Introduction

The Docker Engine can be used running native Docker style container workloads on Rocky Linux servers. This is sometimes preferred to running the full Docker Desktop environment.

Add the Docker repository

Use the dnf utility to add the Docker repository to your Rocky Linux server. Type:

sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo

Install the needed packages

Install the latest version of Docker Engine, containerd, and Docker Compose, by running:

sudo dnf -y install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-compose-plugin

Start and enable Docker (dockerd)

Use systemctl to configure Docker to automatically startup upon reboot and simultaneously start it now. Type:

sudo systemctl --now enable docker

Optionally allow a non-root user to manage docker

Add a non-root user to the docker group to allow the user to manage docker without sudo.

This is an optional step, but can be a convenience if you are the main user on the system, or if you want to allow multiple users to manage docker, but do not want to grant them sudo permissions.

Type:

# Add the current user
sudo usermod -a -G docker $(whoami)

# Add a specific user
sudo usermod -a -G docker custom-user

It is required to log out and in again to be assigned the new group. Check with the id command to verify that the group has been added.

Notes

docker-ce               : This package provides the underlying technology for building and running docker containers (dockerd) 
docker-ce-cli           : Provides the command line interface (CLI) client docker tool (docker)
containerd.io           : Provides the container runtime (runc)
docker-compose-plugin   : A plugin that provides the 'docker compose' subcommand 

Author: wale soyinka

Contributors: neelchauhan, nishaaaaaant, sastorsl