Installing Calico for Docker

Calico runs as a Docker container on each host. The calicoctl command line tool can be used to launch the calico/node container.

Before you begin

Using calicoctl

  1. Launch calico/node:

    sudo calicoctl node run --node-image=quay.io/calico/node:master

  2. Check that calico-node is now running:

    vagrant@calico-01:~$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                        COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS               NAMES
408bd2b9ba53        quay.io/calico/node:master   "start_runit"       About an hour ago   Up About an hour                        calico-node

  3. Furthermore, check that the calico/node container is functioning properly with the following command:

    sudo calicoctl node status

Using “docker run”

For more control over the Calico startup process, and to simplify binding startup to an init system, calicoctl can print the command it uses to launch calico/node.

To print the command calicoctl node run uses to launch Calico on this host, run the command with the --init-system and --dry-run flags:

$ calicoctl node run --init-system --dryrun --node-image=quay.io/calico/node:master
Use the following command to start the calico/node container:

docker run --net=host --privileged --name=calico-node --rm -e ETCD_AUTHORITY=127.0.0.1:2379 -e ETCD_SCHEME=http -e ETCD_ENDPOINTS= -e NODENAME=calico -e CALICO_NETWORKING_BACKEND=bird -e NO_DEFAULT_POOLS= -e CALICO_LIBNETWORK_ENABLED=true -e CALICO_LIBNETWORK_IFPREFIX=cali -v /var/run/calico:/var/run/calico -v /lib/modules:/lib/modules -v /var/log/calico:/var/log/calico -v /run/docker/plugins:/run/docker/plugins -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock quay.io/calico/node:master

Use the following command to stop the calico/node container:

docker stop calico-node

Pair the printed command with your favorite init system to ensure Calico is always running on each host.

See additional information on binding to an init system .

Next Steps

With calico-node running, you are ready to start using Calico by following Security using Calico Profiles.