{ { % experimental \%}} Support for Docker Engine on RHEL x86_64 and aarch64 is experimental. { { % /experimental \%}}

{ { % restricted title="Docker Desktop for Linux is also available for RHEL." \%}} To get access, join the Early Access Program. { { % /restricted \%}}

To get started with Docker Engine on RHEL, make sure you meet the prerequisites, and then follow the installation steps.

Prerequisites#

OS requirements#

To install Docker Engine, you need a maintained version of one of the following RHEL versions:

  • RHEL 8
  • RHEL 9

Uninstall old versions#

Older versions of Docker went by docker or docker-engine. Uninstall any such older versions before attempting to install a new version, along with associated dependencies. Also uninstall Podman and the associated dependencies if installed already:

$ sudo yum remove docker \
                  docker-client \
                  docker-client-latest \
                  docker-common \
                  docker-latest \
                  docker-latest-logrotate \
                  docker-logrotate \
                  docker-engine \
                  podman \
                  runc

yum might report that you have none of these packages installed.

Images, containers, volumes, and networks stored in /var/lib/docker/ aren't automatically removed when you uninstall Docker.

Installation methods#

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

  • You can set up Docker's repositories and install from them, for ease of installation and upgrade tasks. This is the recommended approach.

  • You can download the RPM package, install it manually, and manage upgrades completely manually. This is useful in situations such as installing Docker on air-gapped systems with no access to the internet.

  • In testing and development environments, you can use automated convenience scripts to install Docker.

Install using the rpm repository#

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

Set up the repository#

Install the yum-utils package (which provides the yum-config-manager utility) and set up the repository.

$ sudo yum install -y yum-utils
$ sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo \{\{\% param "download-url-base" \%\}\}/docker-ce.repo

Install Docker Engine#

  1. Install Docker Engine, containerd, and Docker Compose:

{ { < tabs > } } { { < tab name="Latest" > } }

To install the latest version, run:

console $ sudo yum install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

If prompted to accept the GPG key, verify that the fingerprint matches 060A 61C5 1B55 8A7F 742B 77AA C52F EB6B 621E 9F35, and if so, accept it.

This command installs Docker, but it doesn't start Docker. It also creates a docker group, however, it doesn't add any users to the group by default.

{ { < /tab > } } { { < tab name="Specific version" > } }

To install a specific version, start by listing the available versions in the repository:

```console $ yum list docker-ce --showduplicates | sort -r

docker-ce.x86_64 3:27.1.1-1.el9 docker-ce-stable docker-ce.x86_64 3:27.1.0-1.el9 docker-ce-stable <...> ```

The list returned depends on which repositories are enabled, and is specific to your version of RHEL (indicated by the .el9 suffix in this example).

Install a specific version by its fully qualified package name, which is the package name (docker-ce) plus the version string (2nd column), separated by a hyphen (-). For example, docker-ce-3:27.1.1-1.el9.

Replace <VERSION_STRING> with the desired version and then run the following command to install:

console $ sudo yum install docker-ce-<VERSION_STRING> docker-ce-cli-<VERSION_STRING> containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

This command installs Docker, but it doesn't start Docker. It also creates a docker group, however, it doesn't add any users to the group by default.

{ { < /tab > } } { { < /tabs > } }

  1. Start Docker.

console $ sudo systemctl start docker

  1. Verify that the Docker Engine installation is successful by running the hello-world image.

console $ sudo docker run hello-world

This command downloads a test image and runs it in a container. When the container runs, it prints a confirmation message and exits.

You have now successfully installed and started Docker Engine.

{ { < include "root-errors.md" > } }

Upgrade Docker Engine#

To upgrade Docker Engine, follow the installation instructions, choosing the new version you want to install.

Install from a package#

If you can't use Docker's rpm repository to install Docker Engine, you can download the .rpm file for your release and install it manually. You need to download a new file each time you want to upgrade Docker Engine.

  1. Go to {{\% param "download-url-base" %}}/.

  2. Select your RHEL version in the list.

  3. Select the applicable architecture (x86_64, aarch64, or s390x), and then go to stable/Packages/.

  4. Download the following rpm files for the Docker Engine, CLI, containerd, and Docker Compose packages:

  5. containerd.io-<version>.<arch>.rpm

  6. docker-ce-<version>.<arch>.rpm
  7. docker-ce-cli-<version>.<arch>.rpm
  8. docker-buildx-plugin-<version>.<arch>.rpm

  9. docker-compose-plugin-<version>.<arch>.rpm

  10. Install Docker Engine, changing the following path to the path where you downloaded the packages.

console $ sudo yum install ./containerd.io-<version>.<arch>.rpm \ ./docker-ce-<version>.<arch>.rpm \ ./docker-ce-cli-<version>.<arch>.rpm \ ./docker-buildx-plugin-<version>.<arch>.rpm \ ./docker-compose-plugin-<version>.<arch>.rpm

Docker is installed but not started. The docker group is created, but no users are added to the group.

  1. Start Docker.

console $ sudo systemctl start docker

  1. Verify that the Docker Engine installation is successful by running the hello-world image.

console $ sudo docker run hello-world

This command downloads a test image and runs it in a container. When the container runs, it prints a confirmation message and exits.

You have now successfully installed and started Docker Engine.

{ { < include "root-errors.md" > } }

Upgrade Docker Engine#

To upgrade Docker Engine, download the newer package files and repeat the installation procedure, using yum -y upgrade instead of yum -y install, and point to the new files.

{ { < include "install-script.md" > } }

Uninstall Docker Engine#

  1. Uninstall the Docker Engine, CLI, containerd, and Docker Compose packages:

console $ sudo yum remove docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin docker-ce-rootless-extras

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

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

You have to delete any edited configuration files manually.

Next steps#