Docker For Windows Home

Posted : admin | On 23-04-2021



Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

To get started, you will need to be on Windows Insider Preview build 19040 or higher and install the Docker Desktop Edge 2.2.2.0. What’s in Docker Desktop for Windows Home? Docker Desktop for WSL 2 Windows Home is a full version of Docker Desktop for Linux container development. Docker supports Docker Desktop on Windows for those versions of Windows 10 that are still within Microsoft’s servicing timeline. What’s included in the installer The Docker Desktop installation includes Docker Engine, Docker CLI client, Docker Compose, Notary, Kubernetes, and Credential Helper. 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. 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.

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.

The fastest and easiest way to get started with Docker on Windows.

  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.

Install docker for windows home

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

For

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.

Docker For Windows Home

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

Docker For Windows Home

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 How do i download pinterest on my mac. 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

Docker

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

Docker For Windows Home

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.

Docker For Windows 10 Home Single Language

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.

Docker For Windows Home Edition

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.

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This step-by-step guide will help you get started developing with remote containers by setting up Docker Desktop for Windows with WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux, version 2).

Docker Desktop for Windows is available for free and provides a development environment for building, shipping, and running dockerized apps. By enabling the WSL 2 based engine, you can run both Linux and Windows containers in Docker Desktop on the same machine.

Overview of Docker containers

Docker For Windows Home Edition

Docker is a tool used to create, deploy, and run applications using containers. Containers enable developers to package an app with all of the parts it needs (libraries, frameworks, dependencies, etc) and ship it all out as one package. Using a container ensures that the app will run the same regardless of any customized settings or previously installed libraries on the computer running it that could differ from the machine that was used to write and test the app's code. This permits developers to focus on writing code without worrying about the system that code will be run on.

Docker containers are similar to virtual machines, but don't create an entire virtual operating system. Instead, Docker enables the app to use the same Linux kernel as the system that it's running on. This allows the app package to only require parts not already on the host computer, reducing the package size and improving performance.

Continuous availability, using Docker containers with tools like Kubernetes, is another reason for the popularity of containers. This enables multiple versions of your app container to be created at different times. Rather than needing to take down an entire system for updates or maintenance, each container (and it's specific microservices) can be replaced on the fly. You can prepare a new container with all of your updates, set up the container for production, and just point to the new container once it's ready. You can also archive different versions of your app using containers and keep them running as a safety fallback if needed.

To learn more, checkout the Introduction to Docker containers on Microsoft Learn.

Prerequisites

  • Ensure your machine is running Windows 10, updated to version 2004, Build 18362 or higher.
  • Enable WSL, install a Linux distribution, and update to WSL 2.
  • Download and install the Linux kernel update package.
  • Install Visual Studio Code(optional). This will provide the best experience, including the ability to code and debug inside a remote Docker container and connected to your Linux distribution.
  • Install Windows Terminal(optional). This will provide the best experience, including the ability to customize and open multiple terminals in the same interface (including Ubuntu, Debian, PowerShell, Azure CLI, or whatever you prefer to use).
  • Sign up for a Docker ID at Docker Hub(optional).

Note

WSL can run distributions in both WSL version 1 or WSL 2 mode. You can check this by opening PowerShell and entering: wsl -l -v. Ensure that the your distribution is set to use WSL 2 by entering: wsl --set-version <distro> 2. Replace <distro> with the distro name (e.g. Ubuntu 18.04).

In WSL version 1, due to fundamental differences between Windows and Linux, the Docker Engine couldn't run directly inside WSL, so the Docker team developed an alternative solution using Hyper-V VMs and LinuxKit. However, since WSL 2 now runs on a Linux kernel with full system call capacity, Docker can fully run in WSL 2. This means that Linux containers can run natively without emulation, resulting in better performance and interoperability between your Windows and Linux tools.

Install Docker Desktop

With the WSL 2 backend supported in Docker Desktop for Windows, you can work in a Linux-based development environment and build Linux-based containers, while using Visual Studio Code for code editing and debugging, and running your container in the Microsoft Edge browser on Windows.

To install Docker (after already installing WSL 2):

  1. Download Docker Desktop and follow the installation instructions.

  2. Once installed, start Docker Desktop from the Windows Start menu, then select the Docker icon from the hidden icons menu of your taskbar. Right-click the icon to display the Docker commands menu and select 'Settings'.

  3. Ensure that 'Use the WSL 2 based engine' is checked in Settings > General.

  4. Select from your installed WSL 2 distributions which you want to enable Docker integration on by going to: Settings > Resources > WSL Integration.

  5. To confirm that Docker has been installed, open a WSL distribution (e.g. Ubuntu) and display the version and build number by entering: docker --version

  6. Test that your installation works correctly by running a simple built-in Docker image using: docker run hello-world

Tip

Here are a few helpful Docker commands to know:

  • List the commands available in the Docker CLI by entering: docker
  • List information for a specific command with: docker <COMMAND> --help
  • List the docker images on your machine (which is just the hello-world image at this point), with: docker image ls --all
  • List the containers on your machine, with: docker container ls --all or docker ps -a (without the -a show all flag, only running containers will be displayed)
  • List system-wide information regarding the Docker installation, including statistics and resources (CPU & memory) available to you in the WSL 2 context, with: docker info

Develop in remote containers using VS Code

To get started developing apps using Docker with WSL 2, we recommend using VS Code, along with the Remote-WSL extension and Docker extension.

