Installing zot on Bare Metal Linux¶

Using an available executable zot image, you can easily deploy zot on a Linux server.

Before you begin¶

About binary images¶

Executable binary zot images are available for multiple platforms and architectures and with full or minimal implementations.

Refer to Released Images for zot for information about available zot images along with information about image variations, image locations, and image naming formats.

Installation¶

Step 1: Get zot¶

Using wget, download the appropriate zot binary image for your platform from the zot GitHub project. Download the image to the`/usr/bin/` directory and rename it to zot, as in this example:

wget -O /usr/bin/zot  https://github.com/project-zot/zot/releases/download/v1.4.3/zot-linux-amd64

Step 2: Create a zot configuration file¶

Create a zot configuration file as /etc/zot/config.json.

See Configuration file options for an example file with options and recommendations. You can find other configuration file examples in the zot GitHub project and in Configuring zot.

Step 3: Configure a local authentication account¶

If you want to use local authentication with zot, create a /etc/zot/htpasswd file with an initial account entry using the htpasswd command as in this example:

htpasswd -bnB myUserName myPassword > /etc/zot/htpasswd

To add additional local users, use the >> redirect as in this example:

htpasswd -bnB myUserName2 myPassword2 >> /etc/zot/htpasswd

Step 4: Define the zot service¶

Create a /etc/systemd/system/zot.service file to define the zot service in systemd. The following is an example service file for zot:

[Unit]
Description=OCI Distribution Registry
Documentation=https://zotregistry.dev/
After=network.target auditd.service local-fs.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/zot serve /etc/zot/config.json
Restart=on-failure
User=zot
Group=zot
LimitNOFILE=500000
MemoryHigh=30G
MemoryMax=32G

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Be sure to configure a dedicated non-root user ID as the User and Group in the zot service definition. The 'zot' user ID in this example is created in the next step.

Step 5: Create a user ID to own the zot service¶

Create a non-root user ID to be the owner of the zot service and its resources.

In this example, the user ID 'zot' is created with the adduser command, and resource ownership is assigned.

sudo adduser --no-create-home --disabled-password --gecos --disabled-login zot

sudo mkdir -p /data/zot
sudo chown -R zot:zot /data/zot

sudo mkdir -p /var/log/zot
sudo chown -R zot:zot /var/log/zot

sudo chown root:root /usr/bin/zot
sudo chown root:root config.json

With the adduser options shown, the 'zot' user ID has no local directory. There is no ability to log into the zot user account, and the account has no finger information.

Step 6: Start zot¶

Enable and start the zot service with these commands:

sudo systemctl enable zot
sudo systemctl start zot

When the zot service has started, you can check its status with this command:

sudo systemctl status zot

After the installation¶

If your zot registry server is public facing, we recommend that you test your TLS configuration using a service such as the Qualys SSL Server Test.

Refer to Configuring zot for further information about maintaining your zot registry server.

Configuration file options and recommendations¶

The following zot configuration file (config.json) can be used as a template for your own installation. You can modify this file to suit your own environment.

{
  "distSpecVersion":"1.0.1",
  "storage":{
    "dedupe": true,
    "gc": true,
    "gcDelay": "1h",
    "gcInterval": "6h",
    "rootDirectory":"/data/zot/"
  },
  "http": {
    "address":"0.0.0.0",
    "port":"443",
    "realm":"zot",
    "tls": {
      "cert": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/zothub.io/fullchain.pem",
      "key": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/zothub.io/privkey.pem"
    },
    "auth": {
      "htpasswd": {
        "path": "/etc/zot/htpasswd"
      },
      "failDelay": 5
    },
    "allowReadAccess": true
  },
  "log":{
    "level":"debug",
    "output":"/var/log/zot/zot.log",
    "audit":"/var/log/zot/zot-audit.log"
  },
  "extensions": {
    "search": {
      "enable": true,
      "cve": {
        "updateInterval": "24h"
      }
    },
    "sync": {
      "enable": false,
      "registries": [
        {
          "urls": ["https://mirror.gcr.io/library"],
          "onDemand": true,
          "maxRetries": 3,
          "retryDelay": "5m",
          "pollInterval": "6h"
        },
        {
          "urls": ["https://docker.io/library"],
          "onDemand": true
        }
      ]
    },
    "scrub": {
      "interval": "24h"
    }
  }
}

Refer to Configuring zot for more details about configuration file options.

TLS encryption¶

We recommend using a certificate authority such as Let’s Encrypt that offers TLS encryption, as shown in this configuration example:

"tls": {
  "cert": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/zothub.io/fullchain.pem",
  "key": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/zothub.io/privkey.pem"
}

Registry synchronization¶

The example file enables registry synchronization with two other container registries. In the example, the zot server synchronizes with the Google and Docker container registries, as shown here:

"sync": {
  "enable": false,
  "registries": [
    {
      "urls": ["https://mirror.gcr.io/library"],
      "onDemand": true,
      "maxRetries": 3,
      "retryDelay": "5m",
      "pollInterval": "6h"
    },
    {
      "urls": ["https://docker.io/library"],
      "onDemand": true
    }
  ]
}