To install Docker on Kali you need to remember that there is already a package named “docker”, therefore Docker has to be installed under a different name. If you install docker you will not end up with the container version. The version we will be installing is named docker.io. All commands are the same however, so running docker on the command line will be the appropriate command:

kali@kali:~$ sudo apt update
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ sudo apt install -y docker.io
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ sudo systemctl enable docker --now
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ docker
kali@kali:~$

You can now get started with using docker, with sudo. If you want to add yourself to the docker group to use docker without sudo, an additional step is needed:

kali@kali:~$ sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
kali@kali:~$

The final thing is to logout and in again.

If you would like to use a Kali Docker image, we have a doc page for that here.

docker-ce can be installed from Docker repository. One thing to bear in mind, Kali Linux is based on Debian, so we need to use Debian’s current stable version (even though Kali Linux is a rolling distribution). At the time of writing (Dec. 2023), its “bookworm”:

kali@kali:~$ echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian bookworm stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list 

Import the gpg key:

kali@kali:~$ curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg |
  sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

Install the latest version of docker-ce:

kali@kali:~$ sudo apt update
kali@kali:~$ sudo apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

Install Docker Engine on Debian