Set up your company for success with Docker

Get the most out of Docker by streamlining workflows, standardizing development environments, and ensuring smooth deployments across your company.

Docker's tools provide a scalable, secure platform that empowers your developers to create, ship, and run applications faster. As an administrator, you can streamline workflows, standardize development environments, and ensure smooth deployments across your organization.

By configuring Docker products to suit your company's needs, you can optimize performance, simplify user management, and maintain control over resources. This guide helps you set up and configure Docker products to maximize productivity and success for your team while meeting compliance and security policies.

Who’s this for?

Administrators responsible for managing Docker environments within their organization
IT leaders looking to streamline development and deployment workflows
Teams aiming to standardize application environments across multiple users
Organizations seeking to optimize their use of Docker products for greater scalability and efficiency
Organizations with a Docker Business subscription

What you’ll learn

Why signing into your company's Docker organization provides access to usage data and enhanced functionality
How to standardize Docker Desktop versions and settings to create a consistent baseline for all users, while allowing flexibility for advanced developers
Strategies for implementing Docker's security configurations to meet company IT and software development security requirements without hindering developer productivity

Features covered

This guide covers the following Docker features:

Organizations: The core structure for managing your Docker environment, grouping users, teams, and image repositories. Your organization was created with your subscription and is managed by one or more owners. Users signed into the organization are assigned seats based on the purchased subscription.
Enforce sign-in: By default, Docker Desktop doesn't require sign-in. You can configure settings to enforce this and ensure your developers sign in to your Docker organization.
SSO: Without SSO, user management in a Docker organization is manual. Setting up an SSO connection between your identity provider and Docker ensures compliance with your security policy and automates user provisioning. Adding SCIM further automates user provisioning and de-provisioning.
General and security settings: Configuring key settings ensures smooth onboarding and usage of Docker products within your environment. You can also enable security features based on your company's specific security needs.

Who needs to be involved

Docker organization owner: Must be involved in the process and is required for several key steps
DNS team: Needed during the SSO setup to verify the company domain
MDM team: Responsible for distributing Docker-specific configuration files to developer machines
Identity Provider team: Required for configuring the identity provider and establishing the SSO connection during setup
Development lead: A development lead with knowledge of Docker configurations to help establish a baseline for developer settings
IT team: An IT representative familiar with company desktop policies to assist with aligning Docker configuration to those policies
Infosec: A security team member with knowledge of company development security policies to help configure security features
Docker testers: A small group of developers to test the new settings and configurations before full deployment

Tools integration

This guide covers integration with:

Okta
Entra ID SAML 2.0
Azure Connect (OIDC)
MDM solutions like Intune

Communication and information gathering

Communicate with your developers and IT teams

Before rolling out Docker Desktop across your organization, coordinate with key stakeholders to ensure a smooth transition.

Notify Docker Desktop users

You may already have Docker Desktop users within your company. Some steps in this onboarding process may affect how they interact with the platform.

Communicate early with users to inform them that:

They'll be upgraded to a supported version of Docker Desktop as part of the subscription onboarding
Settings will be reviewed and optimized for productivity
They'll need to sign in to the company's Docker organization using their business email to access subscription benefits

Engage with your MDM team

Device management solutions, such as Intune and Jamf, are commonly used for software distribution across enterprises. These tools are typically managed by a dedicated MDM team.

Engage with this team early in the process to:

Understand their requirements and lead time for deploying changes
Coordinate the distribution of configuration files

Several setup steps in this guide require JSON files, registry keys, or .plist files to be distributed to developer machines. Use MDM tools to deploy these configuration files and ensure their integrity.

Identify Docker organizations

Some companies may have more than one Docker organization created. These organizations may have been created for specific purposes, or may not be needed anymore.

If you suspect your company has multiple Docker organizations:

Survey your teams to see if they have their own organizations
Contact your Docker Support to get a list of organizations with users whose emails match your domain name

Gather requirements

Settings Management lets you preset numerous configuration parameters for Docker Desktop.

Work with the following stakeholders to establish your company's baseline configuration:

Docker organization owner
Development lead
Information security representative

Review these areas together:

Security features and enforcing sign-in for Docker Desktop users
Additional Docker products included in your subscriptions

To view the parameters that can be preset, see Configure Settings Management.

Optional: Meet with the Docker Implementation team

The Docker Implementation team can help you set up your organization, configure SSO, enforce sign-in, and configure Docker Desktop.

To schedule a meeting, email successteam@docker.com.

