Installing Docker CE

By default, Fedora CoreOS comes with out-of-the-box support for docker CLI (as provided via Moby). However, in some cases Docker Community Edition (CE) may be preferred for various reasons. This page explains how to replace the provided version with the latest from the upstream Docker sources.

The recommended approach from the official Docker documentation is to add the Docker repository to your system. You can then install and update Docker CE from this repository.

Installing Docker CE on first boot

On provisioning, you can install Docker CE during the first boot of the system via ignition configuration.

Example Butane config for setting up Docker CE

variant: fcos
version: 1.6.0
systemd:
  units:
    # Install Docker CE
    - name: rpm-ostree-install-docker-ce.service
      enabled: true
      contents: |
        [Unit]
        Description=Install Docker CE
        Wants=network-online.target
        After=network-online.target
        Before=zincati.service
        ConditionPathExists=!/var/lib/%N.stamp

        [Service]
        Type=oneshot
        RemainAfterExit=yes
        ExecStart=/usr/bin/curl --output-dir "/etc/yum.repos.d" --remote-name https://download.docker.com/linux/fedora/docker-ce.repo
        ExecStart=/usr/bin/rpm-ostree override remove moby-engine containerd runc docker-cli --install docker-ce
        ExecStart=/usr/bin/touch /var/lib/%N.stamp
        ExecStart=/usr/bin/systemctl --no-block reboot

        [Install]
        WantedBy=multi-user.target

Installing Docker CE on a running system

First, download and setup the Docker repository. Then you need to remove moby-engine and several other conflicting packages that ship by default in the Fedora CoreOS image, install the necessary Docker CE packages, and reboot the system.

curl --remote-name https://download.docker.com/linux/fedora/docker-ce.repo
sudo install --owner 0 --group 0 --mode 644 docker-ce.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/docker-ce.repo
sudo rpm-ostree override remove moby-engine containerd runc docker-cli --install docker-ce --reboot

Upgrading Docker CE

Docker CE should be upgraded automatically with each new release of Fedora CoreOS.

If you have Docker CE installed and are still using Fedora CoreOS 40, upgrading to Fedora CoreOS 41 will likely fail. This is due to the new docker-cli package added in Fedora CoreOS 41 and later. To upgrade to Fedora CoreOS 41 you’ll need to reset the overrides and uninstall layered Docker CE packages with the following command.

sudo rpm-ostree override reset containerd moby-engine runc --uninstall docker-ce

After upgrading to Fedora CoreOS 41, you can follow the instructions for Installing Docker CE on a running system.

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