How to install and use Docker on RHEL 7 or CentOS 7 (method 1)

The procedure to install Docker is as follows:

1. Open the terminal application or login to the remote box using ssh command:
   ssh user@remote-server-name
2. Type the following command to install Docker via yum provided by Red Hat:
   sudo yum install docker
3. Type the following command to install the latest version of Docker CE (community edition):
   sudo yum remove docker docker-common docker-selinux docker-engine
   sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo
   sudo yum install docker-ce

Let us see all info in details along with examples.

How to install Docker on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 using yum

Type the following yum command:
$ sudo yum install docker

How to install Docker CE on CentOS 7 (method 2)

First remove older version of docker (if any):
$ sudo yum remove docker docker-common docker-selinux docker-engine-selinux docker-engine docker-ce
Next install needed packages:
$ sudo yum install -y yum-utils device-mapper-persistent-data lvm2
Configure the docker-ce repo:
$ sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo

Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
adding repo from: https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo
grabbing file https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo to /etc/yum.repos.d/docker-ce.repo
repo saved to /etc/yum.repos.d/docker-ce.repo

Finally install docker-ce:
$ sudo yum install docker-ce

How to enable docker service

$ sudo systemctl enable docker.service
Sample outputs:

Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/docker.service to /usr/lib/systemd/system/docker.service.

How to start/stop/restart docker service on CentOS7/RHEL7

$ sudo systemctl start docker.service ## <-- Start docker ##
$ sudo systemctl stop docker.service ## <-- Stop docker ##
$ sudo systemctl restart docker.service ## <-- Restart docker ##
$ sudo systemctl status docker.service ## <-- Get status of docker ##
Sample outputs:

How to find out info about Docker network bridge and IP addresses

Default network bridge named as docker0 and is assigned with an IP address. To find this info run the following ip command:
$ ip a
$ ip a list docker0
Sample outputs:

3: docker0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN 
    link/ether 02:42:cd:c0:6d:4a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 172.17.0.1/16 scope global docker0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

How to run docker commands

The syntax is:
docker command
docker command arg
docker [options] command arg
docker help | more

Get system-wide information about Docker

docker info

Getting help

docker help | more
Sample outputs:

Run 'docker COMMAND --help' for more information on a command:
docker ps --help
docker cp --help

How to test your docker installation

Docker images are pulled from docker cloud/hub such as docker.io or registry.access.redhat.com and so on. Type the following command to verify that your installation working:
docker run hello-world
Sample outputs:

How to search for Docker images

Now you have working Docker setup. It is time to find out images. You can find images for all sort of open source projects and Linux distributions. To search the Docker Hub/cloud for nginx image run:
docker search nginx
Sample outputs:

How to install Docker nginx image

To pull an image named nginx from a registry, run:
docker pull nginx
Sample outputs:

How to run Docker nginx image

Now you pulled image, it is time to run it:
docker run --name my-nginx-c1 --detach nginx
Say you want to host simple static file hosted in /home/vivek/html/ using nginx container:
docker run --name my-nginx-c2 -p 80:80 -v /home/vivek/html/:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro -d nginx
Where,

• --name my-nginx-c1 : Assign a name to the container
• --detach : Run container in background and print container ID
• -v /home/vivek/html/:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro : Bind mount a volume
• -p 80:80 : Publish a container's port(s) to the host i.e redirect all traffic coming to port 80 to container traffic

Go ahead and create a file named index.html in /home/vivek/html/:
echo 'Welcome. I am Nginx server locked inside Docker' > /home/vivek/html/index.html
Test it:
curl http://your-host-ip-address/
curl 192.168.122.188
Sample outputs:

Welcome. I am Nginx server locked inside Docker

How to list running Docker containers

docker ps
docker ps -a
Sample outputs:

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED              STATUS              PORTS                NAMES
bb9d85a56a92        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   55 seconds ago       Up 54 seconds       0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp   my-nginx-c2
fe0cdbc0225a        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   About a minute ago   Up About a minute   80/tcp               my-nginx-c1

You can use CONTAINER ID to stop, pause or login into the container.

How to run a command in a running container

Run ls /etc/nginx command for my-nginx-c1 container
docker exec fe0cdbc0225a ls /etc/nginx
OR
docker exec my-nginx-c1 ls /etc/nginx
Want to gain bash shell for a running container and make changes to nginx image?
docker exec -i -t fe0cdbc0225a bash
OR
docker exec -i -t my-nginx-c1 bash

How to stop running containers

docker stop my-nginx-c1
OR
docker stopfe0cdbc0225a

How to remove docker containers

docker rm my-nginx-c1
docker ps -a
And there you have it, Docker installed and running on a CentOS 7 or RHEL 7 server. For more info see the following resources: