Run Docker Linux Containers on Windows Server 2019 (LCOW) - Step by Step Guide

 In this article, I will show you how you can Install docker engine from DockerMSFTProvider and run both windows and Linux containers on this. 

Prerequisites:

  1. Windows Server 2019 Installed on a VM or a host machine
  2. Virtualization Enabled
Enable Virtualization
If your windows server is installed on a host machine then you can simply check if virtualization is enabled from task manager performance tab.


If virtualization is enabled, then you are good to go.

If your windows server is installed on a VM e.g. on VMware then you will need to enable nested virtualization from your VM settings. See the last section of my blog on  Install Windows Server 2019 on a Virtual Machine to enable nested virtualization on VMware.

Steps:

  1. Enable Hyper-V and Containers Feature
  2. Install Docker EE
  3. Enable LCOW (Linux Containers on Windows)
  4. Run a Linux Container
  5. Install Docker-Compose (Optional)

1. Enable Hyper-V and Containers Feature

To enable windows Hyper-V and Containers feature, open PowerShell in administrator mode on your windows server 2019 and run this command:

Install-WindowsFeature -Name Hyper-V,Containers -IncludeAllSubFeature -IncludeManagementTools

You will need to restart your computer after installing these features

1. Install Docker EE

To install docker EE you will need to install the package provider and docker package

To install Package Provider run below command in PowerShell (Administrator Mode):

Install-Module DockerMSFTProvider

Now import the module and package provider

Import-Module-Name DockerMSFTProvider -Force
Import-Packageprovider -Name DockerMSFTProvider -Force

To check the latest version of docker on Package Provider, run this command:

Find-Package docker

Now you just need to install docker 

Install-Package -Name Docker -Source DockerDefault

After installation, restart your computer and then type docker version in powershell to check the installed version of docker, if this works fine then installation is successful.


Now you can run any windows container on this. To run linux containers you will need to enable LCOW on your windows. See next steps to enable LCOW.

3. Enable LCOW (Linux Containers on Windows)

To run linux containers on windows we will need to make some changes in docker default configurations.

First we will set an environment variable to enable linux conatiners support. 

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("LCOW_SUPPORTED", "1", "Machine")

Next we will create a docker daemon configuration file

$configfile = @"
{
    "experimental": true
}
"@

$configfile | Out-File -FilePath C:\ProgramData\docker\config\daemon.json -Encoding ascii -Force

Finally we need to install linux kernel to run linux conatiners. Replace v4.14.35-v0.3.9 with latest version

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/linuxkit/lcow/releases/download/v4.14.35-v0.3.9/release.zip" -UseBasicParsing -OutFile release.zip

Expand-Archive release.zip -DestinationPath "$Env:ProgramFiles\Linux Containers\."

Now restart your machine to apply changes

4. Run a Linux Conatiner

Now to test if everything is working fine, we will run a linux test container. To run linux containers we need to specify the platform

docker run --rm -it --platform=linux ubuntu bash

5. Install Docker-Compose (Optional)

If you are used to using docker-compose then you can install this as this is available for windows server as well. Replace "v2.8.0" to latest version.

You can get the latest release from this link:

https://github.com/docker/compose/releases

$dockerComposeVersion = "v2.8.0"
Invoke-WebRequest "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/$dockerComposeVersion/docker-compose-Windows-x86_64.exe" -UseBasicParsing -OutFile $Env:ProgramFiles\docker\docker-compose.exe

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