Fixing a Docker Bug: /var/run/docker.sock

Posted by Josh on August 13, 2016

I encountered a Docker bug that took a long time to fix. Every time I tried to run Docker on Ubuntu 14.04, I would see this error:

$ docker ps
An error occurred trying to connect: Get http://%2Fvar%2Frun%2Fdocker.sock/v1.24/containers/json: read unix @->/var/run/docker.sock: read: connection reset by peer

This bug was quite time consuming to figure out.

tl;dr The solution for me was to purge docker-engine and then delete /var/lib/docker, reboot, and then reinstall docker-engine. The answer was buried in this discussion.

$ sudo apt-get autoremove --purge docker-engine

# Nothing worked until I added this step
$ sudo rm -rfv /var/lib/docker

# Reboot here

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install docker-engine

Purging docker-engine, rebooting, and reinstalling, didn’t work. The fix required removing the /var/lib/docker directory.

Here is more system information for anyone else who encounters this problem.

$ docker version
Client:
 Version:      1.12.0
 API version:  1.24
 Go version:   go1.6.3
 Git commit:   8eab29e
 Built:        Thu Jul 28 22:00:36 2016
 OS/Arch:      linux/amd64
An error occurred trying to connect: Get http://%2Fvar%2Frun%2Fdocker.sock/v1.24/version: read unix @->/var/run/docker.sock: read: connection reset by peer

$ docker info
An error occurred trying to connect: Get http://%2Fvar%2Frun%2Fdocker.sock/v1.24/info: read unix @->/var/run/docker.sock: read: connection reset by peer

$ dpkg -l | grep docker
ii  docker-engine                                               1.12.0-0~trusty                                     amd64        Docker: the open-source application container engine
rc  docker.io                                                   1.6.2~dfsg1-1ubuntu4~14.04.1                        amd64        Linux container runtime

# Ubuntu 14.04
$ uname -a
Linux z84302 3.13.0-93-generic #140-Ubuntu SMP Mon Jul 18 21:21:05 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

This recommended solution didn’t work:

$ sudo service docker stop
docker stop/waiting

$ sudo rm /var/lib/docker/network/files/local-kv.db
rm: cannot remove /var/lib/docker/network/files/local-kv.db: No such file or directory

$ sudo service docker start
docker start/running, process 26994

More info:

$ tail /var/log/syslog
Aug 13 15:28:37 z84302 kernel: [ 3185.793539] init: docker main process ended, respawning
Aug 13 15:28:38 z84302 kernel: [ 3186.898659] type=1400 audit(1471127318.303:912): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="docker-default" pid=16862 comm="apparmor_parser"
Aug 13 15:28:38 z84302 kernel: [ 3186.963235] init: docker main process (16837) terminated with status 1
Aug 13 15:28:38 z84302 kernel: [ 3186.963244] init: docker main process ended, respawning
Aug 13 15:28:39 z84302 kernel: [ 3188.074909] type=1400 audit(1471127319.479:913): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="docker-default" pid=16911 comm="apparmor_parser"
Aug 13 15:28:39 z84302 kernel: [ 3188.148967] init: docker main process (16888) terminated with status 1
Aug 13 15:28:39 z84302 kernel: [ 3188.148996] init: docker main process ended, respawning
Aug 13 15:28:40 z84302 kernel: [ 3189.296377] type=1400 audit(1471127320.699:914): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="docker-default" pid=16960 comm="apparmor_parser"
Aug 13 15:28:40 z84302 kernel: [ 3189.387307] init: docker main process (16937) terminated with status 1
Aug 13 15:28:40 z84302 kernel: [ 3189.387316] init: docker main process ended, respawning

$ docker images
Cannot connect to the Docker daemon. Is the docker daemon running on this host?

$ sudo service docker start
start: Job is already running: docker

I hope that this info helps someone else fix the problem.