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Now that Docker is licensed in corporate environments, does anyone have a way of finding the licensed/unlicensed status of a Docker installation?

We have many Macs and some of our users have licenses to run Docker Desktop. Some do not, and we would like to detect these so we can either remove unlicensed machines, or get them licensed.

I have not found any way of detecting whether a machine is running a licensed copy of Docker or not. Is this something that can be done?

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  • How does Docker indicate whether it’s licensed or not?
    – Allan
    Commented Feb 9, 2023 at 8:19
  • That is part of the answer, I suspect - Docker say that we are required to make sure that all our devices that use Docker must have a licence. But we need to be able to tell remotely, in order to track that
    – Scott Earle
    Commented Feb 9, 2023 at 9:27
  • We call that an audit. There were times we had to manually put hands on every machine because the software didn’t indicate if it was licensed or not. Did you check with them to see how you can tell? What tool are you using for audits now?
    – Allan
    Commented Feb 9, 2023 at 14:47
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    We use Jamf Pro to keep track of what is on all the Macs. And no, I am not talking about an audit - I am talking about detecting that someone is using Docker unlicensed, so we can approach them to get them to either remove it, or request a licence. What's with the "we call this" stuff - 36 years experience and counting, here.
    – Scott Earle
    Commented Feb 10, 2023 at 1:00

1 Answer 1

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This FAQ suggests creating an Organization in Docker Hub. The impression I get from reading it is Docker lacks any licensing indicators, e.g. sudo find / -iname license 2>/dev/null | grep -i docker reveals nothing noteworthy.

The last two questions just before the Pricing and Billing section also hint at using Docker Hub to reveal the number of licenses used - sort of like a head count - or contacting sales to opt for IP-based access for larger teams.

The overarching theme is that Docker trusts its clients to purchase the correct number of licenses per user, which seems to be the official and only stance the company has put forth on its website.

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    Well I was hoping for some indication in docker info or similar, so I could detect it with a script and use Jamf Pro to create me a smart group of licensed Docker installations - and more importantly, a list of machines that have Docker installed but are NOT licensed. Apparently that's something I can't do
    – Scott Earle
    Commented Feb 16, 2023 at 3:44

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