Install Docker in Debian or Ubuntu

The docker install instructions are different in 2023 than in previous years, so I wrote up a quick step-by-step guide straight from the offcial docs.

See the Docker docs install overview for installation instructions on other platforms.

First, uninstall all conflicting packages:

for pkg in docker.io docker-doc docker-compose podman-docker containerd runc; do sudo apt remove $pkg; done

Install necessary packages to allow apt to use a repository over HTTPS:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ca-certificates curl gnupg

Add Docker’s official GPG key:

sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

Set up the repository:

echo \
  "deb [arch="$(dpkg --print-architecture)" signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
  "$(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")" stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Now install Docker:

sudo apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
sudo service docker start && sudo service docker enable

Configure docker to start on boot:

sudo systemctl enable docker.service && sudo systemctl enable containerd.service

(Optional) Configure docker to use it without sudo:

sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker

Confirm by using docker ps, if you get no error message, you’re done.