Docker For Windows 8

To start the server, you’ll need to open a terminal in your operating system and point it to the folder containing your docker-compose.yml file. On Windows 10, the simplest method is to use File. The -d option instructs Docker to run the container as a service in the background. Replace imagetagname with the name of the image downloaded in Step 1. In this example, we create a container named mysqldocker with the latest version tag: sudo docker run -name=containername -d mysql/mysql-server:latest. Also wouldnt it make sense to put an info on the docker for windows download page when you surf on it with win7 or 8? Juztinjames (Justin James) March 14, 2019, 5:41am #6. Docker carefully maintains backwards API compatibility, and only removes features after deprecating them for a period of 3 stable releases. Docker 17.03 uses the same API version as Docker 1.13.1. What do I need to do to upgrade? Docker CE for Mac and Windows users will get an automatic upgrade notification. Windows prompts you for access every time Docker starts, allowing Docker to manage the Hyper-V VM’s. The first time Docker starts, you may need to provide the token from the Beta invitation email. When initialization completes, select About Docker from the notification area and verify you have the latest version.

What is Pi-hole and why run it on Windows?

Pi-hole is hands-down, the best ad blocker available.

That’s because it acts as a network wide ad-blocker. This means it blocks ads on every single device on your network without any browser extensions clogging up your browser. It even blocks ads inside apps.

What’s more, unlike browser based ad-blockers which just prevent ads from being displayed in your browser, Pi-hole speeds up your browsing experience as it blocks ads from being downloaded in the first place. If that wasn’t enough, it even prevents those annoying “it looks like you’re using an ad-blocker” pop-ups.

All of these benefits did come with one major drawback though. It was originally designed to run on Raspberry Pis. So, unless you had a Raspberry Pi, or a computer running Linux, you were out of luck. However, it’s now available for Docker. This means it can be installed on any device which will run Docker, such as Windows PCs or Macs.

I recently set up Pi-hole on my home network on a Windows PC and so far it’s worked flawlessly.

Anyway, here’s a step by step guide to block ads on all of our devices by installing Pi-hole on Windows 10.

What you’ll need

A Windows 10 PC (Pro or Enterprise edition) which you’re happy to leave on all of the time. Preferably a power efficient, quiet PC. In my case I’m using an Intel NUC.

If you have a Mac, you can also install Pi-hole on MacOS using a similar process to the one described below.

Step by step instructions

Step 1 - Download Docker

Download Docker for Windows. As part of this, you will need to create a Docker account.

Step 2 - Install Docker

Install Docker, keeping “enable required Windows Features” selected as Docker needs Microsoft Hyper-V which is not enabled by default.

Avoid clicking the “Use Windows Containers” option. Pi-hole will require Linux containers which is the default.

Step 3 - Configure Docker

When docker is installed the first thing you will need to do is sign in. Docker lives in the task bar notification area.

After signing in I recommend tweaking some settings in Docker. You can access docker settings from the docker menu in the task bar tray. I reduced the available Memory to 1GB. Pi-hole doesn’t actually need 2GB, so reducing it to 1GB frees up more memory for your PC. Click ‘Apply and restart’.

Update June 2020 - If you don’t see these options, just skip to step 4. Docker is releasing a new version with a technology called WSL 2. This is a new way of emulating Linux within Windows and replaces the existing Hyper-V setup. The main advantage is that WSL 2 uses less resources and dynamically uses memory instead of preassigning a chunk of your PC’s memory. This means there is now nothing to configure. You can read more about it on the Docker website.

Step 4 - Download Pi-hole

To download the Pi-hole container, open Windows Command Prompt as an administrator and type the following command: docker pull pihole/pihole

Step 5 - Give your PC a static IP address

Next, let’s ensure our PC has a static IP address. This will ensure other devices can always reach your Pi-hole server without any issues. To do this:

Navigate to Start menu > Settings > Network and internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change adapter settings > Right click on your active network connection and click Properties. Double click on Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and select Use the following IP address.
Set a manual IP address. If you are unsure what to use for the subnet mask or default gateway, type ipconfig in the command prompt and reuse the same values for the IP address.
I recommend increasing the last number of your IP address by 50 or so to make IP address conflicts less likely on your network. For example, if your IP address was 192.168.0.5 try 192.168.0.55.
For DNS settings, use the IP address of your machine you have just set and for an alternative use 1.1.1.1. (this is Cloudflare’s DNS service).

