Can I use Docker Desktop offline?#
Yes, you can use Docker Desktop offline. However, you cannot access features that require an active internet connection. Additionally, any functionality that requires you to sign in won't work while using Docker Desktop offline or in air-gapped environments. This includes:
- The resources in the Learning Center
- Pulling or pushing an image to Docker Hub
- Image Access Management
- Static vulnerability scanning
- Viewing remote images in the Docker Dashboard
- Setting up Dev Environments
- Docker Build when using BuildKit.
You can work around this by disabling BuildKit. Run
DOCKER_BUILDKIT=0 docker build .to disable BuildKit. - Kubernetes (Images are download when you enable Kubernetes for the first time)
- Checking for updates
- In-app diagnostics (including the Self-diagnose tool)
- Sending usage statistics
How do I connect to the remote Docker Engine API?#
To connect to the remote Engine API, you might need to provide the location of the Engine API for Docker clients and development tools.
Mac and Windows WSL 2 users can connect to the Docker Engine through a Unix socket: unix:///var/run/docker.sock.
If you are working with applications like Apache Maven
that expect settings for DOCKER_HOST and DOCKER_CERT_PATH environment
variables, specify these to connect to Docker instances through Unix sockets.
For example:
$ export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///var/run/docker.sock
Docker Desktop Windows users can connect to the Docker Engine through a named pipe: npipe:////./pipe/docker_engine, or TCP socket at this URL:
tcp://localhost:2375.
For details, see Docker Engine API.
How do I connect from a container to a service on the host?#
The host has a changing IP address, or none if you have no network access.
We recommend that you connect to the special DNS name host.docker.internal,
which resolves to the internal IP address used by the host.
For more information and examples, see how to connect from a container to a service on the host.
Can I pass through a USB device to a container?#
It is not possible to pass through a USB device (or a serial port) to a container as it requires support at the hypervisor level.