DDEV Installation¶

For macOS (both amd64 and arm64) users, we recommend installing and upgrading via Homebrew: brew install drud/ddev/ddev.

As a one-time initialization, run mkcert -install.

Later, to upgrade to a newer version of DDEV-Local, run brew upgrade ddev.

On Linux, macOS and Windows WSL2 you can use the install_ddev.sh script

Use this line on your terminal to download, verify, and install (or upgrade) ddev using the install_ddev.sh script. Note that this works with both amd64 and arm64 architectures, including Surface Pro X with WSL2 and 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS. It also works with macOS Apple Silicon M1 machines.

curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/drud/ddev/master/scripts/install_ddev.sh && bash install_ddev.sh

The installation script can also take a version argument in order to install a specific version or a prerelease version. For example,

curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/drud/ddev/master/scripts/install_ddev.sh && bash install_ddev.sh v1.19.2

To upgrade DDEV to the latest stable version, just run the script again.

DDEV has Debian and RPM packages that work with both apt and yum repositories, and on most any variant that uses those, including Windows WSL2.

• Debian/Ubuntu and derivative distros - Install the ddev apt repositories with:

curl https://apt.fury.io/drud/gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://apt.fury.io/drud/ * *" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ddev.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y ddev

In the future you can update as usual, with sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade.

• Yum/RPM (Fedora, RedHat, etc.):

echo '[ddev]
name=DDEV Repo
baseurl=https://yum.fury.io/drud/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0' | sudo tee -a /etc/yum.repos.d/ddev.repo

sudo dnf install --refresh ddev

In the future you can update as usual, with sudo dnf upgrade ddev. (Signed repo support will be added in the near future.)

For Linux amd64 users, Homebrew packages are available: brew install drud/ddev/ddev.

As a one-time initialization, run mkcert -install.

Later, to upgrade to a newer version of DDEV-Local, run brew upgrade ddev.

This is the recommended installation method for all Windows users.

All Windows 10/11 editions (including Windows 10 Home) support WSL2. If you're already familiar with DDEV on Windows, you might have been using NFS for better filesystem performance. You won't need NFS anymore once you switch to WSL2, since it provides awesome filesystem performance out of the box.

The WSL2 install process involves:

• Installing Chocolatey package manager (optional).
• One time initialization of mkcert.
• Installing WSL2 and installing a distro like Ubuntu.
• Installing or upgrading to the latest Docker Desktop for Windows with WSL2 enabled.
• Installing DDEV inside your distro.

We'll walk through these in more detail. You may prefer other techniques of installation or may not need some steps, but this is the full recipe:

1. Chocolatey: We recommend using Chocolatey for installing required Windows apps like mkcert. In an administrative PowerShell, Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))
2. In an administrative PowerShell: choco install -y mkcert
3. In an administrative PowerShell, run mkcert -install and answer the prompt allowing the installation of the Certificate Authority.
4. In an administrative PowerShell, run the command setx CAROOT "$(mkcert -CAROOT)"; If ($Env:WSLENV -notlike "*CAROOT/up:*") { setx WSLENV "CAROOT/up:$Env:WSLENV" }. This will set WSL2 to use the Certificate Authority installed on the Windows side.
5. In administrative PowerShell, run the command wsl --install. This will install WSL2 and Ubuntu for you. Reboot when this is done.
6. Docker Desktop for Windows: If you already have the latest Docker Desktop, configure it in the General Settings to use the WSL2-based engine. Otherwise install the latest Docker Desktop for Windows and select the WSL2-based engine (not legacy Hyper-V) when installing. Install via Chocolatey with choco install docker-desktop or it can be downloaded from desktop.docker.com. Start Docker. It may prompt you to log out and log in again, or reboot.
7. Go to Docker Desktop settings > Resources > WSL integration > enable integration for your distro (now docker commands will be available from within your WSL2 distro).
8. Double-check in PowerShell: wsl -l -v should show three distros, and your Ubuntu should be the default. All three should be WSL version 2.
9. Double-check in Ubuntu (or your distro): echo $CAROOT should show something like /mnt/c/Users/<you>/AppData/Local/mkcert
10. Check that docker is working inside Ubuntu (or your distro): docker ps
11. Optional: If you prefer to use the traditional Windows ddev instead of working inside WSL2, install it with choco install -y ddev. The Windows ddev works fine with the WSL2-based Docker engine. However, the WSL2 ddev setup is vastly preferable and at least 10 times as fast. Support for the traditional Windows approach will eventually be dropped.
12. Open the WSL2 terminal, for example Ubuntu from the Windows start menu.
13. Install ddev with curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/drud/ddev/master/scripts/install_ddev.sh && bash install_ddev.sh
14. sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y certutil xdg-utils to install the xdg-utils package that allows ddev launch to work.
15. In WSL2 run mkcert -install.

