Docker Windows Home

1. Docker Windows Home 1909
2. Docker Desktop For Windows Home
3. Docker Windows Home Install
4. Docker Windows Home 19018
5. Docker Windows Home
6. Docker Install For Windows Home

As the Docker documentation states. If you are using Docker Machine on Mac or Windows, your Engine daemon has only limited access to your OS X or Windows filesystem. Docker Machine tries to auto-share your /Users (OS X) or C: Users (Windows) direc. MongoDB document databases provide high availability and easy scalability. With Windows 10 introducing WSL2 you can now run Docker image from Ubuntu running via WSL2 that’s connected to your Host’s Docker Desktop app. That’s just insane! It’s inception in OS level. Today we will take a look at how to turn on this integration, so you can run Docker inside Ubuntu that’s running inside Windows 10 via WSL2.

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Welcome to Docker Desktop! The Docker Desktop for Windows user manual provides information on how to configure and manage your Docker Desktop settings.

For information about Docker Desktop download, system requirements, and installation instructions, see Install Docker Desktop.

Settings

The Docker Desktop menu allows you to configure your Docker settings such as installation, updates, version channels, Docker Hub login,and more.

This section explains the configuration options accessible from the Settings dialog.

1. Open the Docker Desktop menu by clicking the Docker icon in the Notifications area (or System tray):

2. Select Settings to open the Settings dialog:

General

On the General tab of the Settings dialog, you can configure when to start and update Docker.

• Start Docker when you log in - Automatically start Docker Desktop upon Windows system login.

• Expose daemon on tcp://localhost:2375 without TLS - Click this option to enable legacy clients to connect to the Docker daemon. You must use this option with caution as exposing the daemon without TLS can result in remote code execution attacks.

• Send usage statistics - By default, Docker Desktop sends diagnostics,crash reports, and usage data. This information helps Docker improve andtroubleshoot the application. Clear the check box to opt out. Docker may periodically prompt you for more information.

Resources

The Resources tab allows you to configure CPU, memory, disk, proxies, network, and other resources. Different settings are available for configuration depending on whether you are using Linux containers in WSL 2 mode, Linux containers in Hyper-V mode, or Windows containers.

Advanced

Note

The Advanced tab is only available in Hyper-V mode, because in WSL 2 mode and Windows container mode these resources are managed by Windows. In WSL 2 mode, you can configure limits on the memory, CPU, and swap size allocatedto the WSL 2 utility VM.

Use the Advanced tab to limit resources available to Docker.

CPUs: By default, Docker Desktop is set to use half the number of processorsavailable on the host machine. To increase processing power, set this to ahigher number; to decrease, lower the number.

Memory: By default, Docker Desktop is set to use 2 GB runtime memory,allocated from the total available memory on your machine. To increase the RAM, set this to a higher number. To decrease it, lower the number.

Swap: Configure swap file size as needed. The default is 1 GB.

Disk image size: Specify the size of the disk image.

Disk image location: Specify the location of the Linux volume where containers and images are stored.

You can also move the disk image to a different location. If you attempt to move a disk image to a location that already has one, you get a prompt asking if you want to use the existing image or replace it.

File sharing

Note

The File sharing tab is only available in Hyper-V mode, because in WSL 2 mode and Windows container mode all files are automatically shared by Windows.

Use File sharing to allow local directories on Windows to be shared with Linux containers.This is especially useful forediting source code in an IDE on the host while running and testing the code in a container.Note that configuring file sharing is not necessary for Windows containers, only Linux containers. If a directory is not shared with a Linux container you may get file not found or cannot start service errors at runtime. See Volume mounting requires shared folders for Linux containers.

File share settings are:

• Add a Directory: Click + and navigate to the directory you want to add.

• Apply & Restart makes the directory available to containers using Docker’sbind mount (-v) feature.

Tips on shared folders, permissions, and volume mounts

• Share only the directories that you need with the container. File sharing introduces overhead as any changes to the files on the host need to be notified to the Linux VM. Sharing too many files can lead to high CPU load and slow filesystem performance.

• Shared folders are designed to allow application code to be edited on the host while being executed in containers. For non-code items such as cache directories or databases, the performance will be much better if they are stored in the Linux VM, using a data volume (named volume) or data container.

• Docker Desktop sets permissions to read/write/execute for users, groups and others 0777 or a+rwx.This is not configurable. See Permissions errors on data directories for shared volumes.

