Install Docker Engine on Ubuntu and Debian

Ubuntu and Debian both ship a docker.io package, but it lags behind upstream. Docker recommends installing from its own apt repository instead, which gives you current releases of the engine plus the docker compose and docker buildx plugins. The steps below follow the official guide and work on all currently supported Ubuntu and Debian releases on amd64 and arm64.

Step 1: Remove conflicting packages

If an older or unofficial Docker was installed earlier, remove it first. It is fine if apt reports that none of these packages exist. Your images, containers and volumes under /var/lib/docker are not touched by this step.

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

Step 2: Add Docker's GPG key and repository

On Ubuntu:

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

sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.sources <<EOF
Types: deb
URIs: https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu
Suites: $(. /etc/os-release && echo "${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-$VERSION_CODENAME}")
Components: stable
Architectures: $(dpkg --print-architecture)
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
EOF

sudo apt update

On Debian the only differences are the URL and the codename variable:

sudo apt update
sudo apt 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

sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.sources <<EOF
Types: deb
URIs: https://download.docker.com/linux/debian
Suites: $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")
Components: stable
Architectures: $(dpkg --print-architecture)
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
EOF

sudo apt update

The repository definition uses the deb822 .sources format, which is what the official guide now shows. If you are on a derivative such as Linux Mint, the Suites: line must contain the codename of the Ubuntu or Debian release it is based on, not the derivative’s own name.

Step 3: Install Docker Engine

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

The service starts automatically on Ubuntu and Debian and is enabled at boot. Check it:

sudo systemctl status docker
sudo docker run hello-world

The hello-world image prints a short message confirming that the client talked to the daemon, the daemon pulled an image and started a container.

Step 4: Run docker without sudo

The daemon listens on a Unix socket owned by root and the docker group. Adding your user to that group lets you skip sudo. Log out and back in afterwards, or run newgrp docker in the current shell.

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker
docker run hello-world

Careful: membership of the docker group is equivalent to root on that machine, because a user who can start containers can mount the host file system into one. Only add trusted accounts. For a stricter setup, look at rootless mode in the documentation.

Upgrading and removing

Upgrades arrive through sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade like any other package. To uninstall completely:

sudo apt purge docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin docker-ce-rootless-extras
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/containerd
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.sources
sudo rm /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

Careful: the two rm -rf lines delete every image, container and volume on the host. Skip them if you only want to reinstall the packages.

Official documentation

• Install Docker Engine on Ubuntu
• Install Docker Engine on Debian
• Linux post-installation steps for Docker Engine