Deploy Red Hat Quay for proof-of-concept (non-production) purposes

Red Hat Quay 3.7

Deploy Red Hat Quay

Red Hat OpenShift Documentation Team

Abstract

Get started with Red Hat Quay

Preface

Red Hat Quay is an enterprise-quality registry for building, securing and serving container images. This procedure describes how to deploy Red Hat Quay for proof-of-concept (non-production) purposes.

Chapter 1. Overview

Features of Red Hat Quay include:

  • High availability
  • Geo-replication
  • Repository mirroring
  • Docker v2, schema 2 (multiarch) support
  • Continuous integration
  • Security scanning with Clair
  • Custom log rotation
  • Zero downtime garbage collection
  • 24/7 support

Red Hat Quay provides support for:

  • Multiple authentication and access methods
  • Multiple storage backends
  • Custom certificates for Quay, Clair, and storage backends
  • Application registries
  • Different container image types

1.1. Architecture

Red Hat Quay consists of a number of core components, both internal and external.

1.1.1. Internal components

  • Quay (container registry): Runs the Quay container as a service, consisting of several components in the pod.
  • Clair: Scans container images for vulnerabilities and suggests fixes.

1.1.2. External components

  • Database: Used by Red Hat Quay as its primary metadata storage. Note that this is not for image storage.
  • Redis (key-value store): Stores live builder logs and the Red Hat Quay tutorial.
  • Cloud storage:For supported deployments, you need to use one of the following types of storage:

    • Public cloud storage: In public cloud environments, you should use the cloud provider’s object storage, such as Amazon Web Services’s Amazon S3 or Google Cloud’s Google Cloud Storage.
    • Private cloud storage: In private clouds, an S3 or Swift compliant Object Store is needed, such as Ceph RADOS, or OpenStack Swift.
Warning

Do not use "Locally mounted directory" Storage Engine for any production configurations. Mounted NFS volumes are not supported. Local storage is meant for Red Hat Quay test-only installations.

Chapter 2. Getting started with Red Hat Quay

The Red Hat Quay registry can be deployed for non-production purposes on a single machine, either physical or virtual, with the following specifications.

2.1. Prerequisites

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8: Obtain the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 server media from the Downloads page and follow the installation instructions available in the Product Documentation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
  • Valid Red Hat Subscription: Configure a valid Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 server subscription.
  • CPUs: Two or more virtual CPUs.
  • RAM: 4GB or more.
  • Disk space: The required disk space depends on the storage needs for the registry. Approximately 30GB of disk space should be enough for a test system, broken down as follows:

    • At least 10GB of disk space for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system.
    • At least 10GB of disk space for docker storage (to run 3 containers).
    • At least 10GB of disk space for Quay local storage. Note that CEPH or other local storage might require more memory.

More information on sizing can be found at Quay 3.x Sizing Guidlines.

Note

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 is strongly recommended for highly available, production quality deployments of Red Hat Quay 3.7. RHEL 7 has not been tested with Red Hat Quay 3.7, and will be deprecated in a future release.

2.1.1. Using Podman

This document uses Podman for creating and deploying containers. If you do not have Podman installed on your system, you should be able to use the equivalent Docker commands. For more information on Podman and related technologies, see Building, running, and managing Linux containers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.

Note

Podman is strongly recommended for highly available, production quality deployments of Red Hat Quay 3.7. Docker has not been tested with Red Hat Quay 3.7, and will be deprecated in a future release.

2.2. Configuring the Red Hat Enterprise Linux server

2.2.1. Install and register the RHEL server

  1. Install the latest RHEL 8 server. You can do a minimal, shell-access only install, or Server plus GUI if you want a desktop.
  2. Register and subscribe your RHEL server system as described in How to register and subscribe a system…​.
  3. Use the following commands to register your system and list available subscriptions. Choose an available RHEL server subscription, attach to its pool ID and upgrade to the latest software:

    # subscription-manager register --username=<user_name> --password=<password>
    # subscription-manager refresh
    # subscription-manager list --available
    # subscription-manager attach --pool=<pool_id>
    # yum update -y

2.2.2. Installing Podman

  • Install Podman if it is not already on your system:

    $ sudo yum install -y podman
  • Alternatively, you can install the container-tools module, which pulls in the full set of container software packages:

    $ sudo yum module install -y container-tools

2.2.3. Registry authentication

  • Set up authentication to registry.redhat.io, so that you can pull the Quay container, as described in Red Hat Container Registry Authentication. Note that this differs from earlier Red Hat Quay releases where the images were hosted on quay.io.

    You can log in to the registry using the following command:

    $ sudo podman login registry.redhat.io
    Username: <username>
    Password: <password>

2.2.4. Firewall configuration

  • If you have a firewall running on your system, you might have to add rules that allow access to Red Hat Quay. The commands required depend on the ports you have mapped, for example:

    $ firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=80/tcp
    $ firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=443/tcp
    $ firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=5432/tcp
    $ firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=5433/tcp
    $ firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=6379/tcp
    $ firewall-cmd --reload

2.2.5. IP addressing and naming services

There are a number of ways to configure the component containers in Red Hat Quay so that they can talk to each other:

  • Using the IP addresses for the containers: You can determine the IP address for containers with podman inspect and then use these values in the configuration tool when specifying the connection strings, for example:

    $ sudo podman inspect -f "{{.NetworkSettings.IPAddress}}" postgresql-quay

    This approach is susceptible to host restarts, as the IP addresses for the containers will change after a reboot.

