How to Install Docker on Ubuntu 18.04

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In this tutorial, we will cover the steps needed for installing Docker on Ubuntu 18.04.

Docker is mainly a software development platform and a kind of virtualization technology that makes it easy to develop and deploy apps inside of neatly packaged virtual containerized environments. Docker containers can be deployed to any machine without any compatibility issues, so the software stays system agnostic, simpler to use, less work to develop and easy to maintain and deploy.

Docker is a form of virtualization but, unlike a Virtual Machine, the resources are shared directly with the host. Let’s begin with the installation.

Requirements:

  • For the purposes of this tutorial, we will use an Ubuntu 18.04 VPS.
  • Full SSH root access or a user with sudo privileges is also required.

Step 1. Connect via SSH

Connect to your server via SSH as the root user using the following command:

ssh root@IP_ADDRESS -p PORT_NUMBER

and replace “IP_ADDRESS” and “PORT_NUMBER” with your actual server IP address and SSH port number.

Before starting with the installation you will need to update your system packages to their latest version.

You can do this by running the following command:

apt-get update 
apt-get upgrade

Once the upgrade is completed we can move on to the next step.

Step 2. Install Docker on Ubuntu 18.04

To get the latest version of Docker, we will install it from the official Docker repository. We will add a new package source, and add the GPG key from Docker to be able to verify that the downloads are valid.

We need to install a few prerequisite packages with the following command:

sudo apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common

Now, we will add the GPG key for the official Docker repository and add the Docker repository to APT sources with the following commands:

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic stable"

Next, we will update the package database with the Docker packages:

sudo apt update

and make sure that we will install Docker from the Docker repo instead of the Ubuntu repo:

apt-cache policy docker-ce

The output should be similar to this:

docker-ce:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 5:18.09.5~3-0~ubuntu-bionic
Version table:
5:18.09.5~3-0~ubuntu-bionic 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages
5:18.09.4~3-0~ubuntu-bionic 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages
5:18.09.3~3-0~ubuntu-bionic 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages
5:18.09.2~3-0~ubuntu-bionic 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages
5:18.09.1~3-0~ubuntu-bionic 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages
5:18.09.0~3-0~ubuntu-bionic 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages
18.06.3~ce~3-0~ubuntu 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages
18.06.2~ce~3-0~ubuntu 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages
18.06.1~ce~3-0~ubuntu 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages
18.06.0~ce~3-0~ubuntu 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages
18.03.1~ce~3-0~ubuntu 500
500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic/stable amd64 Packages

Finally, we will install Docker with the following command:

sudo apt install docker-ce

To check that Docker is installed, daemon started and the process enabled execute the following command:

sudo systemctl status docker

The output should be similar to the following:

 docker.service - Docker Application Container Engine
       Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/docker.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
       Active: active (running) since Wed 2019-05-01 11:06:05 UTC; 10s ago
             Docs: https://docs.docker.com
Main PID: 4234 (dockerd)
       Tasks: 8
    CGroup: /system.slice/docker.service
                    └─4234 /usr/bin/dockerd -H fd:// --containerd=/run/containerd/containerd.sock

We successfully installed Docker. Now in the next steps, we will show you how to use the docker command.

Step 3. Using the Docker Command

The syntax of the Docker CLI command takes this form:

docker [option] [command] [arguments]

To list all available commands we need to run the docker command with no parameters:.

docker

The output should be similar to the following:

A self-sufficient runtime for containers

Options:
--config string Location of client config files (default "/root/.docker")
-D, --debug Enable debug mode
-H, --host list Daemon socket(s) to connect to
-l, --log-level string Set the logging level ("debug"|"info"|"warn"|"error"|"fatal") (default "info")
--tls Use TLS; implied by --tlsverify
--tlscacert string Trust certs signed only by this CA (default "/root/.docker/ca.pem")
--tlscert string Path to TLS certificate file (default "/root/.docker/cert.pem")
--tlskey string Path to TLS key file (default "/root/.docker/key.pem")
--tlsverify Use TLS and verify the remote
-v, --version Print version information and quit

Management Commands:
builder     Manage builds
config      Manage Docker configs
container   Manage containers
engine      Manage the docker engine
image       Manage images
network     Manage networks
node        Manage Swarm nodes
plugin      Manage plugins
secret      Manage Docker secrets
service     Manage services
stack       Manage Docker stacks
swarm       Manage Swarm
system      Manage Docker
trust       Manage trust on Docker images
volume      Manage volumes

Commands:
  attach      Attach local standard input, output, and error streams to a running container
  build       Build an image from a Dockerfile
  commit      Create a new image from a container's changes
  cp          Copy files/folders between a container and the local filesystem
  create      Create a new container
  diff        Inspect changes to files or directories on a container's filesystem
  events      Get real time events from the server
  exec        Run a command in a running container
  export      Export a container's filesystem as a tar archive
  history     Show the history of an image
  images      List images
  import      Import the contents from a tarball to create a filesystem image
  info        Display system-wide information
  inspect     Return low-level information on Docker objects
  kill        Kill one or more running containers
  load        Load an image from a tar archive or STDIN
  login       Log in to a Docker registry
  logout      Log out from a Docker registry
  logs        Fetch the logs of a container
  pause       Pause all processes within one or more containers
  port        List port mappings or a specific mapping for the container
  ps          List containers
  pull        Pull an image or a repository from a registry
  push        Push an image or a repository to a registry
  rename      Rename a container
  restart     Restart one or more containers
  rm          Remove one or more containers
  rmi         Remove one or more images
  run         Run a command in a new container
  save        Save one or more images to a tar archive (streamed to STDOUT by default)
  search      Search the Docker Hub for images
  start       Start one or more stopped containers
  stats       Display a live stream of container(s) resource usage statistics
  stop        Stop one or more running containers
  tag         Create a tag TARGET_IMAGE that refers to SOURCE_IMAGE
  top         Display the running processes of a container
  unpause     Unpause all processes within one or more containers
  update      Update configuration of one or more containers
  version     Show the Docker version information
  wait        Block until one or more containers stop, then print their exit codes

If you want to see the options available to a specific command, execute the following command:

docker docker-subcommand --help

To view information about Docker:

docker info

Step 4. The Docker Command Line Interface

To search for an image from Docker Hub registry, we can use the following command:

docker search ubuntu

To download the official Ubuntu 18.04, we can do this by using the image pull subcommand:

docker image pull ubuntu

If there is no tag specified, Docker will pull the latest image.

We can list the images by using the following command:

docker image ls

If you want to remove the image for some reason, you can use the following command:

docker image rm ubuntu

If you need to start, stop, remove and manage a container you can do this with the docker container subcommand.

With the following command, we can start a Docker container:

docker container run ubuntu

If you need to interact the container via the command line, you can do this executing the following command:

docker container run -it ubuntu /bin/bash

To list all active containers, type:

docker container ls

but if you want to view both active and inactive containers, type:

docker container ls -a

To remove docker containers execute the following command:

docker container rm [container_id]

Those are just some of the things you can do with Docker – it’s a very versatile program.

In this tutorial, we learned how to install Docker on Ubuntu 18.04 and how to use the docker commands and command line interface.


Of course, you don’t have to install Docker on Ubuntu 18.04 if you use one of our Fully-Managed Server Support services, in which case you can simply ask our expert system administrators to install Docker on Ubuntu 18.04 for you. They are available 24×7 and will take care of your request immediately.

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