How to change the docker image installation directory

Question

From what I can tell  docker images are installed to  var lib docker as they are pulled  Is there a way to change this location  such as to a mounted volume like  mnt

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This solution works on Red Hat 7 2  amp  Docker 1 12 0  Edit the file  lib systemd system docker service in your text editor   add -g  path to docker  at the end of ExecStart directive  The complete line should look like this   ExecStart  usr bin dockerd -g  path to docker    Execute the below command  systemctl daemon-reload systemctl restart docker   Execute the command to check docker directory  docker info   grep  loop file  Dir    If you have  etc sysconfig docker file in Red Hat or docker 1 7 1 check this answer

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For Those looking in 2020  The following is for Windows 10 Machine   In the global Actions pane of Hyper-V Manager click Hyper-V Settings    Under Virtual Hard Disks change the location from the default to your desired location  Under Virtual Machines change the location from the default to your desired location  and click apply     Click OK to close the Hyper-V Settings page

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With recent versions of Docker  you would set the value of the data-root parameter to your custom path  in  etc docker daemon json  according to https   docs docker com engine reference commandline dockerd  daemon-configuration-file    With older versions  you can change Docker s storage base directory  where container and images go  using the -goption when starting the Docker daemon   check docker --help   You can have this setting applied automatically when Docker starts by adding it to  etc default docker

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On Fedora 26 and probably many other versions  you may encounter an error after moving your base folder location as described above  This is particularly true if you are moving it to somewhere under  home  This is because SeLinux kicks in and prevents the docker container from running many of its programs from under this location   The short solution is to remove the --enable-selinux option when you add the -g parameter

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As recommneded by  mbarthelemy this can be done via the -g option when starting the docker daemon directly    However  if docker is being started as a system service  it is not recommended to modify the  etc default docker file  There is a guideline to this located here    The correct approach is to create an  etc docker daemon json file on Linux  or Mac  systems or  programdata  docker config daemon json on Windows  If this file is not being used for anything else  the following fields should suffice          graph     docker daemon files      This is assuming the new location where you want to have docker persist its data is  docker daemon files

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On an AWS Ubuntu 16 04 Server I put the Docker images on a separate EBS  mounted on  home ubuntu kaggle   under the docker dir  This snippet of my initialization script worked correctly    where are the images initially stored  sudo docker info   grep  Root Dir        not where I want them    modify the configuration files to change to image location   NOTE this generates an error   WARNING  Usage of loopback devices is strongly discouraged for production use             Use  --storage-opt dm thinpooldev  to specify a custom block storage device    see https   stackoverflow com questions 31620825        warning-of-usage-of-loopback-devices-is-strongly-discouraged-for-production-use  sudo sed -i     s  DOCKER OPTS    DOCKER OPTS  -g  home ubuntu kaggle docker       etc default docker  sudo chmod -R ugo rw  lib systemd system docker service sudo cp   lib systemd system docker service  etc systemd system  sudo chmod -R ugo rw  etc systemd system   sudo sed -i   s ExecStart   ExecStart  usr bin dockerd  DOCKER OPTS -H fd         etc systemd system docker service sudo sed -i   ExecStart a EnvironmentFile - etc default docker   etc systemd system docker service sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl restart docker sudo docker info   grep  Root Dir    now they re where I want them

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Since I haven t found the correct instructions for doing this in Fedora  EDIT  people pointed in comments that this should also work on CentOS and Suse     etc default docker isn t used there   I m adding my answer here   You  have to edit  etc sysconfig docker  and add the -g option in the OPTIONS variable  If there s more than one option  make sure you enclose them in     In my case  that file contained   OPTIONS --selinux-enabled   so it would become  OPTIONS  --selinux-enabled -g  mnt    After a restart  systemctl restart docker    Docker should use the new directory

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On openSUSE Leap 42 1   cat  etc sysconfig docker     Path             System Management    Description      Extra cli switches for docker daemon    Type             string    Default                ServiceRestart   docker   DOCKER OPTS  -g  media data installed docker    Note that DOCKER OPTS was initially empty and all I did was add in the argument to make docker use my new directory

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Much easier way to do so  Stop docker service sudo systemctl stop docker  Move existing docker directory to new location sudo mv  var lib docker   path to new docker   Create symbolic link sudo ln -s  path to new docker   var lib docker  Start docker service sudo systemctl start docker

