Allow pods to reference images from other secured registries

Pull secrets enable pods in Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform to authenticate with secured registries and pull container images. Docker and Podman store authentication credentials in configuration files that you can use to create pull secrets for your service accounts.

The following files store your authentication information if you have previously logged in to a secured or insecure registry:

  • Docker: By default, Docker uses $HOME/.docker/config.json.

  • Podman: By default, Podman uses $HOME/.config/containers/auth.json.

Note

Both Docker and Podman credential files and the associated pull secret can contain multiple references to the same registry if they have unique paths, for example, quay.io and quay.io/<example_repository>. However, neither Docker nor Podman support multiple entries for the exact same registry path.

Example config.json file
{
   "auths":{
      "cloud.openshift.com":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      },
      "quay.io":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      },
      "quay.io/repository-main":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      }
   }
}
Example pull secret
apiVersion: v1
data:
  .dockerconfigjson: ewogICAiYXV0aHMiOnsKICAgICAgIm0iOnsKICAgICAgIsKICAgICAgICAgImF1dGgiOiJiM0JsYj0iLAogICAgICAgICAiZW1haWwiOiJ5b3VAZXhhbXBsZS5jb20iCiAgICAgIH0KICAgfQp9Cg==
kind: Secret
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: "2021-09-09T19:10:11Z"
  name: pull-secret
  namespace: default
  resourceVersion: "37676"
  uid: e2851531-01bc-48ba-878c-de96cfe31020
type: Opaque