Inference server start doesn't see running Docker

[karolpawlowski]

Hi, I want to run inference server locally and I receive

(venv) ➜  inference server start
Error connecting to Docker daemon. Is docker installed and running? See https://www.docker.com/get-started/ for installation instructions.

I have a Docker running:

(venv) ➜  docker info
Client:
 Version:    28.0.1
 Context:    desktop-linux
 Debug Mode: false
 Plugins:

• Inference version:

(venv) ➜  inference --version
inference version: v0.45.0
inference-cli version: v0.45.0

• Operating System & Browser: Mac OS 15.3.2 (24D81) - Apple M1 Pro

[karolpawlowski]

Update:

just upgraded my Docker Desktop to 4.40.0 version and there is new docker client version under the hood, but that doesn’t help

(venv) ➜  docker info
Client:
 Version:    28.0.4

[Thomas_Hansen]

I just updated to 28 and don’t seem to have this issue.

Could you give me output of docker ps. I want to ensure your docker daemon is running (docker info still prints a bunch of info for me even when I don’t actually have docker running). Do you see the docker desktop app running in your system bar?

[karolpawlowski]

Thanks Thomas. Docker ps below:

(venv) ➜ inference server start
Error connecting to Docker daemon. Is docker installed and running? See https://www.docker.com/get-started/ for installation instructions.
(venv) ➜ docker ps
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                COMMAND                  CREATED       STATUS       PORTS                    NAMES
d510eac40737   kartoza/postgis:13   "/bin/sh -c /scripts…"   7 weeks ago   Up 8 hours   0.0.0.0:5432->5432/tcp   xxx....

[bruno]

Would you mind sharing the list of docker contexts and if there’s any DOCKER_HOST set in the environment?

docker context ls

and

env | grep DOCKER_HOST

Also, could you check how the docker socket is setup on the Docker Desktop app? It’s in Settings > Advanced.

This might help us debug if the cli is pointing to the wrong docker socket location. Thank you!

[Thomas_Hansen]

Yeah we just reproduced this internally on one of our macs also. After we went into docker settings on one of my colleagues laptops who was gettign the same error we toggled “Allow priviliged port mapping” to on (Allow docker socket was already enabled).

Saving that forced docker restart and then our CLI was working correctly. Interestingly we also went back and turned “Allow priviliged port mapping” back of and it still works now…so might have just been the restart on the docker daemon / the socket getting hung up somehow?

My colleague mentioned he recently updated his OS, wonder if that could have somethign to do with the issue.