Docker error : no space left on device

I installed docker on a Debian 7 machine in the following way

$ echo deb http://get.docker.io/ubuntu docker main > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list
$ sudo apt-get update
$ curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ubuntu/ | sudo sh

After that when I first tried creating an Image it failed with the following error

 time="2015-06-02T14:26:37-04:00" level=info msg="[8] System error: write /sys/fs/cgroup/docker/01f5670fbee1f6687f58f3a943b1e1bdaec2630197fa4da1b19cc3db7e3d3883/cgroup.procs: no space left on device"

Here is the docker info

Containers: 2
Images: 21
Storage Driver: aufs
Root Dir: /var/lib/docker/aufs
Backing Filesystem: extfs
Dirs: 25
Dirperm1 Supported: true
Execution Driver: native-0.2
Kernel Version: 3.16.0-0.bpo.4-amd64
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 7 (wheezy)
CPUs: 2
 Total Memory: 15.7 GiB


WARNING: No memory limit support
 WARNING: No swap limit support

How can I increase the memory? Where are the system configurations stored?

From Kal's suggestions:

When I got rid of all the images and containers it did free some space and the image build ran longer before failing with the same error. So the question is, which space is this referring to and how do I configure it?

The current best practice is:

docker system prune

Note the output from this command prior to accepting the consequences:

WARNING! This will remove:
  - all stopped containers
  - all networks not used by at least one container
  - all dangling images
  - all dangling build cache

Are you sure you want to continue? [y/N]

In other words, continuing with this command is permanent. Keep in mind that best practice is to treat stopped containers as ephemeral i.e. you should be designing your work with Docker to not keep these stopped containers around. You may want to consider using the --rm flag at runtime if you are not actively debugging your containers.

Make sure you read this answer, re: Volumes

You may also be interested in this answer, if docker system prune does not work for you.

I had the same error and solve it this way:

1 . Delete the orphaned volumes in Docker, you can use the built-in docker volume command. The built-in command also deletes any directory in /var/lib/docker/volumes that is not a volume so make sure you didn't put anything in there you want to save.

Warning be very careful with this if you have some data you want to keep

Cleanup:

$ docker volume rm $(docker volume ls -qf dangling=true)

Additional commands:

List dangling volumes:

$ docker volume ls -qf dangling=true

List all volumes:

$ docker volume ls

2 . Also consider removing all the unused Images.

First get rid of the <none> images (those are sometimes generated while building an image and if for any reason the image building was interrupted, they stay there).

here's a nice script I use to remove them

docker rmi $(docker images | grep '^<none>' | awk '{print $3}')

Then if you are using Docker Compose to build Images locally for every project. You will end up with a lot of images usually named like your folder (example if your project folder named Hello, you will find images name Hello_blablabla). so also consider removing all these images

you can edit the above script to remove them or remove them manually with

docker rmi {image-name}

Check that you have free space on /var as this is where Docker stores the image files by default (in /var/lib/docker).

First clean stuff up by using docker ps -a to list all containers (including stopped ones) and docker rm to remove them; then use docker images to list all the images you have stored and docker rmi to remove them.

Next change the storage location with a -g option on the docker daemon or by editing /etc/default/docker and adding the -g option to DOCKER_OPTS. -g specifies the location of the "Docker runtime" which is basically all the stuff that Docker creates as you build images and run containers. Choose a location with plenty of space as the disk space used will tend to grow over time. If you edit /etc/default/docker, you will need to restart the docker daemon for the change to take effect.

Now you should be able to create a new image (or pull one from Docker Hub) and you should see a bunch of files getting created in the directory you specified with the -g option.

As already mentioned,

docker system prune

helps, but with Docker 17.06.1 and later without pruning unused volumes. Since Docker 17.06.1, the following command prunes volumes, too:

docker system prune --volumes

From the Docker documentation: https://docs.docker.com/config/pruning/

The docker system prune command is a shortcut that prunes images, containers, and networks. In Docker 17.06.0 and earlier, volumes are also pruned. In Docker 17.06.1 and higher, you must specify the --volumes flag for docker system prune to prune volumes.

If you want to prune volumes and keep images and containers:

docker volume prune