Key features of the Docker Desktop 4.36 release include: 

• New administration features for Docker Business subscription:
  • Enforce sign-in with macOS configuration profiles (Early Access Program)
  • Enforce sign-in for more than one organization at a time (Early Access Program)
  • Deploy Docker Desktop for Mac in bulk with the PKG installer (Early Access Program)
  • Use Desktop Settings Management to manage and enforce defaults via Admin Console (Early Access Program)
  • Enhanced Container Isolation (ECI) improvements
• Additional improvements:
  • WSL 2 is now faster, more reliable, and has enhanced security with mono distribution

Docker Desktop 4.36 introduces powerful updates to simplify enterprise administration and enhance security. This release features streamlined macOS sign-in enforcement via configuration profiles, enabling IT administrators to deploy tamper-proof policies at scale, alongside a new PKG installer for efficient, consistent deployments. Enhancements like the unified WSL 2 mono distribution improve startup speeds and workflows, while updates to Enhanced Container Isolation (ECI) and Desktop Settings Management allow for greater flexibility and centralized policy enforcement. These innovations empower organizations to maintain compliance, boost productivity, and streamline Docker Desktop management across diverse enterprise environments.

Sign-in enforcement: Streamlined alternative for organizations for macOS 

Recognizing the need for streamlined and secure ways to enforce sign-in protocols, Docker is introducing a new sign-in enforcement mechanism for macOS configuration profiles. This Early Access update delivers significant business benefits by enabling IT administrators to enforce sign-in policies quickly, ensuring compliance and maximizing the value of Docker subscriptions.

Key benefits

• Fast deployment and rollout: Configuration profiles can be rapidly deployed across a fleet of devices using Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions, making it easy for IT admins to enforce sign-in requirements and other policies without manual intervention.
• Tamper-proof enforcement: Configuration profiles ensure that enforced policies, such as sign-in requirements, cannot be bypassed or disabled by users, providing a secure and reliable way to manage access to Docker Desktop (Figure 1).
• Support for multiple organizations: More than one organization can now be defined in the allowedOrgs field, offering flexibility for users who need access to Docker Desktop under multiple organizational accounts (Figure 2).

How it works

macOS configuration profiles are XML files that contain specific settings to control and manage macOS device behavior. These profiles allow IT administrators to:

• Restrict access to Docker Desktop unless the user is authenticated.
• Prevent users from disabling or bypassing sign-in enforcement.

By distributing these profiles through MDM solutions, IT admins can manage large device fleets efficiently and consistently enforce organizational policies.

Configuration profiles, along with the Windows Registry key, are the latest examples of how Docker helps streamline administration and management. 

Enforce sign-in for multiple organizations

Docker now supports enforcing sign-in for more than one organization at a time, providing greater flexibility for users working across multiple teams or enterprises. The allowedOrgs field now accepts multiple strings, enabling IT admins to define more than one organization via any supported configuration method, including:

• registry.json
• Windows Registry key
• macOS plist
• macOS configuration profile

This enhancement makes it easier to enforce login policies across diverse organizational setups, streamlining access management while maintaining security (Figure 3).

Learn more about the various sign-in enforcement methods.

Deploy Docker Desktop for macOS in bulk with the PKG installer

Managing large-scale Docker Desktop deployments on macOS just got easier with the new PKG installer. Designed for enterprises and IT admins, the PKG installer offers significant advantages over the traditional DMG installer, streamlining the deployment process and enhancing security.

• Ease of use: Automate installations and reduce manual steps, minimizing user error and IT support requests.
• Consistency: Deliver a professional and predictable installation experience that meets enterprise standards.
• Streamlined deployment: Simplify software rollouts for macOS devices, saving time and resources during bulk installations.
• Enhanced security: Benefit from improved security measures that reduce the risk of tampering and ensure compliance with enterprise policies.

You can download the PKG installer via Admin Console > Security and Access > Deploy Docker Desktop > macOS. Options for both Intel and Arm architectures are also available for macOS and Windows, ensuring compatibility across devices.

Start deploying Docker Desktop more efficiently and securely today via the Admin Console (Figure 4). 