• Windows presents a case-insensitive view of the filesystem to applications while Linux is case-sensitive. On Linux it is possible to create 2 separate files: test and Test, while on Windows these filenames would actually refer to the same underlying file. This can lead to problems where an app works correctly on a developer Windows machine (where the file contents are shared) but fails when run in Linux in production (where the file contents are distinct). To avoid this, Docker Desktop insists that all shared files are accessed as their original case. Therefore if a file is created called test, it must be opened as test. Attempts to open Test will fail with “No such file or directory”. Similarly once a file called test is created, attempts to create a second file called Test will fail.

Shared folders on demand

You can share a folder “on demand” the first time a particular folder is used by a container.

If you run a Docker command from a shell with a volume mount (as shown in theexample below) or kick off a Compose file that includes volume mounts, you get apopup asking if you want to share the specified folder.

You can select to Share it, in which case it is added your Docker Desktop Shared Folders list and available tocontainers. Alternatively, you can opt not to share it by selecting Cancel.

Proxies

Docker Desktop lets you configure HTTP/HTTPS Proxy Settings andautomatically propagates these to Docker. For example, if you set your proxysettings to http://proxy.example.com, Docker uses this proxy when pulling containers.

Your proxy settings, however, will not be propagated into the containers you start.If you wish to set the proxy settings for your containers, you need to defineenvironment variables for them, just like you would do on Linux, for example:

For more information on setting environment variables for running containers,see Set environment variables.

Network

Note

The Network tab is not available in Windows container mode because networking is managed by Windows.

You can configure Docker Desktop networking to work on a virtual private network (VPN). Specify a network address translation (NAT) prefix and subnet mask to enable Internet connectivity.

DNS Server: You can configure the DNS server to use dynamic or static IP addressing.

Note

Some users reported problems connecting to Docker Hub on Docker Desktop. This would manifest as an error when trying to rundocker commands that pull images from Docker Hub that are not alreadydownloaded, such as a first time run of docker run hello-world. If youencounter this, reset the DNS server to use the Google DNS fixed address:8.8.8.8. For more information, seeNetworking issues in Troubleshooting.

Updating these settings requires a reconfiguration and reboot of the Linux VM.

WSL Integration

In WSL 2 mode, you can configure which WSL 2 distributions will have the Docker WSL integration.

By default, the integration will be enabled on your default WSL distribution. To change your default WSL distro, run wsl --set-default <distro name>. (For example, to set Ubuntu as your default WSL distro, run wsl --set-default ubuntu).

You can also select any additional distributions you would like to enable the WSL 2 integration on.

For more details on configuring Docker Desktop to use WSL 2, see Docker Desktop WSL 2 backend.

Docker Engine

The Docker Engine page allows you to configure the Docker daemon to determine how your containers run.

Type a JSON configuration file in the box to configure the daemon settings. For a full list of options, see the Docker Enginedockerd commandline reference.

Click Apply & Restart to save your settings and restart Docker Desktop.

Command Line

On the Command Line page, you can specify whether or not to enable experimental features.

You can toggle the experimental features on and off in Docker Desktop. If you toggle the experimental features off, Docker Desktop uses the current generally available release of Docker Engine.

Experimental features

Experimental features provide early access to future product functionality.These features are intended for testing and feedback only as they may changebetween releases without warning or can be removed entirely from a futurerelease. Experimental features must not be used in production environments.Docker does not offer support for experimental features.

For a list of current experimental features in the Docker CLI, see Docker CLI Experimental features.

Run docker version to verify whether you have enabled experimental features. Experimental modeis listed under Server data. If Experimental is true, then Docker isrunning in experimental mode, as shown here:

Kubernetes

Note

The Kubernetes tab is not available in Windows container mode.

Docker Desktop includes a standalone Kubernetes server that runs on your Windows machince, sothat you can test deploying your Docker workloads on Kubernetes. To enable Kubernetes support and install a standalone instance of Kubernetes running as a Docker container, select Enable Kubernetes.

For more information about using the Kubernetes integration with Docker Desktop, see Deploy on Kubernetes.

Reset

The Restart Docker Desktop and Reset to factory defaults options are now available on the Troubleshoot menu. For information, see Logs and Troubleshooting.

Troubleshoot

Visit our Logs and Troubleshooting guide for more details.

Log on to our Docker Desktop for Windows forum to get help from the community, review current user topics, or join a discussion.

Log on to Docker Desktop for Windows issues on GitHub to report bugs or problems and review community reported issues.

For information about providing feedback on the documentation or update it yourself, see Contribute to documentation.

Switch between Windows and Linux containers

From the Docker Desktop menu, you can toggle which daemon (Linux or Windows)the Docker CLI talks to. Select Switch to Windows containers to use Windowscontainers, or select Switch to Linux containers to use Linux containers(the default).

For more information on Windows containers, refer to the following documentation:

• Microsoft documentation on Windows containers.

