Get UBI container image source code

Access the source code for UBI images by downloading the corresponding source container image. Use Skopeo to retrieve and unpack these images to inspect the underlying source.

Before you begin

  • The container-tools meta-package is installed.

About this task

Source code is available for all Red Hat UBI-based images in the form of downloadable container images. Source container images cannot be run, despite being packaged as containers. To install Red Hat source container images on your system, use the skopeo command, not the podman pull command.

Source container images are named based on the binary containers they represent. For example, for a particular standard RHEL UBI 10 container registry.access.redhat.com/ubi10:8.1-397 append -source to get the source container image (registry.access.redhat.com/ubi10:8.1-397-source).

Procedure

  1. Use the skopeo copy command to copy the source container image to a local directory: 
    $ skopeo copy \
docker://registry.access.redhat.com/ubi10:8.1-397-source \
dir:$HOME/TEST
     
    ...
Copying blob 477bc8106765 done
Copying blob c438818481d3 done
...
Writing manifest to image destination
Storing signatures
  2. Use the skopeo inspect command to inspect the source container image: 
    $ skopeo inspect dir:$HOME/TEST
     
    {
    "Digest": "sha256:7ab721ef3305271bbb629a6db065c59bbeb87bc53e7cbf88e2953a1217ba7322",
    "RepoTags": [],
    "Created": "2020-02-11T12:14:18.612461174Z",
    "DockerVersion": "",
    "Labels": null,
    "Architecture": "amd64",
    "Os": "linux",
    "Layers": [
        "sha256:1ae73d938ab9f11718d0f6a4148eb07d38ac1c0a70b1d03e751de8bf3c2c87fa",
        "sha256:9fe966885cb8712c47efe5ecc2eaa0797a0d5ffb8b119c4bd4b400cc9e255421",
        "sha256:61b2527a4b836a4efbb82dfd449c0556c0f769570a6c02e112f88f8bbcd90166",
        ...
        "sha256:cc56c782b513e2bdd2cc2af77b69e13df4ab624ddb856c4d086206b46b9b9e5f",
        "sha256:dcf9396fdada4e6c1ce667b306b7f08a83c9e6b39d0955c481b8ea5b2a465b32",
        "sha256:feb6d2ae252402ea6a6fca8a158a7d32c7e4572db0e6e5a5eab15d4e0777951e"
    ],
    "Env": null
}
  3. Unpack all the content: 
    $ cd $HOME/TEST
     
    $ for f in $(ls); do tar xvf $f; done
  4. Check the results: 
    $ find blobs/ rpm_dir/
     
    blobs/
blobs/sha256
blobs/sha256/10914f1fff060ce31388f5ab963871870535aaaa551629f5ad182384d60fdf82
rpm_dir/
rpm_dir/gzip-1.9-4.el8.src.rpm

    If the results are correct, the image is ready to be used.

    Note
    It could take several hours after a container image is released for its associated source container to become available.

    For more information, see the skopeo-copy (1) and skopeo-inspect(1) man pages on your system.