Docker has recently intimated about its latest policy changes for images in the docker hub. But before we address policy reform, we should consider contribution of HUB in making docker, as most widely used container technology
1) The journey of Docker and Docker Hub is very different. By using other container technologies- OCI members: you can pull and push images to Docker Hub.
For example:
(a) Docker and Podman are two different technologies but you can use docker Hub with both. You can read more here:
(b) This means that the docker hub has several images hosted which do not actually pushed from the use of docker container technology but any other like Podman.
(2) Open Source projects used docker with one reason that images will be available on its hub.
But they will also lose images due to a new policy update.
(3) One reason why Docker was popular among young developers is that they have free image hosting.
These are new policy changes by docker. (as received on date of article)
The first policy update is regarding retention of inactive images. Inactive images are defined as images that have not been pulled or pushed in 6 months. Starting November 1, 2020:
Free accounts may retain inactive images for up to 6 months
Pro and Team subscriptions may retain inactive images indefinitely
The second policy update is regarding limits on the number of image pulls. A pull is defined as up to two GET requests to the registry URL path ‘/v2//manifests/’. Again, starting November 1, 2020:
Anonymous users will have an upper limit of 100 image pulls in a six hour period
Accounts authenticated with a DockerID will have an upper limit of 200 image pulls in a six hour period
Pro and Team subscriptions do not have limits.
I hope you people like the above article and learned something.
Top comments (5)
This is mostly a non-issue, and anyone that relied on Docker Hub retaining images for their business (not directly related to Docker) stability, should really take a close look at themselves.
Years ago, anyone using Maven remembers what happened when the Codehaus repository went offline. It taught a very valuable lesson - do not rely on external 3rd parties for your productivity.
As a result, having worked in two companies that use Docker extensively - both have our own, internal, private Docker registries. Both act as a proxy to Docker Hub (so work as a pull-through-cache).
This also gives my current employer the ability to pull upstream changes only when we deem it appropriate - so if someone maliciously alters an image, we don't automatically get malicious code running in our Production systems.
Docker can (and should) delete any images as they see fit, for any reason they wish. All good developers understand "separation of concerns" - Docker's disk space usage on their own servers is none of our business, especially when they provide services for free.
Agreed. There is no impact on business account but free account holders will have. Thanks 👍
Most businesses that pull images from Docker Hub do so on the free accounts.
And it almost looks like a orchestrated action: let users move from docker hub to github, who just introduced its own GitHub Container Registry
Yes. This is better option.