If you are using a released version of Kubernetes, you should refer to the docs that go with that version.
The latest release of this document can be found [here](http://releases.k8s.io/release-1.1/docs/user-guide/images.md).Documentation for other releases can be found at releases.k8s.io.
Each container in a pod has its own image. Currently, the only type of image supported is a Docker Image.
You create your Docker image and push it to a registry before referring to it in a Kubernetes pod.
The image
property of a container supports the same syntax as the docker
command does, including private registries and tags.
Table of Contents
The default pull policy is IfNotPresent
which causes the Kubelet to not
pull an image if it already exists. If you would like to always force a pull
you must set a pull image policy of Always
or specify a :latest
tag on
your image.
If you did not specify tag of your image, it will be assumed as :latest
, with
pull image policy of Always
correspondingly.
Private registries may require keys to read images from them. Credentials can be provided in several ways:
- Using Google Container Registry
- Per-cluster
- automatically configured on Google Compute Engine or Google Container Engine
- all pods can read the project's private registry
- Configuring Nodes to Authenticate to a Private Registry
- all pods can read any configured private registries
- requires node configuration by cluster administrator
- Pre-pulling Images
- all pods can use any images cached on a node
- requires root access to all nodes to setup
- Specifying ImagePullSecrets on a Pod
- only pods which provide own keys can access the private registry Each option is described in more detail below.
Kubernetes has native support for the Google Container Registry (GCR), when running on Google Compute Engine (GCE). If you are running your cluster on GCE or Google Container Engine (GKE), simply use the full image name (e.g. gcr.io/my_project/image:tag).
All pods in a cluster will have read access to images in this registry.
The kubelet will authenticate to GCR using the instance's
Google service account. The service account on the instance
will have a https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.read_only
,
so it can pull from the project's GCR, but not push.
Kubernetes has native support for the AWS EC2 Container Registry, when nodes are AWS instances.
Simply use the full image name (e.g. ACCOUNT.dkr.ecr.REGION.amazonaws.com/imagename:tag
)
in the Pod definition.
All users of the cluster who can create pods will be able to run pods that use any of the images in the ECR registry.
The kubelet will fetch and periodically refresh ECR credentials. It needs the
ecr:GetAuthorizationToken
permission to do this.
Note: if you are running on Google Container Engine (GKE), there will already be a .dockercfg
on each node
with credentials for Google Container Registry. You cannot use this approach.
Note: this approach is suitable if you can control node configuration. It will not work reliably on GCE, and any other cloud provider that does automatic node replacement.
Docker stores keys for private registries in the $HOME/.dockercfg
or $HOME/.docker/config.json
file. If you put this
in the $HOME
of user root
on a kubelet, then docker will use it.
Here are the recommended steps to configuring your nodes to use a private registry. In this example, run these on your desktop/laptop:
- run
docker login [server]
for each set of credentials you want to use. This updates$HOME/.docker/config.json
. - view
$HOME/.docker/config.json
in an editor to ensure it contains just the credentials you want to use. - get a list of your nodes, for example:
- if you want the names:
nodes=$(kubectl get nodes -o jsonpath='{range.items[*].metadata}{.name} {end}')
- if you want to get the IPs:
nodes=$(kubectl get nodes -o jsonpath='{range .items[*].status.addresses[?(@.type=="ExternalIP")]}{.address} {end}')
- if you want the names:
- copy your local
.docker/config.json
to the home directory of root on each node.- for example:
for n in $nodes; do scp ~/.docker/config.json root@$n:/root/.docker/config.json; done
- for example:
Verify by creating a pod that uses a private image, e.g.:
$ cat <<EOF > /tmp/private-image-test-1.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: private-image-test-1
spec:
containers:
- name: uses-private-image
image: $PRIVATE_IMAGE_NAME
imagePullPolicy: Always
command: [ "echo", "SUCCESS" ]
EOF
$ kubectl create -f /tmp/private-image-test-1.yaml
pods/private-image-test-1
$
If everything is working, then, after a few moments, you should see:
$ kubectl logs private-image-test-1
SUCCESS
If it failed, then you will see:
$ kubectl describe pods/private-image-test-1 | grep "Failed"
Fri, 26 Jun 2015 15:36:13 -0700 Fri, 26 Jun 2015 15:39:13 -0700 19 {kubelet node-i2hq} spec.containers{uses-private-image} failed Failed to pull image "user/privaterepo:v1": Error: image user/privaterepo:v1 not found
You must ensure all nodes in the cluster have the same .docker/config.json
. Otherwise, pods will run on
some nodes and fail to run on others. For example, if you use node autoscaling, then each instance
template needs to include the .docker/config.json
or mount a drive that contains it.
All pods will have read access to images in any private registry once private
registry keys are added to the .docker/config.json
.
