risks and limitations of the convenience script:
- The script requires
root
orsudo
privileges to run. - The script attempts to detect your Linux distribution and version and configure your package management system for you.
- The script doesn't allow you to customize most installation parameters.
- The script installs dependencies and recommendations without asking for confirmation. This may install a large number of packages, depending on the current configuration of your host machine.
- By default, the script installs the latest stable release of Docker, containerd, and runc. When using this script to provision a machine, this may result in unexpected major version upgrades of Docker. Always test upgrades in a test environment before deploying to your production systems.
- The script isn't designed to upgrade an existing Docker installation. When using the script to update an existing installation, dependencies may not be updated to the expected version, resulting in outdated versions.
Tip: preview script steps before running
You can run the script with the
--dry-run
option to learn what steps the script will run when invoked:$ curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh $ sudo sh ./get-docker.sh --dry-run
This example downloads the script from https://get.docker.com/ and runs it to install the latest stable release of Docker on Linux:
$ curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
$ sudo sh get-docker.sh
Executing docker install script, commit: 7cae5f8b0decc17d6571f9f52eb840fbc13b2737
<...>
You have now successfully installed and started Docker Engine. The docker
service starts automatically on Debian based distributions. On RPM
based
distributions, such as CentOS, Fedora, RHEL or SLES, you need to start it
manually using the appropriate systemctl
or service
command. As the message
indicates, non-root users can't run Docker commands by default.
Use Docker as a non-privileged user, or install in rootless mode?
The installation script requires
root
orsudo
privileges to install and use Docker. If you want to grant non-root users access to Docker, refer to the post-installation steps for Linux. You can also install Docker withoutroot
privileges, or configured to run in rootless mode. For instructions on running Docker in rootless mode, refer to run the Docker daemon as a non-root user (rootless mode).
Install pre-releases
Docker also provides a convenience script at
https://test.docker.com/ to install pre-releases of
Docker on Linux. This script is equal to the script at get.docker.com
, but
configures your package manager to use the test channel of the Docker package
repository. The test channel includes both stable and pre-releases (beta
versions, release-candidates) of Docker. Use this script to get early access to
new releases, and to evaluate them in a testing environment before they're
released as stable.
To install the latest version of Docker on Linux from the test channel, run:
$ curl -fsSL https://test.docker.com -o test-docker.sh
$ sudo sh test-docker.sh
Upgrade Docker after using the convenience script
If you installed Docker using the convenience script, you should upgrade Docker using your package manager directly. There's no advantage to re-running the convenience script. Re-running it can cause issues if it attempts to re-install repositories which already exist on the host machine.
Uninstall Docker Engine
Uninstall the Docker Engine, CLI, containerd, and Docker Compose packages:
$ sudo apt-get purge docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin docker-ce-rootless-extras
Images, containers, volumes, or custom configuration files on your host aren't automatically removed. To delete all images, containers, and volumes:
$ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker $ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/containerd
Remove source list and keyrings
$ sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list $ sudo rm /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
You have to delete any edited configuration files manually.
Next steps
- Continue to Post-installation steps for Linux.