  • Using a naming service: If you want your deployment to survive container restarts, which typically result in changed IP addresses, you can implement a naming service. For example, the dnsname plugin is used to allow containers to resolve each other by name.
  • Using the host network: You can use the podman run command with the --net=host option and then use container ports on the host when specifying the addresses in the configuration. This option is susceptible to port conflicts when two containers want to use the same port, and as a result it is not recommended.
  • Configuring port mapping: You can use port mappings to expose ports on the host and then use these ports in combination with the host IP address or host name.

This document uses port mapping and assumes a static IP address for your host system. Throughout this deployment, we use quay-server.example.com with our system’s IP address, 192.168.1.112, and establish this information in the /etc/hosts file:

$ cat /etc/hosts
...
192.168.1.112   quay-server.example.com
ComponentPort mappingAddress

Quay

-p 80:8080 -p 443:8443

http://quay-server.example.com

Postgres for Quay

-p 5432:5432

quay-server.example.com:5432

Redis

-p 6379:6379

quay-server.example.com:6379

Postgres for Clair V4

-p 5433:5432

quay-server.example.com:5433

Clair V4

-p 8081:8080

http://quay-server.example.com:8081

2.3. Configuring the database

Quay requires a database for storing metadata. Postgres is used throughout this document and is recommended for highly available configurations. Alternatively, you can use MySQL with a similar approach to configuration as described below.

2.3.1. Setting up Postgres

In this proof-of-concept scenario, you will use a directory on the local file system to persist database data.

  1. In the installation folder, denoted here by the variable $QUAY, create a directory for the database data and set the permissions appropriately:

    $ mkdir -p $QUAY/postgres-quay
    $ setfacl -m u:26:-wx $QUAY/postgres-quay
  2. Use podman run to start the Postgres container, specifying the username, password, database name and port, together with the volume definition for database data:

    $ sudo podman run -d --rm --name postgresql-quay \
      -e POSTGRESQL_USER=quayuser \
      -e POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=quaypass \
      -e POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=quay \
      -e POSTGRESQL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=adminpass \
      -p 5432:5432 \
      -v $QUAY/postgres-quay:/var/lib/pgsql/data:Z \
      registry.redhat.io/rhel8/postgresql-10:1
  3. Ensure that the Postgres pg_trgm module is installed, as it is required by Quay:

    $ sudo podman exec -it postgresql-quay /bin/bash -c 'echo "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pg_trgm" | psql -d quay -U postgres'

2.4. Configuring Redis

Redis ia a key-value store that is used by Quay for live builder logs and the Red Hat Quay tutorial.

2.4.1. Setting up Redis

  • Use podman run to start the Redis container, specifying the port and password:

    $ sudo podman run -d --rm --name redis \
      -p 6379:6379 \
      -e REDIS_PASSWORD=strongpassword \
      registry.redhat.io/rhel8/redis-5:1

2.5. Configuring Red Hat Quay

Before running the Red Hat Quay service, you need to generate a configuration file that details of all the components, including registry settings, and database and Redis connection parameters.

  1. To generate a configuration file, run the Quay container in config mode, specifying a password, for example, the string secret.

    $ sudo podman run --rm -it --name quay_config -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13 config secret
  2. Use your browser to access the user interface for the configuration tool at http://quay-server.example.com. Note this documentation assumes you have configured the quay-server.example.com hostname in your /etc/hosts file.
  3. Log in with the username quayconfig and password secret, or whatever values were specified in the podman run command above.

2.5.1. Red Hat Quay setup

In the configuration editor, the following details are entered:

  • Basic configuration
  • Server configuration
  • Database
  • Redis

2.5.1.1. Basic configuration

In the basic configuration setting, complete the registry title and the registry short title fields. The default values can be used if they are populated.

2.5.1.2. Server configuration

Specify the HTTP host and port for the location where the registry will be accessible on the network. If you followed the instructions in this document, enter quay-server.example.com.

2.5.1.3. Database

In the database section, specify connection details for the database that Red Hat Quay uses to store metadata. If you followed the instructions in this document for deploying a proof-of-concept system, the following values would be entered:

  • Database Type: Postgres
  • Database Server: quay-server.example.com:5432
  • Username: quayuser
  • Password: quaypass
  • Database Name: quay

2.5.1.4. Redis

The Redis key-value store is used to store real-time events and build logs. If you followed the instructions in this document for deploying a proof-of-concept system, the following values would be entered:

  • Redis Hostname: quay-server.example.com
  • Redis port: 6379 (default)
  • Redis password: strongpassword

2.5.2. Validate and download configuration

When all required fields have been set, validate your settings by clicking Validate Configuration Changes. If any errors are reported, continue editing your configuration until all required fields are valid and Red Hat Quay can connect to your database and Redis servers.

Once your configuration is valid, download the configuration file. Stop the Quay container that is running the configuration editor.

2.6. Deploying Red Hat Quay

2.6.1. Prerequisites

  • Your Quay database and Redis servers are running.
  • You have generated a valid configuration bundle.
  • You have stopped the Quay container that you used to run the configuration editor.