• Build and Run Your First Windows Server Container (Blog Post)gives a quick tour of how to build and run native Docker Windows containers on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 evaluation releases.

• Getting Started with Windows Containers (Lab)shows you how to use the MusicStoreapplication with Windows containers. The MusicStore is a standard .NET application and,forked here to use containers, is a good example of a multi-container application.

• To understand how to connect to Windows containers from the local host, seeLimitations of Windows containers for localhost and published ports

Settings dialog changes with Windows containers

When you switch to Windows containers, the Settings dialog only shows those tabs that are active and apply to your Windows containers:

If you set proxies or daemon configuration in Windows containers mode, theseapply only on Windows containers. If you switch back to Linux containers,proxies and daemon configurations return to what you had set for Linuxcontainers. Your Windows container settings are retained and become availableagain when you switch back.

Dashboard

The Docker Desktop Dashboard enables you to interact with containers and applications and manage the lifecycle of your applications directly from your machine. The Dashboard UI shows all running, stopped, and started containers with their state. It provides an intuitive interface to perform common actions to inspect and manage containers and Docker Compose applications. For more information, see Docker Desktop Dashboard.

Docker Hub

Select Sign in /Create Docker ID from the Docker Desktop menu to access your Docker Hub account. Once logged in, you can access your Docker Hub repositories directly from the Docker Desktop menu.

For more information, refer to the following Docker Hub topics:

Two-factor authentication

Docker Desktop enables you to sign into Docker Hub using two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication provides an extra layer of security when accessing your Docker Hub account.

You must enable two-factor authentication in Docker Hub before signing into your Docker Hub account through Docker Desktop. For instructions, see Enable two-factor authentication for Docker Hub.

After you have enabled two-factor authentication:

1. Go to the Docker Desktop menu and then select Sign in / Create Docker ID.

2. Enter your Docker ID and password and click Sign in.

3. After you have successfully signed in, Docker Desktop prompts you to enter the authentication code. Enter the six-digit code from your phone and then click Verify.

After you have successfully authenticated, you can access your organizations and repositories directly from the Docker Desktop menu.

Adding TLS certificates

You can add trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs) to your Docker daemon to verify registry server certificates, and client certificates, to authenticate to registries.

How do I add custom CA certificates?

Docker Desktop supports all trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs) (root orintermediate). Docker recognizes certs stored under Trust RootCertification Authorities or Intermediate Certification Authorities.

Docker Desktop creates a certificate bundle of all user-trusted CAs based onthe Windows certificate store, and appends it to Moby trusted certificates. Therefore, if an enterprise SSL certificate is trusted by the user on the host, it is trusted by Docker Desktop.

To learn more about how to install a CA root certificate for the registry, seeVerify repository client with certificatesin the Docker Engine topics.

How do I add client certificates?

You can add your client certificatesin ~/.docker/certs.d/<MyRegistry>:<Port>/client.cert and~/.docker/certs.d/<MyRegistry>:<Port>/client.key. You do not need to push your certificates with git commands.

When the Docker Desktop application starts, it copies the~/.docker/certs.d folder on your Windows system to the /etc/docker/certs.ddirectory on Moby (the Docker Desktop virtual machine running on Hyper-V).

You need to restart Docker Desktop after making any changes to the keychainor to the ~/.docker/certs.d directory in order for the changes to take effect.

The registry cannot be listed as an insecure registry (seeDocker Daemon). Docker Desktop ignorescertificates listed under insecure registries, and does not send clientcertificates. Commands like docker run that attempt to pull from the registryproduce error messages on the command line, as well as on the registry.

To learn more about how to set the client TLS certificate for verification, seeVerify repository client with certificatesin the Docker Engine topics.

Where to go next

• Try out the walkthrough at Get Started.

• Dig in deeper with Docker Labs example walkthroughs and source code.

• Refer to the Docker CLI Reference Guide.

With a couple of tweaks the WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux, also known as Bash for Windows) can be used with Docker for Windows.

Quick Jump: Configure Docker for Windows (Docker Desktop)|Install Docker and Docker Compose within WSL|Configure WSL to Connect to Docker for Windows|Ensure Volume Mounts Work

Docker Windows Home 1909

Update in 2020: Now that Microsoft has released the Spring 2020 Windows update we have access to WSL 2 on all editions of Windows 10 (including Home). They even backported in support for WSL 2 in Windows versions 1903 and 1909.

I’ve recorded a video of how I have Docker Desktop along with WSL 2 working together along with other tools that I use.

