Docker on Alpine Linux

30 Jul, 2024 • 123 words • 1 min • updated 18 Jan, 2026

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In this post: how to properly start docker on an Alpine Linux server.

First, install docker and friends:

shell

doas apk add docker docker-cli docker-compose

Then start the docker service:

shell

doas service docker start

Check if it started successfully:

shell

service docker status

If not, then look at the logs:

shell

less /var/log/docker.log

I got an error:

failed to start daemon: error initializing graphdriver: driver not supported

The suggestion was to change the driver to overlay2:

     shell
     
   
% $EDITOR /etc/docker/daemon.json
{
  "storage-driver": "overlay2"
}

Then restart docker.

I got another error:

     shell
     
level=error msg="failed to mount overlay: no such device" storage-driver=overlay2

The suggestion was to reboot:

shell

doas reboot

Then start docker again:

shell

doas service docker start

And now everything works!