FAQ
It only takes a few minutes to set up your own Docker registry in Artifactory to manage all your Docker images. You can exercise fine-grain access control on the Docker registries you create, to manage secure private repositories.
To create a Docker registry, just create a new repository in Artifactory and specify it as a Docker package type, along with a repository key by which it will be addressed. When the Docker repository is created, it can be accessed using the native Docker APIs or the Docker client to push, tag, and pull images.
All repositories in Artifactory can be as open or as restricted as you need them to be. You establish what user groups can and cannot access certain repositories by setting permission targets that specify what actions can be performed by those users.
To create a public Docker repository, an instance of Artifactory that can be addressed widely on the network can host a Docker repository with unrestricted permissions. But if you need to, you can limit usage, such as allowing only certain groups to push and tag Docker images while permitting anyone to pull any of the images for inclusion or deployment.
A remote Docker repository in Artifactory serves as a caching proxy for a registry managed at a remote URL such as on Docker Hub. A remote repository can even proxy a Docker repository managed at a remote site by another instance of Artifactory.
A remote Docker repository in Artifactory helps assure consistent and reliable access to an external registry through a fast, local cache, offering a safeguard against resource or connectivity outages.
Because a remote repository is a proxy of another registry, you cannot push Docker images directly to it. Instead, you must push your Docker image to the Docker registry at the remote URL. You can then pull that Docker image, and any others hosted by that registry, through the remote Docker repository in Artifactory.
Docker containers provide a way to encapsulate an application or microservice for portability and control. By isolating an application and its dependencies from the underlying operating system and other apps, they can run efficiently with fewer sources than VMs.
With Artifactory, you can host an unlimited number of local Docker repositories while controlling access across users and teams. With native support for the full set of Docker APIs you can deploy your containers directly from Artifactory to runtime environments using the Docker client or through an orchestration tool like Kubernetes. And you can use multiple Docker repositories to promote immutable containers through your software development and testing pipeline, all the way into production.
You can also proxy external Docker repositories in remote repositories in Artifactory for consistent, reliable access to sources like Docker Hub through caching of downloaded images. And you can combine these with local repositories into a virtual repository to access everything you need through a single URL.
