Kia Zhi Tang (Ryen Tang)

Kia Zhi Tang (Ryen Tang)

Technology Evangelist, Infrastructure as Code Developer, Automation Guru

To find out more about me.

Getting started on Azure container registry to dock your containers

10 minute read

All aboard! As we set sail onboard the ship with containers from public docker repository towards a private container repository in Azure.

In this blog post, I will demonstrate on how you can create an Azure Container Registry (ACR) and push your container images to your private repository in the cloud using AzureRM PowerShell cmdlets or Azure CLI commands from the shell on your desktop.

Of course, this demonstration also applies on the Cloud Shell in Azure portal if you just prefer to work from a web browser.

What is an Azure Container Registry?

An Azure Container Registry (ACR) is a managed Docker registry service based on the open-source Docker Registry 2.0. To learn more about Azure Container Registry, you can read more about it here. If you are interested on learning more about open-source Docker Registry, you can find out more about it here.

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Pre-requisite requirements

  • An Azure Subscription (If you do not have one yet, you can start free to get started.)
  • Command line (CLI) tools:

Note: This walk-through can be performed on Cloud Shell without any installation of the command line (CLI) tools mentioned in the pre-requisite requirements. If you already have an Azure subscription, just launch Cloud Shell to get started and skip those installation sections.

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Creating Azure Container Registry using PowerShell

This section covers how to use PowerShell commands from AzureRM module to perform the task in creating an Azure Container Registry (ACR) to store our container images.

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Installation of AzureRM for Windows PowerShell

If you are using Windows PowerShell, launch your Windows PowerShell console with elevated privileges and use Install-Module cmdlet to request the package from PowerShell Gallery. After the package download has completed, use the Import-Module cmdlet to import the module into the current PowerShell console session.

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# Install Azure PowerShell module
Install-Module `
    -Name "AzureRm" `
    -Force ;

# Import Azure PowerShell module
Import-Module `
    -Name "AzureRm" ;

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Installation of AzureRM for PowerShell Core

If you are using PowerShell Core, launch your PowerShell console and use Install-Module cmdlet to request the package from PowerShell Gallery. After the package download has completed, use the Import-Module cmdlet to import the module into the current PowerShell Core console session.

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# Install Azure PowerShell module
Install-Module `
    -Name "AzureRm.NetCore" `
    -Force ;

# Import Azure PowerShell module
Import-Module `
    -Name "AzureRm.NetCore" ;

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Login to Azure

Use Connect-AzureRmAccount cmdlet to prompt for your Azure sign-in credential.

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# Connect to Azure using interactive login prompt
Connect-AzureRmAccount ;

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Select an Azure subscription

If you have more than one Azure subscriptions, you will required to select an Azure subscription using the Select-AzureRmSubscription so that any work commencing with be targeted to the specific subscription. If you have only Azure subscription, that will be your default subscription and you can skip this.

Note: Replace the $AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID variable with your Azure subscription id (Eg. xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx). If you are unsure of your subscription id, use Get-AzureRmSubscription to list all available Azure subscriptions.

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# Select an Azure subscription if you have more than
#  one Azure subscription with your account credential
Select-AzureRmSubscription `
    -SubscriptionId $AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID ;

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Create a resource group for container registry

Firstly, create a resource group to contain your Azure Container Registry (ACR) instance. If you have an existing resource group that can be used to contain your Azure Container Registry (ACR) instance, feel free to skip this step.

Note: For demonstration purposes, I will use containers as the resource group name and southeastasia as the location where this resource will be located.

Note: For a list of Azure datacenter location, use Get-AzureRmLocation | Where-Object { $_.Providers -contains 'Microsoft.ContainerService' } ; to enumerate a list of available locations.

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# Create your container resource group for a region
#  or location
New-AzureRmResourceGroup `
    -Name "containers" `
    -Location "southeastasia" ;

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Create a container registry in the resource group

Now, create the Azure Container Registry (ACR) using the New-AzureRMContainerRegistry in the resource group and store the response to a $ContainerRegistry variable.

Note: For demonstration purposes, I will use containers as the resource group name that we have previously created and containerRegistry000 as the Azure Container Registry (ACR) name.

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# Create an Azure container registry
$ContainerRegistry = New-AzureRMContainerRegistry `
    -ResourceGroupName "containers" `
    -Name "containerRegistry000" `
    -EnableAdminUser `
    -Sku "Basic" ;

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Login to container registry

Use Get-AzureRmContainerRegistryCredential cmdlet to retrieve the $ContainerRegistry credential and store it to a $Credential variable.

Pipeline the $Credential variable password property value to docker login with $Credential variable username property value for signing into Azure Container Registry (ACR).

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# Get the Azure container registry credential
$Credential = Get-AzureRmContainerRegistryCredential `
    -Registry $ContainerRegistry ;

# Login to Azure container registry using Docker CLI
$Credential.Password | `
    docker login $ContainerRegistry.LoginServer -u $Credential.Username --password-stdin

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Pull a public container and push to your private container registry

To test your Azure Container Registry (ACR) is created properly, you can try pulling a public container using docker pull command to your environment and change tag of the public container repository to your private container repository using docker tag.

Once you have changed the tag, push the ACR FQN tagged container using the docker push command and check if docker has uploaded it successfully to your ACR in Azure.

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# Pull a public container image from Docker Hub
#  using Docker CLI
docker pull kiazhi/nanoserver.powershell

# Construct the container tag for private Azure
#  container registry repository
$ContainerImage = "$($ContainerRegistry.LoginServer)/nanoserver.powershell:latest"

# Tag the public container image with the new container
#  tag for private Azure container registry repository
docker tag kiazhi/nanoserver.powershell $ContainerImage

# Push the tagged container to private Azure
#  container registry repository
docker push "$($ContainerRegistry.LoginServer)/nanoserver.powershell:latest"

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Creating Azure Container Registry using Azure CLI

This section covers how to use Azure CLI commands to perform the same task in creating an Azure Container Registry (ACR) to store our container images.

