Installing Docker on Debian

Here’s a quick tutorial on installing Docker and Docker Compose V2 on Debian! This requires that your account has sudo access.

First, we have to make sure that we have possible conflicting packages removed. Debian may ship older/unofficial packages that conflict with Docker’s official packages.

sudo apt remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc docker-compose docker-doc podman-docker

sudo apt remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc docker-compose docker-doc podman-docker

After that finishes, we can start installing Docker. Enter these line by line, minus the added comment(#) lines.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release

# Create keyring dir (if not exists) and add Docker GPG key
sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

# Add the Docker apt repo (uses your Debian codename)
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

# Apply changes to apt
sudo apt update

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release

# Create keyring dir (if not exists) and add Docker GPG key
sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

# Add the Docker apt repo (uses your Debian codename)
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

# Apply changes to apt
sudo apt update

Next, we will install Docker Engine, the CLI, containerd, Buildx, and the Docker Compose plugin (Compose V2).

sudo apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

sudo apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Then we start and enable Docker.

sudo systemctl enable --now docker

sudo systemctl enable --now docker

This is optional, but it’s nice to have.

We can add the current user to the Docker group, so we don’t have to run sudo all the time when we use Docker commands.

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

After adding yourself to the Docker group, you must re-login to apply the changes.

Next, we can verify it’s working with the commands.

docker version
sudo docker run --rm hello-world

docker version
sudo docker run --rm hello-world

The first one shows the version of Docker that is installed, while the second one runs the hello-world container.

As of writing this, my Docker version outputs something like this:
Client:
Version: 26.1.5+dfsg1
API version: 1.45
Go version: go1.24.4
Git commit: a72d7cd
Built: Wed Jul 30 19:37:00 2025
OS/Arch: linux/amd64
Context: default
Server:
Engine:
Version: 26.1.5+dfsg1
API version: 1.45 (minimum version 1.24)
Go version: go1.24.4
Git commit: 411e817
Built: Wed Jul 30 19:37:00 2025
OS/Arch: linux/amd64
Experimental: false
containerd:
Version: 1.7.24~ds1
GitCommit: 1.7.24~ds1-6+b4
runc:
Version: 1.1.15+ds1
GitCommit: 1.1.15+ds1-2+b4
docker-init:
Version: 0.19.0
GitCommit:

docker compose version

docker compose version

This one will tell you what version of Docker Compose you have installed.

As of writing this, my Docker Compose version outputs:
Docker Compose version v2.40.3