How to run docker with experimental functions on Ubuntu 16.04

Question

I have following question:

How to run docker with experimental features on (like image squashing docker build --squash=true... for reduce it size) on ubuntu 16.04 ?

Auspex

Answer 1

To turn on experimental docker functions create following file by:

sudo nano /etc/docker/daemon.json

and add below content to it

{ 
    "experimental": true 
} 

and save file (by CTRL+X and Enter ) and exit. In terminal type:

sudo service docker restart

To check that experimental funcions are ON, type in terminal:

docker version

And you should see Experimental: true

UPDATE

Instead of nano you can use this one-liner:

echo $'{\n    "experimental": true\n}' | sudo tee /etc/docker/daemon.json

Auspex

Note the limitations of that one-liner update: It's trying to 'append' however if you actually already have a config file, it will break the file format. – Spradling

sudo sh -c 'echo "$(cat /etc/docker/daemon.json) {\"experimental\": true}" |jq -s add |sponge /etc/docker/daemon.json && service docker restart' – Election

fyi- to enable this for the client, the config file to create is ~/.docker/config.json and the value is "enabled", not true – Electromagnetism

Not sure, but I think sudo service docker restart will shut down any docker containers running, just be careful – Entozoon

Answer 2

I tried everything here on a Ubuntu 18.04 VM on my mac--nothing worked. All over the interwebs said the same thing, but the one thing that finally got experimental turned on was @Michael Haren's tiny answer:

fyi- to enable this for the client, the config file to create is ~/.docker/config.json and the value is "enabled", not true

which meant something like this for me:

$ mkdir ~/.docker
$ echo '{ "experimental": "enabled" }' > ~/.docker/config.json
$ sudo systemctl restart docker
$ docker version
  ...
  Experimental: true
  ...

This should be a top-level answer. So, credit to them (except sweet internet karma points for me...).

Pushball

This unfortunately did not work on Ubuntu 20.04, @Kamil's answer did however. – Janeanjaneczka

Note that the OP specified 16.04, so it may work in 16.04 or possibly was working at the time the answer was posted in 03/2020. – Janeanjaneczka

This is the top answer! – Geographical

Answer 3

If you only want to run it temporarily / without modifying files, you can export DOCKER_CLI_EXPERIMENTAL=enabled. The below turns on experimental mode for your client.

$ docker version
 Experimental:      false
$ export DOCKER_CLI_EXPERIMENTAL=enabled
$ docker version
 Experimental:      true

Sami

Answer 4

Posting this to help those who are running docker on macOS

You will need to enable experimental on two files, one is client while another is docker engine

I suggest open the file manually instead of direct echo into the file as that file might have some other configuration and you might not want to overwrite them accidentally

For client, visit ~/.docker/config.json, and add "experimental": "enabled" on top level config as below

{
  "experimental" : "enabled",
  "auths" : {
    "harbor.xxx.com" : {

    }
  },
  "credsStore" : "desktop"
}

For Docker Engine, visit ~/.docker/daemon.json and add "experimental": true on top level config as below

{
  "features": {
    "buildkit": true
  },
  "experimental": true,
  "builder": {
    "gc": {
      "defaultKeepStorage": "20GB",
      "enabled": true
    }
  }
}

Do note that the "value" of experimental is different between client and server.

Once done, restart the docker using command below

killall Docker && open /Applications/Docker.app

then verify the result

docker version

Barbarize

Answer 5

I think you can solve this on Linux using the systemctl as described by https://mcmap.net/q/382038/-how-to-run-docker-with-experimental-functions-on-ubuntu-16-04 on this SO. However, first you need to edit the correct files... Here's the way to set it up in a MacOS if you were looking for similar answers.

Docker run with Experiments MacOS

• Just set the variable ENABLED=true or ENABLED=false and this script will automagically turn it on or off, writing to the file

NOTE: You MUST have jq installed to execute and update in-place.

ENABLED=true; \

CONFIG=~/.docker/config.json; DAEMON=~/.docker/daemon.json ; \

cat <<< $(jq --argjson V ${ENABLED} '.experimental = $V' ${DAEMON}) > ${DAEMON} ; \
cat <<< $(jq --arg V $(if [ "${ENABLED}" = "true" ]; then echo "enabled"; else echo "disabled"; fi) '.experimental = $V' ${CONFIG}) > ${CONFIG} ; \ 

cat ~/.docker/config.json ; \
cat ~/.docker/daemon.json

Output confirmation

• This will be output automatically confirming

{
  "auths": {
    "https://index.docker.io/v1/": {},
    "registry.gitlab.com": {}
  },
  "credsStore": "desktop",
  "experimental": "enabled",
  "currentContext": "default"
}
{
  "builder": {
    "gc": {
      "defaultKeepStorage": "20GB",
      "enabled": true
    }
  },
  "experimental": true,
  "features": {
    "buildkit": true
  }
}

Restart Docker Engine in MacOS

• Just run the following

killall Docker && open /Applications/Docker.app

References

• JQ convert to number, convert to boolean when generating new json from shell variables
• passing arguments to jq filter

Koeninger

Answer 6

sudo sed -i 's/ExecStart=\/usr\/bin\/dockerd -H fd:\/\/ --containerd=\/run\/containerd\/containerd.sock/ExecStart=\/usr\/bin\/dockerd -H fd:\/\/ --containerd=\/run\/containerd\/containerd.sock --experimental/g' /lib/systemd/system/docker.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart docker

Orbicular

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