Cannot connect to the Docker daemon. Is 'docker -d' running on this host?

How about launching the daemon

sudo service docker start

should do the trick.

Or

sudo docker -d

If you can verify that the docker daemon is running then it may be that your user is not allowed to access docker.

To do this add yourself to the docker group.

sudo usermod -aG docker <userid>

Remember to do a re-login or otherwise apply/activate the new group permission.

newgrp docker