Introduction

The Docker Engine can run native Docker-style container workloads on Rocky Linux servers. This is sometimes preferred when 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 it can be convenient if you are the system's main user 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

To be assigned the new group, you must log out and in again. 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: Neel Chauhan, Srinivas Nishant Viswanadha, Stein Arne Storslett, Ganna Zhyrnova