distribution/docs/deploying.md

page_title: Deploying a registry service page_description: Explains how to deploy a registry service page_keywords: registry, service, images, repository

Deploying a registry service

This section explains how to deploy a Docker Registry Service either privately for your own company or publicly for other users. For example, your company may require a private registry to support your continuous integration (CI) system as it builds new releases or test servers. Alternatively, your company may have a large number of products or services with images you wish to server in a branded manner.

Docker's public registry maintains a default registry image to assist you in the deployment process. This registry image is sufficient for running local tests but is insufficient for production. For production you should configure and build your own custom registry image from the docker/distribution code.

Simple example with the official image

In this section, you create a local registry using Docker's official image. You push an image to, and then pull the same image from, the registry. This a good exercise for understanding the basic interactions a client has with a local registry.

1. Install Docker.

2. Run the hello-world image from the Docker public registry.

    $ docker run hello-world
   

   The run command automatically pulls the image from Docker's official images.

3. Start a registry service on your localhost.

    $ docker run -p 5000:5000 registry
   

   This starts a registry on your DOCKER_HOST running on port 5000.

4. List your images.

     $ docker images
     REPOSITORY     TAG     IMAGE ID      CREATED       VIRTUAL SIZE
     registry       2.0     bbf0b6ffe923  3 days ago    545.1 MB
     golang         1.4     121a93c90463  5 days ago    514.9 MB
     hello-world    latest  e45a5af57b00  3 months ago  910 B
   

   Your list should include a hello-world image from the earlier run.

5. Retag the hello-world image for your local repoistory.

    $ docker tag hello-world:latest localhost:5000/hello-mine:latest
   

   The command labels a hello-world:latest using a new tag in the [REGISTRYHOST/]NAME[:TAG] format. The REGISTRYHOST is this case is localhost. In a Mac OSX environment, you'd substitute $(boot2docker ip):5000 for the localhost.

6. List your new image.

     $ docker images
     REPOSITORY                  TAG          IMAGE ID      CREATED       VIRTUAL SIZE
     registry                    2.0     bbf0b6ffe923  3 days ago    545.1 MB
     golang                      1.4     121a93c90463  5 days ago    514.9 MB
     hello-world                 latest  e45a5af57b00  3 months ago  910 B		 
     localhost:5000/hello-mine   latest  ef5a5gf57b01  3 months ago  910 B
   

   You should see your new image in your listing.

7. Push this new image to your local registry.

    $ docker push localhost:5000/hello-mine:latest
   

8. Remove all the unused images from your local environment:

    $ docker rmi -f $(docker images -q -a )
   

   This command is for illustrative purposes; removing the image forces any run to pull from a registry rather than a local cache. If you run docker images after this you should not see any instance of hello-world or hello-mine in your images list.

     $ docker images
     REPOSITORY      TAG      IMAGE ID      CREATED       VIRTUAL SIZE
     registry         2.0     bbf0b6ffe923  3 days ago    545.1 MB
     golang           1.4     121a93c90463  5 days ago    514.9 MB
   

9. Try running hello-mine.

    $ docker run hello-mine
    Unable to find image 'hello-mine:latest' locally
    Pulling repository hello-mine
    FATA[0001] Error: image library/hello-mine:latest not found 
   

   The run command fails because your new image doesn't exist in the Docker public registry.

10. Now, try running the image but specifying the image's registry:

     $ docker run localhost:5000/hello-mine
    

    If you run docker images after this you'll fine a hello-mine instance.

Making Docker's official registry image production ready

Docker's official image is for simple tests or debugging. Its configuration is unsuitable for most production instances. For example, any client with access to the server's IP can push and pull images to it. See the next section for information on making this image production ready.

Understand production deployment

When deploying a registry for a production deployment you should consider these factors:

backend storage	Where should you store the images?
access and/or authentication	Do users should have full or controlled access? This can depend on whether you are serving images to the public or internally to your company only.
debugging	When problems or issues arise, do you have the means of solving them. Logs are useful as is reporting to see trends.
caching	Quickly retrieving images can be crucial if you are relying on images for tests, builds, or other automated systems.

You can configure your registry features to adjust for these factors. You do this by specifying options on the command line or, more typically, by writing a registry configuration file. The configuration file is in YAML format.

Docker's official repository image it is preconfigured using the following configuration file:

version: 0.1
log:
  level: debug
  fields:
    service: registry
    environment: development
storage:
  cache:
      layerinfo: inmemory
  filesystem:
      rootdirectory: /tmp/registry-dev
http:
  addr: :5000
  secret: asecretforlocaldevelopment
  debug:
      addr: localhost:5001
redis:
  addr: localhost:6379
  pool:
    maxidle: 16
    maxactive: 64
    idletimeout: 300s
  dialtimeout: 10ms
  readtimeout: 10ms
  writetimeout: 10ms
notifications:
  endpoints:
      - name: local-8082
        url: http://localhost:5003/callback
        headers:
           Authorization: [Bearer <an example token>]
        timeout: 1s
        threshold: 10
        backoff: 1s
        disabled: true
      - name: local-8083
        url: http://localhost:8083/callback
        timeout: 1s
        threshold: 10
        backoff: 1s
        disabled: true

This configuration is very basic and you can see it would present some problems in a production. For example, the http section details the configuration for the HTTP server that hosts the registry. The server is not using even the most minimal transport layer security (TLS). Let's configure that in the next section.

Configure TLS on a registry server

In this section, you configure TLS on the server to enable communication through the https protocol. Enabling TLS on the server is the minimum layer of security recommended for running a registry behind a corporate firewall. The easiest way to do this is to build your own registry image.

