Skip to content

Document containerd storage location #587

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
yorickdowne merged 1 commit into from
Jul 1, 2026
Merged

Document containerd storage location #587

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
38 changes: 32 additions & 6 deletions website/docs/Usage/Prerequisites.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -169,14 +169,18 @@ containers. "Rootless mode Docker" is limited, but should work to an extent.

## Change Docker storage location

Taken from the [RocketPool docs](https://docs.rocketpool.net/guides/node/docker.html#configuring-docker-s-storage-location)
See also the [Docker documentation](https://docs.docker.com/engine/daemon/#configure-the-data-directory-location)

By default, Docker will store all of its container data on your operating system's drive. In some cases, this is
**not** what you want. For example, you may have a small boot drive and a second larger SSD for the chain data.

> If you have just one drive and are good with the default behavior, don't make these adjustments

To change the Docker volume location, create a new file called /etc/docker/daemon.json as the root user:
There are two locations to change, and they have to point to separate directories: The storage directory, and
the container data.

To change the Docker storage directory, where chain data is stored among other things, create a new file
called /etc/docker/daemon.json as the root user:

```
sudo nano /etc/docker/daemon.json
Expand All @@ -186,23 +190,40 @@ Add this as the contents:

```
{
"data-root": "<your external mount point>/docker"
"data-root": "/<your external mount point>/docker"
}
```

where `<your external mount point>` is the directory that your other drive is mounted to, e.g. `/mnt/sata`
where `/<your external mount point>` is the directory that your other drive is mounted to, e.g. `/mnt/nvme2`

Next, make the folder:

```
sudo mkdir -p <your external mount point>/docker
sudo mkdir -p /<your external mount point>/docker
```

If you already have existing volumes that you want to move, stop Docker and move them over:

```
sudo systemctl stop docker
sudo cp -rp /var/lib/docker <your external mount point>/
sudo cp -rp /var/lib/docker /<your external mount point>/
```

To change the location that images are stored in when using the default `containerd` image store,
change the file `/etc/containerd/config.toml`
```
sudo nano /etc/containerd/config.toml
```

Find a line that starts with `#root =` and change it to:
```
root = "/<your external mount point>/containerd"
```

Next, make the folder:

```
sudo mkdir -p /<your external mount point>/containerd
```

Now, restart the Docker daemon so it picks up on the changes:
Expand All @@ -211,6 +232,11 @@ Now, restart the Docker daemon so it picks up on the changes:
sudo systemctl restart docker
```

Tell Docker that it should remove all old container image references:
```
sudo systemctl docker prune -af
```

After that, Docker will store its data on your desired disk.

## Switching from docker.io to docker-ce
Expand Down