Docker can't connect to docker daemon

After I update my Docker version to 0.8.0, I get an error message while entering sudo docker version:

Client version: 0.8.0
Go version (client): go1.2
Git commit (client): cc3a8c8
2014/02/19 12:54:16 Can't connect to docker daemon. Is 'docker -d' running on this host?

And I've followed the instructions and entered command sudo docker -d, and I got this:

[/var/lib/docker|2462000b] +job initserver()
[/var/lib/docker|2462000b.initserver()] Creating server
open /var/lib/docker/aufs/layers/cf2414da53f9bcfaa48bc3d58360d7f1cfd3784e4fe51fbef95197709dfc285d: no such file or directory[/var/lib/docker|2462000b] -job initserver() = ERR (1)
2014/02/19 12:55:57 initserver: open /var/lib/docker/aufs/layers/cf2414da53f9bcfaa48bc3d58360d7f1cfd3784e4fe51fbef95197709dfc285d: no such file or directory

How do I solve the problem?


Linux

The Post-installation steps for Linux documentation reveals the following steps:

  1. Create the docker group.
    sudo groupadd docker
  2. Add the user to the docker group.
    sudo usermod -aG docker $(whoami)
  3. Log out and log back in to ensure docker runs with correct permissions.
  4. Start docker.
    sudo service docker start

Mac OS X

As Dayel Ostraco says is necessary to add environments variables:

docker-machine start # Start virtual machine for docker
docker-machine env  # It's helps to get environment variables
eval "$(docker-machine env default)" # Set environment variables

The docker-machine start command outputs the comments to guide the process.


Linux

To run docker daemon on Linux (from CLI), run:

$ sudo service docker start # Ubuntu/Debian

Note: Skip the $ character when copy and pasting.

On RedHat/CentOS, run: sudo systemctl start docker.

To initialize the "base" filesystem, run:

$ sudo service docker stop
$ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker
$ sudo service docker start

or manually like:

$ sudo docker -d --storage-opt dm.basesize=20G

Install docker-machine on Linux

To install machine binaries on Linux:

  • locally:

    install -vm755 <(curl -L https://github.com/docker/machine/releases/download/v0.5.3/docker-machine_linux-amd64) $HOME/bin/docker-machine
    
  • global:

    sudo bash -c 'install -vm755 <(curl -L https://github.com/docker/machine/releases/download/v0.5.3/docker-machine_linux-amd64) /usr/local/bin/docker-machine'
    

macOS

On macOS the docker binary is only a client and you cannot use it to run the docker daemon, because Docker daemon uses Linux-specific kernel features, therefore you can’t run Docker natively in OS X. So you have to install docker-machine in order to create VM and attach to it.

Install docker-machine on macOS

If you don't have docker-machine command yet, install it by using one of the following methods:

  • Using Brew command: brew install docker-machine docker.
  • manually from GitHub:

    install -v <(curl https://github.com/docker/machine/releases/download/v0.5.3/docker-machine_linux-amd64) /usr/local/bin/docker-machine
    

See: Get started with Docker for Mac.

Configure docker-machine on macOS

To start Docker Machine via Homebrew, run:

brew services start docker-machine

To create a default machine (if you don't have one, see: docker-machine ls):

docker-machine create --driver virtualbox default

Then set-up the environment for the Docker client:

eval "$(docker-machine env default)"

Then double-check by listing containers:

docker ps

See: Get started with Docker Machine and a local VM.


Install Docker.app on macOS

Alternatively to above solution, you can install a Docker app by:

brew cask install docker

Check this post for more details. See also: Cannot connect to the Docker daemon on macOS


If you are running Docker on OS X, running the following eval has worked for me.

eval "$(docker-machine env default)"

If you'd prefer not to have to run this eval statement on every terminal session, you can add this to your bash_profile:

#Docker
eval "$(docker-machine env default)"

Be sure to restart the terminal session or run source on bash_profile for the changes to take effect.