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Installation of Azure CLI with Windows

If Windows PowerShell or PowerShell Core is not your favourite command line (CLI) tool set and you would like to give Azure CLI a try, you can use bitadmin command to download the Microsoft Installer (MSI) file and use msiexec command to install the Azure CLI from command prompt.

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:: Download Azure CLI from Command Prompt
bitsadmin /transfer wcb /priority high https://aka.ms/installazurecliwindows %USERPROFILE%\Downloads\Azure-CLI.msi

:: Install Azure CLI
msiexec /i %USERPROFILE%\Downloads\azure-cli.msi

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Installation of Azure CLI with Apt

For Debian or Ubuntu users, you can follow this guide on installing the Azure CLI using apt-get command in Bash.

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# Obtain the Microsoft signing key
curl -L https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -

# Configure your source list based on your
#  Linux distro
AZ_REPO=$(lsb_release -cs)
echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/azure-cli/ $AZ_REPO main" | \
    sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/azure-cli.list

# Install Azure CLI
sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install azure-cli

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Installation of Azure CLI with Yum

For RedHat, Fedora or CentOS users, you can follow this guide on installing the Azure CLI using yum command in Bash.

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# Obtain the Microsoft signing key
sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc

# Configure your repository list based on your
#  Linux distro
sudo sh -c 'echo -e "[azure-cli]\nname=Azure CLI\nbaseurl=https://packages.microsoft.com/yumrepos/azure-cli\nenabled=1\ngpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc" > /etc/yum.repos.d/azure-cli.repo'

# Install Azure CLI
sudo yum install azure-cli

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Installation of Azure CLI with Zypper

For SUSE Enterprise Linux Server (SLES) or openSUSE users, you can follow this guide on installing the Azure CLI using zypper command in Bash.

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# Obtain the Microsoft signing key
sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc

# Configure your repository list based on your
#  Linux distro
sudo zypper addrepo --name 'Azure CLI' --check https://packages.microsoft.com/yumrepos/azure-cli azure-cli

# Install Azure CLI
sudo zypper install --from azure-cli -y azure-cli

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Login to Azure

Use az login command to prompt for your Azure sign-in credential.

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# Login to Azure using interactive login prompt
az login

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Select an Azure subscription

If you have more than one Azure subscriptions, you will required to select an Azure subscription using the Azure CLI so that any work commencing with be targeted to the specific subscription. If you have only Azure subscription, that will be your default subscription and you can skip this.

Note: Replace the $AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID variable with your Azure subscription id (Eg. xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx). If you are unsure of your subscription id, use az account list --output table to list all available Azure subscriptions.

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# Select an Azure subscription if you have more than
#  one Azure subscription with your account credential
az account set --subscription $AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID

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Create a resource group for container registry

Firstly, create a resource group to contain your Azure Container Registry (ACR) instance. If you have an existing resource group that can be used to contain your Azure Container Registry (ACR) instance, feel free to skip this step.

Note: For demonstration purposes, I will use containers as the resource group name and southeastasia as the location where this resource will be located.

Note: For a list of Azure datacenter location, use az acs list-location to enumerate a list of available locations.

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# Create your container resource group for a region
#  or location
az group create --name containers --location southeastasia

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Create a container registry in the resource group

Now, create the Azure Container Registry (ACR) using the az acr create in the resource group.

Note: For demonstration purposes, I will use containers as the resource group name that we have previously created and containerRegistry001 as the Azure Container Registry (ACR) name.

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# Create an Azure container registry
az acr create --resource-group containers --name containerRegistry001 --sku Basic --admin-enabled

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Login to container registry

Next, you will use az acr login command to login to the Azure Container Registry (ACR).

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# Login to Azure container registry using Azure CLI
az acr login --name containerRegistry001

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List the container registry fully qualified domain name

To find out the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the Azure Container Registry (ACR), use the az acr list command to list all the ACR FQDN that are available in that resource group.

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# List the Azure container registry 
az acr list --resource-group containers --query "[].{acrLoginServer:loginServer}" --output table

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Pull a public container and push to your private container registry

To test your Azure Container Registry (ACR) is created properly, you can try pulling a public container using docker pull command to your environment and change tag of the public container repository to your private container repository using docker tag.

Once you have changed the tag, push the ACR FQDN tagged container using the docker push command and check if docker has uploaded it successfully to your ACR in Azure.

Note: For demonstration purposes, you will have to replace the $ACR_FQDN variable with your real ACR FQDN.

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# Pull a public container image from Docker Hub
#  using Docker CLI
docker pull kiazhi/nanoserver.powershell

# Tag the public container image with private Azure
#  container registry repository
# Eg. docker tag kiazhi/nanoserver.powershell containerRegistry001.azurecr.io/nanoserver.powershell:latest
docker tag kiazhi/nanoserver.powershell $ACR_FQDN/nanoserver.powershell:latest

# Push the tagged container to private Azure container
#  registry repository
# Eg. docker push containerRegistry001.azurecr.io/nanoserver.powershell:latest
docker push $ACR_FQDN/nanoserver.powershell:latest

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Conclusion

Finally, clear the deck and start pushing those containers to your new private container repository into the public cloud in Azure using command lines in your favourite shell. You have just created a private respository in Azure as a new shipping destination to dock your containers.

If you need redundancy, I will highly recommend you to create the Azure Container Registry (ACR) with a Premium SKU to enable the geo-replication of your ACR between 2 locations.

If you find that this information useful, feel free to bookmark this or share it with your colleagues and friends.

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Reference

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