Installing Docker on Debian 11

This should work as-is with Debian 12.

Prerequisites

Debian 11 (Bullseye)
One of the following architectures;
- x86_64
- amd64
- armhf
- arm64

Remove any previously installed versions of Docker

sudo apt-get remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc

If you've had docker previously installed and would like a completely fresh start, it would be a good idea to cleanup the images, containers, volumes and networks, these are stored in /var/lib/docker. sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker will do the job, but will delete everything in /var/lib/docker.

Register the official docker apt repo

Make sure debian is upto date

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install \
    ca-certificates \
    curl \
    gnupg \
    lsb-release

Add Docker's GPG key

sudo mkdir -m 0755 -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

Add the apt repo to `/etc/apt/sources.list.d`

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] \ 
  https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
  $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Install Docker

Update the `apt` packge files

sudo apt-get update

Install Docker, containerd and Docker Compose

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

Test everything is working

$ sudo docker run hello-world


Hello from Docker!
This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.

To generate this message, Docker took the following steps:
 1. The Docker client contacted the Docker daemon.
 2. The Docker daemon pulled the "hello-world" image from the Docker Hub.
    (amd64)
 3. The Docker daemon created a new container from that image which runs the
    executable that produces the output you are currently reading.
 4. The Docker daemon streamed that output to the Docker client, which sent it
    to your terminal.

To try something more ambitious, you can run an Ubuntu container with:
 $ docker run -it ubuntu bash

Share images, automate workflows, and more with a free Docker ID:
 https://hub.docker.com/

For more examples and ideas, visit:
 https://docs.docker.com/get-started/

If you see the above message from running sudo docker run hello-world, docker has been installed correctly and is now ready to start hosting containers for you.

Optionally, you can add yourself to the docker group, so you don't have to use sudo each time you want to run a docker command. sudo usermod -a -G docker YOUR_USERNAME will do the job.