Step 6 - create a customized Docker command

Now Docker is running and Pi-hole is downloaded we can configure and start it. You will need to customise your script. Here’s a base:

docker run -d --name pihole -e ServerIP=172.16.154.130 -e WEBPASSWORD=password -e TZ=Europe/Copenhagen -e DNS1=127.17.0.1 -e DNS2=1.1.1.1 -e DNS3=1.0.0.1 -p 80:80 -p 53:53/tcp -p 53:53/udp -p 443:443 --restart=unless-stopped pihole/pihole:latest

You will need to replace:

ServerIP with your IP address
WEBPASSWORD with a password of your choosing (you’ll use this to access Pi-hole’s settings)
TZ= this is optional. You can specify your timezone in the TZ format

Note: DNS1 needs to be left as 127.17.0.1 in order for Pi-hole to work. If you’re curious, 127.17.0.1 is the IP address for Localhost (or in other words this computer). You can change DNS2 and DNS3 to whatever you like.

The base script above will get you up and running, however if you want to customise how Pi-hole works, there are a number of variables you can set as part of this script.

You’ll also find more information and documentation on the Docker Pi-hole Docker Github page.

Step 7 - run your script and start your Pi-hole server

Open command prompt as an administrator again and paste in your customised command and press enter. This will create your Pi-hole Docker container and run it.

Step 8 - Check Pi-hole is up and running

Go to your web browser and type - http://127.17.0.1/admin/ or http://localhost/admin/ you should see the Pi-hole admin console. This means you’re up and running!

The Pi-hole admin console lets you configure the advanced settings of Pi-hole, see which domains have been blocked as well as blacklisting or whitelisting new domains.

Step 9 - Configure your router

The final step is to change the DNS server on your router to point to your PC. In my case this is 172.16.154.130. This will ensure all of the devices on your network get Pi-hole’s ad blocking magic.

Congratulations! At this point, provided everything has worked you should have an ad-free home!

FAQs

When I shared this post on Reddit I got lots of really useful feedback and questions, so I’ve put together a short FAQ section:

Does the PC have to be connected via an ethernet connection?

At first I thought this would be a problem, but apparently not. My setup works really well over WiFi. Because of where my PC is located in my apartment it’s pretty much impossible for it to use a wired connection. Like always ethernet is preferable though.

Can I do this on MacOS?

Yes - you absolutely can. The process is very similar. I’ve tested this on Mac OS Catalina and it works.

Why use Docker and not just a Linux Virtual Machine (VM)?

This could be a whole article, but in a nutshell Docker is easier to set up and maintain compared to a VM. With a VM you need to ensure your Linux installation is correctly configured and kept up to date. This takes time, and in the case where you encounter a problem, reinstalling everything takes a long time. Whereas using Docker, Pi-hole is kept in an isolated container and Docker takes care of everything else. What’s more all of the configuration settings are kept in your Docker script, so you can easily delete the container and recreate it if you run into problems.

What if the Pi-hole stops working, or I restart my PC?

Restarting your PC is not a problem. By default Docker for Windows is configured to run automatically when you start your PC and the --restart=unless-stopped string in the Docker script I’ve provided means your Pi-hole Docker container will automatically start up. Your internet will also continue to work if your PC is turned off as you can specify a secondary DNS server on your router. In this case your router will simply use this backup DNS server if your Pi-hole is unreachable.

Can I install this on Windows 10 Home Edition?

Not easily. Docker for Windows relies on using Hyper-V, a virtualisation technology only included in Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise. For this reason it’s not straightforward to install Docker on Windows 10 Home. It is technically possible, but it does require you to jump through a lot of hoops. Mark Cameron wrote a guide on Installing Docker on Windows 10 Home which might help.

How to update Pi-hole on Docker

Occasionally you will notice in the Pi-hole admin interface that a new version is available.

With Docker you don’t update the installed version of Pi-hole, but rather delete it and reinstall it with the variables you created in your customized docker command. This is essentially has the same effect as upgrading, but ensures you have a clean, new environment each time.

In order to do this, head to the ‘Docker dashboard’. You can access the dashboard from the docker menu in the Windows notification tray. Once you’re in the Docker dashboard, click the delete icon next to your Pi-hole container. This will stop and delete the docker container.

The next step is to head to an elevated Command Prompt and type:

Docker Desktop For Windows

docker image prune -a

This command clears out the Docker cache and all unused images (i.e. the out of date version of Pi-hole).

Once this has completed, you can reinstall Pi-hole using the instructions in this article.

