Why this occurs?

I don’t whether it’s happening to everyone, but whenever I try to install docker I always end up facing an issue, which won’t let me use docker unless I use sudo while executing the docker commands. Why it’s occurs? Well, it’s because the permission denied when you are trying to connect with the docker daemon socket at unix://var/run/docker.sock. (you will also see an error similar to this.

The simple fix would be adding docker into a group which will let you use it without using sudo command everytime.

Let’s fix it!

  1. Verify Docker group exists:
getent group | grep docker

If not, create a group called docker then.

  1. Assign the docker group to the user:
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

$USER defines the current user.

  1. Apply group changes:
newgrp docker
  1. Restart Docker Engine to make sure the changes takes effect globally:
sudo systemctl restart docker.service
  1. Let’s verify the group memebership:
getent group | grep docker

Alternative method, which requires simple fixes!

Sometimes, there’s no major problems will occurs but something so simple will need to be done to fix the problem, now let’s look at the common troubleshooting methods:

  1. Check if the Docker is running:
sudo systemctl status docker

sudo systemctl enable docker

sudo systemctl start docker
  1. Verify Docker Socket: Ensure the Docker is usng the correct socket file. The typical socket file for Docker is var/run/docker.sock. Let’s check:
ls -la /var/run/docker.sock

if not present or points to different location, you might need to adjust manually.

  1. Use the correct socket path:
DOCKER_HOST=unix:///var/run/docker.sock docker images

If this works, your Docker installation may be misconfigured, and you can update the Docker socket location in your environment variables or Docker settings.

  1. Let’s DOCKET_HOST to .bashrc or .bash_profile
echo 'export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///var/run/docker.sock' >> ~/.bashrc  
source ~/.bashrc

This will set the DOCKER_HOST environment variable automatically in all your terminal sessions.