Get Docker EE for Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

To get started with Docker EE on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, make sure you meet the prerequisites, then install Docker.

Prerequisites

Docker Community Edition (Docker CE) is not supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Docker EE repository URL

To install Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker EE), you need to know the Docker EE repository URL associated with your trial or subscription. These instructions work for Docker EE for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and for Docker EE for Linux, which includes access to Docker EE for all Linux distributions. To get this information:

Go to https://store.docker.com/my-content.
Each subscription or trial you have access to is listed. Click the Setup button for Docker Enterprise Edition for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Copy the URL from the field labeled Copy and paste this URL to download your Edition.

Use this URL when you see the placeholder text <DOCKER-EE-URL>.

To learn more about Docker EE, see Docker Enterprise Edition.

OS requirements

To install Docker EE, you need the 64-bit version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 running on an x86 hardware platform, or s390x (IBM Z) architecture.

In addition, you must use the devicemapper storage driver. On production systems, you must use direct-lvm mode, which requires one or more dedicated block devices. Fast storage such as solid-state media (SSD) is recommended.

Warning: There is currently no support for selinux on IBM Z systems. If you try to install Docker EE on an IBM Z system with selinux enabled, you get an error about the container-selinux package, which is missing from Red Hat’s repository for IBM Z. The only current workaround is to disable selinux before installing or upgrading Docker on IBM Z.

Uninstall old versions

Older versions of Docker were called docker or docker-engine. If these are installed, uninstall them, along with associated dependencies.

$ sudo yum remove docker \
                  docker-common \
                  docker-selinux \
                  docker-engine-selinux \
                  docker-engine

It’s OK if yum reports that none of these packages are installed.

The contents of /var/lib/docker/, including images, containers, volumes, and networks, are preserved. The Docker EE package is now called docker-ee.

Install Docker EE

You can install Docker EE in different ways, depending on your needs:

Most users set up Docker’s repositories and install from them, for ease of installation and upgrade tasks. This is the recommended approach.
Some users download the RPM package and install it manually and manage upgrades completely manually. This is useful in situations such as installing Docker on air-gapped systems with no access to the internet.

Install using the repository

Before you install Docker EE for the first time on a new host machine, you need to set up the Docker repository. Afterward, you can install and update Docker EE from the repository.

Set up the repository

Remove any existing Docker repositories from /etc/yum.repos.d/.
Temporarily store the Docker EE repository URL you noted down in the prerequisites in an environment variable. This will not persist when the current session ends.
```
$ export DOCKERURL='<DOCKER-EE-URL>'
```
Store your Docker EE repository URL in a yum variable in /etc/yum/vars/. This command relies on the variable you stored in the previous step.
```
$ sudo -E sh -c 'echo "$DOCKERURL/rhel" > /etc/yum/vars/dockerurl'
```
Store your OS version string in /etc/yum/vars/dockerosversion. Most users should use 7, but you can also use the more specific minor version, starting from 7.2.
```
$ sudo sh -c 'echo "7" > /etc/yum/vars/dockerosversion'
```
Install required packages. yum-utils provides the yum-config-manager utility, and device-mapper-persistent-data and lvm2 are required by the devicemapper storage driver.
```
$ sudo yum install -y yum-utils \
  device-mapper-persistent-data \
  lvm2
```
Enable the extras RHEL repository. This ensures access to the container-selinux package which is required by docker-ee.
```
$ sudo yum-config-manager --enable rhel-7-server-extras-rpms
```
Depending on cloud provider, you may also need to enable another repository.

For AWS:
```
$ sudo yum-config-manager --enable rhui-REGION-rhel-server-extras
```
Note: REGION here is literal, and does not represent the region your machine is running in.

For Azure:
```
$ sudo yum-config-manager --enable rhui-rhel-7-server-rhui-extras-rpms
```

Use the following command to add the stable repository:

$ sudo -E yum-config-manager \
    --add-repo \
    "$DOCKERURL/rhel/docker-ee.repo"

Install Docker EE

Warning: There is currently no support for selinux on IBM Z systems. If you try to install Docker EE on an IBM Z system with selinux enabled, you get an error about the container-selinux package, which is missing from Red Hat’s repository for IBM Z. The only current workaround is to disable selinux before installing or upgrading Docker on IBM Z.