  • Install the VS Code Remote-WSL extension. This extension enables you to open your Linux project running on WSL in VS Code (no need to worry about pathing issues, binary compatibility, or other cross-OS challenges).

  • Install the VS code Remote-Containers extension. This extension enables you to open your project folder or repo inside of a container, taking advantage of Visual Studio Code's full feature set to do your development work within the container.

  • Install the VS Code Docker extension. This extension adds the functionality to build, manage, and deploy containerized applications from inside VS Code. (You need the Remote-Container extension to actually use the container as your dev environment.)

Let's use Docker to create a development container for an existing app project.

  1. For this example, I'll use the source code from my Hello World tutorial for Django in the Python development environment set up docs. You can skip this step if you prefer to use your own project source code. To download my HelloWorld-Django web app from GitHub, open a WSL terminal (Ubuntu for example) and enter: git clone https://github.com/mattwojo/helloworld-django.git

    Note

    Always store your code in the same file system that you're using tools in. Docker ppt download. This will result in faster file access performance. In this example, we are using a Linux distro (Ubuntu) and want to store our project files on the WSL file system wsl. Storing project files on the Windows file system would significantly slow things down when using Linux tools in WSL to access those files.

  2. From your WSL terminal, change directories to the source code folder for this project:

  3. Open the project in VS Code running on the local Remote-WSL extension server by entering:

    Confirm that you are connected to your WSL Linux distro by checking the green remote indicator in the bottom-left corner of your VS Code instance.

  4. From the VS Code command pallette (Ctrl + Shift + P), enter: Remote-Containers: Open Folder in Container.. If this command doesn't display as you begin to type it, check to ensure that you've installed the Remote Container extension linked above.

  5. Select the project folder that you wish to containerize. In my case, this is wslUbuntu-20.04homemattwojoreposhelloworld-django

  6. A list of container definitions will appear, since there is no DevContainer configuration in the project folder (repo) yet. The list of container configuration definitions that appears is filtered based on your project type. For my Django project, I'll select Python 3.

  7. A new instance of VS Code will open, begin building our new image, and once the build completed, will start our container. You will see that a new .devcontainer folder has appeared with container configuration information inside a Dockerfile and devcontainer.json file.

  8. To confirm that your project is still connected to both WSL and within a container, open the VS Code integrated terminal (Ctrl + Shift + ~). Check the operating system by entering: uname and the Python version with: python3 --version. You can see that the uname came back as 'Linux', so you are still connected to the WSL 2 engine, and Python version number will be based on the container config that may differ from the Python version installed on your WSL distribution.

  9. To run and debug your app inside of the container using Visual Studio Code, first open the Run menu (Ctrl+Shift+D or select the tab on the far left menu bar). Then select Run and Debug to select a debug configuration and choose the configuration that best suites your project (in my example, this will be 'Django'). This will create a launch.json file in the .vscode folder of your project with instructions on how to run your app.

  10. From inside VS Code, select Run > Start debugging (or just press the F5 key). This will open a terminal inside VS Code and you should see a result saying something like: 'Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/ Quit the server with CONTROL-C.' Hold down the Control key and select the address displayed to open your app in your default web browser and see your project running inside of its container.

You have now successfully configured a remote development container using Docker Desktop, powered by the WSL 2 backend, that you can code in, build, run, deploy, or debug using VS Code!

Troubleshooting

WSL docker context deprecated

If you were using an early Tech Preview of Docker for WSL, you may have a Docker context called 'wsl' that is now deprecated and no longer used. You can check with the command: docker context ls. You can remove this 'wsl' context to avoid errors with the command: docker context rm wsl as you want to use the default context for both Windows and WSL2.

Possible errors you might encounter with this deprecated wsl context include: docker wsl open //./pipe/docker_wsl: The system cannot find the file specified. or error during connect: Get http://%2F%2F.%2Fpipe%2Fdocker_wsl/v1.40/images/json?all=1: open //./pipe/docker_wsl: The system cannot find the file specified.

For more on this issue, see How to set up Docker within Windows System for Linux (WSL2) on Windows 10.

Trouble finding docker image storage folder

Docker creates two distro folders to store data:

  • wsl$docker-desktop
  • wsl$docker-desktop-data

You can find these folders by opening your WSL Linux distribution and entering: explorer.exe . to view the folder in Windows File Explorer. Enter: wsl<distro name>mntwsl replacing <distro name> with the name of your distribution (ie. Ubuntu-20.04) to see these folders.

Find more on locating docker storage locations in WSL, see this issue from the WSL repo or this StackOverlow post.

For more help with general troubleshooting issues in WSL, see the Troubleshooting doc.

Additional resources