To get started with Docker Engine on Ubuntu, make sure youmeet the prerequisites, and then follow theinstallation steps.

Prerequisites

Firewall limitations

Warning

Before you install Docker, make sure you consider the followingsecurity implications and firewall incompatibilities.

• If you use ufw or firewalld to manage firewall settings, be aware thatwhen you expose container ports using Docker, these ports bypass yourfirewall rules. For more information, refer toDocker and ufw.
• Docker is only compatible withiptables-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,seePacket filtering and firewalls.

OS requirements

To install Docker Engine, you need the 64-bit version of one of these Ubuntuversions:

• Ubuntu Oracular 24.10
• Ubuntu Noble 24.04 (LTS)
• Ubuntu Jammy 22.04 (LTS)

Docker Engine for Ubuntu is compatible with x86_64 (or amd64), armhf, arm64,s390x, and ppc64le (ppc64el) architectures.

Note

Installation on Ubuntu derivative distributions, such as Linux Mint, is not officiallysupported (though it may work).

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 conflictwith the official packages provided by Docker. You must uninstall these packagesbefore 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 oncontainerd andrunc. Docker Enginebundles these dependencies as one bundle:containerd.io. If you haveinstalled thecontainerd orrunc previously, uninstall them to avoidconflicts 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'tautomatically removed when you uninstall Docker. If you want to start with aclean installation, and prefer to clean up any existing data, read theuninstall Docker Engine section.

Installation methods

You can install Docker Engine in different ways, depending on your needs:

• Docker Engine comes bundled withDocker Desktop for Linux. This isthe easiest and quickest way to get started.

• Set up and install Docker Engine fromDocker'sapt repository.

• Install it manually and manage upgrades manually.

• Use aconvenience script. Onlyrecommended for testing and development environments.

Install using theapt repository

Before you install Docker Engine for the first time on a new host machine, youneed to set up the Dockerapt repository. Afterward, you can install and updateDocker from the repository.

1. Set up Docker'sapt repository.

   # Add Docker's official GPG key:sudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install ca-certificates curlsudo install -m0755 -d /etc/apt/keyringssudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.ascsudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc# Add the repository to Apt sources:echo\"deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \$(. /etc/os-release&&echo"${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-$VERSION_CODENAME}") stable"|\  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/nullsudo apt-get update

2. Install the Docker packages.

   LatestSpecific version

   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 theavailable versions in the repository:

   # List the available versions:$ apt-cache madison docker-ce| awk'{ print $3 }'5:28.3.2-1~ubuntu.24.04~noble5:28.3.1-1~ubuntu.24.04~noble...

   Select the desired version and install:

   $VERSION_STRING=5:28.3.2-1~ubuntu.24.04~noble$ sudo apt-get install docker-ce=$VERSION_STRING docker-ce-cli=$VERSION_STRING containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

3. Verify that the installation is successful by running thehello-world image:

   $ sudo docker run hello-world

   This command downloads a test image and runs it in a container. When thecontainer 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?

Thedocker user group exists but contains no users, which is why you’re requiredto usesudo to run Docker commands. Continue toLinux postinstallto 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 theinstallation instructions,choosing the new version you want to install.

Install from a package

If you can't use Docker'sapt repository to install Docker Engine, you candownload thedeb file for your release and install it manually. You need todownload a new file each time you want to upgrade Docker Engine.

1. Go tohttps://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/dists/.

2. Select your Ubuntu version in the list.

3. Go topool/stable/ and select the applicable architecture (amd64,armhf,arm64, ors390x).

4. Download the followingdeb 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

5. Install the.deb packages. Update the paths in the following example towhere 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.

6. Verify that the installation is successful by running thehello-world image:

   $ sudo service docker start$ sudo docker run hello-world

   This command downloads a test image and runs it in a container. When thecontainer 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?

Thedocker user group exists but contains no users, which is why you’re requiredto usesudo to run Docker commands. Continue toLinux postinstallto 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 theinstallation procedure, pointing to the new files.

Install using the convenience script

Docker provides a convenience script athttps://get.docker.com/ to install Docker intodevelopment environments non-interactively. The convenience script isn'trecommended for production environments, but it's useful for creating aprovisioning script tailored to your needs. Also refer to theinstall using the repository steps to learnabout installation steps to install using the package repository. The source codefor the script is open source, and you can find it in thedocker-install repository on GitHub.

Always examine scripts downloaded from the internet before running them locally.Before installing, make yourself familiar with potential risks and limitationsof the convenience script:

• The script requiresroot orsudo privileges to run.
• The script attempts to detect your Linux distribution and version andconfigure 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 forconfirmation. This may install a large number of packages, depending on thecurrent 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 mayresult in unexpected major version upgrades of Docker. Always test upgrades ina test environment before deploying to your production systems.
• The script isn't designed to upgrade an existing Docker installation. Whenusing the script to update an existing installation, dependencies may not beupdated 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 thescript 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 fromhttps://get.docker.com/ and runs it to install thelatest stable release of Docker on Linux:

$ curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh$ sudo sh get-docker.shExecuting docker install script, commit: 7cae5f8b0decc17d6571f9f52eb840fbc13b2737<...>

You have now successfully installed and started Docker Engine. Thedockerservice starts automatically on Debian based distributions. OnRPM baseddistributions, such as CentOS, Fedora, RHEL or SLES, you need to start itmanually using the appropriatesystemctl orservice command. As the messageindicates, 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 requiresroot orsudo privileges to install anduse Docker. If you want to grant non-root users access to Docker, refer to thepost-installation steps for Linux.You can also install Docker withoutroot privileges, or configured to run inrootless mode. For instructions on running Docker in rootless mode, refer torun the Docker daemon as a non-root user (rootless mode).

Install pre-releases

Docker also provides a convenience script athttps://test.docker.com/ to install pre-releases ofDocker on Linux. This script is equal to the script atget.docker.com, butconfigures your package manager to use the test channel of the Docker packagerepository. The test channel includes both stable and pre-releases (betaversions, release-candidates) of Docker. Use this script to get early access tonew releases, and to evaluate them in a testing environment before they'rereleased 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 Dockerusing your package manager directly. There's no advantage to re-running theconvenience script. Re-running it can cause issues if it attempts to re-installrepositories which already exist on the host machine.

Uninstall Docker Engine

1. 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

2. Images, containers, volumes, or custom configuration files on your hostaren't automatically removed. To delete all images, containers, and volumes:

   $ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker$ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/containerd

3. 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 toPost-installation steps for Linux.