Running a local Docker registry

Von Carsten

09. Februar 2016

When you’re using Docker extensively, you sometimes need to run your own registry in order to push images around in your local network - or even on your local machine. For that you need a registry where you can push and pull images. With Docker itself, it’s easy to set it up. Here is a small docker-compose.yml which runs a registry and a simple frontend:

registry:
  image: registry:2
  volumes:
  - data:/var/lib/registry
  ports:
  - 5000:5000
frontend:
  image: konradkleine/docker-registry-frontend:v2
  links:
  - registry
  ports:
  - 8080:80
  environment:
  - ENV_DOCKER_REGISTRY_HOST=registry
  - ENV_DOCKER_REGISTRY_PORT=5000

The registry is persisting its data into the directory data, so nothing is lost if you throw away and recreate the container.

Save the file as docker-compose.yml and start it via docker-compose up in the same directory. After that you can open http://localhost:8080 and you see a basic frontend (taken from kwk/docker-registry-frontend).

Now when you push an image to your registry with the following command it becomes visible on the frontend:

docker pull alpine && docker tag alpine localhost:5000/alpine
docker push localhost:5000/alpine

Refresh the registry frontend and you’ll see the new image is available. You can now pull it with the following command:

docker pull localhost:5000/alpine

Have fun!

docker