What's the procedure for installing and running Docker on Google Compute Engine?
13 Answers
As of now, for just Docker, the Container-optimized OS is certainly the way to go:
gcloud compute images list --project=cos-cloud --no-standard-images
It comes with Docker and Kubernetes preinstalled. The only thing it lacks is the Cloud SDK command-line tools. (It also lacks python3, despite Google's announce of Python 2 sunset on 2020-01-01. Well, it's still 27 days to go...)
As an additional piece of information I wanted to share, I was searching for a standard image that would offer both docker and gcloud/gsutil preinstalled (and found none, oops). I do not think I'm alone in this boat, as gcloud is the thing you could hardly go by without on GCE¹.
My best find so far was the Ubuntu 18.04 image that came with their own (non-Debian) package manager, snap. The image comes with the Cloud SDK preinstalled, and Docker installs literally in a snap, 11 seconds on an F1 instance initial test, about 6s on an n1-standard-1. The only snag I hit was the error message that the docker authorization helper was not available; an attempt to add it with gcloud components install failed because the SDK was installed as a snap, too. However, the helper is actually there, only not in the PATH. The following was what got me the both tools available in a single transient builder VM in the least amount of setup script runtime, starting off the supported Ubuntu 18.04 LTS image²:
snap install docker
ln -s /snap/google-cloud-sdk/current/bin/docker-credential-gcloud /usr/bin
gcloud -q auth configure-docker
¹ I needed both for a Daisy workflow imaging a disk with both artifacts from GS buckets and a couple huge, 2GB+ library images from the local gcr.io registry that were shared between the build (as cloud builder layers) and the runtime (where I had to create and extract containers to the newly built image). But that's besides the point; one may needs both tools for a multitude of possible reasons.
² Use gcloud compute images list --uri | grep ubuntu-1804 to get the most current one.
Running Docker on GCE instance is not supported. The instance goes down and not able to login again.
We can use the Docker image given by the GCE, to create a instance.
If your google cloud virtual machine is based on ubuntu use the following command to install docker sudo apt install docker.io
You may use this link: https://cloud.google.com/cloud-build/docs/quickstart-docker#top_of_page.
The said link explains how to use Cloud Build to build a Docker image and push the image to Container Registry. You will first build the image using a Dockerfile and then build the same image using the Cloud Build's build configuration file.
Its better to get it while creating compute instance
- Go to the VM instances page.
- Click the Create instance button to create a new instance.
- Under the Container section, check Deploy container image.
- Specify a container image name under Container image and configure options to run the container if desired. For example, you can specify gcr.io/cloud-marketplace/google/nginx1:1.12 for the container image.
- Click Create.
Installing Docker on GCP Compute Engine VMs:
This is the link to GCP documentation on the topic:
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/containers#installing
In it it links to the Docker install guide, you should follow the instructions depending on what type of Linux you have running in the vm.
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