Get started with Docker containers on WSL (2023)

FAQs

How do I start Docker in wsl? ›

Right-click the icon to display the Docker commands menu and select "Settings". Ensure that "Use the WSL 2 based engine" is checked in Settings > General. Select from your installed WSL 2 distributions which you want to enable Docker integration on by going to: Settings > Resources > WSL Integration.

If you did not install WSL 2 before installing Docker, you will receive the WSL 2 installation is incomplete error when you try to start Docker. To fix this error, run the wsl --update command in an elevated PowerShell console, and restart your computer.

Since we're installing Docker directly inside of WSL 2 you won't need Docker Desktop installed to make this work. If you previously had Docker Desktop installed you may also want to delete a few symlinks that Docker adds to WSL 2.

Docker Desktop fails to start when anti-virus software is installed. Some anti-virus software may be incompatible with Hyper-V and Microsoft Windows 10 builds. The conflict typically occurs after a Windows update and manifests as an error response from the Docker daemon and a Docker Desktop start failure.

The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a way to run a full Linux environment on your Windows machine, without having to install a "heavier" virtual machine, such as Virtual Box, VM Ware, or Hyper-V. WSL 2 also provides a mechanism for running Docker (with Linux containers) on your Windows machine.

We recommend that you use WSL 2 as it offers faster performance and 100% system call compatibility. However, there are a few specific scenarios where you might prefer using WSL 1. Consider using WSL 1 if: Your project files must be stored in the Windows file system.

WSL 2 uses an actual Linux kernel that allows Linux containers. WSL 1 was genius with running Linux on the Windows kernel, but of course lacked some of the features, such as containers. Microsoft offers a more detailed comparison in the docs. You will most certainly need WSL 2 to run the Docker service.

the answer is no for question 1 and I think @meyay also answered question 2, but to be clear, it requires either Hyper-V or WSL2. However, if you want to run not just Linux containers but native Windows containers, you can use only Windows container images with the matching version with your host without Hyper-V.

Can we run Docker without Sudo? ›

Verify that you can run docker commands without sudo . This command downloads a test image and runs it in a container. When the container runs, it prints a message and exits. This error indicates that the permission settings for the ~/.docker/ directory are incorrect, due to having used the sudo command earlier.

You would need an OS. The best would be to have a lean OS. Few options that could explore in that case is alpine + docker, rancher os, core os. You could use the scratch base image in your Dockerfile, depending on what you needed to run.

Choose the Best for Your Career!

Enables integrated user interface to view and monitor Docker containers. Quickly starts Docker within ten seconds.

Is Docker Still Relevant In 2022? Docker remains relevant to most container projects, applications, and developers today thanks to its modern tools, compatibility, large community, and ease of use. However, Docker Inc has undergone changes recently, among them changes to Docker Desktop licensing.

You can then use the docker container start (or shorthand: docker start ) command to start the container at any point.

Docker provides restart policies to control whether your containers start automatically when they exit, or when Docker restarts. Restart policies ensure that linked containers are started in the correct order. Docker recommends that you use restart policies, and avoid using process managers to start containers.

Why would I use WSL rather than Linux in a VM? WSL requires fewer resources (CPU, memory, and storage) than a full virtual machine. WSL also allows you to run Linux command-line tools and apps alongside your Windows command-line, desktop and store apps, and to access your Windows files from within Linux.

How do you use WSL effectively? ›

To start using WSL, open up a PowerShell terminal and type wsl . If you've set up WSL correctly, you'll enter a bash terminal running on the WSL distro of choice. From here, you can run any Linux commands you wish. Below you will find a reference to all of the options the wsl.exe provides when starting up.

You could use the /info endpoint, i.e. http://ip-of-wsl2:2375/info . The response has a SystemStatus field that you can check. Thx, /info returns SystemStatus which means the docker engine is reachable.

WSL 2 is a more secure system than WSL 1 (or the legacy “bash” feature), but it does not eliminate the risks involved in running sensitive applications inside it. To be clear: It is a well-known fact that the “host” system always has full control over the “guest” system.

WSL especially helps web developers and those working with Bash and Linux-first tools (for example, Ruby and Python) to use their tools on Windows and ensure consistency between development and production environments.

I'd argue, yes. WSL integrates at the Kernel Level within Windows, meaning almost peak performance, not like a VM. WSL also integrates completely with the entire Windows File System, meaning none of the size/capacity constrains of Dual-Boot.

From a technical standpoint, there is no real difference between using Docker on Windows and Linux. You can achieve the same things with Docker on both platforms. I don't think you can say that either Windows or Linux is “better” for hosting Docker.

While Linux is the native environment for Docker, the fact that it runs in Windows gives it a special appeal. Now, you can develop a system in your (preferred) Linux environment and deploy it on Windows! That's important for many systems that must be widely deployed among existing computers that happen to run Windows.

The Microsoft container ecosystem

Run Windows-based or Linux-based containers on Windows 10 for development and testing using Docker Desktop, which makes use of containers functionality built-in to Windows. You can also run containers natively on Windows Server.

While WSL 2 uses Microsoft's Hyper-V as a hypervisor under the hood to run the utility VM, it does not require you to enable Windows' Hyper-V role or feature; WSL works perfectly fine without it.