I’ve decided to keep this post unmodified and fully working for WSL 1 in case you want to continue using it. Just know that I’ve moved on to using WSL 2 and that none of the steps below are necessary to do with WSL 2.

This article expects you to have WSL set up already. If you don’t, I have another article that goes over how to set up an amazing WSL based development environment within Windows. You can even run graphical apps and it doesn’t require a VM.

Onwards we go…

While the Docker daemon cannot run directly on WSL, you can use the Docker CLI to connect to a remote Docker daemon running through Docker for Windows or any other VM you create (this article covers both methods).

If you’re wondering “why not just run docker.exe and docker-compose.exe from Docker for Windows directly in WSL?”, that’s due to a bug with running Docker or Docker Compose interactively in that environment. The TL;DR is you can’t run anything in the foreground with interactive mode, which makes it unusable for real web development.

But with the Docker CLI configured to the remote Docker for Windows host it’s really awesome! Using this method, very large Rails applications respond in ~100ms (or ~5s when having to compile 10,000+ lines of Javascript and SCSS). That’s with mounted volumes too!

I use this set up pretty much every day for Rails, Flask, Phoenix, Node and Webpack driven apps. It’s very solid in terms of performance and reliability.

Configure Docker for Windows (Docker Desktop)

In the general settings, you’ll want to expose the daemon without TLS.

Docker for Windows has been recently renamed to Docker Desktop, so if your settings look slightly different than the screenshot, no worries. It’s the same thing.

It mentions “use with caution” because any time you make a network connection that’s not encrypted, it’s worth talking about but in this case it’s completely safe because we’re never connecting to it over a public network.

This is going to allow your local WSL instance to connect locally to the Docker daemon running within Docker for Windows. The traffic isn’t even leaving your dev box since the daemon is only bound to localhost, so not even other machines on your local network will be able to connect. In other words, it’s very safe for this data to be transmit over plain text.

You may also want to share any drives you plan on having your source code reside on. This step isn’t necessary but I keep my code on an internal secondary HD, so I shared my “E” drive too. If you do that, goto the “Shared Drives” setting and enable it.

Can’t use Docker for Windows?

This is only necessary if you are NOT running Docker for Windows!

You’ll want to set up your own VM to run Docker. Docker Tip #73 goes into detail on how to do this, and it even includes links to videos on how to configure the VM.

Install Docker and Docker Compose within WSL

Everyone can follow along at this point!

We still need to install Docker and Docker Compose inside of WSL because it’ll give us access to both CLI apps. We just won’t bother starting the Docker daemon.

The following instructions are for Ubuntu 18.04 / 20.04, but if you happen to use a different WSL distribution, you can follow Docker’s installation guide for your distro from Docker’s installation docs.

Install Docker

You can copy / paste all of the commands below into your WSL terminal.

Ubuntu 18.04 / 20.04 installation notes taken from Docker’s documentation:

At this point you must close your terminal and open a new one so that you can run Docker without sudo. You might as well do it now!

Install Docker Compose

We’re going to install Docker Compose using PIP instead of the pre-compiled binary on GitHub because it runs a little bit faster (both are still Python apps).

The next step is to make sure $HOME/.local/bin is set on your WSL $PATH.

You can check if it’s already set by running echo $PATH. Depending on what WSL distro you use, you may or may not see /home/nick/.local/bin (replace nick with your username).

If it’s there, you’re good to go and can skip to the next section of this post.

If it’s not there, you’ll want to add it to your $PATH. You can do that by opening up your profile file with nano ~/.profile. Then anywhere in the file, on a new line, add export PATH='$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin' and save the file.

Finally, run source ~/.profile to active your new $PATH and confirm it works by running echo $PATH. You should see it there now. Done!

Configure WSL to Connect to Docker for Windows

The next step is to configure WSL so that it knows how to connect to the remote Docker daemon running in Docker for Windows (remember, it’s listening on port 2375).

If you’re not using Docker for Windows and followed Docker Tip #73’s guide to create your own VM then you probably did this already which means you can skip the command below.

Connect to a remote Docker daemon with this 1 liner:

echo 'export DOCKER_HOST=tcp://localhost:2375' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc

That just adds the export line to your .bashrc file so it’s available every time you open your terminal. The source commands reloads your bash configuration so you don’t have to open a new terminal right now for it to take effect.

Verify Everything Works

Ensure Volume Mounts Work

The last thing we need to do is set things up so that volume mounts work. This tripped me up for a while because check this out…

When using WSL, Docker for Windows expects you to supply your volume paths in a format that matches this: /c/Users/nick/dev/myapp.

But, WSL doesn’t work like that. Instead, it uses the /mnt/c/Users/nick/dev/myapp format. Honestly I think Docker should change their path to use /mnt/c because it’s more clear on what’s going on, but that’s a discussion for another time.

