A private Docker registry allows you to store and manage your Docker images securely. In this guide, we will walk through the steps to set up a private Docker registry on Rocky Linux 8.

Step 1: Update Your System

Begin by ensuring that your system is up to date:

sudo dnf update

Step 2: Install Docker

If you haven't installed Docker yet, you can do so by following these commands:

sudo dnf install -y dnf-utils
sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo
sudo dnf install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

After installation, start and enable Docker:

sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

Step 3: Create a Directory for the Registry

Create a directory to hold your registry data:

mkdir -p ~/docker-registry

Step 4: Run the Docker Registry

Now, you can run the official Docker registry image with the following command:

sudo docker run -d -p 5000:5000 --restart always \
  --name registry \
  -v ~/docker-registry:/var/lib/registry \
  registry:2

Step 5: Test the Private Registry

To verify that your registry is running, you can use the following command:

curl http://localhost:5000/v2/_catalog

This command should return an empty JSON response, indicating that your registry is up and running.

Step 6: Tag and Push an Image

To test your private registry, tag an existing Docker image and push it to your registry. For example, to tag the hello-world image:

sudo docker pull hello-world
sudo docker tag hello-world localhost:5000/hello-world
sudo docker push localhost:5000/hello-world

Step 7: Pull the Image from the Private Registry

You can now pull the image from your private registry using:

sudo docker pull localhost:5000/hello-world

Step 8: Configure Security (Optional)

For production environments, it's recommended to secure your private registry with SSL and authentication. You can use a reverse proxy like Nginx to handle SSL termination and authentication.

Conclusion

You have successfully set up a private Docker registry on Rocky Linux 8. This allows you to manage your Docker images securely and privately.

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