Essentially all you have to do is run docker pull pihole/pihole in the Command Prompt, and when it has completed downloading, run your customized docker command to restore your Pi-hole instance. Congratulations, you should now be running the latest version of Pi-hole!

What is this set-up like to use on a daily basis?

See my follow up post where I share my experiences after four months Review: living with Pi-hole on Windows 10.

Pi-hole keeps crashing - what’s going on? (updated June 2020)

In the latest version of Pi-hole (version 5.0) there is a bug which can cause Pi-hole to crash meaning you’re left without an ad-blocker or DNS server. I haven’t run into this myself, and I’m running Pi-hole 5.0 on Docker with no problems. However, if you do have problems Angel-Panda Diaz has helpfully shared a workaround which may prevent this problem. This workaround increases the size of the Docker container’s shared memory (SHM) to 5 gigabytes. I haven’t attempted this workaround myself, but let me know if it helps!

If you’re experiencing crashing, try the following script:docker run -d --name pihole -e ServerIP=172.16.154.130 -e WEBPASSWORD=password -e TZ=Europe/Copenhagen -e DNS1=127.17.0.1 -e DNS2=1.1.1.1 -e DNS3=1.0.0.1 -p 80:80 -p 53:53/tcp -p 53:53/udp -p 443:443 --shm-size='5g' --restart=unless-stopped pihole/pihole:latest

I’ll update this post when this bug is fixed.

Legacy desktop solution. Docker Toolbox is for older Mac and Windows systems that do not meet the requirements of Docker for Mac and Docker for Windows. We recommend updating to the newer applications, if possible.

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Docker Toolbox provides a way to use Docker onWindows systems that do notmeet minimal system requirements for the Docker forWindows app.

If you have not done so already, download the installer here:

What you get and how it works

Docker Toolbox includes the following Docker tools:

Docker For Windows 10 Home

Docker CLI client for running Docker Engine to create images and containers
Docker Machine so you can run Docker Engine commands from Windows terminals
Docker Compose for running the docker-compose command
Kitematic, the Docker GUI
the Docker QuickStart shell preconfigured for a Docker command-line environment
Oracle VM VirtualBox

What Is Docker

Because the Docker Engine daemon uses Linux-specifickernel features, you can’t run Docker Engine nativelyon Windows. Instead, you must use the Docker Machinecommand, docker-machine, to create and attach to asmall Linux VM on your machine. This VM hosts Docker Enginefor you on your Windows system.

Tip: One of the advantages of the newerDocker forWindows solution is thatit uses native virtualization and does not requireVirtualBox to run Docker.

Step 1: Check your version

To run Docker, your machine must have a 64-bit operating system running Windows 7 or higher. Additionally, you must make sure that virtualization is enabled on your machine.To verify your machine meets these requirements, do the following:

Right click the windows message and choose System.
If you aren’t using a supported version, you could consider upgrading your operating system.
If you have a newer system, specifically 64bit Windows 10 Pro, with Enterprise and Education (1607 Anniversary update, Build 14393 or later), consider using Docker for Windows instead. It runs natively on the Windows, so there is no need for a pre-configured Docker QuickStart shell. It also uses Hyper-V for virtualization, so the instructions below for checking virtualization will be out of date for newer Windows systems. Full install prerequisites are provided in the Docker for Windows topic in What to know before you install.
Make sure your Windows system supports Hardware Virtualization Technology and that virtualization is enabled.

For Windows 10
Run Speccy, and look at the CPU information.

For Windows 8 or 8.1
Choose Start > Task Manager and navigate to the Performance tab. Under CPU you should see the following:
If virtualization is not enabled on your system, follow the manufacturer’s instructions for enabling it.

For Windows 7
Run a tool like the Microsoft® Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool or Speccy, and follow the on-screen instructions.
Verify your Windows OS is 64-bit (x64)
How you do this verification depends on your Windows version.
For details, see the Windows article How to determine whethera computer is running a 32-bit version or 64-bit version of theWindows operating system.

Step 2: Install Docker Toolbox

In this section, you install the Docker Toolbox software and several “helper” applications. The installation adds the following software to your machine:

Docker Client for Windows
Docker Toolbox management tool and ISO
Oracle VM VirtualBox
Git MSYS-git UNIX tools

If you have a previous version of VirtualBox installed, do not reinstall it with the Docker Toolbox installer. When prompted, uncheck it.

If you have Virtual Box running, you must shut it down before running theinstaller.

