Chapter 5. Red Hat Quay repository overview


A repository provides a central location for storing a related set of container images. These images can be used to build applications along with their dependencies in a standardized format.

Repositories are organized by namespaces. Each namespace can have multiple repositories. For example, you might have a namespace for your personal projects, one for your company, or one for a specific team within your organization.

Red Hat Quay provides users with access controls for their repositories. Users can make a repository public, meaning that anyone can pull, or download, the images from it, or users can make it private, restricting access to authorized users or teams.

There are multiple ways to create a repository in Red Hat Quay. The following options are available depending on your use case:

  • You can push an image with the relevant podman or docker command.
  • You can use the Red Hat Quay UI.
  • You can use the Red Hat Quay API.
  • For OCI artifacts, for example, a large-language model (LLM) or machine learning application, you can use skopeo or oras to copy the artifact to your repository.

5.1. Creating a repository by using the UI

Use the following procedure to create a repository using the Red Hat Quay UI.

Procedure

Use the following procedure to create a repository using the v2 UI.

Procedure

  1. Click Repositories on the navigation pane.
  2. Click Create Repository.
  3. Select a namespace, for example, quayadmin, and then enter a Repository name, for example, testrepo.

    Important

    Do not use the following words in your repository name: * build * trigger * tag * notification

    When these words are used for repository names, users are unable access the repository, and are unable to permanently delete the repository. Attempting to delete these repositories returns the following error: Failed to delete repository <repository_name>, HTTP404 - Not Found.

  4. Click Create.

    Now, your example repository should populate under the Repositories page.

  5. Optional. Click Settings Repository visibility Make private to set the repository to private.

5.2. Creating a repository by using Podman

With the proper credentials, you can push an image to a repository using Podman that does not yet exist in your Red Hat Quay instance. Pushing an image refers to the process of uploading a container image from your local system or development environment to a container registry like Red Hat Quay. After pushing an image to your registry, a repository is created. If you push an image through the command-line interface (CLI) without first creating a repository on the UI, the created repository is set to Private.

Use the following procedure to create an image repository by pushing an image.

Prerequisites

  • You have download and installed the podman CLI.
  • You have logged into your registry.
  • You have pulled an image, for example, busybox.

Procedure

  1. Pull a sample page from an example registry. For example:

    $ sudo podman pull busybox
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    Example output

    Trying to pull docker.io/library/busybox...
    Getting image source signatures
    Copying blob 4c892f00285e done
    Copying config 22667f5368 done
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
    22667f53682a2920948d19c7133ab1c9c3f745805c14125859d20cede07f11f9
    Copy to Clipboard

  2. Tag the image on your local system with the new repository and image name. For example:

    $ sudo podman tag docker.io/library/busybox quay-server.example.com/quayadmin/busybox:test
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  3. Push the image to the registry. Following this step, you can use your browser to see the tagged image in your repository.

    $ sudo podman push --tls-verify=false quay-server.example.com/quayadmin/busybox:test
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    Example output

    Getting image source signatures
    Copying blob 6b245f040973 done
    Copying config 22667f5368 done
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
    Copy to Clipboard

5.3. Creating a repository by using Skopeo

In some cases, the podman CLI tool is unable to pull certain artifact types, for example, application/x-mlmodel, or other AI/ML artifacts. Attempting to use podman pull with this artifact type results in the following error:

Error: parsing image configuration: unsupported image-specific operation on artifact with type "application/x-mlmodel"
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As an alternative, you can use skopeo copy to copy an artifact from one location to your Red Hat Quay repository.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed the skopeo CLI.
  • You have logged in to a source registry (in this example, \registry.redhat.io) and have a valid authentication file (~/.docker/config.json). Alternatively, you can provide credentials by using the --src-username and --src-password parameters when running a command with the skopeo CLI.
  • You have logged in to your Red Hat Quay repository.
  • Depending on the size of your AI/ML artifact, you might have to Prepare your registry to accept large artifacts.