Download the registry source and generated certificates

1. Download the registry source.

   Alternatively, use the git clone command if you are more comfortable with that.

2. Unpack the the downloaded package into a local directory.

   The package creates a distribution directory.

3. Change to the root of the new distribution directory.

    $ cd distribution
   

4. Make a certs subdirectory.

    $ mkdir certs
   

5. Use SSL to generate some self-signed certificates.

    $ openssl req \
    		 -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout certs/domain.key \
    		 -x509 -days 365 -out certs/domain.crt
   

Add the certificates to the image

In this section, you copy the certifications from your certs directory into your base image.

1. Edit the Dockerfile and add a CERTS_PATH environment variable.

    ENV CERTS_PATH  /etc/docker/registry/certs
   

2. Add a line to make the CERTS_PATH in the filesystem.

    RUN mkdir -v $CERTS_PATH
   

3. Add RUN instructions to hard link your new certifications into this path:

    RUN cp -lv ./certs/domain.crt $CERTS_PATH
    RUN cp -lv ./certs/domain.key $CERTS_PATH
   
    This copies your certifications into your container.
   

4. Save your work.

   At this point your Dockerfile should look like the following:

    FROM golang:1.4
   
    ENV CONFIG_PATH /etc/docker/registry/config.yml
    ENV CERTS_PATH	/etc/docker/registry/certs
    ENV DISTRIBUTION_DIR /go/src/github.com/docker/distribution
    ENV GOPATH $DISTRIBUTION_DIR/Godeps/_workspace:$GOPATH
   
    WORKDIR $DISTRIBUTION_DIR
    COPY . $DISTRIBUTION_DIR
    RUN make PREFIX=/go clean binaries
    RUN mkdir -pv "$(dirname $CONFIG_PATH)"
    RUN mkdir -v $CERTS_PATH
    RUN cp -lv ./certs/domain.crt $CERTS_PATH
    RUN cp -lv ./certs/domain.key $CERTS_PATH
    RUN cp -lv ./cmd/registry/config.yml $CONFIG_PATH
   

5. Before you close the Dockerfile look for an instruction to copy the config.yml file.

    RUN cp -lv ./cmd/registry/config.yml $CONFIG_PATH
   

   This is the default registry configuration file. You'll need to edit the file to add TLS.

Add TLS to the registry configuration

1. Edit the ./cmd/registry/config.yml file.

    $ vi ./cmd/registry/config.yml 
   

2. Locate the http block.

    http:
    		addr: :5000
    		secret: asecretforlocaldevelopment
    		debug:
    				addr: localhost:5001
   

3. Add a tls block for the server's self-signed certificates:

    http:
    		addr: :5000
    		secret: asecretforlocaldevelopment
    		debug:
    				addr: localhost:5001
    		tls:
    			certificate: /etc/docker/registry/certs/domain.crt
    			key: /etc/docker/registry/certs/domain.key	
   

   You provide the paths to the certificates in the container. If you want two-way authentication across the layer, you can add an optional clientcas section.

4. Save and close the file.

Run your new image

1. Build your registry image.

    $ docker build -t secure_registry .
   

2. Run your new image.

    $ docker run -p 5000:5000 secure_registry
   
    Watch the messages at startup. You should see that `tls` is running:
   
    ubuntu@ip-172-31-34-181:~/repos/distribution$ docker run -p 5000:5000 secure_registry
    time="2015-04-05T23:56:47Z" level=info msg="endpoint local-8082 disabled, skipping" app.id=3dd802ad-3bd4-4413-b56d-90c4acff41c7 environment=development service=registry 
    time="2015-04-05T23:56:47Z" level=info msg="endpoint local-8083 disabled, skipping" app.id=3dd802ad-3bd4-4413-b56d-90c4acff41c7 environment=development service=registry 
    time="2015-04-05T23:56:47Z" level=info msg="using inmemory layerinfo cache" app.id=3dd802ad-3bd4-4413-b56d-90c4acff41c7 environment=development service=registry 
    time="2015-04-05T23:56:47Z" level=info msg="listening on :5000, tls" app.id=3dd802ad-3bd4-4413-b56d-90c4acff41c7 environment=development service=registry 
    time="2015-04-05T23:56:47Z" level=info msg="debug server listening localhost:5001" 
    2015/04/05 23:57:23 http: TLS handshake error from 172.17.42.1:52057: remote error: unknown certificate authority
   

3. Use curl to verify that you can connect over https.

    $ curl https://localhost:5000
   

Adding a middleware configuration

This section describes how to configure storage middleware in a registry. Middleware allows the registry to server layers via a content delivery network (CDN). This is useful for reducing requests to the storage layer.

Currently, the registry supports Amazon Cloudfront. You can only use Cloudfront in conjunction with the S3 storage driver.

Parameter	Description
name	The storage middleware name. Currently cloudfront is an accepted value.
disabled	Set to false to easily disable the middleware.
options:	A set of key/value options to configure the middleware. baseurl: The Cloudfront base URL. privatekey: The location of your AWS private key on the filesystem. keypairid: The ID of your Cloudfront keypair. duration: The duration in minutes for which the URL is valid. Default is 20.

The following example illustrates these values:

middleware:
    storage:
        - name: cloudfront
          disabled: false
          options:
             baseurl: http://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net
             privatekey: /path/to/asecret.pem
             keypairid: asecret
             duration: 60

Note

: Cloudfront keys exist separately to other AWS keys. See [the documentation on AWS credentials](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSSecurityCredentials/1.0/ AboutAWSCredentials.html#KeyPairs) for more information.

**TODO(stevvooe): Need a "best practice" configuration overview. Perhaps, we can point to a documentation section.