Go to the Docker Toolbox page.
Click the installer link to download.
Install Docker Toolbox by double-clicking the installer.
The installer launches the “Setup - Docker Toolbox” dialog.
If Windows security dialog prompts you to allow the program to make a change, choose Yes. The system displays the Setup - Docker Toolbox for Windows wizard.
Press Next to accept all the defaults and then Install.
Accept all the installer defaults. The installer takes a few minutes to install all the components:
When notified by Windows Security the installer will make changes, make sure you allow the installer to make the necessary changes.
When it completes, the installer reports it was successful:
Uncheck “View Shortcuts in File Explorer” and press Finish.

Step 3: Verify your installation

The installer adds Docker Toolbox, VirtualBox, and Kitematic to yourApplications folder. In this step, you start Docker Toolbox and run a simpleDocker command.

On your Desktop, find the Docker QuickStart Terminal icon.
Click the Docker QuickStart icon to launch a pre-configured Docker Toolbox terminal.
If the system displays a User Account Control prompt to allow VirtualBox to make changes to your computer. Choose Yes.
The terminal does several things to set up Docker Toolbox for you. When it is done, the terminal displays the $ prompt.
The terminal runs a special bash environment instead of the standard Windows command prompt. The bash environment is required by Docker.
Make the terminal active by clicking your mouse next to the $ prompt.
If you aren’t familiar with a terminal window, here are some quick tips.
The prompt is traditionally a $ dollar sign. You type commands into thecommand line which is the area after the prompt. Your cursor is indicatedby a highlighted area or a that appears in the command line. Aftertyping a command, always press RETURN.
Type the docker run hello-world command and press RETURN.
The command does some work for you, if everything runs well, the command’s output looks like this:

Looking for troubleshooting help?

Typically, the above steps work out-of-the-box, but some scenarios can cause problems. If your docker run hello-world didn’t work and resulted in errors, check out Troubleshooting for quick fixes to common problems.

A Windows specific problem you might encounter relates to the NDIS6 host network filter driver, which is known to cause issues on some Windowsversions. For Windows Vista systems and newer, VirtualBox installs NDIS6 driver by default. Issues can range from system slowdowns to networking problems for the virtual machine (VM). If you notice problems, re-run the Docker Toolbox installer, and select the option to install VirtualBox with the NDIS5 driver.

Optional: Add shared directories

By default, Toolbox only has access to the C:Users directory and mounts it intothe VMs at /c/Users.

Note: Within the VM path, c is lowercase and the Users is capitalized.

If your project lives elsewhere or needs access to otherdirectories on the host filesystem, you can add them, using the VirtualBox UI.

Open the VirtualBox UI.
Click the Settings gear, then go to Shared Folders.
Select any existing listing under Machine Folders, thenclick the + icon.
- Choose the Folder Path on the host, enter the Folder Namefor within the VM (or take the default, which is the same nameas on the host), and configure any additional options you need.
- Choose Auto-mount if you want the folder to automaticallybe mounted into the VM, and choose Make Permanent for itto be considered a permanently shared folder.
Click OK to add the new folder to the Shared Folders list.
Click OK again to save your changes and exit the Settings dialog.

Docker Toolbox For Windows 8.1

How to uninstall Toolbox

Removing Toolbox involves removing all the Docker components it includes.

A full uninstall also includes removing the local and remote machines you created with Docker Machine. In some cases, you might want to keep machines created with Docker Machine.

For example, if you plan to re-install Docker Machine as a part of Docker for Windows you can continue to manage those machines through Docker. Or, if you have remote machines on a cloud provider and you plan to manage them using the provider, you wouldn’t want to remove them. So the step to remove machines is described here as optional.

To uninstall Toolbox on Windows, do the following:

List your machines.
Optionally, remove each machine. For example:
This step is optional because if you planto re-install Docker Machine as a partof Docker forWindows, you can import andcontinue to manage those machinesthrough Docker.
Uninstall Docker Toolbox using Window’s standard process for uninstalling programs through the control panel (programs and features).
Note: This process does not remove the docker-install.exe file. You must delete that file yourself.
Optionally, remove theC:Users<your-user>.docker directory.
If you want to remove Docker entirely, you can verify that the uninstall removed the .docker directory under your user path. If it is still there, remove it manually. This directory stores some Docker program configuration and state, such as information about created machines and certificates. You usually don’t need to remove this directory.
Uninstall Oracle VirtualBox, which is installed as a part of the Toolbox install.

Next steps

Try out the Get started tutorial.
Dig in deeper with more tutorials and examples on building images, running containers, networking, managing data, and storing images on Docker Hub.

docker, documentation, install, toolbox, win

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