Building and Pushing Images with vSphere Integrated Containers

The current version of vSphere Integrated Containers Engine does not support docker build or docker push. As a consequence, the workflow for developing container images and pushing them to a registry server is slightly different to the workflow in a regular Docker environment.

• You use standard Docker to build, tag, and push a container image to a registry.
• You pull the image from the registry to a vSphere Integrated Containers virtual container host (VCH) to use it.

This topic provides an example of pushing and pulling an image to and from vSphere Integrated Containers Registry. You can use a different private registry server. For simplicity, the example uses the busybox container image instead of building a new image.

Prerequisites

• You have access to an image repository. For example, a project repository must exist in vSphere Integrated Containers Registry and you must have a user account that can access that project repository.
• Configure your Docker client to use the vSphere Integrated Containers Registry certificate. For information about how to pass the registry certificate to the Docker client, see Using vSphere Integrated Containers Registry in Configure the Docker Client for Use with vSphere Integrated Containers.
• You have access to a VCH that the vSphere administrator configured so that it can connect to the registry. For information about how deploy a VCH so that it can access a private registry, see the Private Registry Options section of VCH Deployment Options and Deploy a VCH for Use with vSphere Integrated Containers Registry in vSphere Integrated Containers for vSphere Administrators
• In the example, connections to the registry are secured by TLS, but for simplicity the connection between the Docker client and the VCH is not. As a consequence, the Docker commands to run in the VCH do not include any TLS options. If your VCH uses TLS authentication, adapt the Docker commands accordingly, and use port 2376 instead of 2375 when connecting to the VCH. For information about how to connect a Docker client to a VCH that uses TLS authentication, see Connecting to the VCH in Configure the Docker Client for Use with vSphere Integrated Containers.

Procedure

1. Pull the busybox container image from Docker Hub.

   docker pull busybox

   In a real-world scenario you would build a new container image rather than pulling the busybox image.
2. Tag the image for uploading to the appropriate project repository in vSphere Integrated Containers Registry.

   docker tag busybox:1.26 registry_address/project_name/busybox:1.26 

   If vSphere Integrated Containers Registry listens for connections on a non-default port, include the port number in the registry address.
3. Log in to vSphere Integrated Containers Registry.

   docker login registry_address

4. Push the image from the standard Docker host to vSphere Integrated Containers Registry.

   docker push registry_address/project_name/busybox:1.26 

5. Pull the image from vSphere Integrated Containers Registry into the VCH.

   docker -H vch_address:2375 pull registry_address/project_name/busybox:1.26 

6. List the images that are running in your VCH.

   docker -H vch_address:2375 images

Result

The image that you pulled from vSphere Integrated Containers Registry appears in the list of images that are available in this VCH.

REPOSITORY                                    TAG          IMAGE ID            
registry_address/project_name/busybox    1.26         7e156d496c9f