Harbor Registry

advanced

Enterprise-class container registry with security scanning.

Overview

Harbor is an open-source, cloud-native container registry platform that extends Docker Distribution with enterprise-grade security, compliance, and management features. Originally developed by VMware and now a CNCF graduated project, Harbor provides vulnerability scanning, content signing, role-based access control, and image replication capabilities that make it essential for organizations requiring secure container image management. While the full Harbor installation requires downloading the official installer from GitHub releases, this configuration demonstrates a simplified registry setup that can serve as a foundation before upgrading to the complete Harbor platform. This stack provides a basic Docker registry service that stores and distributes container images locally, operating on port 5000 with persistent volume storage for image data. The simple registry serves as an entry point to understanding container registry concepts before implementing Harbor's advanced security and management features. The configuration establishes the groundwork for teams who need private image storage and plan to enhance their setup with Harbor's vulnerability scanning, RBAC policies, and audit logging. Enterprise development teams, DevOps engineers managing multiple container environments, and organizations with strict compliance requirements will benefit most from this approach. Security-conscious teams who need to scan images for vulnerabilities, implement granular access controls, and maintain audit trails for container deployments should consider upgrading to the full Harbor installation after testing with this basic registry setup.

Key Features

Private container image storage with Docker Distribution v2 API compatibility
Persistent volume storage ensuring image data survives container restarts
Foundation for Harbor's vulnerability scanning and security policy enforcement
Local registry eliminating dependency on external services like Docker Hub
Preparation for Harbor's role-based access control and multi-tenancy features
Base setup for implementing Harbor's image replication across multiple registries
Support for Docker's content trust and image signing workflows
Ready for integration with Harbor's webhook notifications and audit logging

Common Use Cases

1Development teams needing private image storage before implementing full Harbor security features
2Organizations testing container registry workflows prior to production Harbor deployment
3CI/CD pipelines requiring local image caching and distribution during build processes
4Air-gapped environments where external registry access is restricted or prohibited
5Proof-of-concept deployments evaluating Harbor's enterprise registry capabilities
6DevOps teams establishing registry infrastructure before adding vulnerability scanning requirements
7Companies preparing for compliance audits that will require Harbor's detailed access logging

Prerequisites

Minimum 2GB RAM available for registry operations and future Harbor upgrade
Docker and Docker Compose installed with registry push/pull capabilities
Port 5000 available and accessible for registry API and image operations
Sufficient disk space for container image storage (recommend 20GB+ for testing)
Understanding of Docker image tagging and push/pull workflows
Familiarity with Harbor installation process for future platform upgrade

For development & testing. Review security settings, change default credentials, and test thoroughly before production use. See Terms

docker-compose.yml

1# Harbor requires its own installer
2# Download from https://github.com/goharbor/harbor/releases
3# This is a simplified example
4services: 
5  registry: 
6    image: registry:2
7    container_name: registry
8    restart: unless-stopped
9    volumes: 
10      - registry_data:/var/lib/registry
11    ports: 
12      - "5000:5000"
13
14volumes: 
15  registry_data:

.env Template

.env

1# For full Harbor, download and run installer

Usage Notes

1Docs: https://goharbor.io/docs/
2Full Harbor: download installer from GitHub releases
3Simple registry shown here at localhost:5000
4Push: docker tag myimage localhost:5000/myimage && docker push localhost:5000/myimage
5Harbor adds: vulnerability scanning, RBAC, replication
6For full Harbor, run: ./install.sh after configuring harbor.yml

Quick Start

terminal

1# 1. Create the compose file
2cat > docker-compose.yml << 'EOF'
3# Harbor requires its own installer
4# Download from https://github.com/goharbor/harbor/releases
5# This is a simplified example
6services:
7  registry:
8    image: registry:2
9    container_name: registry
10    restart: unless-stopped
11    volumes:
12      - registry_data:/var/lib/registry
13    ports:
14      - "5000:5000"
15
16volumes:
17  registry_data:
18EOF
19
20# 2. Create the .env file
21cat > .env << 'EOF'
22# For full Harbor, download and run installer
23EOF
24
25# 3. Start the services
26docker compose up -d
27
28# 4. View logs
29docker compose logs -f

One-Liner

Run this command to download and set up the recipe in one step:

terminal

1curl -fsSL https://docker.recipes/api/recipes/harbor-registry/run | bash

Troubleshooting

Push operation fails with 'connection refused': Ensure registry container is running and port 5000 is accessible
Images disappear after container restart: Verify registry_data volume is properly mounted and persistent
Cannot pull images with 'repository not found': Check image was tagged with localhost:5000/ prefix before pushing
Registry returns 404 for existing images: Confirm volume permissions allow registry user to write image data
Harbor installer fails after registry testing: Stop simple registry container before running Harbor's install.sh script
Docker daemon cannot connect to registry: Add localhost:5000 to Docker's insecure-registries configuration

Community Notes

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