docker-credential-desktop not installed or not available in PATH

Question

I might have a bit of a messed Docker installation on my Mac.. At first I installed Docker desktop but then running it I learned that as I'm on an older Mac I had to install VirtualBox so I did following these steps:

1. enable writing on the /usr/local/bin folder for user

   sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/bin

2. install Docker-Machine

base=https://github.com/docker/machine/releases/download/v0.16.0 &&
  curl -L $base/docker-machine-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m) >/usr/local/bin/docker-machine &&
  chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-machine

3. install Xcode CLI..manually from dev account

4. Install Home Brew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

5. Install Docker + wget ( Using Brew)

   brew install docker

   brew install wget

6. Install bash completion scripts

base=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/docker/machine/v0.16.0
for i in docker-machine-prompt.bash docker-machine-wrapper.bash docker-machine.bash
do
    sudo wget "$base/contrib/completion/bash/${i}" -P /etc/bash_completion.d
done

7. enable the docker-machine shell prompt

   echo 'PS1='[\u@\h \W$(__docker_machine_ps1)]\$ '' >> ~/.bashrc

8. Install VirtualBox, ExtensionPack and SDK: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

I now installed docker-compose (docker-compose version 1.29.2, build unknown) with home-brew but when running docker-compose up I get the following error:

docker.credentials.errors.InitializationError: docker-credential-desktop not installed or not available in PATH

which docker prints /usr/local/bin/docker.

Brew installations are in /usr/local/Cellar/docker/20.10.6 and /usr/local/Cellar/docker-compose/1.29.2. As I see there is also a home-brew for docker-machine should I install docker-machine via home-brew instead?

What can I check to make sure that I use the docker installations from home-brew and wipe/correct the installations made from steps above?

Answer 1

Check your ~/.docker/config.json and replace "credsStore" by "credStore"

{
  "stackOrchestrator" : "swarm",
  "experimental" : "disabled",
  "credStore" : "desktop"
}

Answer 2

just in ~/.docker/config.json change credsStore to credStore

Answer 3

Since you're on a Mac, you could use docker-credential-osxkeychain instead.

1. Install docker-credential-helper.

   brew install docker-credential-helper
   

2. Verify docker-credential-osxkeychain is available.

   $ docker-credential-osxkeychain version
   0.6.4
   

3. Set credsStore to osxkeychain in ~/.docker/config.json

   {
     "auths": {
       "https://index.docker.io/v1/": {}
     },
     "credsStore": "osxkeychain",
     "experimental": "enabled",
     "stackOrchestrator": "swarm"
   }
   

4. Login to Docker Hub.

   $ docker login -u $USER
   Password: 
   Login Succeeded
   

Answer 4

After a long googling I found out that the problem is with the config.json file. The "credsStore" : "docker-credential-desktop" is wrong one in :

{
  "credsStore" : "docker-credential-desktop",
  "stackOrchestrator" : "swarm",
  "experimental" : "disabled"
} 

changed the "credsStore" key value to "desktop" and compose now works as expected. Some pointed out that credsDstore typo was the problem and fixed it with credDstore, but in my case the value was the problem, it works both with "credsStore" : "desktop" and "credStore" : "desktop".

Hope it'll help others starting out with Docker. Cheers.

Answer 5

I ran into a similar issue using wsl2 on windows 10 while trying to locally invoke an aws lambda function. I was getting docker.credentials.errors.InitializationError: docker-credential-desktop not installed or not available in PATH when running sam build --use-container. Running which docker-credential-desktop showed no results

Upon further inspection I found that docker-credential-desktop.exe was in PATH however. After a quick google, it seems like enabling the wsl2 backend in Docker Desktop for Windows 10 symlinks wsl/docker-desktop/cli-tools/usr/bin/docker-credentials-desktop.exe to /usr/bin/docker-credential-desktop.exe. To fix this I simply removed the symlink and created a new one without .exe

To check the link and remove it:

user@device:~$ ls -l /usr/bin/docker-credential-desktop.exe
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 67 Jan  5 23:15 /usr/bin/docker-credential-desktop.exe -> /wsl/docker-desktop/cli-tools/usr/bin/docker-credential-desktop.exe
user@device:~$ sudo rm /usr/bin/docker-credential-desktop.exe

To create a new one without .exe and check it worked:

user@device:~$ sudo ln -s /wsl/docker-desktop/cli-tools/usr/bin/docker-credential-desktop.exe /usr/bin/docker-credential-desktop
user@device:~$ ls -l /usr/bin/docker-credential-desktop
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 67 Jan 12 14:22 /usr/bin/docker-credential-desktop -> /wsl/docker-desktop/cli-tools/usr/bin/docker-credential-desktop.exe

After that I sourced .bashrc to update PATH and the problem was resolved. I verified this with which docker-credential-desktop and it now shows the location specified in the symlink above.

Answer 6

If your are on WSL, try desktop.exe, instead of desktop. Because you will find that the program in /usr/bin/ is docker-credential-desktop.exe.

{
   "credsStore": "desktop.exe"
}