Can I run Docker without Hyper-V? ›

Docker Desktop on Windows 10 supports two backends: HyperV and WSL2. WSL2 in turn also uses Hyper-V — so without having Hyper-V enabled Docker Desktop fails to start and can't be used.

Docker requires Hyper-V enabled options for Windows 10. Without an enabled option, Docker can not run after installation. Therefore, the Hyper-V option must be enabled.

One of the best practices while running Docker Container is to run processes with a non-root user. This is because if a user manages to break out of the application running as root in the container, he may gain root user access on host.

Is coding knowledge required for Docker? Ans: Though you don't have to have a thorough understanding of coding, a basic knowledge of programming will help. Additionally, if you know, creating an application using either PHP, Java or Node. Js will boost your learning.

Rootless mode allows running the Docker daemon and containers as a non-root user to mitigate potential vulnerabilities in the daemon and the container runtime. Rootless mode does not require root privileges even during the installation of the Docker daemon, as long as the prerequisites are met.

For companies with more than 250 employees or more than $10 million in revenue, they must use a paid subscription. Docker officials said that this adjustment is their exploration of a sustainable business model. Docker is no longer free for everyone because the company has decided to focus on its enterprise offerings.

Using this simple calculation, we can estimate that we can run about 1,000 containers on a single host with 10GB of available disk space.

TL;DR. Now you can start the docker daemon with colima start . You'll need to do this the first time you run the docker binary in every session. You can also run docker-compose up as per normal but without needing Docker Desktop.

In addition, when using Docker CE on Windows, configure Docker to use Linux containers. Using Microsoft Windows Containers is not supported as it provides Windows API support to Windows container service instances. Minimum: 8 GB; Recommended: 16 GB.

Because Docker is not just another tool, it's a game-changer, and I firmly believe that every Programmer, be it a Java developer, a C++ developer, or a Web Developer coding in JavaScript, all should learn Docker.

What is replacing Docker? ›

Podman is a rising star in a new container landscape that suddenly has a lot more players. Learn what Podman is and how it compares to Docker for Kubernetes compatibility and more. Will Podman replace Docker?

The process inside the container has been terminated: This is when the program that runs inside the container is given a signal to shut down. This happens if you run a foreground container (using docker run ), and then press Ctrl+C when the program is running.

We implemented multi-tenant isolation (CPU, memory, disk, networking and security) using a combination of Linux, Docker and our own isolation technology. For containers to be successful at Netflix, we needed to integrate them seamlessly into our existing developer tools and operational infrastructure.

The Dockershim Deprecation

So, why the change? Simply put, Docker is heavy. We get better performance with a lightweight container runtime like containerd or CRI-O. As a recent example, Google benchmarks have shown that containerd consumes less memory and CPU, and that pods start in less time than on Docker.

Docker's disadvantages and limitations include lack of cross-platform support, performance overhead and poor support for graphical interfaces. Docker is a great tool. But Docker containers are not a cure-all. If you really want to understand how Docker is impacting the channel, you have to understand its limitations.

To resolve the Docker daemon is not running error, you first need to verify if the service of Docker Desktop is running or not. If the service is running then update the WSL package. After doing so, the specified error will be resolved.

You could use the /info endpoint, i.e. http://ip-of-wsl2:2375/info . The response has a SystemStatus field that you can check. Thx, /info returns SystemStatus which means the docker engine is reachable.

Open up PowerShell again and run the following command wsl.exe --shutdown . This will restart the wsl virtual env. Open up Windows Terminal and WSL2 will start up automatically.

Because Docker is not just another tool, it's a game-changer, and I firmly believe that every Programmer, be it a Java developer, a C++ developer, or a Web Developer coding in JavaScript, all should learn Docker.

Is coding required to learn docker? ›

Is coding knowledge required for Docker? Ans: Though you don't have to have a thorough understanding of coding, a basic knowledge of programming will help. Additionally, if you know, creating an application using either PHP, Java or Node. Js will boost your learning.

Automatically start Docker daemon on WSL2

First, you'll need to install Docker. (replace nilfranadmin with your username, unless you want to give me access to your system 🤣). Now, we will update our profile file to automatically run the docker daemon if it's not running yet.

We recommend that you use WSL 2 as it offers faster performance and 100% system call compatibility. However, there are a few specific scenarios where you might prefer using WSL 1. Consider using WSL 1 if: Your project files must be stored in the Windows file system.

WSL2 is the latest version of WSL with new features. It was announced at Microsoft Build 2019. WSL2 features a Linux kernel running inside Windows 10 and Windows 11 and is built on the core technology of Hyper-V to provide better Linux application support and improved file performance.

Windows Subsystem for Linux

While WSL 2 actually uses the Linux kernel running under Hyper-V, you won't have as much of a performance hit than with a VM because you aren't running most of the other processes that run on a Linux system. You can run WSL with less memory than you would need for a virtual machine.

To connect to a container using plain docker commands, you can use docker exec and docker attach . docker exec is a lot more popular because you can run a new command that allows you to spawn a new shell. You can check processes, files and operate like in your local environment.

Go to the website https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/install/ and download the docker file. Note: A 64-bit processor and 4GB system RAM are the hardware prerequisites required to successfully run Docker on Windows 10. 2. Then, double-click on the Docker Desktop Installer.exe to run the installer.