Using Docker CLI

In Saturn Cloud you are always running within a container. However sometimes it can be useful to dispatch containerized workloads using the Docker cli. This article describes the steps necessary to do so.

Enable Docker in Docker support

Since you are running inside a Docker container, you cannot simply start the dockerd daemon. Instead you must enable Docker in Docker support in Saturn Cloud. This starts a sidecar docker in docker container and mounts the docker socket within your container. Scroll down to the “Additional Features” section and make sure you “Show Advanced Options”.

Unfortunately Docker in Docker support is only available with Saturn Cloud On-Premise (This includes participants of the NVIDIA Academic Grants Prgram). If you are using Saturn Cloud On-Premise and you do not see this option, please contact support@saturncloud.io to enable it.

Make sure you can read/write to the docker socket

Due to technical limitations, the docker socket is mounted in your container owned by root. To ensure that you can access it, please use sudo to change it’s ownership

$ sudo chown jovyan:jovyan /var/run/docker.sock

Install the Docker CLI

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install docker.io --yes

Now you can use the docker CLI