[docker] Docker - Bind for 0.0.0.0:4000 failed: port is already allocated

I am using docker for the first time and I was trying to implement this - https://docs.docker.com/get-started/part2/#tag-the-image

At one stage I was trying to connect with localhost by this command -

$ curl http://localhost:4000

which showed this error-

curl: (7) Failed to connect to localhost port 4000: Connection refused

However, I have solved this by following code -

$ docker-machine ip default
$ curl http://192.168.99.100:4000

After that everything was going fine, but in the last part, I was trying to run the app by using following line according to the tutorial...

$ docker run -p 4000:80 anibar/get-started:part1

But, I got this error

C:\Program Files\Docker Toolbox\docker.exe: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint goofy_bohr (63f5691ef18ad6d6389ef52c56198389c7a627e5fa4a79133d6bbf13953a7c98): Bind for 0.0.0.0:4000 failed: port is already allocated.

This question is related to docker port

The answer is


docker ps will reveal the list of containers running on docker. Find the one running on your needed port and note down its PID.

Stop and remove that container using following commands:

docker stop PID
docker rm PID

Now run docker-compose up and your services should run as you have freed the needed port.


For anyone having this problem with docker-compose. When you have more than one project (i.e. in different folders) with similar services you need to run docker-compose stop in each of your other projects.


I solved it this way:

First, I stopped all running containers:

docker-compose down

Then I executed a lsof command to find the process using the port (for me it was port 9000)

sudo lsof -i -P -n | grep 9000

Finally, I "killed" the process (in my case, it was a VSCode extension):

kill -9 <process id>

In my case, there was no process to kill.

Updating docker fixed the problem.


Stopping the container didn't work for me either. I changed the port in docker-compose.yml.


I've had same problem with docker-compose:

  1. Killed docker-proxy processe .
  2. Restart docker
  3. Start docker-compose again.

Paying tribute to IgorBeaz, you need to stop running the current container. For that you are going to know current CONTAINER ID:

$ docker container ls

You get something like:

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                  NAMES
12a32e8928ef        friendlyhello       "python app.py"     51 seconds ago      Up 50 seconds       0.0.0.0:4000->80/tcp   romantic_tesla   

Then you stop the container by:

$ docker stop 12a32e8928ef

Finally you try to do what you wanted to do, for example:

$ docker run -p 4000:80 friendlyhello

Above two answers are correct but didn't work for me.

  1. I kept on seeing blank like below for docker container lsenter image description here
  2. then I tried, docker container ls -a and after that it showed all the process previously exited and running.
  3. Then docker stop <container id> or docker container stop <container id> didn't work
  4. then I tried docker rm -f <container id> and it worked.
  5. Now at this I tried docker container ls -a and this process wasn't present.

It might be a conflict with the same port specified in docker-compose.yml and docker-compose.override.yml or the same port specified explicitly and using an environment variable.

I had a docker-compose.yml with ports on a container specified using environment variables, and a docker-compose.override.yml with one of the same ports specified explicitly. Apparently docker tried to open both on the same container. docker container ls -a listed neither because the container could not start and list the ports.


I tried all the above answers, none of them worked, in my case even docker container ls doesn't show any container running. It looks like the problem is due to the fact that the docker proxy is still using ports although there are no containers running. In my case I was using ubuntu. Here's what I tried and got the problem solved, just run the following two commands:

sudo service docker stop
sudo rm -f /var/lib/docker/network/files/local-kv.db

The quick fix is ??a just restart docker:

  1. sudo service docker stop
  2. sudo service docker start