I (re)installed Rancher Desktop v1.4.1 on an x86_64 MacBook running macOS Monterey 12.4. Installing Rancher Desktop successfully installed docker but it's as if it hasn't installed docker*d* and is not starting dockerd when I open Rancher Desktop [1]. Rancher Desktop appears to claim that dockerd is running (see attached image) and doesn't have any obvious error/warning messages in the UI but it doesn't look like it actually is [1]. Any help debugging or pointing me towards documentation, etc. is greatly appreciated. [1]

$ docker run ubuntu echo hi  # Simple test
docker: Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?.
$ dockerd
-bash: dockerd: command not found
$ which dockerd
$ which docker
/Users/mikel.mcdaniel/.rd/bin/docker
$ ls /Users/mikel.mcdaniel/.rd/bin
docker				docker-compose			docker-credential-osxkeychain	kubectl				nerdctl
docker-buildx			docker-credential-ecr-login	helm				kuberlr				rdctl
$ ps -e | grep -i docker
 4243 ttys004    0:00.00 grep -i docker
$ ls /var/run/*docker*
ls: /var/run/*docker*: No such file or directory
$

Did you disable administrative access (sudo)? If you did, then RD can't create the socket in the default location and you have to switch the docker context to use it:

docker context use rancher-desktop

Running

$ docker context use rancher-desktop

fixed it. Thanks Jan!