kubernetes cannot pull local image

Question

I am using kubernetes on a single machine for testing, I have built a custom image from the nginx docker image, but when I try to use the image in kubernetes I get an image pull error?????

MY POD YAML

kind: Pod
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: yumserver
  labels:
    name: frontendhttp
spec:
  containers:
    - name: myfrontend
      image: my/nginx:latest
      ports:
        - containerPort: 80
          name: "http-server"
      volumeMounts:
      - mountPath: "/usr/share/nginx/html"
        name: mypd
  imagePullSecrets:
    - name: myregistrykey

  volumes:
    - name: mypd
      persistentVolumeClaim:
       claimName: myclaim-1

MY KUBERNETES COMMAND

kubectl create -f pod-yumserver.yaml

THE ERROR

kubectl describe pod yumserver


Name: yumserver
Namespace: default
Image(s):   my/nginx:latest
Node:       127.0.0.1/127.0.0.1
Start Time: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 16:31:42 +0100
Labels:     name=frontendhttp
Status:     Pending
Reason:     
Message:    
IP:     172.17.0.2
Controllers:    <none>
Containers:
  myfrontend:
    Container ID:   
    Image:      my/nginx:latest
    Image ID:       
    QoS Tier:
      memory:       BestEffort
      cpu:      BestEffort
    State:      Waiting
      Reason:       ErrImagePull
    Ready:      False
    Restart Count:  0
    Environment Variables:
Conditions:
  Type      Status
  Ready     False 
Volumes:
  mypd:
    Type:   PersistentVolumeClaim (a reference to a PersistentVolumeClaim in the same namespace)
    ClaimName:  myclaim-1
    ReadOnly:   false
  default-token-64w08:
    Type:   Secret (a secret that should populate this volume)
    SecretName: default-token-64w08
Events:
  FirstSeen LastSeen    Count   From            SubobjectPath           Type        Reason          Message
  --------- --------    -----   ----            -------------           --------    ------          -------
  13s       13s     1   {default-scheduler }                    Normal      Scheduled       Successfully assigned yumserver to 127.0.0.1
  13s       13s     1   {kubelet 127.0.0.1}                 Warning     MissingClusterDNS   kubelet does not have ClusterDNS IP configured and cannot create Pod using "ClusterFirst" policy. Falling back to DNSDefault policy.
  12s       12s     1   {kubelet 127.0.0.1} spec.containers{myfrontend} Normal      Pulling         pulling image "my/nginx:latest"
  8s        8s      1   {kubelet 127.0.0.1} spec.containers{myfrontend} Warning     Failed          Failed to pull image "my/nginx:latest": Error: image my/nginx:latest not found
  8s        8s      1   {kubelet 127.0.0.1}                 Warning     FailedSync      Error syncing pod, skipping: failed to "StartContainer" for "myfrontend" with ErrImagePull: "Error: image my/nginx:latest not found"

Answer 1

So you have the image on your machine aready. It still tries to pull the image from Docker Hub, however, which is likely not what you want on your single-machine setup. This is happening because the latest tag sets the imagePullPolicy to Always implicitly. You can try setting it to IfNotPresent explicitly or change to a tag other than latest. – Timo Reimann Apr 28 at 7:16

For some reason Timo Reimann did only post this above as a comment, but it definitely should be the official answer to this question, so I'm posting it again.

Answer 2

Run eval $(minikube docker-env) before building your image.

Full answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/40150867

Answer 3

This should work irrespective of whether you are using minikube or not :

1. Start a local registry container:

docker run -d -p 5000:5000 --restart=always --name registry registry:2

2. Do docker images to find out the REPOSITORY and TAG of your local image. Then create a new tag for your local image :

docker tag <local-image-repository>:<local-image-tag> localhost:5000/<local-image-name>

If TAG for your local image is <none>, you can simply do:

docker tag <local-image-repository> localhost:5000/<local-image-name>

3. Push to local registry :

docker push localhost:5000/<local-image-name>

This will automatically add the latest tag to localhost:5000/<local-image-name>. You can check again by doing docker images.

4. In your yaml file, set imagePullPolicy to IfNotPresent :

...
spec:
  containers:
  - name: <name>
    image: localhost:5000/<local-image-name>
    imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
...

That's it. Now your ImagePullError should be resolved.

Note: If you have multiple hosts in the cluster, and you want to use a specific one to host the registry, just replace localhost in all the above steps with the hostname of the host where the registry container is hosted. In that case, you may need to allow HTTP (non-HTTPS) connections to the registry:

5 (optional). Allow connection to insecure registry in worker nodes:

sudo echo '{"insecure-registries":["<registry-hostname>:5000"]}' > /etc/docker/daemon.json