2.6.2. Prepare config folder

  • Unpack the configuration bundle so that Quay can use it:

    $ mkdir $QUAY/config
    $ cp ~/Downloads/quay-config.tar.gz $QUAY/config
    $ cd $QUAY/config
    $ tar xvf quay-config.tar.gz

2.6.3. Prepare local storage for image data

  • For this proof-of-concept deployment, use the local file system to store the registry images:

    $ mkdir $QUAY/storage
    $ setfacl -m u:1001:-wx $QUAY/storage

2.6.4. Deploy the Red Hat Quay registry

  • Use podman run to start the Quay container. Specify the appropriate volumes for your configuration data and local storage for image data:

    $ sudo podman run -d --rm -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443  \
       --name=quay \
       -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
       -v $QUAY/storage:/datastorage:Z \
       registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13

2.7. Using Red Hat Quay

The following steps allow you to use the interface and create new organizations and repositories , and to search and browse existing repositories. Following step 3, you can use the command line interface to interact with the registry, and to push and pull images.

  1. Use your browser to access the user interface for the Red Hat Quay registry at http://quay-server.example.com, assuming you have configured quay-server.example.com as your hostname in your /etc/hosts file.
  2. Click Create Account and add a user, for example, quayadmin with a password password.
  3. From the command line, log in to the registry:

    $ sudo podman login --tls-verify=false quay-server.example.com
    Username: quayadmin
    Password: password
    Login Succeeded!

2.7.1. Push and pull images

  1. To test pushing and pulling images from the Red Hat Quay registry, first pull a sample image from an external registry:

    $ sudo podman pull busybox
    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
  2. Use the podman images command to see the local copy:

    $ sudo podman images
    REPOSITORY                          TAG      IMAGE ID       CREATED         SIZE
    docker.io/library/busybox           latest   22667f53682a   14 hours ago    1.45 MB
    ...
  3. Tag this image, in preparation for pushing it to the Red Hat Quay registry:

    $ sudo podman tag docker.io/library/busybox quay-server.example.com/quayadmin/busybox:test
  4. Next, push the image to the Red Hat Quay 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
    Getting image source signatures
    Copying blob 6b245f040973 done
    Copying config 22667f5368 done
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
  5. To test access to the image from the command line, first delete the local copy of the image:

    $ sudo podman rmi quay-server.example.com/quayadmin/busybox:test
    Untagged: quay-server.example.com/quayadmin/busybox:test
  6. Pull the image again, this time from your Red Hat Quay registry:

    $ sudo podman pull --tls-verify=false quay-server.example.com/quayadmin/busybox:test
    Trying to pull quay-server.example.com/quayadmin/busybox:test...
    Getting image source signatures
    Copying blob 6ef22a7134ba [--------------------------------------] 0.0b / 0.0b
    Copying config 22667f5368 done
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
    22667f53682a2920948d19c7133ab1c9c3f745805c14125859d20cede07f11f9

Chapter 3. Advanced Red Hat Quay deployment

3.1. Using SSL to protect connections to Red Hat Quay

3.1.1. Introduction to using SSL

To configure Red Hat Quay with a self-signed certificate, you need to create a Certificate Authority (CA) and then generate the required key and certificate files.

The following examples assume you have configured the server hostname quay-server.example.com using DNS or another naming mechanism, such as adding an entry in your /etc/hosts file:

$ cat /etc/hosts
...
192.168.1.112   quay-server.example.com

3.1.2. Create a Certificate Authority and sign a certificate

At the end of this procedure, you will have a certificate file and a primary key file named ssl.cert and ssl.key, respectively.

3.1.2.1. Create a Certificate Authority

  1. Generate the root CA key:

    $ openssl genrsa -out rootCA.key 2048
  2. Generate the root CA cert:

    $ openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key rootCA.key -sha256 -days 1024 -out rootCA.pem
  3. Enter the information that will be incorporated into your certificate request, including the server hostname, for example:

    Country Name (2 letter code) [XX]:IE
    State or Province Name (full name) []:GALWAY
    Locality Name (eg, city) [Default City]:GALWAY
    Organization Name (eg, company) [Default Company Ltd]:QUAY
    Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:DOCS
    Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:quay-server.example.com

3.1.2.2. Sign a certificate

  1. Generate the server key:

    $ openssl genrsa -out ssl.key 2048
  2. Generate a signing request:

    $ openssl req -new -key ssl.key -out ssl.csr
  3. Enter the information that will be incorporated into your certificate request, including the server hostname, for example:

    Country Name (2 letter code) [XX]:IE
    State or Province Name (full name) []:GALWAY
    Locality Name (eg, city) [Default City]:GALWAY
    Organization Name (eg, company) [Default Company Ltd]:QUAY
    Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:DOCS
    Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:quay-server.example.com
  4. Create a configuration file openssl.cnf, specifying the server hostname, for example:

    openssl.cnf

    [req]
    req_extensions = v3_req
    distinguished_name = req_distinguished_name
    [req_distinguished_name]
    [ v3_req ]
    basicConstraints = CA:FALSE
    keyUsage = nonRepudiation, digitalSignature, keyEncipherment
    subjectAltName = @alt_names
    [alt_names]
    DNS.1 = quay-server.example.com
    IP.1 = 192.168.1.112

  5. Use the configuration file to generate the certificate ssl.cert:

    $ openssl x509 -req -in ssl.csr -CA rootCA.pem -CAkey rootCA.key -CAcreateserial -out ssl.cert -days 356 -extensions v3_req -extfile openssl.cnf

3.1.3. Configuring SSL using the UI

This section configures SSL using the Quay UI. To configure SSL using the command line interface, see the following section.

