Installing Docker on Raspberry Pi: A Comprehensive Guide

Docker is a popular platform that allows developers to easily create, deploy, and run applications in containers.

Installing Docker on a Raspberry Pi can bring numerous benefits, enabling you to leverage the power of containerisation on a small, low-cost, and energy-efficient device.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through the steps to install Docker on your Raspberry Pi and highlight the advantages of using Docker in your projects.

Why Install Docker on Raspberry Pi?

Portability: Docker containers encapsulate applications along with their dependencies, making them highly portable. You can develop an application on your Raspberry Pi and seamlessly deploy it to other systems or cloud platforms without worrying about compatibility issues.

Efficiency: Raspberry Pi devices have limited resources compared to larger servers or desktop computers. Docker's lightweight containerization approach allows you to run multiple applications efficiently on a single Raspberry Pi, maximizing resource utilization.

Isolation: Docker provides a high level of isolation between containers, ensuring that each application runs in its own isolated environment. This isolation enhances security and prevents conflicts between different applications running on the same Raspberry Pi.

Reproducibility: With Docker, you can define your application and its dependencies in a Dockerfile, which acts as a blueprint for creating identical containers. This reproducibility ensures consistent deployment across different environments and simplifies collaboration among team members.

Ecosystem and Community: Docker has a large and active ecosystem with a vast collection of pre-built images available on Docker Hub. You can leverage these images to quickly set up popular applications or services on your Raspberry Pi without starting from scratch. The Docker community also provides extensive documentation, tutorials, and support resources.

Prerequisites Before proceeding with the installation, ensure that your Raspberry Pi meets the following requirements:

• Raspberry Pi board (Raspberry Pi 3 or newer is recommended)

• Raspberry Pi OS (32-bit) Buster or newer

• Internet connectivity

• Administrator (sudo) access to your Raspberry Pi

Step 1: Update and Upgrade Packages Start by updating the package list and upgrading any existing packages to their latest versions. Open a terminal on your Raspberry Pi and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Step 2: Install Dependencies Install the necessary dependencies required for Docker by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl gnupg

Step 3: Add Docker's GPG Key Add Docker's official GPG key to your Raspberry Pi's keyring to ensure the authenticity of the packages:

sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

Step 4: Add Docker's APT Repository Add Docker's APT repository to your Raspberry Pi's sources list:

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Step 5: Install Docker Update the package list again and install Docker:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Step 6: Add User to Docker Group (Optional) To avoid using sudo every time you run a Docker command, you can add your user to the docker group:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Log out and log back in for the changes to take effect.

sudo reboot

Verify that the Docker Engine installation is successful by running the hello-world image:

sudo service docker start

Step 7: Verify Docker Installation Verify that Docker is installed correctly by running a simple container:

docker run hello-world

If the installation is successful, you should see a message confirming that Docker is working correctly.

Additional Configuration

1. Enable Docker to Start on Boot To ensure that Docker starts automatically when your Raspberry Pi boots up, run the following command:

sudo systemctl enable docker

1. Configure Docker Compose (Optional) Docker Compose is a tool that allows you to define and manage multi-container Docker applications. If you plan to use Docker Compose, you can install it by running the following commands:

sudo apt-get install docker-compose-plugin

Using Docker on Raspberry Pi Now that you have Docker installed on your Raspberry Pi, you can start exploring its capabilities. Here are a few examples of what you can do:

1. Run a Web Server:

docker run -d -p 80:80 --name web nginx

This command starts an Nginx web server container and maps port 80 of the container to port 80 of the Raspberry Pi.

1. Run a Database:

docker run -d -p 3306:3306 --name db -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=password mysql

This command starts a MySQL database container and sets the root password to "password".

1. Deploy a Custom Application: Create a Dockerfile in your application's directory to define your application's environment and dependencies. Then, build and run the container using the following commands:

docker build -t my-app .
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 --name my-app my-app

This builds a Docker image based on your Dockerfile and runs a container from that image, mapping port 8080 of the container to port 8080 of the Raspberry Pi.

Conclusion

Installing Docker on your Raspberry Pi opens up a world of possibilities for containerising applications, simplifying deployment, and leveraging the power of the Docker ecosystem.

With Docker, you can efficiently develop, test, and deploy applications on your Raspberry Pi while ensuring portability and reproducibility.

By following the steps outlined in this guide, you should now have Docker up and running on your Raspberry Pi.

Feel free to explore the vast collection of pre-built Docker images available on Docker Hub and start containerising your own applications.

Remember to refer to the official Docker documentation for more advanced configuration options, best practices, and troubleshooting tips.