That's it! You have now installed DDEV on WSL2. If you're using WSL2 for DDEV (recommended), remember to run all ddev commands inside the WSL2 distro. Follow the instructions in the Linux apt/yum section.

DDEV does work fine on the Windows side, although it's quite a bit slower than WSL2 by default, but good results have been reported by users who enabled mutagen, ddev config global --mutagen-enabled.

• If you use chocolatey (recommended), then you can just choco install ddev git from an administrative shell. Upgrades are just ddev poweroff && choco upgrade ddev.
• A windows installer is provided in each ddev release (ddev_windows_installer.<version>.exe). Run that and it will do the full installation for you. Open a new git-bash or PowerShell or cmd window and start using ddev.
• Most people interact with ddev on Windows using git-bash, part of the Windows git suite. Although ddev does work with cmd and PowerShell, it's more at home in bash. You can install it with chocolatey using choco install -y git.
• For performance, many users enable mutagen, ddev config global --mutagen-enabled (global) or ddev config --mutagen-enabled just for one project.

DDEV is fully supported in Gitpod.io, and there are many ways to use it. You don't have to install anything to use it, not Docker, and not DDEV, it's all done for you.

1. Just open any repository using gitpod and brew install drud/ddev/ddev and use ddev as you would normally use it.
   • To use ddev launch you'll need to sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y xdg-utils.
   • You can just install your web app there, or import a database.
   • You may want to implement one of the ddev pull provider integrations to pull from a hosting provider or an upstream source.
2. Use ddev-gitpod-launcher form to launch a repository. See the actual instructions on the repository. You just click the button and it opens a fully-set-up environment. If a companion artifacts repository with the suffix -artifacts is available, then the db.sql.gz and files.tgz from it will be automatically loaded.
3. Save the following link, Github -> ddev-gitpod, to your bookmark bar; the "drag-and-drop" method is easiest. When you are on a git repository, click the new bookmark to open DDEV Gitpod. It does the same thing as the second option, but it works on non-chrome browsers and native browser keyboard shortcuts can be used.

It can be complicated to get private databases and files into Gitpod, so in addition to the launchers, The git provider example shows how you can pull database and files without complex setup or permissions. This was created explicitly for Gitpod integration, because in Gitpod you typically already have access to private git repositories, which are a fine place to put a starter database and files. Although ddev-gitpod-launcher and the web extension provide the capability, you may want to integrate a git provider for each project (or, of course, one of the other providers).

For Arch-based systems including Arch Linux, EndeavourOS and Manjaro we maintain the ddev-bin package in AUR.

As a one-time initialization, run mkcert -install.

You can also easily perform the installation or upgrade manually if preferred. DDEV is just a single executable, no special installation is actually required, so for all operating systems, the installation is just copying DDEV into place where it's in the system path.

• ddev poweroff if upgrading
• Download and extract the latest ddev release for your architecture.
• Move ddev to /usr/local/bin: mv ddev /usr/local/bin/ (may require sudo), or another directory in your $PATH as preferred.
• Run ddev to test your installation. You should see DDEV's command usage output.
• As a one-time initialization, run mkcert -install, which may require your sudo password. If you don't have mkcert installed, you can install it from https://github.com/FiloSottile/mkcert/releases. Download the version for the correct architecture and sudo mv <downloaded_file> /usr/local/bin/mkcert && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/mkcert.