Desktop Settings Management (Early Access) 

Managing Docker Desktop settings at scale is now easier than ever with the new Desktop Settings Management, available in Early Access for Docker Business customers. Admins can centrally deploy and enforce settings policies for Docker Desktop directly from the cloud via the Admin Console, ensuring consistency and efficiency across their organization.

Here’s what’s available now:

• Admin Console policies: Configure and enforce default Docker Desktop settings from the Admin Console.
• Quick import: Import existing configurations from an admin-settings.json file for seamless migration.
• Export and share: Export policies as JSON files to easily share with security and compliance teams.
• Targeted testing: Roll out policies to a smaller group of users for testing before deploying globally.

What’s next?

Although the Desktop Settings Management feature is in Early Access, we’re actively building additional functionality to enhance it, such as compliance reporting and automated policy enforcement capabilities. Stay tuned for more!

This is just the beginning of a powerful new way to simplify Docker Desktop management and ensure organizational compliance. Try it out now and help shape the future of settings management: Admin Console > Security and Access > Desktop Settings Management (Figure 5).

Streamlining data workflow with WSL 2 mono distribution 

Simplify the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2) setup by eliminating the need to maintain two separate Docker Desktop WSL distributions. This update streamlines the WSL 2 configuration by consolidating the previously required dual Docker Desktop WSL distributions into a single distribution, now available on both macOS and Windows operating systems.

The simplification of Docker Desktop’s WSL 2 setup is designed to make the codebase easier to understand and maintain. This enhances the ability to handle failures more effectively and increases the startup speed of Docker Desktop on WSL 2, allowing users to begin their work more quickly.

The value of streamlining data workflows and relocating data to a different drive on macOS and Windows with the WSL 2 backend in Docker Desktop encompasses these key areas:

• Improved performance: By separating data and system files, I/O contention between system operations and data operations is reduced, leading to faster access and processing.
• Enhanced storage management: Separating data from the main system drives allows for more efficient use of space.
• Increased flexibility with cross-platform compatibility: Ensuring consistent data workflows across different operating systems (macOS and Windows), especially when using Docker Desktop with WSL 2.
• Enhanced Docker performance: Docker performs better when processing data on a drive optimized for such tasks, reducing latency and improving container performance.

By implementing these practices, organizations can achieve more efficient, flexible, and high-performing data workflows, leveraging Docker Desktop’s capabilities on both macOS and Windows platforms.

Enhanced Container Isolation (ECI) improvements 

• Allow any container to mount the Docker socket: Admins can now configure permissions to allow all containers to mount the Docker socket by adding * or *:* to the ECI Docker socket mount permission image list. This simplifies scenarios where broad access is required while maintaining security configuration through centralized control. Learn more in the advanced configuration documentation.
• Improved support for derived image permissions: The Docker socket mount permissions for derived images feature now supports wildcard tags (e.g., alpine:*), enabling admins to grant permissions for all versions of an image. Previously, specific tags like alpine:latest had to be listed, which was restrictive and required ongoing maintenance. Learn more about managing derived image permissions.

These enhancements reduce administrative overhead while maintaining a high level of security and control, making it easier to manage complex environments.

Upgrade now

The Docker Desktop 4.36 release introduces a suite of features designed to simplify enterprise administration, improve security, and enhance operational efficiency. From enabling centralized policy enforcement with Desktop Settings Management to streamlining deployments with the macOS PKG installer, Docker continues to empower IT administrators with the tools they need to manage Docker Desktop at scale.

The improvements in Enhanced Container Isolation (ECI) and WSL 2 workflows further demonstrate Docker’s commitment to innovation, providing solutions that optimize performance, reduce complexity, and ensure compliance across diverse enterprise environments.  

As businesses adopt increasingly complex development ecosystems, these updates highlight Docker’s focus on meeting the unique needs of enterprise teams, helping them stay agile, secure, and productive. Whether you’re managing access for multiple organizations, deploying tools across platforms, or leveraging enhanced image permissions, Docker Desktop 4.36 sets a new standard for enterprise administration.  

