moby--moby/docs/sources/installation/rhel.md

page_title: Installation on Red Hat Enterprise Linux page_description: Instructions for installing Docker on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. page_keywords: Docker, Docker documentation, requirements, linux, rhel

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Docker is supported on the following versions of RHEL:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 (64-bit) or later

Kernel support

RHEL will only support Docker via the extras channel or EPEL package when running on kernels shipped by the distribution. There are kernel changes which will cause issues if one decides to step outside that box and run non-distribution kernel packages.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

Installation

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64 bit) has shipped with Docker. An overview and some guidance can be found in the Release Notes.

Docker is located in the extras channel. To install Docker:

1. Enable the extras channel:

    $ sudo subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-7-server-extras-rpms
   

2. Install Docker:

    $ sudo yum install docker 
   

Additional installation, configuration, and usage information, including a Get Started with Docker Containers in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 guide, can be found by Red Hat customers on the Red Hat Customer Portal.

Please continue with the Starting the Docker daemon.

Uninstallation

To uninstall the Docker package:

$ sudo yum -y remove docker

The above command will not remove images, containers, volumes, or user created configuration files on your host. If you wish to delete all images, containers, and volumes run the following command:

$ rm -rf /var/lib/docker

You must delete the user created configuration files manually.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6

You will need 64 bit RHEL 6.6 or later, with a RHEL 6 kernel version 2.6.32-504.16.2 or higher as this has specific kernel fixes to allow Docker to work. Related issues: #9856.

Docker is available for RHEL6.6 on EPEL. Please note that this package is part of Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL), a community effort to create and maintain additional packages for the RHEL distribution.

Kernel support

RHEL will only support Docker via the extras channel or EPEL package when running on kernels shipped by the distribution. There are things like namespace changes which will cause issues if one decides to step outside that box and run non-distro kernel packages.

Warning

: Please keep your system up to date using yum update and rebooting your system. Keeping your system updated ensures critical security vulnerabilities and severe bugs (such as those found in kernel 2.6.32) are fixed.

Installation

Firstly, you need to install the EPEL repository. Please follow the EPEL installation instructions.

There is a package name conflict with a system tray application and its executable, so the Docker RPM package was called docker-io.

To proceed with docker-io installation, you may need to remove the docker package first.

$ sudo yum -y remove docker

Next, let's install the docker-io package which will install Docker on our host.

$ sudo yum install docker-io

To update the docker-io package

$ sudo yum -y update docker-io

Please continue with the Starting the Docker daemon.

Uninstallation

To uninstall the Docker package:

$ sudo yum -y remove docker-io

The above command will not remove images, containers, volumes, or user created configuration files on your host. If you wish to delete all images, containers, and volumes run the following command:

$ rm -rf /var/lib/docker

You must delete the user created configuration files manually.

Starting the Docker daemon

Now that it's installed, let's start the Docker daemon.

$ sudo service docker start

If we want Docker to start at boot, we should also:

$ sudo chkconfig docker on

Now let's verify that Docker is working.

$ sudo docker run -i -t fedora /bin/bash

Note: If you get a Cannot start container error mentioning SELinux or permission denied, you may need to update the SELinux policies. This can be done using sudo yum upgrade selinux-policy and then rebooting.

Done!

Continue with the User Guide.

Custom daemon options

If you need to add an HTTP Proxy, set a different directory or partition for the Docker runtime files, or make other customizations, read our Systemd article to learn how to customize your Systemd Docker daemon options.

Issues?

If you have any issues - please report them directly in the Red Hat Bugzilla for docker-io component.