  1. Start the Quay container in configuration mode:

    $ sudo podman run --rm -it --name quay_config -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13 config secret
  2. In the Server Configuration section, select Red Hat Quay handles TLS for TLS. Upload the certificate file and private key file created earlier, ensuring that the Server Hostname matches the value used when creating the certs. Validate and download the updated configuration.
  3. Stop the Quay container and then restart the registry:

    $ sudo podman rm -f quay
    $ sudo podman run -d --rm -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
    --name=quay \
    -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
    -v $QUAY/storage:/datastorage:Z \
    registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13

3.1.4. Configuring SSL using the command line

Another option when configuring SSL is to use the command line interface.

  1. Copy the certificate file and primary key file to your configuration directory, ensuring they are named ssl.cert and ssl.key respectively:

    $ cp ~/ssl.cert $QUAY/config
    $ cp ~/ssl.key $QUAY/config
    $ cd $QUAY/config
  2. Edit the config.yaml file and specify that you want Quay to handle TLS:

    config.yaml

    ...
    SERVER_HOSTNAME: quay-server.example.com
    ...
    PREFERRED_URL_SCHEME: https
    ...

  3. Stop the Quay container and restart the registry:

    $ sudo podman rm -f quay
    $ sudo podman run -d --rm -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
      --name=quay \
      -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
      -v $QUAY/storage:/datastorage:Z \
      registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13

3.1.5. Testing SSL configuration using the command line

  • Use the podman login command to attempt to log in to the Quay registry with SSL enabled:

    $ sudo podman login quay-server.example.com
    Username: quayadmin
    Password:
    
    Error: error authenticating creds for "quay-server.example.com": error pinging docker registry quay-server.example.com: Get "https://quay-server.example.com/v2/": x509: certificate signed by unknown authority
  • Podman does not trust self-signed certificates. As a workaround, use the --tls-verify option:

    $ sudo podman login --tls-verify=false quay-server.example.com
    Username: quayadmin
    Password:
    
    Login Succeeded!

Configuring Podman to trust the root Certificate Authority (CA) is covered in a subsequent section.

3.1.6. Testing SSL configuration using the browser

When you attempt to access the Quay registry, in this case, https://quay-server.example.com, the browser warns of the potential risk:

Potential risk

Proceed to the log in screen, and the browser will notify you that the connection is not secure:

Connection not secure

Configuring the system to trust the root Certificate Authority (CA) is covered in the subsequent section.

3.1.7. Configuring podman to trust the Certificate Authority

Podman uses two paths to locate the CA file, namely, /etc/containers/certs.d/ and /etc/docker/certs.d/.

  • Copy the root CA file to one of these locations, with the exact path determined by the server hostname, and naming the file ca.crt:

    $ sudo cp rootCA.pem /etc/containers/certs.d/quay-server.example.com/ca.crt
  • Alternatively, if you are using Docker, you can copy the root CA file to the equivalent Docker directory:

    $ sudo cp rootCA.pem /etc/docker/certs.d/quay-server.example.com/ca.crt

You should no longer need to use the --tls-verify=false option when logging in to the registry:

$ sudo podman login quay-server.example.com

Username: quayadmin
Password:
Login Succeeded!

3.1.8. Configuring the system to trust the certificate authority

  1. Copy the root CA file to the consolidated system-wide trust store:

    $ sudo cp rootCA.pem /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/
  2. Update the system-wide trust store configuration:

    $ sudo update-ca-trust extract
  3. You can use the trust list command to ensure that the Quay server has been configured:

    $ trust list | grep quay
        label: quay-server.example.com

    Now, when you browse to the registry at https://quay-server.example.com, the lock icon shows that the connection is secure:

    Connection not secure

  4. To remove the root CA from system-wide trust, delete the file and update the configuration:

    $ sudo rm /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/rootCA.pem
    $ sudo update-ca-trust extract
    $ trust list | grep quay
    $

More information can be found in the RHEL 8 documentation in the chapter Using shared system certificates.

3.2. Red Hat Quay superuser

A superuser is a Quay user account that has extended privileges, including the ability to:

  • Manage users
  • Manage organizations
  • Manage service keys
  • View the change log
  • Query the usage logs
  • Create globally visible user messages

3.2.1. Adding a superuser to Quay using the UI

This section covers how to add a superuser using the Quay UI. To add a superuser using the command line interface, see the following section.

  1. Start the Quay container in configuration mode, loading the existing configuration as a volume:

    $ sudo podman run --rm -it --name quay_config \
      -p 8080:8080 \
      -p 443:8443 \
      -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
      registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13 config secret
  2. Under the Access Settings section of the UI, enter the name of the user (in this instance, quayadmin) in the Super Users field and click Add.
  3. Validate and download the configuration file and then terminate the Quay container that is running in config mode. Extract the config.yaml file to the configuration directory and restart the Quay container in registry mode:

    $ sudo podman rm -f quay
    $ sudo podman run -d --rm -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
    --name=quay \
    -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
    -v $QUAY/storage:/datastorage:Z \
    registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13

3.2.2. Editing the config.yaml file to add a superuser

You can also add a superuser by editing the config.yaml file directly. The list of superuser accounts is stored as an array in the field SUPER_USERS.

  • Stop the container registry if it is running, and add the SUPER_USERS array to the config.yaml file:

    SERVER_HOSTNAME: quay-server.example.com
    SETUP_COMPLETE: true
    SUPER_USERS:
      - quayadmin
    ...

3.2.3. Accessing the superuser admin panel

  1. Restart the Quay registry:

    $ sudo podman rm -f quay
    $ sudo podman run -d --rm -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
    --name=quay \
    -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
    -v $QUAY/storage:/datastorage:Z \
    registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13
  2. Access the Super User Admin Panel by clicking on the current user’s name or avatar in the top right-hand corner of the UI. If the user has been added as a superuser, an extra item is presented in the drop-down list called Super User Admin Panel.