Start exploring these powerful new features today and unlock the full potential of Docker Desktop for your organization.

Learn more

• Subscribe to the Docker Newsletter.
• Authenticate and update to receive your subscription level’s newest Docker Desktop features.
• Learn about our sign-in enforcement options.
• Learn more about host networking support.
• New to Docker? Create an account.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.

Key GA features of the Docker Desktop 4.34 release include: 

• MSI installer GA and Windows registry key 
• Host networking support to Docker Desktop 
• Automatic reclamation of disk space in Docker Desktop for WSL2
• Authentication enhancements 
• NVIDIA AI Workbench Docker Desktop Integration 
• Multi-platform UX improvements and the containerd image store

Docker Desktop 4.34 introduces key features to enhance security, scalability, and productivity for all development team sizes, making deploying and managing environments more straightforward. With the general availability (GA) of the MSI installer for bulk deployment, managing installations across Windows environments becomes even simpler. Enhanced authentication features offer an improved administration experience while reinforcing security. Automatically reclaim valuable disk space with Docker Desktop’s new smart compaction feature, streamlining storage management for WSL2 users. Additionally, the integration with NVIDIA AI Workbench provides developers with a seamless connection between model training and local development. Explore how these innovations simplify your workflows and foster a culture of innovation and reliability in your development practices.

Deploy Docker Desktop in bulk with the MSI installer

We’re excited to announce that the MSI installer for Docker Desktop is now generally available to all our Docker Business customers. This powerful tool allows you to customize and deploy Docker Desktop across multiple users or machines in an enterprise environment, making it easier to manage Docker at scale. 

Features include:

• Interactive and silent installations: Choose between an interactive setup process or deploy silently across your organization without interrupting your users.
• Customizable installation paths: Tailor the installation location to fit your organization’s needs.
• Desktop shortcuts and automatic startup: Simplify access for users with automatic creation of desktop shortcuts and Docker Desktop starting automatically after installation.
• Set usage to specific Docker Hub organizations: Control which Docker Hub organizations your users are tied to during installation.

Docker administrators can download the MSI installer directly from the Docker Admin Console.

One of the standout features of this installer is the --allowed-org flag. This option enables the creation of a Windows registry key during installation, enforcing sign-in to a specified organization. By requiring sign-in, you ensure that your developers are using Docker Desktop with their corporate credentials, fully leveraging your Docker Business subscription. This also adds an extra layer of security, protecting your software supply chain.

Additionally, this feature paves the way for Docker to provide you with valuable usage insights across your organization and enable cloud-based control over application settings for every user in your organization in the future.

What’s next

We’re also working on releasing a PKG enterprise installer for macOS, config profiles for macOS, and supporting multiple organizations in all supported sign-in enforcement mechanisms. 

Refer to our docs to learn about MSI configuration and discover more about sign-in enforcement via Windows registry key.

Host networking support to Docker Desktop 

Previously, Docker Desktop lacked seamless host networking capability, complicating the integration between host and container network services. Developers had to take time to set up and enable communication between the host and containers. Docker Desktop now supports host networking capability directly into Docker Desktop. 

Host networking allows containers that are started with --net=host to use localhost to connect to TCP and UDP services on the host. It will automatically allow software on the host to use localhost to connect to TCP and UDP services in the container. This simplifies the setup for scenarios in which close integration between host and container network services is required. Additionally, we’re driving cross-platform consistency and simplifying configuration by reducing the need for additional steps, such as setting up port forwarding or bridge networks. 

While this has previously been available in the Docker Engine, we’re now extending this capability to Docker Desktop for Windows, macOS, and Linux. We’re dedicated to improving developer productivity, and this is another way we help developers spend less time configuring network settings and more time building and testing applications, accelerating development cycles. 

This new capability is available for all users logged into Docker Desktop. To enable this feature, navigate to Settings > Resources > Network. Learn more about this feature on Docker Docs. 

Automatic reclamation of disk space in Docker Desktop for WSL2 

Previously, when customers using Docker Desktop for WSL2 deleted Docker objects such as containers, images, or builds (for example via a docker system prune), the freed storage space was not automatically reclaimed on their host. Instead, they had to use external tools to “compact” the virtual disk/distribution backing Docker Desktop.

