docker-offline-install

Instructions and scripts for installing Docker Engine in an offline / standalone environment.

This is usefull for installing Docker engine on servers that don't or cannot have an internet connection. Usually you would install Docker using apt-get, but that of course requires the server to be connected to the internet. One solution is to mirror the entire Ubuntu [apt] repository, but because of its size, this solution is not practical.

Thankfully, Docker manages there own [apt] repository for the Docker-Engine, including direct dependencies (see prerequisites). Using a seperate internet connected (online) computer, you can download the Docker [apt] repository, copy it using some media (i.e. cdrom, usb) to the target computer / server and install it using apt-get.

The included scipts utilize apt-mirror for downloading the Docker [apt] repository. The official Docker documentation for installing Docker on Ubuntu was also helpful writing these scripts. Make sure you comply to Docker's prerequisites before trying to install on Ubuntu.

Currently only Ubuntu 14.04 is supported on both source (online) and target (offline) computers.

Prerequisites:

• Check Docker's dependencies to make sure you have the basic dependencies installed on the target computer (i.e. iptables, apparmor). These are usually allready installed in typical Ubuntu 14.04 installations, but may be missing in some cases.
• An online computer running Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit (a.k.a source)
• An offline / standalone computer running Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit (a.k.a target)
• sudo (root) privileges on both source and target computers
• Some sort of media to copy the included scripts and mirrored repository to the target

Instructions

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Please Note: Currently, the scripts are success oriented, no error checking is done. Please check the console output for any warnings/errors that may occur during the process.

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On the source (online) computer:

1. Download the scripts, or clone using git.
2. Extract the zip (you might need to install unzip).
3. cd into the relevant distribution directory of the scripts (currently only Ubuntu14.04) cd Ubuntu14.04
4. Run the download script with sudo: sudo ./docker-download.sh
5. If all goes well, there should be gzip file named docker_mirror.tar.gz in the directory you ran the script from. Copy this file, and the docker-install.sh script to your media (i.e. cdrom, usb etc...)

On the target (offline) computer:

1. Copy the docker_mirror.tar.gz and the docker-install.sh from the media to a writeable directory on the target.
2. Run the install script with sudo: sudo ./docker-install.sh (no need to extract the gzip, the script will do it for you).
3. If all goes well, Docker should be installed now. Test the installation by running: docker ps, you should get an empty list of running containers.

Thats it!

Security

These scripts copy Docker repository public key for [apt], so that the Release.gpg signiture file can be varified during the offline install, just like apt-get does when installing online.

Troubleshooting

• Cannot run scripts:
  • Downloaded scripts should allready have executable file mode. If not, try to run sudo chmod +x *.sh in the script directory (on source and target computers).
  • Make sure you are running the scripts using sudo
• Unable to install Docker on target:
  • Make sure you have dependecies mentioned above installed on the target.
• Other problems:
  • Check console outputs, they may give you clue about the problem.
  • Keep in touch, maybe I can help...