    Super User Admin Panel

3.2.3.1. Creating a globally visible user message

Using the Superuser Admin Panel, you can create Normal, Warning, or Error messages for your organization.

  1. Click your user name in the top right-hand corner of the UI. Select Super User Admin Panel.
  2. On the Red Hat Quay Management page, click Globally visible user messages on the left hand pane.
  3. Click Create Message to show a drop-down menu containing Normal, Warning, and Error message types:

    Creating a new messsage

  4. Enter a message by selecting Click to set message, then click Create Message.

Messages can be deleted by clicking Options and then Delete Message.

3.3. Repository Mirroring

3.3.1. Repository mirroring

Red Hat Quay repository mirroring lets you mirror images from external container registries (or another local registry) into your Red Hat Quay cluster. Using repository mirroring, you can synchronize images to Red Hat Quay based on repository names and tags.

From your Red Hat Quay cluster with repository mirroring enabled, you can:

  • Choose a repository from an external registry to mirror
  • Add credentials to access the external registry
  • Identify specific container image repository names and tags to sync
  • Set intervals at which a repository is synced
  • Check the current state of synchronization

To use the mirroring functionality, you need to:

  • Enable repository mirroring in the Red Hat Quay configuration
  • Run a repository mirroring worker
  • Create mirrored repositories

All repository mirroring configuration can be performed using the configuration tool UI or via the Red Hat Quay API

3.3.2. Mirroring configuration UI

  1. Start the Quay container in configuration mode and select the Enable Repository Mirroring check box. If you want to require HTTPS communications and verify certificates during mirroring, select the HTTPS and cert verification check box.

    Enable mirroring and require HTTPS and verified certificates

  2. Validate and download the configuration file, and then restart Quay in registry mode using the updated config file.

3.3.3. Mirroring worker

Use the following procedure to start the repository mirroring worker.

Procedure

  • If you have not configured TLS communications using a /root/ca.crt certificate, enter the following command to start a Quay pod with the repomirror option:

    $ sudo podman run -d --name mirroring-worker \
      -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
      {productrepo}/{quayimage}:{productminv} repomirror
  • If you have configured TLS communications using a /root/ca.crt certificate, enter the following command to start the repository mirroring worker:

    $ sudo podman run -d --name mirroring-worker \
      -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
      -v /root/ca.crt:/etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/ca.crt:Z \
      {productrepo}/{quayimage}:{productminv} repomirror

3.3.4. Creating a mirrored repository

The steps shown in this section assume you already have enabled repository mirroring in the configuration for your Red Hat Quay cluster and that you have a deployed a mirroring worker.

When mirroring a repository from an external container registry, create a new private repository. Typically the same name is used as the target repository, for example, quay-rhel8:

Create new Red Hat Quay repo

3.3.4.1. Repository mirroring settings

  1. In the Settings tab, set the Repository State to Mirror:

    Create a new Red Hat Quay repo mirror

  2. In the Mirror tab, enter the details for connecting to the external registry, along with the tags, scheduling and access information:

    Repository mirroring

  3. Enter the details as required in the following fields:

    • Registry Location: The external repository you want to mirror, for example, registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8
    • Tags: This field is required. You may enter a comma-separated list of individual tags or tag patterns. (See Tag Patterns section for details.)

      Note

      In order for Quay to get the list of tags in the remote repository, one of the following requirements must be met:

      • An image with the "latest" tag must exist in the remote repository OR
      • At least one explicit tag, without pattern matching, must exist in the list of tags that you specify
    • Start Date: The date on which mirroring begins. The current date and time is used by default.
    • Sync Interval: Defaults to syncing every 24 hours. You can change that based on hours or days.
    • Robot User: Create a new robot account or choose an existing robot account to do the mirroring.
    • Username: The username for accessing the external registry holding the repository you are mirroring.
    • Password: The password associated with the Username. Note that the password cannot include characters that require an escape character (\).

3.3.4.2. Advanced settings

  • In the Advanced Settings section, configure TLS and proxy, if required:
  • Verify TLS: Check this box if you want to require HTTPS and to verify certificates, when communicating with the target remote registry.
  • HTTP Proxy: Identify the HTTP proxy server needed to access the remote site, if one is required.
  • HTTPS Proxy: Identify the HTTPS proxy server needed to access the remote site, if one is required.
  • No Proxy: List of locations that do not require proxy

3.3.4.3. Synchronize now

  • To perform an immediate mirroring operation, press the Sync Now button on the repository’s Mirroring tab. The logs are available on the Usage Logs tab:

    Usage logs

    When the mirroring is complete, the images will appear in the Tags tab:

    Repository mirroring tags

    Below is an example of a completed Repository Mirroring screen:

    Repository mirroring details

3.3.5. Mirroring tag patterns

As noted above, at least one Tag must be explicitly entered (ie. not a tag pattern) or the tag "latest" must exist in the report repository. (The tag "latest" will not be synced unless specified in the tag list.). This is required for Quay to get the list of tags in the remote repository to compare to the specified list to mirror.

3.3.5.1. Pattern syntax

Pattern

Description

*

Matches all characters

?

