I was without an internet connection this morning, and unable to use docker because docker desktop wouldn’t start unless I signed in. I’ve never had this happen before. I’m not part of an organization, there isn’t a registry.json file or otherwise on my machine (unless it’s somewhere not documented). Why is this happening and how do I prevent this in the future?
I don’t know, but I tried and indeed when I log out, it shows “Sign in required”. I couldn’t find anything about it in the release notes or announcements yet. The general FAQ still mentiones Docker Desktop can be installed offline.
https://docs.docker.com/desktop/faqs/general/#can-i-use-docker-desktop-offline
I just tried on DDfW 4.30.0.
As preparation, I signed out in Docker Desktop, pulled the image hello-world and restarted Windows.
Once my Windows user was logged in, I turned off WiFi, and started Docker Desktop (which at this point is not signed in).
It starts without any nag screen/forced sign in. I was even able to start a container in that state:
My Docker Desktop runs with default settings, except: I disabled “Start Docker Desktop when you sign in to your computer”.
After @meyay shared it worked for him, I started to review my settings. It turned out I had “Enable host networking” turned on. It indeed requires signing in. I have no idea why this is the only beta feature that requires authentication, but I disabled it and I could start Docker Desktop without signing in.
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As a workaround, you can disable the feature that requires Docker Desktop to be signed in, by editing the file %APPDATA%\Docker\settings.json.
Search for the line "hostNetworkingEnabled": true, and change it to "hostNetworkingEnabled": false,.
Then save the file and start Docker Desktop.
Since the feature that required the sign in is disabled now, there won’t be a forced sign in.
If anyone tries to find this config on macOS, it is at
$HOME/Library/Group Containers/group.com.docker/settings.json
I’m arriving a few months late but find this incredibly disturbing and user-hostile. Forcing sign-in to use host networking on macOS (which is just now generally available) makes no sense at all and raises serious security questions.
Can anyone from Docker, Inc. explain why an account and an internet connection are required to use a local-only feature?
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I’m not sure but I will try to find out.
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