⚡ Requirement | nerdctl >= 0.14 |
---|
You can distribute container images without registries, using IPFS.
IPFS support is completely optional. Your host is NOT connected to any P2P network, unless you opt in to install and run IPFS daemon.
To use this feature, make sure ipfs daemon
is running on your host.
For example, you can run an IPFS daemon using the following command.
ipfs daemon
In rootless mode, you need to install ipfs daemon using containerd-rootless-setuptool.sh
.
containerd-rootless-setuptool.sh -- install-ipfs --init
ℹ️ If you want to expose some ports of ipfs daemon (e.g. 4001), you can install rootless containerd using containerd-rootless-setuptool.sh install
with CONTAINERD_ROOTLESS_ROOTLESSKIT_FLAGS="--publish=0.0.0.0:4001:4001/tcp"
environment variable.
ℹ️ If you don't want IPFS to communicate with nodes on the internet, you can run IPFS daemon in offline mode using --offline
flag or you can create a private IPFS network as described here.
Image distribution on IPFS is achieved by OCI-compatible IPFS-enabled image format. nerdctl automatically converts an image to IPFS-enabled when necessary. For example, when nerdctl pushes an image to IPFS, if that image isn't an IPFS-enabled one, it converts that image to the IPFS-enabled one.
Please see the doc in stargz-snapshotter project for details about IPFS-enabled image format.
nerdctl supports an image name prefix ipfs://
to handle images on IPFS.
For nerdctl push
, you can specify ipfs://
prefix for arbitrary image names stored in containerd.
When this prefix is specified, nerdctl pushes that image to IPFS.
> nerdctl push ipfs://ubuntu:20.04
INFO[0000] pushing image "ubuntu:20.04" to IPFS
INFO[0000] ensuring image contents
bafkreicq4dg6nkef5ju422ptedcwfz6kcvpvvhuqeykfrwq5krazf3muze
At last line of the output, the IPFS CID of the pushed image is printed. You can use this CID to pull this image from IPFS.
You can also specify --estargz
option to enable eStargz-based lazy pulling on IPFS.
Please see the later section for details.
> nerdctl push --estargz ipfs://fedora:36
INFO[0000] pushing image "fedora:36" to IPFS
INFO[0000] ensuring image contents
INFO[0011] converted "application/vnd.docker.image.rootfs.diff.tar.gzip" to sha256:cd4be969f12ef45dee7270f3643f796364045edf94cfa9ef6744d91d5cdf2208
bafkreibp2ncujcia663uum25ustwvmyoguxqyzjnxnlhebhsgk2zowscye
You can pull an image from IPFS by specifying ipfs://<CID>
where CID
is the CID of the image.
> nerdctl pull ipfs://bafkreicq4dg6nkef5ju422ptedcwfz6kcvpvvhuqeykfrwq5krazf3muze
bafkreicq4dg6nkef5ju422ptedcwfz6kcvpvvhuqeykfrwq5krazf3muze: resolved |++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
index-sha256:28bfa1fc6d491d3bee91bab451cab29c747e72917efacb0adc4e73faffe1f51c: done |++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
manifest-sha256:f6eed19a2880f1000be1d46fb5d114d094a59e350f9d025580f7297c8d9527d5: done |++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
config-sha256:ba6acccedd2923aee4c2acc6a23780b14ed4b8a5fa4e14e252a23b846df9b6c1: done |++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
layer-sha256:7b1a6ab2e44dbac178598dabe7cff59bd67233dba0b27e4fbd1f9d4b3c877a54: done |++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
elapsed: 1.2 s total: 27.2 M (22.7 MiB/s)
nerdctl run
also supports the same image name syntax.
When specified, this command pulls the image from IPFS.
> nerdctl run --rm -it ipfs://bafkreicq4dg6nkef5ju422ptedcwfz6kcvpvvhuqeykfrwq5krazf3muze echo hello
hello
You can also push that image to the container registry.
nerdctl tag ipfs://bafkreicq4dg6nkef5ju422ptedcwfz6kcvpvvhuqeykfrwq5krazf3muze ghcr.io/ktock/ubuntu:20.04-ipfs
nerdctl push ghcr.io/ktock/ubuntu:20.04-ipfs
The pushed image can run on other (IPFS-agnostic) runtimes.
> docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/ktock/ubuntu:20.04-ipfs echo hello
hello
ℹ️ Note that though the IPFS-enabled image is OCI compatible, some runtimes including containerd and podman had bugs and failed to pull that image. Containerd fixed this since v1.5.8, podman fixed this since commit b55fb86c28b7d743cf59701332cd78d4294c7c54
.
You can build images using base images on IPFS. BuildKit >= v0.9.3 is needed.
In Dockerfile, instead of ipfs://
prefix, you need to use the following image reference to point to an image on IPFS.
localhost:5050/ipfs/<CID>
Here, CID
is the IPFS CID of the image.
ℹ️ In the futural version of nerdctl and BuildKit, ipfs://
prefix should be supported in Dockerfile.
Using this image reference, you can build an image on IPFS.
FROM localhost:5050/ipfs/bafkreicq4dg6nkef5ju422ptedcwfz6kcvpvvhuqeykfrwq5krazf3muze
RUN echo hello > /hello
You can enable builds on IPFS using --ipfs
option for nerdctl build
.
> nerdctl build --ipfs -t hello .
[+] Building 5.3s (6/6) FINISHED
=> [internal] load build definition from Dockerfile 0.0s
=> => transferring dockerfile: 146B 0.0s
=> [internal] load .dockerignore 0.0s
=> => transferring context: 2B 0.0s
=> [internal] load metadata for localhost:5050/ipfs/bafkreicq4dg6nkef5ju422ptedcwfz6kcvpvvhuqeykfrwq5krazf3muze:latest 0.1s
=> [1/2] FROM localhost:5050/ipfs/bafkreicq4dg6nkef5ju422ptedcwfz6kcvpvvhuqeykfrwq5krazf3muze@sha256:28bfa1fc6d491d3bee91bab451cab29c747e72917e 3.8s
=> => resolve localhost:5050/ipfs/bafkreicq4dg6nkef5ju422ptedcwfz6kcvpvvhuqeykfrwq5krazf3muze@sha256:28bfa1fc6d491d3bee91bab451cab29c747e72917e 0.0s
=> => sha256:7b1a6ab2e44dbac178598dabe7cff59bd67233dba0b27e4fbd1f9d4b3c877a54 28.57MB / 28.57MB 2.1s
=> => extracting sha256:7b1a6ab2e44dbac178598dabe7cff59bd67233dba0b27e4fbd1f9d4b3c877a54 1.7s
=> [2/2] RUN echo hello > /hello 0.6s
=> exporting to oci image format 0.6s
=> => exporting layers 0.1s
=> => exporting manifest sha256:b96d490d134221ab121af91a42b13195dd8c5bf941012d7bfe07eabcf5259eda 0.0s
=> => exporting config sha256:bd706574eab19009585b98826b06e63cf6eacf8d7193504dae75caa760332ca2 0.0s
=> => sending tarball 0.5s
unpacking docker.io/library/hello:latest (sha256:b96d490d134221ab121af91a42b13195dd8c5bf941012d7bfe07eabcf5259eda)...done
> nerdctl run --rm -it hello cat /hello
hello
As of now, BuildKit doesn't support ipfs://
prefix so nerdctl achieves builds on IPFS by having a read-only local registry backed by IPFS.
This registry converts registry API requests to IPFS operations.
So IPFS-agnostic tools can pull images from IPFS via this registry.
When you specify --ipfs
option to nerdctl build
, it automatically starts the registry backed by the IPFS repo of the current $IPFS_PATH
.
By default, nerdctl exposes the registry at localhost:5050
.
You can change the address and can manually restart the registry using nerdctl ipfs registry up
and nerdctl ipfs registry down
.
