Installation

Dockward ships as a single static binary with no external runtime dependencies.

Requirements

• Docker daemon with unix socket at /var/run/docker.sock
• docker compose CLI available on the target host (required for full mode only)

Binary (Recommended)

Download the latest release for your platform from the Releases page:

# amd64
curl -Lo dockward https://github.com/studiowebux/dockward/releases/latest/download/dockward-linux-amd64

# arm64
curl -Lo dockward https://github.com/studiowebux/dockward/releases/latest/download/dockward-linux-arm64

Install the binary and service unit:

sudo install -m 755 dockward /usr/local/bin/dockward
sudo mkdir -p /etc/dockward

# Download config sample and service unit from the repo
curl -Lo /etc/dockward/config.json \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/studiowebux/dockward/main/config.sample.json
sudo curl -Lo /etc/systemd/system/dockward.service \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/studiowebux/dockward/main/dockward.service

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now dockward

Edit /etc/dockward/config.json before starting the service. See Configuration for a walkthrough and Config Reference for all fields.

From Source

Requires Go 1.24+ on the build host.

Cross-compile for linux/amd64:

git clone https://github.com/studiowebux/dockward.git
cd dockward
GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build \
  -ldflags "-X main.version=$(git describe --tags --always)" \
  -o dockward-linux-amd64 \
  ./cmd/dockward/

Install on host:

sudo install -m 755 dockward-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/dockward
sudo mkdir -p /etc/dockward
sudo cp config.sample.json /etc/dockward/config.json
sudo cp dockward.service /etc/systemd/system/dockward.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now dockward

Verify

dockward -version
systemctl status dockward
journalctl -u dockward -f

Systemd Unit

The provided dockward.service unit runs dockward as root (required for Docker socket access), restarts on failure with a 10-second delay, and logs to the systemd journal.

[Unit]
Description=Dockward - Docker deploy guard
After=docker.service
Requires=docker.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/dockward -config /etc/dockward/config.json
Restart=always
RestartSec=10
User=root
StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=journal

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Config path is fixed at /etc/dockward/config.json by the unit. To use a different path, edit ExecStart and run systemctl daemon-reload.