Problems installing ping in docker

Question

I am trying to follow the docker tutorial but in a virtual machine. I've tried to install ping in ubuntu docker container with the command

sudo docker run ubuntu apt-get install ping

The problem is that docker doesn't install anything and gives the answer as follows

$ sudo docker run ubuntu apt-get install ping
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Package ping is a virtual package provided by:
  inetutils-ping 2:1.8-6
  iputils-ping 3:20101006-1ubuntu1

E: Package 'ping' has no installation candidate
$

The same problem appears when I'm trying to install anything.

These are my images:

REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
<none>              <none>              3a28cc5bcc53        19 minutes ago      247.6 MB
baselDaemon         latest              4e892058b0b2        4 days ago          204.4 MB
ubuntu              13.10               9f676bd305a4        2 weeks ago         178 MB
ubuntu              saucy               9f676bd305a4        2 weeks ago         178 MB
ubuntu              13.04               eb601b8965b8        2 weeks ago         166.5 MB
ubuntu              raring              eb601b8965b8        2 weeks ago         166.5 MB
ubuntu              12.10               5ac751e8d623        2 weeks ago         161 MB
ubuntu              quantal             5ac751e8d623        2 weeks ago         161 MB
ubuntu              10.04               9cc9ea5ea540        2 weeks ago         180.8 MB
ubuntu              lucid               9cc9ea5ea540        2 weeks ago         180.8 MB
ubuntu              12.04               9cd978db300e        2 weeks ago         204.4 MB
ubuntu              latest              9cd978db300e        2 weeks ago         204.4 MB
ubuntu              precise             9cd978db300e        2 weeks ago         204.4 MB
learn/tutorial      latest              8dbd9e392a96        10 months ago       128 MB

Also, when I run sudo docker run ubuntu apt-get install ping what is the 'ubuntu' used here?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

According to:

Package ping is a virtual package provided by:
  inetutils-ping 2:1.8-6
  iputils-ping 3:20101006-1ubuntu1

E: Package 'ping' has no installation candidate

Try with:

sudo docker run ubuntu apt-get install iputils-ping

You choose a 'ubuntu' with repository:tag in place of IMAGE in RUN command

sudo docker run ubuntu:lucid command

Answer 2

run apt-get update once before the install:

sudo docker run ubuntu apt-get update

see What does sudo apt-get update do?

apt-get update downloads the package lists from the repositories and "updates" them to get information on the newest versions of packages and their dependencies.

Answer 3

Yeah ultimately you need to know about three different topics:

1. Docker
2. Ubuntu
3. APT repositories

Here's how I like to get Ubuntu running in a Docker container:

docker run -i -t ubuntu:16.04 /bin/bash

Echoing what @Michael_Scharf recommends, here's how you update your APT repositories:

apt-get update

Then working back to @VTacius' solution, here's how to install the IP utilities responsible for the ping command:

apt-get install iputils-ping

Then to verify things are working as expected:

which ping
ping superuser.com

Answer 4

Faced the same issue when using ubuntu 16.04 image in docker.

The following steps helped me resolve this issue.

1. Login to docker container as bash

   $ docker exec -it <conatiner id> bash
   

2. inside the docker container, execute following commands. First update apt-get

   $ apt-get update
   

3. Second install iputils-ping

   $ apt-get install iputils-ping
   

This should work.