How to Install Docker and Docker Compose on Ubuntu 24.04

Docker is the fastest way to run applications in reproducible environments. This guide installs the official Docker Engine and the Compose plugin on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS — the recommended setup for any NetVO cloud server or bare metal machine.

1. Remove old packages

for pkg in docker.io docker-doc docker-compose podman-docker containerd runc; do apt remove $pkg; done

2. Add Docker's official repository

apt update
apt install -y ca-certificates curl
install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release && echo $VERSION_CODENAME) stable" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list
apt update

3. Install Engine + Compose

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

4. Verify

docker run hello-world
docker compose version

5. Run Docker as a non-root user (optional)

usermod -aG docker deploy

Log out and back in for the group change to apply. Note: membership of the docker group is root-equivalent — only add trusted users.

6. A real Compose example

Save as compose.yaml and start with docker compose up -d:

services:
  app:
    image: ghcr.io/example/app:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:3000:3000"
  db:
    image: postgres:16
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: change-me
    volumes:
      - dbdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data
volumes:
  dbdata:

Bind application ports to 127.0.0.1 and put a reverse proxy (Caddy, Nginx) in front — never expose a database port publicly.

ARM64 note

On our Arc ARM64 cloud servers these exact commands work unchanged — Docker's repository ships native arm64 builds, and most popular images are multi-arch today.

Happy shipping! For persistent workloads consider a Fusion dedicated-core plan so builds and containers never compete for CPU.