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Docker HQ guide

The essentials for getting productive with Docker HQ. For what shipped recently, see the changelog.

Get started

Install Docker HQ from the App Store or Google Play. You can use the app as a guest — everything is stored on your device — or create a free account to sync hosts across devices and unlock Pro features later.

Docker HQ talks to your servers directly over SSH. There is no agent to install for day-to-day management: if you can SSH to a machine that runs Docker, you can manage it.

Connect your first host

Add a host with its address, SSH port, and username, then authenticate with a password or a private key (passphrase-protected keys are supported). The account you connect with needs permission to run docker commands.

Credentials never leave your phone unencrypted: locally they live in an encrypted database, and if you sign in and sync, they are end-to-end encrypted before upload — our servers cannot read them.

Manage containers

The dashboard shows every container, image, volume, and network on the selected host. Stream logs, open an exec terminal inside a container, or a full SSH terminal on the host itself.

Pro adds Compose stack control (up, down, restart), one-tap container updates with digest comparison, and private registry browsing.

Monitoring & alerts (Pro)

Server-side monitoring checks your hosts even when the app is closed. Enroll a dedicated monitoring credential from the app's settings; checks run from our infrastructure over SSH using a restricted agent command that can only inspect Docker state.

Create alert rules for host offline, container exits, and high CPU, memory, or low disk. When a rule fires you get a push notification.

Scheduled backups (Pro)

Define backup jobs per volume with a cron schedule, a destination directory on the host, and a retention window. When a backup is due you get a push reminder, and you can run any job on demand from the app — archives are created with tar and old ones are pruned automatically.

Account security

Protect your account with two-factor authentication (any authenticator app) from Settings → Security in the app or from the web account page. Save the recovery codes — they are shown only once.

You can also require Face ID / fingerprint to open the app itself.