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A much simpler solution is to create a soft link point to whatever you want  such as  link -s  var lib docker  mnt whatever   It works for me on my CentOS 6 5 server

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Copy-and-paste version of the winner answer     Create this file with only this content     sudo vi  etc docker daemon json             graph     my-docker-images        Tested on Ubuntu 16 04 2 LTS in docker 1 12 6

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Following advice from comments I utilize Docker systemd documentation to improve this answer  Below procedure doesn t require reboot and is much cleaner   First create directory and file for custom configuration   sudo mkdir -p  etc systemd system docker service d sudo  EDITOR  etc systemd system docker service d docker-storage conf   For docker version before 17 06-ce paste    Service  ExecStart  ExecStart  usr bin docker daemon -H fd    --graph   mnt    For docker after 17 06-ce paste    Service  ExecStart  ExecStart  usr bin dockerd -H fd    --data-root   mnt    Alternative method through daemon json  I recently tried above procedure with 17 09-ce on Fedora 25 and it seem to not work  Instead of that simple modification in  etc docker daemon json do the trick          graph     mnt        storage-driver    overlay      Despite the method you have to reload configuration and restart Docker   sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl restart docker   To confirm that Docker was reconfigured   docker info grep  loop file    In recent version  17 03  different command is required   docker info grep  Docker Root Dir    Output should look like this    Data loop file   mnt devicemapper devicemapper data  Metadata loop file   mnt devicemapper devicemapper metadata   Or    Docker Root Dir   mnt   Then you can safely remove old Docker storage   rm -rf  var lib docker

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Don t use a symbolic Link to move the docker folder to  mnt  for example   This may cause in trouble with the docker rm command    Better use the -g Option for docker  On Ubuntu you can set it permanently in  etc default docker io  Enhance or replace the DOCKER OPTS Line   Here an example   DOCKER OPTS  -g  mnt somewhere else docker

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For Debian Ubuntu or Fedora  you can probably use the other answers  But if you don t have files under  etc default docker or  etc sysconfig docker  and your system is running systemd  you may want to follow this answer by h3nrik  I am using Arch  and this works for me    Basically  you need to configure systemd to read the new docker image location as an environment variable  and pass that environment variable into the Docker daemon execution script   For completeness  here is h3nrick s answer     Do you have a  lib systemd system docker service file   If so  edit it so that the Docker service uses the usual  etc default docker as an environment file  EnvironmentFile - etc default docker   In the  etc default docker file then add DOCKER OPTS  -g  home rseixas Programs Docker images    At the end just do a systemctl daemon-reload  amp  amp  systemctl restart docker   For further information please also have a look at the documentation

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In CentOS 6 5  service docker stop mkdir  data docker   new directory  vi  etc sysconfig docker   add following line  other args   -g  data docker -p  var run docker pid    then save the file and start docker again  service docker start   and will make repository file in  data docker

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For new docker versions we need to use data-root as graph is deprecated in v17 05 0  official deprecated docs Edit  etc docker daemon json  if it doesn   t exist  create it  and include       quot data-root quot    quot  new path to docker-data quot     Then restart Docker with  sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl restart docker   A more detailed step-by-step explanation  including moving data  using Docker Storage with data-root can be found in  Blog post In case of Windows a similar post Windows specific

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The official way of doing this based on this Post-installation steps for Linux guide and what I found while web-crawling is as follows   Override the docker service conf   sudo systemctl edit docker service   Add or modify the following lines  substituting your own values    Service   ExecStart   ExecStart  usr bin dockerd --graph  quot  mnt docker quot     Save the file   It creates   etc systemd system docker service d override conf   Reload the systemctl configuration   sudo systemctl daemon-reload   Restart Docker   sudo systemctl restart docker service    After this if you can nuke  var lib docker folder if you do not have any images there you care to backup

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For Mac users in the 17 06 0-ce-mac19 version you can simply move the Disk Image location from the user interface in the preferences option Just change the location of the disk image and it will work  by clicking Move disk Image  and restarting the docker  Using this approach I was able to use my external hardisk for storing docker images

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I was having docker version 19 03 14  Below link helped me  Check this Link in  etc docker daemon json file I added below section -         quot data-root quot    quot  hdd2 docker quot        quot storage-driver quot    quot overlay2 quot

[docker] How to change the docker image installation directory?

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