How To Use Docker Commands Without Sudo

1. Add your user to the docker group

To use Docker commands without sudo, you need to add your user to the docker group. This group has the necessary permissions to interact with Docker.

sudo usermod -aG docker $(whoami)

Be sure that you’re logged in as the user you want to make these changes to. Or you can explicitly put the name of the user in place of $(whoami)

2. Log out and log back in

For the changes to take effect, log out of your current session and log back in. You can do so with exit.

Learn More - Breakdown of the command

sudo

This part executes the following command with root privileges. Since modifying user groups requires administrative access, sudo is necessary. If you are running this command from root, you will not need sudo.

usermod

This is the command used to modify user account properties, such as group memberships.

-a

This option tells usermod to append the user to the specified group. If the user is already a member of other groups, this option ensures they remain in those groups while also being added to the docker group.

-G docker

This specifies the group to which the user should be added: the docker group. This group has the necessary permissions to interact with Docker commands and services.

$(whoami)

This is command substitution. whoami is a command that returns the current username. The $() syntax executes the whoami command and substitutes its output (the username) into the usermod command. You may also explicitly specify the user by replacing $(whoami) with the username.