Local Registry

Skill: Local OCI Registry

Purpose

Start and manage a local OCI registry for development. This allows building and publishing kits locally without requiring external registry access.

When to Use

• Developing changes to kits that need to be consumed by variants
• Testing kit changes before publishing to production registries
• Working offline or in isolated environments

Prerequisites

• Docker installed and running

Procedure

Start the registry

(cd $FOREST_ROOT && brdev registry start)

This will:

• Start a local Docker registry on localhost:5000
• Configure persistence (registry data survives restarts)
• Wait for the registry to be healthy before returning
• Output the registry URL for use in builds

Verify registry is running

(cd $FOREST_ROOT && brdev registry status)

Returns exit code 0 if running, non-zero otherwise.

View registry logs

(cd $FOREST_ROOT && brdev registry logs)

To follow logs in real-time:

(cd $FOREST_ROOT && brdev registry logs --follow)

Stop the registry

(cd $FOREST_ROOT && brdev registry stop)

Note: This preserves the registry data volume.

Clean registry data

(cd $FOREST_ROOT && brdev registry clean)

This removes both the container and the data volume.

Configuration

Forester uses environment variables for configuration. Create a .env file in the forest root or set environment variables:

# Custom port (default: 5000, minimum: 1024)
FORESTER_REGISTRY_PORT=5001

# Custom image (default: registry:2)
FORESTER_REGISTRY_IMAGE=registry:2.8

Note: Container and volume names are automatically derived from the port as forester-registry-{port} and forester-registry-data-{port}.

Validation

After starting the registry:

curl http://localhost:5000/v2/_catalog

Should return: {"repositories":[]}

Common Issues

Docker not installed:

Error: Docker is not installed or not in PATH. Install Docker and ensure it's in your PATH

Solution: Install Docker and ensure it's in your PATH.

Docker daemon not running:

Error: Docker daemon is not running. Start Docker with: sudo systemctl start docker

Solution: Start the Docker daemon.

Port already in use:

Error: Failed to start container. The port may already be in use

Solution:

• Check for existing registry: docker ps | grep registry
• Stop conflicting container: docker stop <container-id>
• Or use a custom port via FORESTER_REGISTRY_PORT

Permission denied:

• Ensure user is in docker group: groups | grep docker
• Add user to docker group: sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
• May need to restart shell after adding to group

Related Skills

• build-and-publish-kit - Uses local registry to publish built kits
• build-variant - Configures variant builds to use local registry