% CONTAINERS-REGISTRIES.CONF(5) System-wide registry configuration file % Brent Baude % Aug 2017 # NAME containers-registries.conf - Syntax of System Registry Configuration File # DESCRIPTION The CONTAINERS-REGISTRIES configuration file is a system-wide configuration file for container image registries. The file format is TOML. Container engines will use the `$HOME/.config/containers/registries.conf` if it exists, otherwise they will use `/etc/containers/registries.conf` # FORMATS ### GLOBAL SETTINGS `unqualified-search-registries` : An array of _host_[`:`_port_] registries to try when pulling an unqualified image, in order. ### NAMESPACED `[[registry]]` SETTINGS The bulk of the configuration is represented as an array of `[[registry]]` TOML tables; the settings may therefore differ among different registries as well as among different namespaces/repositories within a registry. #### Choosing a `[[registry]]` TOML table Given an image name, a single `[[registry]]` TOML table is chosen based on its `prefix` field. `prefix` : A prefix of the user-specified image name, i.e. using one of the following formats: - _host_[`:`_port_] - _host_[`:`_port_]`/`_namespace_[`/`_namespace_…] - _host_[`:`_port_]`/`_namespace_[`/`_namespace_…]`/`_repo_ - _host_[`:`_port_]`/`_namespace_[`/`_namespace_…]`/`_repo_(`:`_tag|`@`_digest_) The user-specified image name must start with the specified `prefix` (and continue with the appropriate separator) for a particular `[[registry]]` TOML table to be considered; (only) the TOML table with the longest match is used. As a special case, the `prefix` field can be missing; if so, it defaults to the value of the `location` field (described below). #### Per-namespace settings `insecure` : `true` or `false`. By default, container runtimes require TLS when retrieving images from a registry. If `insecure` is set to `true`, unencrypted HTTP as well as TLS connections with untrusted certificates are allowed. `blocked` : `true` or `false`. If `true`, pulling images with matching names is forbidden. #### Remapping and mirroring registries The user-specified image reference is, primarily, a "logical" image name, always used for naming the image. By default, the image reference also directly specifies the registry and repository to use, but the following options can be used to redirect the underlying accesses to different registry servers or locations (e.g. to support configurations with no access to the internet without having to change `Dockerfile`s, or to add redundancy). `location` : Accepts the same format as the `prefix` field, and specifies the physical location of the `prefix`-rooted namespace. By default, this equal to `prefix` (in which case `prefix` can be omitted and the `[[registry]]` TOML table can only specify `location`). Example: Given ``` prefix = "example.com/foo" location = "internal-registry-for-example.net/bar" ``` requests for the image `example.com/foo/myimage:latest` will actually work with the `internal-registry-for-example.net/bar/myimage:latest` image. `mirror` : An array of TOML tables specifying (possibly-partial) mirrors for the `prefix`-rooted namespace. The mirrors are attempted in the specified order; the first one that can be contacted and contains the image will be used (and if none of the mirrors contains the image, the primary location specified by the `registry.location` field, or using the unmodified user-specified reference, is tried last). Each TOML table in the `mirror` array can contain the following fields, with the same semantics as if specified in the `[[registry]]` TOML table directly: - `location` - `insecure` `mirror-by-digest-only` : `true` or `false`. If `true`, mirrors will only be used during pulling if the image reference includes a digest. Referencing an image by digest ensures that the same is always used (whereas referencing an image by a tag may cause different registries to return different images if the tag mapping is out of sync). Note that if this is `true`, images referenced by a tag will only use the primary registry, failing if that registry is not accessible. *Note*: Redirection and mirrors are currently processed only when reading images, not when pushing to a registry; that may change in the future. #### Normalization of docker.io references The Docker Hub `docker.io` is handled in a special way: every push and pull operation gets internally normalized with `/library` if no other specific namespace is defined (for example on `docker.io/namespace/image`). (Note that the above-described normalization happens to match the behavior of Docker.) This means that a pull of `docker.io/alpine` will be internally translated to `docker.io/library/alpine`. A pull of `docker.io/user/alpine` will not be rewritten because this is already the correct remote path. Therefore, to remap or mirror the `docker.io` images in the (implied) `/library` namespace (or that whole namespace), the prefix and location fields in this configuration file must explicitly include that `/library` namespace. For example `prefix = "docker.io/library/alpine"` and not `prefix = "docker.io/alpine"`. The latter would match the `docker.io/alpine/*` repositories but not the `docker.io/[library/]alpine` image). ### EXAMPLE ``` unqualified-search-registries = ["example.com"] [[registry]] prefix = "example.com/foo" insecure = false blocked = false location = "internal-registry-for-example.com/bar" [[registry.mirror]] location = "example-mirror-0.local/mirror-for-foo" [[registry.mirror]] location = "example-mirror-1.local/mirrors/foo" insecure = true ``` Given the above, a pull of `example.com/foo/image:latest` will try: 1. `example-mirror-0.local/mirror-for-foo/image:latest` 2. `example-mirror-1.local/mirrors/foo/image:latest` 3. `internal-registry-for-example.net/bar/image:latest` in order, and use the first one that exists. # NOTE: RISK OF USING UNQUALIFIED IMAGE NAMES We recommend always using fully qualified image names including the registry server (full dns name), namespace, image name, and tag (e.g., registry.redhat.io/ubi8/ubi:latest). When using short names, there is always an inherent risk that the image being pulled could be spoofed. For example, a user wants to pull an image named `foobar` from a registry and expects it to come from myregistry.com. If myregistry.com is not first in the search list, an attacker could place a different `foobar` image at a registry earlier in the search list. The user would accidentally pull and run the attacker's image and code rather than the intended content. We recommend only adding registries which are completely trusted, i.e. registries which don't allow unknown or anonymous users to create accounts with arbitrary names. This will prevent an image from being spoofed, squatted or otherwise made insecure. If it is necessary to use one of these registries, it should be added at the end of the list. It is recommended to use fully-qualified images for pulling as the destination registry is unambiguous. Pulling by digest (i.e., quay.io/repository/name@digest) further eliminates the ambiguity of tags. # SEE ALSO containers-certs.d(5) # HISTORY Dec 2019, Warning added for unqualified image names by Tom Sweeney Mar 2019, Added additional configuration format by Sascha Grunert Aug 2018, Renamed to containers-registries.conf(5) by Valentin Rothberg Jun 2018, Updated by Tom Sweeney Aug 2017, Originally compiled by Brent Baude