Tutorial: Create an Azure container registry and push a container image
This article is part two of a three-part tutorial. Part one of the tutorial created a Docker container image for a Node.js web application. In this tutorial, you push the image to Azure Container Registry. If you need to create the container image, return to Tutorial 1 – Create container image.
Azure Container Registry is your private Docker registry in Azure. In this tutorial, part two of the series, you:
- Create an Azure Container Registry instance with the Azure CLI
- Tag a container image for your Azure container registry
- Upload the image to your registry
In the next article, the last in the series, you deploy the container from your private registry to Azure Container Instances.
Before you begin
You must satisfy the following requirements to complete this tutorial:
Azure CLI: You must have Azure CLI version 2.0.29 or later installed on your local computer. To find the version, run az --version. If you need to install or upgrade, see Install the Azure CLI.
Docker: This tutorial assumes a basic understanding of core Docker concepts like containers, container images, and basic docker commands. For a primer on Docker and container basics, see the Docker overview.
Docker: To complete this tutorial, you need Docker installed locally. Docker provides packages that configure the Docker environment on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Important
Because the Azure Cloud shell does not include the Docker daemon, you must install both the Azure CLI and Docker Engine on your local computer to complete this tutorial. You cannot use the Azure Cloud Shell for this tutorial.
Create Azure container registry
Before you create your container registry, you need a resource group to deploy it to. A resource group is a logical collection into which all Azure resources are deployed and managed.
Create a resource group with the az group create command. In the following example, a resource group named myResourceGroup is created in the eastus region:
az group create --name myResourceGroup --location eastus
Once you create the resource group, create an Azure container registry with the az acr create command. The container registry name must be unique within Azure, and contain 5-50 alphanumeric characters. Replace <acrName> with a unique name for your registry:
az acr create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name <acrName> --sku Basic
Here's partial output for a new Azure container registry named mycontainerregistry082:
{
"creationDate": "2020-07-16T21:54:47.297875+00:00",
"id": "/subscriptions/<Subscription ID>/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.ContainerRegistry/registries/mycontainerregistry082",
"location": "eastus",
"loginServer": "mycontainerregistry082.azurecr.io",
"name": "mycontainerregistry082",
"provisioningState": "Succeeded",
"resourceGroup": "myResourceGroup",
"sku": {
"name": "Basic",
"tier": "Basic"
},
"status": null,
"storageAccount": null,
"tags": {},
"type": "Microsoft.ContainerRegistry/registries"
}
The rest of the tutorial refers to <acrName> as a placeholder for the container registry name that you chose in this step.
Sign in to container registry
You must sign in to your Azure Container Registry instance before pushing images to it. Use the az acr login command to complete the operation. You must provide the unique name you chose for the container registry when you created it.
az acr login --name <acrName>
For example:
az acr login --name mycontainerregistry082
The command returns Login Succeeded once completed:
Login Succeeded
Tag container image
To push a container image to a private registry like Azure Container Registry, you must first tag the image with the full name of the registry's login server.
First, get the full login server name for your Azure container registry. Run the following az acr show command, and replace <acrName> with the name of registry you created:
az acr show --name <acrName> --query loginServer --output table
For example, if your registry is named mycontainerregistry082:
az acr show --name mycontainerregistry082 --query loginServer --output table
Result
------------------------
mycontainerregistry082.azurecr.io
Now, display the list of your local images with the docker images command:
docker images
Along with any other images you have on your machine, you should see the aci-tutorial-app image you built in the previous tutorial:
docker images
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE
aci-tutorial-app latest 5c745774dfa9 39 minutes ago 68.1 MB
Tag the aci-tutorial-app image with the login server of your container registry. Also, add the :v1 tag to the end of the image name to indicate the image version number. Replace <acrLoginServer> with the result of the az acr show command you executed earlier.
docker tag aci-tutorial-app <acrLoginServer>/aci-tutorial-app:v1
Run docker images again to verify the tagging operation:
docker images
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE
aci-tutorial-app latest 5c745774dfa9 39 minutes ago 68.1 MB
mycontainerregistry082.azurecr.io/aci-tutorial-app v1 5c745774dfa9 7 minutes ago 68.1 MB
Push image to Azure Container Registry
Now that you tagged the aci-tutorial-app image with the full login server name of your private registry, you can push the image to the registry with the docker push command. Replace <acrLoginServer> with the full login server name you obtained in the earlier step.
docker push <acrLoginServer>/aci-tutorial-app:v1
The push operation should take a few seconds to a few minutes depending on your internet connection, and output is similar to the following example:
docker push mycontainerregistry082.azurecr.io/aci-tutorial-app:v1
The push refers to a repository [mycontainerregistry082.azurecr.io/aci-tutorial-app]
3db9cac20d49: Pushed
13f653351004: Pushed
4cd158165f4d: Pushed
d8fbd47558a8: Pushed
44ab46125c35: Pushed
5bef08742407: Pushed
v1: digest: sha256:ed67fff971da47175856505585dcd92d1270c3b37543e8afd46014d328f05715 size: 1576
List images in Azure Container Registry
To verify that the image you just pushed is indeed in your Azure container registry, list the images in your registry with the az acr repository list command. Replace <acrName> with the name of your container registry.
az acr repository list --name <acrName> --output table
For example:
az acr repository list --name mycontainerregistry082 --output table
Result
----------------
aci-tutorial-app
To see the tags for a specific image, use the az acr repository show-tags command.
az acr repository show-tags --name <acrName> --repository aci-tutorial-app --output table
You should see output similar to the following example:
--------
v1
Next steps
In this tutorial, you prepared an Azure container registry for use with Azure Container Instances, and pushed a container image to the registry. The following steps were completed:
- Created an Azure Container Registry instance with the Azure CLI
- Tagged a container image for Azure Container Registry
- Uploaded an image to Azure Container Registry
Advance to the next tutorial to learn how to deploy the container to Azure using Azure Container Instances: