Running Docker Containers on Windows with WSL2 and Docker Desktop

Running Docker Containers on Windows with WSL2 and Docker Desktop

Docker is a popular platform for developing, shipping, and running applications inside containers. Containers are lightweight and contain everything needed to run the application, so you don’t need to rely on a specific operating system or environment. This article will cover how to run Docker containers on Windows using WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux 2) and Docker Desktop.

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have the following installed:

• Windows 10 version 2004 or higher
• WSL2 enabled on your Windows machine
• A Linux distribution (e.g., Debian) installed on WSL2
• Docker Desktop installed on Windows

Configuring WSL2

To configure WSL2, follow these steps:

1. Open PowerShell as Administrator and run the following command to enable the ‘Virtual Machine Platform’ optional component:

2. Set WSL2 as the default version:

Installing Docker on Linux (WSL2)

Now that WSL2 is configured, you need to install Docker on your Linux distribution. In this example, we will use Debian.

1. Update package lists:

2. Install Docker:

3. Start and enable Docker on boot:

Running Docker Containers

With Docker installed on both Windows and Linux (WSL2), you can now run Docker containers. To demonstrate this, let’s create a simple Dockerfile and run it.

1. Create a new directory and navigate to it:

2. Create a new file called Dockerfile and paste the following content:

FROM python:3.9

WORKDIR /app

COPY requirements.txt .

RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

COPY . .

CMD ["python", "app.py"]

3. Create a requirements.txt file with the following content:

flask==2.0.2
gunicorn==20.1.0

4. Create a new file called app.py with the following content:

from flask import Flask
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route("/")
def hello():
    return "Hello, World!"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=8080)

5. Build and run the Docker container:

Now you can access the application by visiting http://localhost:8080 in your web browser.

In this article, you learned how to run Docker containers on Windows using WSL2 and Docker Desktop. You configured WSL2, installed Docker on Linux, and ran a simple containerized application. This setup allows you to develop and test containerized applications on Windows while using the power and flexibility of Linux.

References

• Docker Desktop with WSL 2

• Install Windows Subsystem for Linux

• Install Docker Engine on Debian