This was tested with a private docker repository as of 26 June with Kubernetes version v0.19.3. It should also work for a private registry such as quay.io, but that has not been tested.
Note: if you are running on Google Container Engine (GKE), there will already be a .dockercfg
on each node
with credentials for Google Container Registry. You cannot use this approach.
Note: this approach is suitable if you can control node configuration. It will not work reliably on GCE, and any other cloud provider that does automatic node replacement.
Be default, the kubelet will try to pull each image from the specified registry.
However, if the imagePullPolicy
property of the container is set to IfNotPresent
or Never
,
then a local image is used (preferentially or exclusively, respectively).
If you want to rely on pre-pulled images as a substitute for registry authentication, you must ensure all nodes in the cluster have the same pre-pulled images.
This can be used to preload certain images for speed or as an alternative to authenticating to a private registry.
All pods will have read access to any pre-pulled images.
Note: This approach is currently the recommended approach for GKE, GCE, and any cloud-providers where node creation is automated.
Kubernetes supports specifying registry keys on a pod.
First, create a .docker/config.json
, such as by running docker login <registry.domain>
.
Then put the resulting .docker/config.json
file into a secret resource. For example:
$ docker login
Username: janedoe
Password: ●●●●●●●●●●●
Email: jdoe@example.com
WARNING: login credentials saved in /Users/jdoe/.docker/config.json.
Login Succeeded
$ echo $(cat ~/.docker/config.json)
{ "https://index.docker.io/v1/": { "auth": "ZmFrZXBhc3N3b3JkMTIK", "email": "jdoe@example.com" } }
$ cat ~/.docker/config.json | base64
eyAiaHR0cHM6Ly9pbmRleC5kb2NrZXIuaW8vdjEvIjogeyAiYXV0aCI6ICJabUZyWlhCaGMzTjNiM0prTVRJSyIsICJlbWFpbCI6ICJqZG9lQGV4YW1wbGUuY29tIiB9IH0K
$ cat > /tmp/image-pull-secret.yaml <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: myregistrykey
data:
.dockerconfigjson: eyAiaHR0cHM6Ly9pbmRleC5kb2NrZXIuaW8vdjEvIjogeyAiYXV0aCI6ICJabUZyWlhCaGMzTjNiM0prTVRJSyIsICJlbWFpbCI6ICJqZG9lQGV4YW1wbGUuY29tIiB9IH0K
type: kubernetes.io/dockerconfigjson
EOF
$ kubectl create -f /tmp/image-pull-secret.yaml
secrets/myregistrykey
If you get the error message error: no objects passed to create
, it may mean the base64 encoded string is invalid.
If you get an error message like Secret "myregistrykey" is invalid: data[.dockerconfigjson]: invalid value ...
it means
the data was successfully un-base64 encoded, but could not be parsed as a .docker/config.json
file.
This process needs to be done one time per namespace, or to any non-default service accounts you create.
Now, you can create pods which reference that secret by adding an imagePullSecrets
section to a pod definition.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: foo
spec:
containers:
- name: foo
image: janedoe/awesomeapp:v1
imagePullSecrets:
- name: myregistrykey
This needs to be done for each pod that is using a private registry. However, setting of this field can be automated by setting the imagePullSecrets in a serviceAccount resource.
You can use this in conjunction with a per-node .docker/config.json
. The credentials
will be merged. This approach will work on Google Container Engine (GKE).
There are a number of solutions for configuring private registries. Here are some common use cases and suggested solutions.
- Cluster running only non-proprietary (e.g open-source) images. No need to hide images.
- Use public images on the Docker hub.
- no configuration required
- on GCE/GKE, a local mirror is automatically used for improved speed and availability
- Use public images on the Docker hub.
- Cluster running some proprietary images which should be hidden to those outside the company, but
visible to all cluster users.
- Use a hosted private Docker registry
- may be hosted on the Docker Hub, or elsewhere.
- manually configure .docker/config.json on each node as described above
- Or, run an internal private registry behind your firewall with open read access.
- no Kubernetes configuration required
- Or, when on GCE/GKE, use the project's Google Container Registry.
- will work better with cluster autoscaling than manual node configuration
- Or, on a cluster where changing the node configuration is inconvenient, use
imagePullSecrets
.
- Use a hosted private Docker registry
- Cluster with a proprietary images, a few of which require stricter access control
- ensure AlwaysPullImages admission controller is active, otherwise, all Pods potentially have access to all images
- Move sensitive data into a "Secret" resource, instead of packaging it in an image.
- A multi-tenant cluster where each tenant needs own private registry
- ensure AlwaysPullImages admission controller is active, otherwise, all Pods of all tenants potentially have access to all images
- run a private registry with authorization required.
- generate registry credential for each tenant, put into secret, and populate secret to each tenant namespace.
- tenant adds that secret to imagePullSecrets of each namespace.