Unable to start Docker Service in Ubuntu 16.04

Question

I\'ve been trying to use Docker (1.10) on Ubuntu 16.04 but installation fails because Docker Service doesn\'t start. I\'ve already tried to

Answer 1

Update

It seems that in newer versions of docker and Ubuntu the unit file for docker is simply masked (pointing to /dev/null).
You can verify it by running the following commands in the terminal:

sudo file /lib/systemd/system/docker.service
sudo file /lib/systemd/system/docker.socket

You should see that the unit file symlinks to /dev/null.
In this case, all you have to do is follow S34N's suggestion, and run:

sudo systemctl unmask docker.service
sudo systemctl unmask docker.socket
sudo systemctl start docker.service
sudo systemctl status docker

I'll also keep the original post, that answers the error log stating that the storage driver should be replaced:

Original Post

I had the same problem, and I tried fixing it with Salva Cort's suggestion, but printing /etc/default/docker says:

# THIS FILE DOES NOT APPLY TO SYSTEMD

So here's a permanent fix that works for systemd (Ubuntu 15.04 and higher):

1. create a new file /etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d/overlay.conf with the following content:

   [Service]
   ExecStart=
   ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker daemon -H fd:// -s overlay
   

2. flush changes by executing:

   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   

3. verify that the configuration has been loaded:

   systemctl show --property=ExecStart docker
   

4. restart docker:

   sudo systemctl restart docker
   

Answer 2

After viewing some of the other answers it looks like the issue was that the service wasn't running with the -s overlay options.

I also happened to notice that docker tried to start up with ${DOCKER_OPTS} at the end of the call.

I was able to export DOCKER_OPTS="-s overlay" (bc by default DOCKER_OPTS was empty) and get docker running.

Answer 3

I've been able to get it working after a kernel upgrade by following the directions in this blog.

https://mymemorysucks.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/docker-graphdriver-and-aufs-failed-driver-not-supported-error-after-ubuntu-upgrade/

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-image-extra-$(uname -r) linux-image-extra-virtual

sudo modprobe aufs

sudo service docker restart

Answer 4

In my case I was getting the following error from journalctl -xe command

unable to configure the Docker daemon with file /etc/docker/daemon.json: invalid character 'â' looking for beginning of object key string

Just clean /etc/docker/daemon.json with

{
}