Starting with Docker 4.34, we are rolling out automatic reclamation of disk space. When you quit the app, Docker Desktop will automatically check whether there is storage space that can be returned to the host. It will then scan the virtual disk used for Docker storage, and compact it by returning all zeroed blocks to the operating system. Currently Docker Desktop will only start the scan when it estimates that at least 16GB of space can be returned. In the future, we plan to make this threshold adaptive and configurable by the user.

The feature is now enabled for all customers running the Mono distribution architecture for Docker Desktop on WSL2. This new architecture, which was rolled out starting with Docker Desktop 4.30 for all fresh installations of Docker Desktop, removed the need for a dedicated docker-desktop-data WSL2 distribution to store docker data. We will be rolling out the new architecture to all customers in the upcoming Docker Desktop releases.

Customers with installations still using the docker-desktop-data WSL2 distribution can compact storage manually via VHDX compaction tools, or change the WSL2 configuration to enable the experimental WSL2 feature for disk cleanup.

(Pro tip: Did you know you can use the Disk Usage extension to see how Docker Desktop is using your storage and use it to prune dangling objects with a single click?)

Authentication enhancements 

Previously, authenticating via the CLI required developers to either type their password into the command-line interface — which should generally be avoided by the security-minded — or manually create a personal access token (PAT) by navigating to their Docker account settings, generating the token, and then copying it into the CLI for authentication. This process was time-consuming and forced developers to switch contexts between the CLI and the web portal.

In this latest Docker Desktop release, we’re streamlining the CLI authentication flow. Now, users can authenticate through a seamless browser-based process, similar to the experience in CLIs like GitHub’s gh or Amazon’s AWS CLI. With this improved flow, typing docker login in the CLI will print a confirmation code and open your browser for authentication, automating PAT creation behind the scenes and eliminating the need for manual PAT provisioning. This enhancement saves time, reduces complexity, and delivers a smoother and more secure user experience. Additionally, when you authenticate using this workflow, you’ll be logged in across both Docker CLI and Docker Desktop. 

This new flow also supports developers in organizations that require single sign-on (SSO), ensuring a consistent and secure authentication process.

Enterprise-grade AI application development with Docker Desktop and NVIDIA AI Workbench  

AI development is a complex journey, often hindered by the challenge of connecting the dots between model training, local development, and deployment. Developers frequently encounter a fragmented and inconsistent development environment and toolchain, making it difficult to move seamlessly from training models in the cloud to running them locally. This fragmentation slows down innovation, introduces errors, and complicates the end-to-end development process.

To solve this, we’re proud to announce the integration of Docker Desktop with NVIDIA AI Workbench, a collaboration designed to streamline every stage of AI development. This solution brings together the power of Docker’s containerization with NVIDIA’s leading AI tools, providing a unified environment that bridges the gap between model training and local development.

With this integration, you can now train models in the cloud using NVIDIA’s robust toolkit and effortlessly transition to local development on Docker Desktop. This eliminates the friction of managing different environments and configurations, enabling a smoother, more efficient workflow from start to finish. 

To learn more about this collaboration and how Docker Business supports enterprise-grade AI application development, read our blog post. 

Multi-platform UX improvements and the containerd image store  

In February 2024, we announced the general availability of the containerd image store in Docker Desktop. Since then, we’ve been working on improving the output of our commands to make multi-platform images easier to view and manage. 

Now, we are happy to announce that the docker image list CLI command now supports an experimental --tree flag. This offers a completely new tree view of the image list, which is more suitable for describing multi-platform images.

If you’re looking for multi-platform support, you need to ensure that you have the containerd image store enabled in Docker Desktop (see General settings in Docker Desktop, select Use containerd for pulling and storing images). As of the Docker Desktop 4.34 release, fresh installs or factory resets of Docker Desktop will now default to using the containerd image store, meaning that you get multi-platform building capability out of the box. 

To learn more about the containerd image store, check out our containerd documentation. 