The following example changes the registry API address to localhost:5555
instead of localhost:5050
.
nerdctl ipfs registry down
nerdctl ipfs registry up --listen-registry=localhost:5555
You'll also need to restart the registry when you change $IPFS_PATH
to use.
nerdctl compose
supports same image name syntax to pull images from IPFS.
version: "3.8"
services:
ubuntu:
image: ipfs://bafkreicq4dg6nkef5ju422ptedcwfz6kcvpvvhuqeykfrwq5krazf3muze
command: echo hello
When you build images using base images on IPFS, you can use localhost:5050/ipfs/<CID>
image reference in Dockerfile as mentioned above.
You need to specify --ipfs
option to nerdctl compose build
or nerdctl compose up
to enable builds on IPFS.
nerdctl compose up --build --ipfs
nerdctl compose build --ipfs
You can distribute encrypted images on IPFS using OCIcrypt.
Please see /docs/ocicrypt.md
for details about how to encrypt and decrypt an image.
Same as normal images, the encrypted image can be pushed to IPFS using ipfs://
prefix.
> nerdctl image encrypt --recipient=jwe:mypubkey.pem ubuntu:20.04 ubuntu:20.04-encrypted
sha256:a5c57411f3d11bb058b584934def0710c6c5b5a4a2d7e9b78f5480ecfc450740
> nerdctl push ipfs://ubuntu:20.04-encrypted
INFO[0000] pushing image "ubuntu:20.04-encrypted" to IPFS
INFO[0000] ensuring image contents
bafkreifajsysbvhtgd7fdgrfesszexdq6v5zbj5y2jnjfwxdjyqws2s3s4
You can pull the encrypted image from IPFS using ipfs://
prefix and can decrypt it in the same way as described in /docs/ocicrypt.md
.
> nerdctl pull --unpack=false ipfs://bafkreifajsysbvhtgd7fdgrfesszexdq6v5zbj5y2jnjfwxdjyqws2s3s4
bafkreifajsysbvhtgd7fdgrfesszexdq6v5zbj5y2jnjfwxdjyqws2s3s4: resolved |++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
index-sha256:73334fee83139d1d8dbf488b28ad100767c38428b2a62504c758905c475c1d6c: done |++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
manifest-sha256:8855ae825902045ea2b27940634673ba410b61885f91b9f038f6b3303f48727c: done |++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
config-sha256:ba6acccedd2923aee4c2acc6a23780b14ed4b8a5fa4e14e252a23b846df9b6c1: done |++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
layer-sha256:e74a9a7749e808e4ad1e90d5a81ce3146ce270de0fbdf22429cd465df8f10a13: done |++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
elapsed: 0.3 s total: 22.0 M (73.2 MiB/s)
> nerdctl image decrypt --key=mykey.pem ipfs://bafkreifajsysbvhtgd7fdgrfesszexdq6v5zbj5y2jnjfwxdjyqws2s3s4 ubuntu:20.04-decrypted
sha256:b0ccaddb7e7e4e702420de126468eab263eb0f3c25abf0b957ce8adcd1e82105
> nerdctl run --rm -it ubuntu:20.04-decrypted echo hello
hello
nerdctl supports running eStargz images on IPFS with lazy pulling using Stargz Snapshotter.
In this configuration, Stargz Snapshotter mounts the eStargz image from IPFS to the container's rootfs using FUSE with lazy pulling support. Thus the container can startup without waiting for the entire image contents to be locally available. You can see faster container cold-start.
To use this feature, you need to enable Stargz Snapshotter following /docs/stargz.md
.
You also need to add the following configuration to config.toml
of Stargz Snapshotter (typically located at /etc/containerd-stargz-grpc/config.toml
).
ipfs = true
You can push an arbitrary image to IPFS with converting it to eStargz using --estargz
option.
nerdctl push --estargz ipfs://fedora:36
You can pull and run that eStargz image with lazy pulling.
nerdctl run --rm -it ipfs://bafkreibp2ncujcia663uum25ustwvmyoguxqyzjnxnlhebhsgk2zowscye echo hello
- See the doc in stargz-snapshotter project for details about lazy pulling on IPFS.
- See
/docs/stargz.md
for details about the configuration of nerdctl for Stargz Snapshotter.