The repository.catalog file can be found inside the .jfrog directory within Docker local repositories. It contains a JSON object that includes a list of the images' names within the repository.
To view the file's content, you can execute the following curl command:
curl -u<username with the appropriate permissions>:<password> http://<artifactory_hostname>/artifactory/api/docker/<docker repository name>/v2/_catalog
Generally, these files only contain a list of the images in the repository. For instance:
{ "repositories" : [ "alpine", "hello-world", "mongo" ] }
Refer to this Docker documentation, and the List Docker Repositories REST API for more information.
It's important to note that when downloading the Docker local repository, the repository.catalog file will not be included in the downloaded content. However, it's safe to ignore this file since it is automatically generated when running the GET /api/docker/docker-local/v2/_catalog API command or when new package uploaded.