Wrapping up 

Docker Desktop 4.34 marks a significant milestone in our commitment to providing an industry-leading container development suite. With key features such as the MSI installer for bulk deployment, enhanced authentication mechanisms, and the integration with NVIDIA AI Workbench, Docker Desktop is transforming how teams manage deployments, protect their environments, and accelerate their development workflows. 

These advancements simplify your development processes and help drive a culture of innovation and reliability. Stay tuned for more exciting updates and enhancements as we continue to deliver solutions designed to empower your development teams and secure your operations at scale. 

Upgrade to Docker Desktop 4.34 today and experience the future of container development. 

Learn more

• Authenticate and update to receive your subscription level’s newest Docker Desktop features.
• New to Docker? Create an account. 
• Subscribe to the Docker Newsletter.
• Read New Docker Desktop Enterprise Admin Features: MSI Installer and Login Enforcement Alternative. 
• Read Optimizing AI Application Development with Docker Desktop and NVIDIA AI Workbench. 
• Learn more about MSI configuration.
• Discover more about sign-in enforcement via Windows registry key.
• Learn more about host networking support.

Deep learning has revolutionized the field of artificial intelligence (AI) by enabling machines to learn and generate content that mimics human-like creativity. One advancement in this domain is Stable Diffusion, a text-to-image model released in 2022. 

Stable Diffusion has gained significant attention for its ability to generate highly detailed images conditioned on text descriptions, thereby opening up new possibilities in areas such as creative design, visual storytelling, and content generation. With its open source nature and accessibility, Stable Diffusion has become a go-to tool for many researchers and developers seeking to harness the power of deep learning. 

In this article, we will explore how to optimize deep learning workflows by leveraging Stable Diffusion alongside Docker on WSL 2, enabling seamless and efficient experimentation with this cutting-edge technology.

In this comprehensive guide, we will walk through the process of setting up the Stable Diffusion WebUI Docker, which includes enabling WSL 2 and installing Docker Desktop. You will learn how to download the required code from GitHub and initialize it using Docker Compose. 

The guide provides instructions on adding additional models and managing the system, covering essential tasks such as reloading the UI and determining the ideal location for saving image output. Troubleshooting steps and tips for monitoring hardware and GPU usage are also included, ensuring a smooth and efficient experience with Stable Diffusion WebUI (Figure 1).

Why use Docker Desktop for Stable Diffusion?

In the realm of image-based generative AI, setting up an effective execution and development environment on a Windows PC can present particular challenges. These challenges arise due to differences in software dependencies, compatibility issues, and the need for specialized tools and frameworks. Docker Desktop emerges as a powerful solution to tackle these challenges by providing a containerization platform that ensures consistency and reproducibility across different systems.

By leveraging Docker Desktop, we can create an isolated environment that encapsulates all the necessary components and dependencies required for image-based generative AI workflows. This approach eliminates the complexities associated with manual software installations, conflicting library versions, and system-specific configurations.

Using Stable Diffusion WebUI

The Stable Diffusion WebUI is a browser interface that is built upon the Gradio library, offering a convenient way to interact with and explore the capabilities of Stable Diffusion. Gradio is a powerful Python library that simplifies the process of creating interactive interfaces for machine learning models.

Setting up the Stable Diffusion WebUI environment can be a tedious and time-consuming process, requiring multiple steps for environment construction. However, a convenient solution is available in the form of Stable Diffusion WebUI Docker project. This Docker image eliminates the need for manual setup by providing a preconfigured environment.

If you’re using Windows and have Docker Desktop installed, you can effortlessly build and run the environment using the docker-compose command. You don’t have to worry about preparing libraries or dependencies beforehand because everything is encapsulated within the container.

You might wonder whether there are any problems because it’s a container. I was anxious before I started using it, but I haven’t had any particular problems so far. The images, models, variational autoencoders (VAEs), and other data that are generated are shared (bind mounted) with my Windows machine, so I can exchange files simply by dragging them in Explorer or in the Files of the target container on Docker Desktop. 