Finalize plans and begin setup

Send finalized settings files to the MDM team

After reaching an agreement with the relevant teams about your baseline and security configurations as outlined in the previous section, configure Settings Management using either the Docker Admin Console or an admin-settings.json file.

Once the file is ready, collaborate with your MDM team to deploy your chosen settings, along with your chosen method for enforcing sign-in.

Important
Test this first with a small number of Docker Desktop developers to verify the functionality works as expected before deploying more widely.

Manage your organizations

If you have more than one organization, consider either consolidating them into one organization or creating a Docker company to manage multiple organizations.

Begin setup

Set up single sign-on and domain verification

Single sign-on (SSO) lets developers authenticate using their identity providers (IdPs) to access Docker. SSO is available for a whole company and all associated organizations, or an individual organization that has a Docker Business subscription. For more information, see the documentation.

You can also enable SCIM for further automation of provisioning and deprovisioning of users.

Set up Docker product entitlements included in the subscription

Docker Build Cloud significantly reduces build times, both locally and in CI, by providing a dedicated remote builder and shared cache. Powered by the cloud, developer time and local resources are freed up so your team can focus on more important things, like innovation. To get started, set up a cloud builder.

Docker Scout is a solution for proactively enhancing your software supply chain security. By analyzing your images, Docker Scout compiles an inventory of components, also known as a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM). The SBOM is matched against a continuously updated vulnerability database to pinpoint security weaknesses. To get started, see Quickstart.

Testcontainers Cloud allows developers to run containers in the cloud, removing the need to run heavy containers on your local machine.

Docker Hardened Images are minimal, secure, and production-ready container base and application images maintained by Docker. Designed to reduce vulnerabilities and simplify compliance, DHIs integrate easily into your existing Docker-based workflows with little to no retooling required.

Ensure you're running a supported version of Docker Desktop

Warning
This step could affect the experience for users on older versions of Docker Desktop.

Existing users may be running outdated or unsupported versions of Docker Desktop. All users should update to a supported version. Docker Desktop versions released within the past 6 months from the latest release are supported.

Use an MDM solution to manage the version of Docker Desktop for users. Users may also get Docker Desktop directly from Docker or through a company software portal.

Testing

SSO and SCIM testing

Test SSO and SCIM by signing in to Docker Desktop or Docker Hub with the email address linked to a Docker account that is part of the verified domain. Developers who sign in using their Docker usernames remain unaffected by the SSO and SCIM setup.

Important
Some users may need CLI based logins to Docker Hub, and for this they will need a personal access token (PAT).

Test Registry Access Management and Image Access Management

Warning
Communicate with your users before proceeding, as this step will impact all existing users signing into your Docker organization.

If you plan to use Registry Access Management (RAM) and/or Image Access Management (IAM):

Ensure your test developer signs in to Docker Desktop using their organization credentials
Have them attempt to pull an unauthorized image or one from a disallowed registry via the Docker CLI
Verify they receive an error message indicating that the registry is restricted by the organization

Deploy the Docker settings and enforce sign-in for a small group of test users via MDM. Have this group test their development workflows with containers on Docker Desktop and Docker Hub to ensure all settings and the sign-in enforcement function as expected.

Test Docker Build Cloud capabilities

Have one of your Docker Desktop testers connect to the cloud builder you created and use it to build.

Test Testcontainers Cloud

Have a test developer connect to Testcontainers Cloud and run a container in the cloud to verify the setup is working correctly.

Verify Docker Scout monitoring of repositories

Check the Docker Scout dashboard to confirm that data is being properly received for the repositories where Docker Scout has been enabled.

Verify access to Docker Hardened Images

Have a test developer attempt to pull a Docker Hardened Image to confirm that the team has proper access and can integrate these images into their workflows.

Deploy your Docker setup

Warning
Communicate with your users before proceeding, and confirm that your IT and MDM teams are prepared to handle any unexpected issues, as these steps will affect all existing users signing into your Docker organization.

Enforce SSO

Enforcing SSO means that anyone who has a Docker profile with an email address that matches your verified domain must sign in using your SSO connection. Make sure the Identity provider groups associated with your SSO connection cover all the developer groups that you want to have access to the Docker subscription.

For instructions on how to enforce SSO, see Enforce SSO.

Have the MDM team deploy the configuration files for Docker to all users.

Next steps

Congratulations, you've successfully completed the admin implementation process for Docker.

To continue optimizing your Docker environment:

Review your organization's usage data to track adoption
Monitor Docker Scout findings for security insights
Explore additional security features to enhance your configuration

What can I help you with?

Set up your company for success with Docker