How to install Docker on CentOS (the right way)

As the world moves towards containerizing services using Docker, being able to install Docker on production machines running software such as CentOS/Fedora/RHEL also becomes important. However, when you install it using Docker’s official guide, the installation either simply doesn’t work or will cause dependency issues later, not allowing you to cleanly update your system. Here, we will show you how to install Docker on CentOS from the official repositories without causing these issues.

Step 1: Remove old versions of Docker

Older Docker package versions were called docker or docker-engine. To ensure none of these are on your system which will cause problems in the next steps, you should remove them from the system.

sudo dnf remove docker \
                  docker-client \
                  docker-client-latest \
                  docker-common \
                  docker-latest \
                  docker-latest-logrotate \
                  docker-logrotate \
                  docker-engine

It’s fine if the command returns that none of the packages were installed, you can move on.

Step 2: Add Docker repository

Using the yum-utils package, add Docker’s stable repository to your system package manager.

sudo dnf install yum-utils

sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo

Step 3: Install Docker on CentOS/RHEL

This step is where the magic happens. On a clean installation, CentOS comes with versions of dependencies that are not compatible with newer versions of Docker engine. The command will remove all incompatible packages automatically and install the appropriate and compatible dependencies to work with Docker.

sudo dnf remove podman

sudo dnf install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io --allowerasing

If this command doesn’t work, you can substitute --allowerasing with --nobest but be advised this will install Docker with the dependency issue.

Optional: enable Docker systemd service on startup

Chances are that if the power goes out or for some reason the server must reboot, you want your containerized services to start up again by themselves. To do this, simply enable (and start) the Docker Engine systemd service.

sudo systemctl enable --now docker

That’s it! By now, you have learned how to install Docker on CentOS and have a working installation! Additionally, you will be able to update your system without encountering the dependency error that we discussed earlier.