How to Install Docker on Arch Linux

Docker is a containerization technology used for packaging and distributing applications. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Docker on Arch Linux.

Prerequisites

Before you start, ensure that your system is up-to-date. You can do so by running the following command:

sudo pacman -Syu

Install Docker on Arch Linux

To install Docker on Arch Linux, follow the below steps:

  1. Install docker package using the pacman package manager:
sudo pacman -S docker
  1. Enable Docker service at boot:
sudo systemctl enable docker.service
  1. Start the Docker service:
sudo systemctl start docker.service
  1. Verify the installation using the following command:
sudo docker run hello-world

This command will download a Docker image, run a container, and print a "Hello World!" message. If the command returns the message "Hello from Docker!" then Docker is installed correctly.

Managing Docker as a non-root user

By default, Docker commands require root privileges. However, it is recommended to create a non-root user account for managing Docker. Follow the below steps to create a non-root user:

  1. Create a new group called docker:
sudo groupadd docker
  1. Add your user to the docker group:
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

  1. Log out and log back in to apply the group membership changes.

  2. Verify that you can run Docker commands without sudo:

docker run hello-world

This command should run without any errors.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to install Docker on Arch Linux. We also created a non-root user account for managing Docker. Now, you can start building and deploying your applications using Docker.