Docker Desktop Issues
Docker Desktop creates and switches the Docker Context but does not switch back when uninstalling
TL;DR: The Headline. Just use “docker context set default” to fix it.
Hey y’all! Today I tried running willow-interference-server (Great project btw, check it out under: ) on my desktop. I had Docker Desktop installed, which led to some problems with docker and nvidia… I don’t have the logs anymore, otherwiese that would probably be worth a blogpost on its own. Anyways. After uninstalling docker desktop and instead installing docker-ce, I got this:
jan@desktop1:~/Projects/willow-inference-server$ ./utils.sh install Using configuration overrides from .env file ERROR: Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///home/jan/.docker/desktop/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?
So obviously it is trying to use the wrong path. But hellow world runs without a hitch, so what gives?
jan@desktop1:~$ sudo docker run hello-world
Hello from Docker! This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.
To generate this message, Docker took the following steps:
- The Docker client contacted the Docker daemon.
- The Docker daemon pulled the “hello-world” image from the Docker Hub. (amd64)
- The Docker daemon created a new container from that image which runs the executable that produces the output you are currently reading.
- The Docker daemon streamed that output to the Docker client, which sent it to your terminal.
To try something more ambitious, you can run an Ubuntu container with: $ docker run -it ubuntu bash
Share images, automate workflows, and more with a free Docker ID: https://hub.docker.com/
For more examples and ideas, visit: https://docs.docker.com/get-started/
This led to me searchimg through all my .profile, .bashrc and docker config files.. not finding anything at all. It seemed weird, but as I’m not a Docker Guru I started grepping my complete home directory.
find /home/jan/ -type f -size -10M -exec grep -H “docker/desktop/docker.sock” {} +
And after crwaling through the cache of firefox, which contained an intense discussion between me and chatgpt about just this topic, I found this entry:
/home/jan/.docker/contexts/meta/fe9c6bd7a66301f49ca9b6a70b217107cd1284598bfc254700c989b916da791e/meta.json:{“Name”:”desktop-linux”,”Metadata”:{“Description”:”Docker Desktop”},”Endpoints”:{“docker”:{“Host”:”unix:///home/jan/.docker/desktop/docker.sock”,”SkipTLSVerify”:false}}}
So.. Docker Desktops switches the context silently and does not remove that context when getting uninstalled. Annoying. I’m sure its somewhere in the Docs, but I have not found it yet.
Thats all, see ya!