Deploy a self-hosted Docker registry

Introduction

In this tutorial, How to Deploy a self-hosted Docker registry with self-signed certificates. How to access it from a remote machine.

To deploy a self-hosted Docker registry, you can use the official Docker Registry image.

Here’s a step-by-step Deploy a self-hosted Docker registry guide to help you.

Prepare your directories

I will create them on my user home directory, but you can place them in any directory.

mkdir ~/registry

Create subdirectories in the registry directory.

mkdir ~/registry/{certs,auth}

Go into the certs directory.

cd ~/registry/certs

Create a private key

openssl genrsa 1024 > devopsroles.com.key
chmod 400 devopsroles.com.key

The output terminal is as below:

Create a docker_register.cnf file with the content below:

nano docker_register.cnf

In that file, paste the following contents.

[req]

default_bits  = 2048

distinguished_name = req_distinguished_name

req_extensions = req_ext

x509_extensions = v3_req

prompt = no

[req_distinguished_name]

countryName = XX

stateOrProvinceName = N/A

localityName = N/A

organizationName = Self-signed certificate

commonName = 120.0.0.1: Self-signed certificate

[req_ext]

subjectAltName = @alt_names

[v3_req]

subjectAltName = @alt_names

[alt_names]


IP.1 = 192.168.3.7

Note: Make sure to change IP.1 to match the IP address of your hosting server.

Save and close the file.

Generate the key with:

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha1 -days 365 -key devopsroles.com.key -out devopsroles.com.crt -config docker_register.cnf

Go into auth directory.

cd ../auth

Generate an htpasswd file

docker run --rm --entrypoint htpasswd registry:2.7.0 -Bbn USERNAME PASSWORD > htpasswd

Where USERNAME is a unique username and PASSWORD is a unique/strong password.

The output terminal is the picture below:

Now, Deploy a self-hosted Docker registry

Change back to the base registry directory.

cd ~/registry

Deploy the registry container with the command below:

docker run -d \

--restart=always \

--name registry \

-v `pwd`/auth:/auth \

-v `pwd`/certs:/certs \

-v `pwd`/certs:/certs \

-e REGISTRY_AUTH=htpasswd \

-e REGISTRY_AUTH_HTPASSWD_REALM="Registry Realm" \

-e REGISTRY_AUTH_HTPASSWD_PATH=/auth/htpasswd \

-e REGISTRY_HTTP_ADDR=0.0.0.0:443 \

-e REGISTRY_HTTP_TLS_CERTIFICATE=/certs/devopsroles.com.crt \

-e REGISTRY_HTTP_TLS_KEY=/certs/devopsroles.com.key \

-p 443:443 \

registry:2.7.0

Now, you can access it from the local machine. however, you want to access it from a remote system. we need to add a ca.crt file. you need the copy the contents of the ~/registry/certs/devopsroles.com.crt file.

Login into your second machine

Create folder

sudo mkdir -p /etc/docker/certs.d/SERVER:443

where SERVER is the IP address of the machine hosting the registry.

Create the new file with:

sudo nano /etc/docker/certs.d/SERVER:443/ca.crt

paste the contents from devopsroles.com.crt ( from the hosting server) save and close the file.

How to do login into the new registry

From the second machine.

docker login -u USER -p https://SERVER:443

Where USER is the user you added when you generated the htpasswd file above.

Conclusion

You have successfully deployed a self-hosted Docker registry. You can now use it to store and share your Docker images within your network. I hope will this your helpful. Thank you for reading the DevopsRoles page!