Access Docker socket via TCP

Find the config file

• On Linux, the Docker daemon configuration file is usually located at /etc/docker/daemon.json.

• On Windows, the file is located at C:\ProgramData\docker\config\daemon.json.

• If the file doesn’t exist, create it.

Edit config

Add the following configuration to the file:

{
  "hosts": ["tcp://192.168.1.10:2375", "unix:///var/run/docker.sock"]
}

This tells Docker to listen on TCP port 2375 on IP (192.168.1.10) and on the Unix domain socket at /var/run/docker.sock. Replace 192.168.1.10 with your LAN or VPN IP.

The last line in that file must NOT have a comma after it, if there are more lines in there than the hosts’ line then add a comma to the end of all of them except the last one e.g.

{
  "live-restore": true,
  "max-concurrent-downloads": 5,
  "max-concurrent-uploads": 5,
  "hosts": ["tcp://192.168.1.10:2375", "unix:///var/run/docker.sock"]
}

DON’T MAKE THIS ACCESSIBLE TO ALL INTERNET BY USING 0.0.0.0 for the IP.

• Restart the Docker daemon

• On Linux, you can restart the Docker daemon using the command sudo systemctl restart docker.

• On Windows, you can restart the Docker daemon using the Docker Desktop application.

Test the configuration

Run the following command to test if the Docker socket is accessible via TCP:

docker -H tcp://192.168.1.10:2375 version

This will give a sample output like this :

❯ docker -H tcp://192.168.192.10:2375 version
Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           23.0.1
 API version:       1.42
 Go version:        go1.19.5
 Git commit:        a5ee5b1
 Built:             Thu Feb  9 19:46:32 2023
 OS/Arch:           linux/arm64
 Context:           default

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          23.0.1
  API version:      1.42 (minimum version 1.12)
  Go version:       go1.19.5
  Git commit:       bc3805a
  Built:            Thu Feb  9 19:46:32 2023
  OS/Arch:          linux/arm64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          1.6.18
  GitCommit:        2456e983eb9e37e47538f59ea18f2043c9a73640
 runc:
  Version:          1.1.4
  GitCommit:        v1.1.4-0-g5fd4c4d
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.19.0
  GitCommit:        de40ad0

That’s it! You have now set up the Docker socket to be accessible via TCP. Keep in mind that exposing the Docker daemon on a network socket can be a security risk, so make sure to properly secure the socket and limit access to it, such as over VPN only or on lan only.