The most trouble I had was when I disabled the extension without backing it up, and in a moment blew away about 50GB of data that I had spent half a day training. (This is a joke!)

Architecture

I’ve compiled a relatively simple procedure to start with Stable Diffusion using Docker Desktop on Windows. 

Prerequisites:

• Windows 10 Pro, 21H2 Build 19044.2846
• 16GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER
• WSL 2 (Ubuntu)
• Docker Desktop 4.18.0 (104112)

Setup with Docker Compose

We will use the WebUI called AUTOMATIC1111 to utilize Stable Diffusion this time. The environment for these will be constructed using Docker Compose. The main components are shown in Figure 2.

The configuration of Docker Compose is defined in docker-compose.yml. We are using a Compose extension called x-base_service to describe the major components common to each service.

To start, there are settings for bind mount between the host and the container, including /data, which loads modes, and /output, which outputs images. Then, we make the container recognize the GPU by loading the NVIDIA driver.

Furthermore, the service named sd-auto:58 runs AUTOMATIC1111, WebUI for Stable Diffusion, within the container. Because there is a port mapping (TCP:7860), between the host and the container in the aforementioned common service settings, it is possible to access from the browser on the host side to the inside of the container.

Getting Started

Prerequisite

WSL 2 must be activated and Docker Desktop installed.

On the first execution, it downloads 12GB of Stable Diffusion 1.5 models, etc. The Web UI cannot be used until this download is complete. Depending on your connection, it may take a long time until the first startup.

Downloading the code

First, download the Stable Diffusion WebUI Docker code from GitHub. If you download it as a ZIP, click Code > Download ZIP and the stable-diffusion-webui-docker-master.zip file will be downloaded (Figure 3). 

Unzip the file in a convenient location. When you expand it, you will find a folder named stable-diffusion-webui-docker-master. Open the command line or similar and run the docker compose command inside it.

Or, if you have an environment where you can use Git, such as Git for Windows, it’s quicker to download it as follows:

git clone https://github.com/AbdBarho/stable-diffusion-webui-docker.git

In this case, the folder name is stable-diffusion-webui-docker. Move it with cd stable-diffusion-webui-docker.

Supplementary information for those familiar with Docker

If you just want to get started, you can skip this section.

By default, the timezone is UTC. To adjust the time displayed in the log and the date of the directory generated under output/txt2img to Japan time, add TZ=Asia/Tokyo to the environment variables of the auto service. Specifically, add the following description to environment:.

auto: &automatic
    <<: *base_service
    profiles: ["auto"]
    build: ./services/AUTOMATIC1111
    image: sd-auto:51
    environment:
      - CLI_ARGS=--allow-code --medvram --xformers --enable-insecure-extension-access --api
      - TZ=Asia/Tokyo

Tasks at first startup

The rest of the process is as described in the GitHub documentation. Inside the folder where the code is expanded, run the following command:

docker compose --profile download up --build

After the command runs, the log of a container named webui-docker-download-1 will be displayed on the screen. For a while, the download will run as follows, so wait until it is complete:

webui-docker-download-1  | [DL:256KiB][#4561e1 1.4GiB/3.9GiB(36%)][#42c377 1.4GiB/3.9GiB(37%)]

If the process ends successfully, it will be displayed as exited with code 0 and returned to the original prompt:

…(snip)
webui-docker-download-1  | https://github.com/xinntao/Real-ESRGAN/blob/master/LICENSE 
webui-docker-download-1  | https://github.com/xinntao/ESRGAN/blob/master/LICENSE 
webui-docker-download-1  | https://github.com/cszn/SCUNet/blob/main/LICENSE 
webui-docker-download-1 exited with code 0

If a code other than 0 comes out like the following, the download process has failed:

webui-docker-download-1  | 42c377|OK  |   426KiB/s|/data/StableDiffusion/sd-v1-5-inpainting.ckpt 
webui-docker-download-1  | 
webui-docker-download-1  | Status Legend: 
webui-docker-download-1  | (OK):download completed.(ERR):error occurred. 
webui-docker-download-1  | 
webui-docker-download-1  | aria2 will resume download if the transfer is restarted. 
webui-docker-download-1  | If there are any errors, then see the log file. See '-l' option in help/m 
an page for details. 
webui-docker-download-1 exited with code 24

In this case, run the command again and check whether it ends successfully. Once it finishes successfully, run the command to start the WebUI. 

