How to set DOCKER_HOST on 4.13.0 without /var/run/docker.sock

[joshua-at-aws]

Expected behavior

• DOCKER_HOST working in Docker Desktop 4.13.0

Actual behavior

• Docker Desktop for Mac removed /var/run/docker.sock per 4.13.0 Release Notes: https://docs.docker.com/desktop/release-notes/#docker-desktop-4130 "By default Docker will not create the /var/run/docker.sock symlink on the host and use the docker-desktop CLI context instead."

• I use Docker Desktop along with other tools that require DOCKER_HOST. The docs say to set this to the /var/run/docker.sock https://docs.docker.com/desktop/faqs/general/#how-do-i-connect-to-the-remote-docker-engine-api

Is there a different setting for DOCKER_HOST that will work in 4.13.0, or a preference to create the socket?
I poked around a bit but did not find anything in the UI. Thanks in advance!

Information

• macOS Version: 12.6 Monterey
• Intel chip or Apple chip: Intel
• Docker Desktop Version: 4.13.0

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Install 4.13.0 on Mac
2. DOCKER_HOST not working

[nicks]

Thanks for reporting!

We're trying to make Docker Desktop more userspace-friendly (e.g., fewer root privileges). As part of that, we're migrating the sockets to user-owned directories rather than root-owned directories (like /var/run).

Everything should work correctly if you unset DOCKER_HOST and let the default socket-picking behavior kick in?

There's supposed to be some shim code that fixes this automatically, let me check in with some people and get back to you.

[joshua-at-aws]

Hi, thanks for the reply!

If I do unset DOCKER_HOST then the other tools, e.g. Maven or AWS SAM CLI do not work Error: Running AWS SAM projects locally requires Docker.

Could the new user-owned directory for the socket be added to the docs?

[nicks]

Can you post a diagnostic id and the output of docker context list?

I think it's currently at ~/.docker/run/docker.sock, though I've been told that may change again. we're trying to get away from people hard-coding it.

[joshua-at-aws]

• Diagnostics ID: 8E63E195-B162-440D-826A-09E31E28D3A6/20221021210358

docker context list 
NAME                TYPE                DESCRIPTION                               DOCKER ENDPOINT                                KUBERNETES ENDPOINT   ORCHESTRATOR
default *           moby                Current DOCKER_HOST based configuration   unix:///Users/joshuf/.docker/run/docker.sock                         swarm
desktop-linux       moby                                                          unix:///Users/joshuf/.docker/run/docker.sock     

Setting DOCKER_HOST to the default socket works! I see docker context list has a JSON output format, which I can use in a script if that's the new recommended way, for example with a Python one-liner:

docker context list --format json | python3 -c "import sys, json; j=json.load(sys.stdin); [print(x['DockerEndpoint']) if x['Current'] else None for x in j]"

unix:///Users/joshuf/.docker/run/docker.sock

[nicks]

Our current plan is to roll this change back for now and figure out a more orderly upgrade path with docs for client library authors.

[hopeseekr]

Here is the workaround for OSX:

sudo ln -s "$HOME/.docker/run/docker.sock" /var/run/docker.sock

[hopeseekr]

I'd like to add that many thirdparty utilities, particularly IntelliJ and PhpStorm, expect there to be a /var/run/docker.sock. This change broke a wide swath of our toolchain.