Matches any single character

[seq]

Matches any character in seq

[!seq]

Matches any character not in seq

3.3.5.2. Example tag patterns

Example Pattern

Example Matches

v3*

v32, v3.1, v3.2, v3.2-4beta, v3.3

v3.*

v3.1, v3.2, v3.2-4beta

v3.?

v3.1, v3.2, v3.3

v3.[12]

v3.1, v3.2

v3.[12]*

v3.1, v3.2, v3.2-4beta

v3.[!1]*

v3.2, v3.2-4beta, v3.3

3.4. Deploying Clair V4

Clair is an application for parsing image contents and reporting vulnerabilities affecting the contents. This is performed via static analysis and not at runtime. Clair’s analysis is broken into three distinct parts:

  • Indexing: Indexing starts with submitting a Manifest to Clair. On receipt, Clair will fetch layers, scan their contents, and return an intermediate representation called an IndexReport. Manifests are Clair’s representation of a container image. Clair leverages the fact that OCI Manifests and Layers are content-addressed to reduce duplicated work. Once a Manifest is indexed, the IndexReport is persisted for later retrieval.
  • Matching: Matching takes an IndexReport and correlates vulnerabilities affecting the manifest that the report represents. Clair is continually ingesting new security data and a request to the matcher will always provide you with the most up to date vulnerability analysis of an IndexReport.
  • Notifications: Clair implements a notification service. When new vulnerabilities are discovered, the notifier service will determine if these vulnerabilities affect any indexed Manifests. The notifier will then take action according to its configuration.

3.4.1. Deploying a separate database for Clair

Clair requires a Postgres database. You can share a common database between Quay and Clair if Quay is also using Postgres, but in this example a separate, Clair-specific database is deployed.

In this proof-of-concept scenario, you will use a directory on the local file system to persist database data.

  1. In the installation folder, denoted here by the variable $QUAY, create a directory for the Clair database data and set the permissions appropriately:

    $ mkdir -p $QUAY/postgres-clairv4
    $ setfacl -m u:26:-wx $QUAY/postgres-clairv4
  2. Use podman to run the Postgres container, specifying the username, password, database name and port, together with the volume definition for database data. As the standard Postgres port, 5432, is already in use by the Quay deployment, expose a different port, in this instance 5433:

    $ sudo podman run -d --rm --name postgresql-clairv4 \
      -e POSTGRESQL_USER=clairuser \
      -e POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=clairpass \
      -e POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=clair \
      -e POSTGRESQL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=adminpass \
      -p 5433:5432 \
      -v $QUAY/postgres-clairv4:/var/lib/pgsql/data:Z \
      registry.redhat.io/rhel8/postgresql-10:1
  3. Ensure that the Postgres uuid-ossp module is installed, as it is required by Clair:

    $ sudo podman exec -it postgresql-clairv4 /bin/bash -c 'echo "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS \"uuid-ossp\"" | psql -d clair -U postgres'

3.4.2. Quay configuration for Clair

  1. Stop the Quay container if it is running, and restart it in configuration mode, loading the existing configuration as a volume:

    $ sudo podman run --rm -it --name quay_config \
      -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
      -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
      registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13 config secret
  2. Log in to the configuration tool and enable scanning in the Security Scanner section of the UI. Set the HTTP endpoint for Clair using a port that is not already in use on the quay-server system, for example 8081. Create a Clair pre-shared key (PSK) using the Generate PSK button, for example:

    • Security Scanner Endpoint: http://quay-server.example.com:8081
    • Security Scanner PSK: MTU5YzA4Y2ZkNzJoMQ==

      The UI for setting the scanner data is shown in the following image:

      Security Scanner UI

      Security Scanner

  3. Validate and download the configuration file and then stop the Quay container that is running the configuration editor. Extract the configuration bundle as before into the $QUAY/config directory.

    $ cp ~/Downloads/quay-config.tar.gz $QUAY/config
    $ cd $QUAY/config
    $ tar xvf quay-config.tar.gz

The Red Hat Quay configuration file is now updated to contain the following fields for the security scanner:

...
FEATURE_SECURITY_NOTIFICATIONS: true
FEATURE_SECURITY_SCANNER: true
...
SECURITY_SCANNER_INDEXING_INTERVAL: 30
SECURITY_SCANNER_V4_ENDPOINT: http://quay-server.example.com:8081
SECURITY_SCANNER_V4_PSK: MTU5YzA4Y2ZkNzJoMQ==
SERVER_HOSTNAME: quay-server.example.com
...

3.4.3. Clair configuration

Detailed information on Clair configuration is available at https://github.com/quay/clair/blob/main/Documentation/reference/config.md.

  • Create a config.yaml file in your /etc/ directory, for example, /etc/clairv4/config/config.yaml. Use the following example, which provides a minimal configuration for use in a proof of concept deployment:

    http_listen_addr: :8081
    introspection_addr: :8089
    log_level: debug
    indexer:
      connstring: host=quay-server.example.com port=5433 dbname=clair user=clairuser password=clairpass sslmode=disable
      scanlock_retry: 10
      layer_scan_concurrency: 5
      migrations: true
    matcher:
      connstring: host=quay-server.example.com port=5433 dbname=clair user=clairuser password=clairpass sslmode=disable
      max_conn_pool: 100
      run: ""
      migrations: true
      indexer_addr: clair-indexer
    notifier:
      connstring: host=quay-server.example.com port=5433 dbname=clair user=clairuser password=clairpass sslmode=disable
      delivery_interval: 1m
      poll_interval: 5m
      migrations: true
    auth:
      psk:
        key: "MTU5YzA4Y2ZkNzJoMQ=="
        iss: ["quay"]
    # tracing and metrics
    trace:
      name: "jaeger"
      probability: 1
      jaeger:
        agent_endpoint: "localhost:6831"
        service_name: "clair"
    metrics:
      name: "prometheus"
  • http_listen_addr is set to the port of the Clair HTTP endpoint that you specified in the Quay configuration tool, in this case :8081.
  • The Clair pre-shared key (PSK) that you generated in the Quay configuration tool is used for authentication, with the issuer, specified in the iss field, set to quay.

