How to Install Docker on CentOS 8

Docker is an open-source containerization platform that allows you to quickly build, test, and deploy applications as portable containers that can run anywhere

This tutorial covers how to install the latest version of Docker on an CentOS 8 machine from the official Docker’s repositories.

1./ Install Docker on CentOS 8

01- First, update your CentOS 8 system as below:

$ dnf update -y

02- Once you done, add the Docker repository to your system:

$ sudo curl https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo -o /etc/yum.repos.d/docker-ce.repo

03- We can verify that the repository has been enabled, by looking at the output of the following command:

$ sudo dnf repolist
repo id               repo name                                                      status
AppStream             CentOS-8 - AppStream                                           5,283
BaseOS                CentOS-8 - Base                                                1,661
docker-ce-stable      Docker CE Stable - x86_64                                         65
epel                  Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                 5,635
epel-modular          Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64             0
extras                CentOS-8 - Extras                                                 16

04- Now that the Docker repository is enabled, run the below commands to install the latest version of Docker, .

$ sudo dnf install docker-ce --nobest

05- Once the installation is completed, use the below command to enable the Docker service to start at system boot:

$ sudo systemctl enable --now docker

06- When a new version of Docker is released, you can update the packages using the command sudo dnf update. But, If you want to prevent the Docker package from being updated, use the below command to disable the Docker repository:

$ sudo dnf config-manager --set-disabled docker-ce-stable

2./ Verifying the Installation and Using Docker

By default, only root and user with sudo privileges can execute Docker commands. However, to execute Docker commands as non-root user you’ll need to add your user to the docker group. So, to do that, type in:

$ sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

02- Finally, to verify that Docker has been successfully installed and that you can execute the docker commands. we’ll run a test container that will print a Hello from Docker message, and exit:

$ docker run hello-world
Unable to find image 'hello-world:latest' locally
latest: Pulling from library/hello-world
0e03bdcc26d7: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:6a65f928fb91fcfbc963f7aa6d57c8eeb426ad9a20c7ee045538ef34847f44f1
Status: Downloaded newer image for hello-world:latest

Hello from Docker!
This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.

3./ Uninstalling Docker on CentOS 8

01- Before uninstalling Docker, run the following commands to stop all running containers and remove all docker objects:

$ docker container stop $(docker container ls -aq)
$ docker system prune -a --volumes

02- You can now uninstall the Docker Engine, Docker CLI, and Containerd packages as below:

$ sudo dnf remove docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

03- Finally, delete the Docker directories by running the following commands:

$ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker
$ sudo rm -rf /etc/docker

Conclusion

You have successfully installed Docker CE on your CentOS 8 server. To learn more about Docker, check out the official Docker documentation.
What’s Next? You might want to check the following guides:

• Learn How To Install Docker Compose on CentOS 8
• How To Install Portainer Web UI for Docker
• How To Remove all Unused Docker Images

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