To get things to work for now, you have 2 options. If you’re running Windows 18.03 (Spring 2018) or newer you can configure WSL to mount at / instead of /mnt and you’re all done. If you’re running 17.09 (Fall 2017) you’ll need to do something else.

Here’s step by step instructions for both versions of Windows:

Docker Desktop For Windows Home

Running Windows 10 18.03+ or Newer?

First up, open a WSL terminal because we need to run a few commands.

Create and modify the new WSL configuration file:

We need to set root = / because this will make your drives mounted at /c or /e instead of /mnt/c or /mnt/e.

The options = 'metadata' line is not necessary but it will fix folder and file permissions on WSL mounts so everything isn’t 777 all the time within the WSL mounts. I highly recommend you do this!

Once you make those changes, sign out and sign back in to Windows to ensure the changes take effect. Win + L isn’t enough. You’ll need to do a full blown sign out / sign in.

If you get an error the next time you start your WSL terminal don’t freak out.

It’s a bug with 18.03 and you can easily fix it. Hit CTRL + Shift + ECS to open the task manager, goto the “Services” tab, find the “LxssManager” service and restart it.

This seems to only happen if you sign out of Windows instead of doing a full reboot and will likely be fixed in a future 18.03+ patch.

Once that’s done, you’re all set. You’ll be able to access your mounts and they will work perfectly with Docker and Docker Compose without any additional adjustments. For example you’ll be able to use .:/myapp in a docker-compose.yml file, etc..

What terminal emulator are you using?

If you’re using ConEmu, then you’ll want to make sure to upgrade to the latest alpha release (at least 18.05.06+ which you can see in the title bar of the settings). It contains a patched wslbridge.exe file to support a custom WSL root mount point.

The default Ubuntu WSL terminal supports this by default, so you’re all good. I don’t know if other terminals support this yet. Let me know in the comments.

You're all done! You can skip the 17.09 steps below if you followed the above steps.

Running Windows 10 17.09?

First up, open a WSL terminal because we need to run a few commands.

Bind custom mount points to fix Docker for Windows and WSL differences:

You’ll want to repeat those commands for any drives that you shared, such as d or e, etc..

Verify that it works by running: ls -la /c. You should see the same exact output as running ls -la /mnt/c because /mnt/c is mounted to /c.

At this point you’re golden. You can use volume mount paths like .:/myapp in your Docker Compose files and everything will work like normal. That’s awesome because that format is what native Linux and MacOS users also use.

It’s worth noting that whenever you run a docker-compose up, you’ll want to make sure you navigate to the /c/Users/nick/dev/myapp location first, otherwise your volume won’t work. In other words, never access /mnt/c directly.

Technically you could use a symlink instead of a bind mount, but I’ve been burned in the past when it came to using symlinks and having certain tools not work because they failed to follow them correctly. Better safe than sorry here.

However, feel free to use symlinks inside WSL to access your bind mount. For example my Dev folder lives all the way in /e/Backup/VMs/workstation/home/nick/Dev and there’s no way in heck I’m going to always type that when I want to access my development files.

So inside WSL I created a symlink with ln -s /e/Backup/VMs/workstation/home/nick/Dev ~/Dev and now I can just type cd ~/Dev to access my files and everything works.

Automatically set up the bind mount:

Unfortunately you will have to run that sudo mount command every time you open a new terminal because WSL doesn’t support mounting through /etc/fstab yet (edit: it does in 18.09+, but if you’re using 18.09+ you should follow the 18.03+ steps).

But we can work around that limitation by just mounting it in your ~/.bashrc file. This is a little dirty but as far as I know, I think this is the only way to do it, so if you know of a better way, please let me know.

You can do that with this 1 liner: echo 'sudo mount --bind /mnt/c /c' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc and make sure to repeat the command for any additional drives you shared with Docker for Windows. By the way, you don’t need to mkdir because we already did it.

Yes I know, that means you will be prompt for your root password every time you open a terminal, but we can get around that too because Linux is cool like that.

Allow your user to bind a mount without a root password:

Docker Windows Home Install

To do that, run the sudo visudo command.

Docker Windows Home 19018

That should open up nano (a text editor). Goto the bottom of the file and add this line: nick ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/mount, but replace “nick” with your username.

Docker Windows Home

That just allows your user to execute the sudo mount command without having to supply a password. You can save the file with CTRL + O, confirm and exit with CTRL + X.

Mission complete. You’re all set to win at life by using Docker for Windows and WSL.

Docker Install For Windows Home

Let me know how it goes in the comments!