3.4.4. Running Clair

  1. Use the podman run command to run the Clair container, exposing the HTTP endpoint port that you specified in the configuration tool, in this case 8081:

    $ sudo podman run -d --rm --name clairv4 \
      -p 8081:8081 -p 8089:8089 \
      -e CLAIR_CONF=/clair/config.yaml -e CLAIR_MODE=combo \
      -v /etc/clairv4/config:/clair:Z \
      registry.redhat.io/quay/clair-rhel8:v3.7.13
  2. Next, restart the Quay container using the updated configuration file containing the scanner settings:

    $ sudo podman run -d --rm -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443  \
       --name=quay \
       -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
       -v $QUAY/storage:/datastorage:Z \
       registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13

3.4.5. Using Clair security scanning

  1. From the command line, log in to the registry:

    $ sudo podman login --tls-verify=false quay-server.example.com
    Username: quayadmin
    Password:
    Login Succeeded!
  2. Pull, tag and push a sample image to the registry:

    $ sudo podman pull ubuntu:20.04
    $ sudo podman tag docker.io/library/ubuntu:20.04 quay-server.example.com/quayadmin/ubuntu:20.04
    $ sudo podman push --tls-verify=false quay-server.example.com/quayadmin/ubuntu:20.04

The results from the security scanning can be seen in the Quay UI, as shown in the following images:

Scanning summary

Scanning summary

Scanning details

Scanning details

3.4.6. CVE ratings from the National Vulnerability Database

With Clair v4.2, enrichment data is now viewable in the Quay UI. Additionally, Clair v4.2 adds CVSS scores from the National Vulnerability Database for detected vulnerabilities.

With this change, if the vulnerability has a CVSS score that is within 2 levels of the distro’s score, the Quay UI present’s the distro’s score by default. For example:

Clair v4.2 data display

This differs from the previous interface, which would only display the following information:

Clair v4 data display

3.5. Restarting containers

Because the --restart option is not fully supported by podman, you can configure podman as a systemd service, as described in Porting containers to systemd using Podman

3.5.1. Using systemd unit files with Podman

By default, Podman generates a unit file for existing containers or pods. You can generate more portable systemd unit files using the podman generate systemd --new command. The --new flag instructs Podman to generate unit files that create, start and remove containers.

  1. Create the systemd unit files from a running Red Hat Quay registry as follows:

    $ sudo podman generate systemd --new --files --name redis
    $ sudo podman generate systemd --new --files --name postgresql-quay
    $ sudo podman generate systemd --new --files --name quay
    $ sudo podman generate systemd --new --files --name postgresql-clairv4
    $ sudo podman generate systemd --new --files --name clairv4
  2. Copy the unit files to /usr/lib/systemd/system for installing them as a root user:

    $ sudo cp -Z container-redis.service /usr/lib/systemd/system
    $ sudo cp -Z container-postgresql-quay.service /usr/lib/systemd/system
    $ sudo cp -Z container-quay.service /usr/lib/systemd/system
    $ sudo cp -Z container-postgresql-clairv4.service /usr/lib/systemd/system
    $ sudo cp -Z container-clairv4.service /usr/lib/systemd/system
  3. Reload systemd manager configuration:

    $ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
  4. Enable the services and start them at boot time:

    $ sudo systemctl enable --now container-redis.service
    $ sudo systemctl enable --now container-postgresql-quay.service
    $ sudo systemctl enable --now container-quay.service
    $ sudo systemctl enable --now container-postgresql-clairv4.service
    $ sudo systemctl enable --now container-clairv4.service

3.5.2. Starting, stopping and checking the status of services

  1. Check the status of the Quay components:

    $ sudo systemctl status container-redis.service
    $ sudo systemctl status container-postgresql-quay.service
    $ sudo systemctl status container-quay.service
    $ sudo systemctl status container-postgresql-clairv4.service
    $ sudo systemctl status container-clairv4.service
  2. To stop the Quay component services:

    $ sudo systemctl stop container-redis.service
    $ sudo systemctl stop container-postgresql-quay.service
    $ sudo systemctl stop container-quay.service
    $ sudo systemctl stop container-postgresql-clairv4.service
    $ sudo systemctl stop container-clairv4.service
  3. To start the Quay component services:

    $ sudo systemctl start container-redis.service
    $ sudo systemctl start container-postgresql-quay.service
    $ sudo systemctl start container-quay.service
    $ sudo systemctl start container-postgresql-clairv4.service
    $ sudo systemctl start container-clairv4.service

3.5.3. Testing restart after reboot

Once you have the services configured and enabled, reboot the system. When the system has re-started, use podman ps to check that all the containers for the Quay components have been restarted:

