Changing the IP address of the docker0 interface on Ubuntu

Docker picks an address range for the docker0 range that it thinks is unused. Sometimes it makes a bad choice. The docs tell you that this can be changed, however, it's not a particularly obvious process. Here's how you do it on Ubuntu.

First, stop the daemon:

sudo service docker stop

Edit /etc/default/docker and add a line like this:

DOCKER_OPTS="--bip=192.168.1.1/24"

Then bring the interface down:

sudo ip link set docker0 down

Then delete the bridge:

sudo brctl delbr docker0

Then restart the service:

sudo service docker start

If you don't delete the bridge docker will fail to start. But it won't write anything to the logs. If you run it interactively you'll see the problem:

$ sudo docker -d --bip=192.168.1.1/24
INFO[0000] Listening for HTTP on unix (/var/run/docker.sock) 
INFO[0000] [graphdriver] using prior storage driver "aufs" 
WARN[0000] Running modprobe bridge nf_nat failed with message: , error: exit status 1 
FATA[0000] Error starting daemon: Error initializing network controller: Error creating default "bridge" network: bridge IPv4 (10.0.42.1) does not match requested configuration 192.168.1.1