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Quick Start

Prerequisites

  • 💻 Local machine
    • ✅ Docker CLI installed on your local machine.
    • ✅ SSH client installed on your local machine.
    • ✅ SSH access to the remote server.
  • 🌐 Remote server
    • ✅ Docker Engine installed on the remote server.
    • ✅ SSH server installed on the remote server.

Create a rdocker configuration

To create a rdocker configuration, run the following command:

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mkdir -p ~/.rdocker

cat <<EOF > ~/.rdocker/remote0.env
RDOCKER_REMOTE_HOST=remote0.example.com
RDOCKER_REMOTE_USER=ubuntu
RDOCKER_REMOTE_SSH_KEY=~/.ssh/id_rsa
RDOCKER_TCP_ENABLE=1
RDOCKER_TCP_PORT=12345
EOF

Start rdocker tunnel

To start a rdocker tunnel to a remote Docker daemon, run the following command:

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RDOCKER_CONTEXT=remote0 ./rdocker tunnel-up

# Outputs:
#-----------------------
#* RDOCKER_CONTEXT: remote0
#* RDOCKER_REMOTE_HOST: remote0.example.com
#* RDOCKER_REMOTE_USER: ubuntu
#* RDOCKER_REMOTE_SOCKET: /var/run/docker.sock
#* RDOCKER_LOCAL_SOCKET: /tmp/rdocker-docker.remote0.sock
#* RDOCKER_HOST: unix:///tmp/rdocker-docker.remote0.sock
#-----------------------
#🔐 SSH tunnel established to remote0.example.com
#🛰️ Local socket: /tmp/rdocker-docker.remote0.sock
#🛰️ Local tcp proxy: localhost:12345
#🚀 -> DOCKER_HOST=unix:///tmp/rdocker-docker.remote0.sock
#🚀 -> DOCKER_HOST=tcp://localhost:12345
#Successfully created context "remote0"
#Successfully created context "remote0-tcp"
#🔥️ -> docker context use remote0
#🔥️ -> docker context use remote0-tcp
#Probing connection ...
#CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                 COMMAND                  CREATED       STATUS                 PORTS                                       NAMES
#Docker connection is working
#Press Ctrl+C to close tunnel and exit.

Access the remote Docker daemon

From another terminal, you can now access the remote Docker daemon using either the rdocker or docker cli command:

Using rdocker

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RDOCKER_CONTEXT=remote0 ./rdocker ps

Using docker

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DOCKER_HOST=unix:///tmp/rdocker-docker.remote0.sock docker ps

Using docker context

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docker context use remote0
docker ps