$ sudo podman ps -a
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                                       COMMAND         CREATED         STATUS             PORTS                   NAMES
4e87c7889246  registry.redhat.io/rhel8/postgresql-10:1    run-postgresql  19 seconds ago  Up 18 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:5432->5432/tcp  postgresql-quay
b8fbac1920d4  registry.redhat.io/rhel8/redis-5:1          run-redis       19 seconds ago  Up 18 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:6379->6379/tcp  redis
d959d5bf7a24  registry.redhat.io/rhel8/postgresql-10:1    run-postgresql  18 seconds ago  Up 18 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:5433->5432/tcp  postgresql-clairv4
e75ff8651dbd  registry.redhat.io/quay/clair-rhel8:v3.4.0                  18 seconds ago  Up 17 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:8081->8080/tcp  clairv4

In this instance, the Quay container itself has failed to start up. This is due to the fact that, when security scanning is enabled in Quay, it tries to connect to Clair on startup. However, Clair has not finished initializing and cannot accept connections and, as a result, Quay terminates immediately. To overcome this issue, you need to configure the Quay service to have a dependency on the Clair service, as shown in the following section.

3.5.4. Configuring Quay’s dependency on Clair

In the systemd service file for Quay, set up a dependency on the Clair service in the [Unit] section by setting After=container-clairv4.service. To give the Clair container time to initialize, add a delay in the [Service] section, for example RestartSec=30. Here is an example of the modified Quay file, after configuring the dependency on Clair:

/usr/lib/systemd/system/container-quay.service

# container-quay.service
# autogenerated by Podman 2.0.5
# Tue Feb 16 17:02:26 GMT 2021

[Unit]
Description=Podman container-quay.service
Documentation=man:podman-generate-systemd(1)
Wants=network.target
After=container-clairv4.service

[Service]
Environment=PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT=%n
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=30
ExecStartPre=/bin/rm -f %t/container-quay.pid %t/container-quay.ctr-id
ExecStart=/usr/bin/podman run --conmon-pidfile %t/container-quay.pid --cidfile %t/container-quay.ctr-id --cgroups=no-conmon -d --rm -p 8080:8080 --name=quay -v /home/user1/quay/config:/conf/stack:Z -v /home/user1/quay/storage:/datastorage:Z registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.4.0
ExecStop=/usr/bin/podman stop --ignore --cidfile %t/container-quay.ctr-id -t 10
ExecStopPost=/usr/bin/podman rm --ignore -f --cidfile %t/container-quay.ctr-id
PIDFile=%t/container-quay.pid
KillMode=none
Type=forking

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

Once you have updated the Quay service configuration, reboot the server and immediately run podman ps:

$ sudo podman ps -a
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                                       COMMAND         CREATED         STATUS             PORTS                   NAMES
4e87c7889246  registry.redhat.io/rhel8/postgresql-10:1    run-postgresql  29 seconds ago  Up 28 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:5432->5432/tcp  postgresql-quay
b8fbac1920d4  registry.redhat.io/rhel8/redis-5:1          run-redis       29 seconds ago  Up 28 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:6379->6379/tcp  redis
d959d5bf7a24  registry.redhat.io/rhel8/postgresql-10:1    run-postgresql  28 seconds ago  Up 28 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:5433->5432/tcp  postgresql-clairv4
e75ff8651dbd  registry.redhat.io/quay/clair-rhel8:v3.4.0                  28 seconds ago  Up 27 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:8081->8080/tcp  clairv4

Initially, the Quay container will not be available, but once the RestartSec delay has expired, it should start up:

$ sudo podman ps -a
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                                       COMMAND         CREATED         STATUS             PORTS                   NAMES
4e87c7889246  registry.redhat.io/rhel8/postgresql-10:1    run-postgresql  35 seconds ago  Up 34 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:5432->5432/tcp  postgresql-quay
ab9f0e6ad7c3  registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.4.0   registry        3 seconds ago   Up 2 seconds ago   0.0.0.0:8080->8080/tcp  quay
b8fbac1920d4  registry.redhat.io/rhel8/redis-5:1          run-redis       35 seconds ago  Up 34 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:6379->6379/tcp  redis
d959d5bf7a24  registry.redhat.io/rhel8/postgresql-10:1    run-postgresql  34 seconds ago  Up 34 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:5433->5432/tcp  postgresql-clairv4
e75ff8651dbd  registry.redhat.io/quay/clair-rhel8:v3.4.0                  34 seconds ago  Up 33 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:8081->8080/tcp  clairv4

The CREATED field for the Quay container shows the 30 second difference in creation time, as configured in the service definition.

Log in to the Red Hat Quay registry at quay-server.example.com and ensure that everything has restarted correctly.

3.6. FIPS readiness and compliance

FIPS (the Federal Information Processing Standard developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST) is regarded as the gold standard for securing and encrypting sensitive data, particularly in heavily regulated areas such as banking, healthcare and the public sector. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform support this standard by providing a FIPS mode in which the system would only allow usage of certain, FIPS-validated cryptographic modules, like openssl. This ensures FIPS compliance.

Red Hat Quay supports running on FIPS-enabled RHEL and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform from version 3.5.

Chapter 4. Next steps

This document shows how to configure and deploy a proof-of-concept version of Red Hat Quay. For more information on deploying to a production environment, see the guide "Deploy Red Hat Quay - High Availability".

The "Use Red Hat Quay" guide shows you how to:

  • Add users and repositories
  • Use tags
  • Automatically build Dockerfiles with build workers
  • Set up build triggers
  • Add notifications for repository events

The "Manage Red Hat Quay" guide shows you how to:

  • Use SSL and TLS
  • Enable security scanning with Clair
  • Use repository mirroring
  • Configure LDAP authentication
  • Use georeplication of storage

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