Container Registry

Published April 5, 2023 | Last modified October 1, 2025

Objective

This document provides instructions on how to create a container registry with F5® Distributed Cloud Services and use it with virtual K8s (vK8s). Distributed Cloud Services provide a mechanism to easily deploy applications using vK8s. To learn more about how Distributed Cloud Services distribute application deployment, see Distributed Application Management.

A container registry object is used to configure a private docker/container image registry from which the application container images are fetched.

Note: To deploy applications on your sites, first create a vK8s object per the instructions in the Create Virtual K8s Object document.

Using the instructions provided in this guide, you can create a container registry object in F5® Distributed Cloud Console (Console) for your application images and then use the object in vK8s deployments.

Prerequisites

An F5 Distributed Cloud Account. If you do not have an account, see Getting Started with Console.
An application image hosted on a registry server. It is required that you have access to the registry server.

Restrictions

None.

Configuration

Configuration Sequence

Deploying applications with Distributed Cloud Services requires you to perform the following sequence of steps:

Phase	Description
Create Container Registry	Create container registry object in Console.
Deploy to vK8s Using Container Registry	Deploy the applications to vK8s using the container registry object.

Create Container Registry

You can create a container in Distributed Apps and Shared Configuration workspaces. This example shows creating it in the Distributed Apps.

Step 1: Start creating container registry object.

Log into Console and click Distributed Apps.

Figure: Console Homepage

Click Applications > Container Registries.
Click Add Container Registry to open the container registry creation form.

Figure: Navigate to Container Registry

Step 2: Configure metadata and the registry server.

In the Name field, enter a name.
Optionally, set labels and description for your container registry object.
In the Server FQDN field, enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for your registry server.

Note: In case you are using Docker Hub as your registry server, use docker.io as the FQDN.

In the User Name field, enter a username for the registry login.

Figure: FQDN and Username

Step 3: Configure secret for the password.

In the Password field, click Configure to open the secret configuration page.
From the Secret Info menu, select an option:
- Blindfold Secret: This option is used for secrets managed by Distributed Cloud Services.
- Clear Secret: This option is used for secrets that are not encrypted.
Ensure that the Text option is selected.
Enter your password in the secret page and then click Blindfold.

Figure: Secret Options for Encryption

Wait for the encryption to complete and then click Apply.

Step 4: Optionally, enter an email address for the secret.

In the Email field, click Show Advanced Fields.
Enter an email address that will be used for the registry.

Step 5: Complete creating the container registry.

Click Save and Exit to complete creating the container registry object.

Figure: Container Registry Created

Deploy to vK8s Using Container Registry

Deploy Kubernetes objects to vK8s using the container registry object created.

Note: This step shows sample for a simple service workload. For detailed instructions on configuring workloads, see vK8s Workload.

Perform the following steps in Console:

Step 1: Navigate to your vK8s object.

Click Applications > Virtual K8s.

Step 2: Deploy the web application.

For your vK8s object, click the Workloads tab.
Click Add vK8s workload.
Enter a name for workload and select an option from the Select Type of Workload menu, and then click Configure.
Click Configure.
Enter the container name and image name in the Name and Image Name fields, respectively.

Note: In case your registry is Docker Hub, then the value of Image Name field should be specified in the docker.io/<path>:<imagetag> format.

From the Select Container Registry menu, select Private Registry.
Click in the Private Registry field and select the container registry you created in the previous chapter from the displayed list.

Figure: Container Registry for Workload

In the Advertise Options section, enter domains in the List of Domain field.
In the Service Port field, enter a service port to advertise on the internet.
Click Apply.
Click Save and Exit to create the workload. This will deploy your applications to vK8s.