Cannot change default 20G size limit on Windows Docker host

Docker Desktop
1

Hi all,

I am running to the default limit of 20 GB building images with Docker for Windows. I could easily change the disk size for one particular container by running it with --storage-opt size option:

docker run --storage-opt size=120G microsoft/windowsservercore powershell

Sadly, it does not help me because I need large disk size available during build process. I’ve tried the following:

  1. to call dockerd --storage-opt size=120G
  2. to call dockerd --storage-opt dm.basesize=120G
  3. to edit docker daemon.json adding:
    “storage-opts”: [
    “dm.basesize=120G”
    ]
  4. to edit docker daemon.json adding:
    “storage-opts”: [
    “size=120G”
    ]

Nothing helped. Does anyone have any fresh hints? I’m running out of ideas :slight_smile:

Kind regards,
Alex

1 Like
2

Hm, I seem to be able to override this as a daemon opt:

.\dockerd.exe --storage-opt size=30G
docker run --storage-opt size=30G microsoft/nanoserver powershell -c get-psdrive

Name           Used (GB)     Free (GB) Provider      Root
----           ---------     --------- --------      ----
Alias                                  Alias
C                   0.16         29.72 FileSystem    C:\

Here’s how to make that permanent:

net stop docker
.\dockerd --unregister-service
.\dockerd --register-service -storage-opt size=30G
net start docker

Let me know if that doesn’t work.

3

Hi Michael,

i’ve tested this now.

dockerd --register-service --storage-opt size=30G
for this I get

net start docker
The Docker Engine service is starting.
The Docker Engine service could not be started.

More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 3523.
The *** service could not be started.

For
dockerd --register-service --storage-opt size=20G

The Docker Engine service is starting.
The Docker Engine service could not be started.

A system error has occurred.

System error 1067 has occurred.

The process terminated unexpectedly.

And for
dockerd --register-service
The service starts successfully.

I have 265 GB disk space on that host.

4

Any updates on this ?

When I execute net stop docker, an error is encountered as below:
Error:
System error 1060 has occurred.
The specified service does not exist as an installed service.

And when I execute .\dockerd, another error is encountered as below:
Error:
bash: .dockerd: command not found

@friism Would you please help on the process you followed on windows to get these commands executed ?

6

Michael,

I am running into the same issue as the OP and have not been able to find any info as to how to do this on Docker for Windows. I have about 20GB that I need to copy into the container at the build stage.

From the following, it looks like I am stuck with the default overlay2 that comes with Docker for Windows:

From the following, it looks like increasing the storage above the default requires something other than overlay (which I am stuck with):

However, from this post, under " Configure Docker with Configuration File" , it says that the storage-driver and storage-opts are available for user configuration on Docker for Windows…

Note that I have tried updating the daemon.json and restarting Docker with no luck (setting “storage-driver”: “devicemapper”,“storage-opts”: [“dm.basesize=30GB”] in the json file as suggested by the post from Microsoft, but it didn’t work. “docker info” revealed no changes after a docker restart.) Is this right? Is there any way on Docker for Windows to store a large amount of data (20-40GB) inside the docker image? (I know this is bad form, but for my particular use case, it is unfortunately required…)

Please advise, thanks.

-james

7

Adding this to the daemon.json file worked for me:

“storage-opts” : [ “size=40G” ]

Complete file:

{
“storage-opts” : [ “size=40G” ]
}

8

I got the exact same error as alexlex:

System error 1067 has occurred.

on Windows 2019.

I had this in C:\ProgramData\docker\config\deamon.json:

{
“storage-opts”: [
“size=50GB”
]
}

I deleted the deamon.json file (obviously check if you have other relevant settings in the file you don’t want to loose) and then I was able to reconfigure as Michael Friis describes (on my Powershell prompt I had issues with .\dockerd and it seems like there is a missing dash in storage-opt in Michael’s example). What worked on my machine was:

net stop docker
dockerd --unregister-service
dockerd --register-service --storage-opt size=30G
net start docker