Version in "./docker-compose.yml" is unsupported - docker

Question

I have the following docker-compose.yml file
services:
containerA:
healthcheck:
test: "/build/docheck"
interval: "10s"
hostname: "containerA"
container_name: "containerA"
build:
dockerfile: "Dockerfile-5.6"
ports:
- "8081:8081"
version: "2.1"
When I try the following command: docker-compose up
it fails due to:
ERROR: Version in "./docker-compose.yml" is unsupported. You might be seeing this error because you're using the wrong Compose file version. Either specify a version of "2" (or "2.0") and place your service definitions under the services key, or omit the version key and place your service definitions at the root of the file to use version 1.
For more on the Compose file format versions, see https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/
I have the following setting:
$> docker-compose --version
docker-compose version 1.8.0, build unknown
$> docker --version
Docker version 17.12.0-ce, build c97c6d6
$> uname -r
4.9.0-4-amd64
$> lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 9.3 (stretch)
Release: 9.3
Codename: stretch
I need to use version 2.1 because I am using the healthcheck. Any ideas why this is complaining?

Answer 1

adding this because i ran into the same error on Ubuntu.
For me, it had nothing to do with my Compose version despite what the error message says; i just had to run with sudo. so
sudo docker-compose up

Answer 2

Compose files Version 2.1 are supported by Docker Compose version 1.9.0+. And you have docker-compose version 1.8.0. To upgrade docker-compose you can run following commands:
If installed via apt-get:
sudo apt-get remove docker-compose
If installed via curl:
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
If installed via pip:
pip uninstall docker-compose
Then find the newest version on the release page at GitHub or by curling the API and extracting the version from the response using grep:
VERSION=$(curl --silent https://api.github.com/repos/docker/compose/releases/latest | grep -Po '"tag_name": "\K.*\d')
Finally, download to your $PATH-accessible location and set permissions:
DESTINATION=/usr/bin/docker-compose
sudo curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/${VERSION}/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m) -o $DESTINATION
sudo chmod 755 $DESTINATION

Answer 3

Following the link to details about versions, you'll find:
Version 2.1
An upgrade of version 2 that introduces new parameters only available
with Docker Engine version 1.12.0+. Version 2.1 files are supported by
Compose 1.9.0+.
https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-versioning/#version-21
You'll need to upgrade your docker-compose install to support the 2.1 file version. https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/

Answer 4

I was getting this error when I was trying the command docker-compose up with the docker compose version 3. Then I run the command to check the docker version docker version, which result the below output.
PS C:\SVenu\M4Movie\Api\Api> docker version
Client:
Version: 18.03.1-ce
API version: 1.37
Go version: go1.9.5
Git commit: 9ee9f40
Built: Thu Apr 26 07:12:48 2018
OS/Arch: windows/amd64
Experimental: false
Orchestrator: swarm
So my version is 18.03, which is the latest one for now. So I moved to this link to check the compose file version which supports this engine. Then changed my docker compose version to 3.6.
version: '3.6'
Everything was working fine after that.

Answer 5

Installation of a new version of Docker Compose helped me to fix this error. See official documentation.