Install the latest version of Docker EE, or go to the next step to install a specific version.
```
$ sudo yum -y install docker-ee
```
If this is the first time you are installing a package from a recently added repository, you will be prompted to accept the GPG key, and the key’s fingerprint will be shown. Verify that the fingerprint matches 77FE DA13 1A83 1D29 A418 D3E8 99E5 FF2E 7668 2BC9 and if so, accept the key.
On production systems, you should install a specific version of Docker EE instead of always using the latest. List the available versions. This example uses the sort -r command to sort the results by version number, highest to lowest, and is truncated.
```
$ sudo yum list docker-ee  --showduplicates | sort -r

docker-ee.x86_64         17.06.ee.2-1.el7.rhel          docker-ee-stable-17.06
```
The contents of the list depend upon which repositories you have enabled, and will be specific to your version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (indicated by the .el7 suffix on the version, in this example). Choose a specific version to install. The second column is the version string. You can use the entire version string, but you need to include at least to the first hyphen. The third column is the repository name, which indicates which repository the package is from and by extension its stability level. To install a specific version, append the version string to the package name and separate them by a hyphen (-):

Note: The version string is the package name plus the version up to the first hyphen. In the example above, the fully qualified package name is docker-ee-17.06.1.ee.2.
```
$ sudo yum -y install <FULLY-QUALIFIED-PACKAGE-NAME>
```
Docker is installed but not started. The docker group is created, but no users are added to the group.
Edit /etc/docker/daemon.json. If it does not yet exist, create it. Assuming that the file was empty, add the following contents.
```
{
  "storage-driver": "devicemapper"
}
```
For production systems, you must use direct-lvm mode, which requires you to prepare the block devices. Follow the procedure in the devicemapper storage driver guide before starting Docker.
Start Docker.
```
$ sudo systemctl start docker
```
Verify that Docker EE is installed correctly by running the hello-world image.
```
$ sudo docker run hello-world
```
This command downloads a test image and runs it in a container. When the container runs, it prints an informational message and exits.

Docker EE is installed and running. You need to use sudo to run Docker commands. Continue to Linux postinstall to allow non-privileged users to run Docker commands and for other optional configuration steps.

Upgrade Docker EE

To upgrade Docker EE:

If upgrading to a new major Docker EE version (such as when going from Docker 17.03.x to Docker 17.06.x), add the new repository.
Follow the installation instructions, choosing the new version you want to install.

Install from a package

Warning: There is currently no support for selinux on IBM Z systems. If you try to install Docker EE on an IBM Z system with selinux enabled, you get an error about the container-selinux package, which is missing from Red Hat’s repository for IBM Z. The only current workaround is to disable selinux before installing or upgrading Docker on IBM Z.

If you cannot use the official Docker repository to install Docker EE, you can download the .rpm file for your release and install it manually. You will need to download a new file each time you want to upgrade Docker EE.

Enable the extras RHEL repository. This ensures access to the container-selinux package which is required by docker-ee.
```
$ sudo yum-config-manager --enable rhel-7-server-extras-rpms
```
Alternately, obtain that package manually from Red Hat. There is no way to publicly browse this repository.
Go to the Docker EE repository URL associated with your trial or subscription in your browser. Go to rhel/7/x86_64/stable-17.06/Packages and download the .rpm file for the Docker version you want to install.

Note: If you have trouble with selinux using the packages under the 7 directory, try choosing the version-specific directory instead, such as 7.3.
Install Docker EE, changing the path below to the path where you downloaded the Docker package.
```
$ sudo yum install /path/to/package.rpm
```
Docker is installed but not started. The docker group is created, but no users are added to the group.
Edit /etc/docker/daemon.json. If it does not yet exist, create it. Assuming that the file was empty, add the following contents.
```
{
  "storage-driver": "devicemapper"
}
```
For production systems, you must use direct-lvm mode, which requires you to prepare the block devices. Follow the procedure in the devicemapper storage driver guide before starting Docker.
Start Docker.
```
$ sudo systemctl start docker
```
Verify that Docker EE is installed correctly by running the hello-world image.
```
$ sudo docker run hello-world
```
This command downloads a test image and runs it in a container. When the container runs, it prints an informational message and exits.

Docker EE is installed and running. You need to use sudo to run Docker commands. Continue to Post-installation steps for Linux to allow non-privileged users to run Docker commands and for other optional configuration steps.

Upgrade Docker EE

To upgrade Docker EE, download the newer package file and repeat the installation procedure, using yum -y upgrade instead of yum -y install, and pointing to the new file.

Uninstall Docker EE

Uninstall the Docker EE package:
```
$ sudo yum -y remove docker-ee
```
Images, containers, volumes, or customized configuration files on your host are not automatically removed. To delete all images, containers, and volumes:
```
$ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker
```
If desired, remove the devicemapper thin pool and reformat the block devices that were part of it.

You must delete any edited configuration files manually.

Next steps

Continue to Post-installation steps for Linux
Continue with the User Guide.

requirements, installation, rhel, rpm, install, uninstall, upgrade, update