Where are Docker images stored on the host machine

Question

I managed to find the containers under directory /var/lib/docker/containers, but I can't find the images.

What are the directories and files under /var/lib/docker and where can i find the images?

Answer 1

The contents of the /var/lib/docker directory vary depending on the driver Docker is using for storage.

By default this will be aufs but can fall back to overlay, overlay2, btrfs, devicemapper or zfs depending on your kernel support. In most places this will be aufs.

You can manually set the storage driver with the -s or --storage-driver= option to the Docker daemon.

·         /var/lib/docker/{driver-name} - will contain the driver specific storage for contents of the images.

·         /var/lib/docker/graph/<id> -now only contains metadata about the image, in the json and layersize files.

In the case of aufs:

·         /var/lib/docker/aufs/diff/<id>- has the file contents of the images.

·         /var/lib/docker/repositories-aufs -is a JSON file containing local image information. This can be viewed with the command docker images.

In the case of devicemapper:

·         /var/lib/docker/devicemapper/devicemapper/data stores the images

/var/lib/docker/devicemapper/devicemapper/metadata the metadata

Answer 2

For Mac OS X

~/VirtualBox VMs/boot2docker-vm

Mac OS X using boot2docker 

/Users/rajesh.kumar/.docker/machine/machines/default

File Name – disk.vmdk

Answer 3

For most of the Linux versions:

/var/lib/docker/aufs/diff/<id> has the file contents of the images.

/var/lib/docker/repositories-aufs is a JSON file containing local image information. This can be viewed with the command docker images.

Answer 4

For device mapper (Redhat)

/var/lib/docker/devicemapper/devicemapper/data – stores the images

/var/lib/docker/devicemapper/devicemapper/metadata – the metadata

Answer 5

For Windows:

%USERPROFILE%/VirtualBoxVMs/boot2docker-vm

You can manually set the storage driver with the -s or –storage-driver= option to the Docker daemon.

/var/lib/docker/{driver-name} will contain the driver specific storage for contents of the images.

/var/lib/docker/graph/<id> now only contains metadata about the image, in the json and layersize files.