Docker Course Labs

Set Up Docker and Git

Docker runs as a background service on server operating systems, but in a local environment the easiest option is Docker Desktop.

We'll also use Git for source control, so you'll need a client on your machine to talk to GitHub.

Git Client - Mac, Windows or Linux

Git is a free, open source tool for source control:

• Install Git

Docker Desktop - Mac or Windows

If you're on macOS or Windows 10, Docker Desktop is for you:

• Install Docker Desktop

The download and install takes a few minutes. When it's done, run the Docker app and you'll see the Docker whale logo in your taskbar (Windows) or menu bar (macOS).

On Windows 10 the install may need a restart before you get here.

OR Docker Engine - Linux

Docker Engine is the background service which runs containers. You can install it - along with the Docker command line - for lots of different Linux distros:

• Install Docker Engine
• Install Docker Compose

If you're using WSL on Windows 10, it's much easier to use Docker Desktop which integrates with your WSL distro.

Check your setup

When you have Git and Docker installed you should be able to run these commands and get some output:

git --version

I'm using Git for Windows and my output is:

git version 2.31.1.windows.1

Then run:

docker version

I'm using Docker Desktop on Windows and mine says:

Client:
 Cloud integration: 1.0.14
 Version:           20.10.6
 API version:       1.41
 Go version:        go1.16.3
 Git commit:        370c289
 Built:             Fri Apr  9 22:49:36 2021
 OS/Arch:           windows/amd64
 Context:           default
 Experimental:      true

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          20.10.6
  API version:      1.41 (minimum version 1.12)
  Go version:       go1.13.15
  Git commit:       8728dd2
  Built:            Fri Apr  9 22:44:56 2021
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
...

And then:

docker-compose version

My output is:

docker-compose version 1.29.1, build c34c88b2
docker-py version: 5.0.0
CPython version: 3.9.0
OpenSSL version: OpenSSL 1.1.1g  21 Apr 2020

Your details and version numbers may be different - that's fine. If you get errors then we need to look into it, because you'll need to have Docker running for all of the exercises.

❗ If you're running Docker Desktop on Windows, make sure you're in Linux container mode. This is the default mode, but if you've changed to using Windows containers (from the whale toolbar menu), then you'll need to switch back.

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