Docker is similar to LXC, however it is geared to running a single application within its jailed system rather than being a lightweight VM. It's like having a chroot management system enhanced with networking.

This page details the latest version of docker for Debian bookworm. For older use cases see on docker for Debian bullseye.

Debian's version of docker is too old so ensure it's not installed.

apt-get remove --purge docker.io docker-compose docker-doc podman-docker containerd runc

Clean up and reboot if an old version was removed.

apt-get autoremove
reboot

Install using the apt repository

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

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

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Linux post-installation steps for Docker Engine

sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

reboot

docker --version
Docker version 27.5.1, build 9f9e405

docker compose version
Docker Compose version v2.32.4

ip addr show docker0
4: docker0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN group default
    link/ether 02:42:ae:18:42:ab brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 172.17.0.1/16 brd 172.17.255.255 scope global docker0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

docker run hello-world

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

To generate this message, Docker took the following steps:
 1. The Docker client contacted the Docker daemon.
 2. The Docker daemon pulled the "hello-world" image from the Docker Hub.
    (amd64)
 3. The Docker daemon created a new container from that image which runs the
    executable that produces the output you are currently reading.
 4. The Docker daemon streamed that output to the Docker client, which sent it
    to your terminal.

To try something more ambitious, you can run an Ubuntu container with:
 $ docker run -it ubuntu bash

Share images, automate workflows, and more with a free Docker ID:
 https://hub.docker.com/

For more examples and ideas, visit:
 https://docs.docker.com/get-started/

Docker HOWTO

Dockerfile Tips