Note: The following is for AUTOMATIC1111’s UI and GPU specification:

docker compose --profile auto up --build

When you run the command, loading the model at the first startup may take a few minutes. It may look like it’s frozen like the following display, but that’s okay:

webui-docker-auto-1  | LatentDiffusion: Running in eps-prediction mode
webui-docker-auto-1  | DiffusionWrapper has 859.52 M params.

If you wait for a while, the log will flow, and the following URL will be displayed:

webui-docker-auto-1  | Running on local URL:  http://0.0.0.0:7860

Now the startup preparation of the Web UI is set. If you open http://127.0.0.1:7860 from the browser, you can see the Web UI. Once open, select an appropriate model from the top left of the screen, write some text in the text field, and select the Generate button to start generating images (Figure 4).

When you click, the button will be reversed. Wait until the process is finished (Figure 5).

At this time, the log of image generation appears on the terminal you are operating, and you can also check the similar display by looking at the log of the container on Docker Desktop (Figure 6).

When the status reaches 100%, the generation of the image is finished, and you can check it on the screen (Figure 7).

The created images are automatically saved in the output/txt2img/date folder directly under the directory where you ran the docker compose command.

To stop the launched WebUI, enter Ctrl+C on the terminal that is still running the docker compose command.

Gracefully stopping... (press Ctrl+C again to force)
Aborting on container exit...
[+] Running 1/1
 ? Container webui-docker-auto-1  Stopped                                                     11.4s
canceled

When the process ends successfully, you will be able to run the command again. To use the WebUI again after restarting, re-run the docker compose command:

docker compose --profile auto up --build

To see the operating hardware status, use the task manager to look at the GPU status (Figure 8).

To check whether the GPU is visible from inside the container and to see whether the information comes out, run the nvidia-smi command from docker exec or the Docker Desktop terminal.

root@e37fcc5a5810:/stable-diffusion-webui# nvidia-smi 
Mon Apr 17 07:42:27 2023 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
| NVIDIA-SMI 530.41.03              Driver Version: 531.41       CUDA Version: 12.1     | 
|-----------------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ 
| GPU  Name                  Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC | 
| Fan  Temp  Perf            Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. | 
|                                         |                      |               MIG M. | 
|=========================================+======================+======================| 
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 S...    On | 00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A | 
| 42%   40C    P8                6W / 175W|   2558MiB /  8192MiB |      2%      Default | 
|                                         |                      |                  N/A | 
+-----------------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
| Processes:                                                                            | 
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                            GPU Memory | 
|        ID   ID                                                             Usage      | 
|=======================================================================================| 
|    0   N/A  N/A       149      C   /python3.10                               N/A      | 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Adding models and VAEs

If you download a model that is not included from the beginning, place files with extensions, such as .safetensors in stable-diffusion-webui-docker\data\StableDiffusion. In the case of VAE, place .skpt files in stable-diffusion-webui-docker\data\VAE.

If you’re using Docker Desktop, you can view and operate inside on the Files of the webui-docker-auto-1 container, so you can also drag it into Docker Desktop. 

Figure 9 shows the Docker Desktop screen. It says MOUNT in the Note column, and it shares the information in the folder with the container from the Windows host side.

Now, after placing the file, a link to Reload UI is shown in the footer of the WebUI, so select there (Figure 10).

When you select Reload UI, the system will show a loading screen, and the browser connection will be cut off. When you reload the browser, the model and VAE files are automatically loaded. To remove a model, delete the model file from data\StableDiffusion.

Conclusion

With Docker Desktop, image generation using the latest generative AI environment can be done easier than ever. Typically, a lot of time and effort is required just to set up the environment, but Docker Desktop solves this complexity. If you’re interested, why not take a challenge in the world of generative AI? Enjoy!

Learn more

• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.
• New to Docker? Get started.