Running Docker inside Ubuntu with WSL2 on Windows 10

Enable Docker for Ubuntu on Windows via WSL2:

Go to Docker Desktop > Settings > Resources > WSL Integration

Make sure you have “Enable integration with my default WSL distro” selected and also turn on each distro.

Now you can launch Ubuntu and without even installing “docker” in Ubuntu you should be able to run the “docker” command:

$ docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                                                         COMMAND                  CREATED      STATUS                       PORTS     NA

MES

7b5806fcd967   vsc-vscode-remote-try-java-7082d7a76a508a754975227521a1e638   "/bin/sh -c 'echo Co…"   5 days ago   Exited (255) 2 minutes ago             ex

citing_shamir

6ea30d1e64d4   vsc-vscode-dockers-8f87a2becb47231eb8a5f3a96484679c           "/bin/sh -c 'echo Co…"   5 days ago   Exited (0) 5 days ago                  lu

cid_noyce

Docker uses WSL2 for its virtualization. Docker is just another distro that runs on top of WSL Linux’s kernel.

> wsl -l

Windows Subsystem for Linux Distributions:

Ubuntu (Default)

docker-desktop-data

docker-desktop