Procedure

  • Use the skopeo copy command on an artifact to copy the artifact to your Red Hat Quay repository. For example:

    $ sudo skopeo copy --dest-tls-verify=false --all \ 
    1
     
    2
    
      --src-username <source_username> --src-password <source_password> \ 
    3
    
      --src-authfile ~/.docker/config.json \ 
    4
    
      --dest-username <username> --dest-password <password> \ 
    5
    
      docker://registry.redhat.io/rhelai1/granite-8b-code-instruct:1.4-1739210683 \ 
    6
    
      docker://quay-server.example.com/<namespace>/granite-8b-code-instruct:latest 
    7
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    1
    Optional. --dest-tls-verify=false disables SSL/TLS verification for the destination registry.
    2
    Optional. The --all flag optionally copies all image manifests, including multi-architecture images.
    3
    Optional. If you are not logged into a registry, you can pass in the source registry credentials with these parameters.
    4
    Optional. The path to your Docker authentication file. Typically located at ~/.docker/config.json.
    5
    Your Red Hat Quay registry username and password.
    6
    The source image or artifact from the Red Hat container registry. Ensure that you are logged in to the registry and that you can pull the image.
    7
    The URL of your Red Hat Quay repository appended with a namespace and the name of the image.

    Example output

    Getting image source signatures
    Checking if image destination supports signatures
    Copying blob 9538fa2b8ad9 done   |
    Copying blob 491ae95f59a2 done   |
    Copying blob 01196d075d77 done   |
    Copying blob e53a4633c992 done   |
    Copying blob c266e9cfa731 done   |
    Copying blob dae0e701d9b2 done   |
    Copying blob 1e227a2c78d8 done   |
    Copying blob 94ff9338861b done   |
    Copying blob 2f2bba45146f done   |
    Copying blob d3b4df07a0ce done   |
    Copying blob f533a8dbb852 done   |
    Copying config 44136fa355 done   |
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
    Copy to Clipboard

Next steps

5.4. Creating a repository by using the API

Use the following procedure to create an image repository using the Red Hat Quay API.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. Enter the following command to create a repository using the POST /api/v1/repository endpoint:

    $ curl -X POST \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer <bearer_token>" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -d '{
        "repository": "<new_repository_name>",
        "visibility": "<private>",
        "description": "<This is a description of the new repository>."
      }' \
      "https://quay-server.example.com/api/v1/repository"
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    Example output

    {"namespace": "quayadmin", "name": "<new_repository_name>", "kind": "image"}
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5.5. Deleting a repository by using the UI

You can delete a repository directly on the UI.

Prerequisites

  • You have created a repository.

Procedure

  1. On the Repositories page of the v2 UI, check the box of the repository that you want to delete, for example, quayadmin/busybox.
  2. Click the Actions drop-down menu.
  3. Click Delete.
  4. Type confirm in the box, and then click Delete.

    After deletion, you are returned to the Repositories page.

5.6. Deleting a repository by using the Red Hat Quay API

Use the following procedure to delete a repository using the Red Hat Quay API.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. Enter the following command to delete a repository using the DELETE /api/v1/repository/{repository} endpoint:

    $ curl -X DELETE   -H "Authorization: Bearer <bearer_token>" "<quay-server.example.com>/api/v1/repository/<namespace>/<repository_name>"
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  2. The CLI does not return information when deleting a repository from the CLI. To confirm deletion, you can check the Red Hat Quay UI, or you can enter the following GET /api/v1/repository/{repository} command to see if details are returned for the deleted repository:

    $ curl -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer <bearer_token>" "<quay-server.example.com>/api/v1/repository/<namespace>/<repository_name>"
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    Example output

    {"detail": "Not Found", "error_message": "Not Found", "error_type": "not_found", "title": "not_found", "type": "http://quay-server.example.com/api/v1/error/not_found", "status": 404}
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