Using Gitlab's Free Docker Registry

Using Gitlab's Free Docker Registry

Daily short news for you
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    As I shared earlier this year, the number of visitors to my blog is gradually declining. When I looked at the statistics, the number of users in the first six months of 2025 has dropped by 30% compared to the same period last year, and by 15% compared to the last six months of 2024. This indicates a reality that users are gradually leaving. What is the reason for this?

    I think the biggest reason is that user habits have changed. They primarily discover the blog through search engines, with Google being the largest. Almost half of the users return to the blog without going through the search step. This is a positive signal, but it's still not enough to increase the number of new users. Not to mention that now, Google has launched the AI Search Labs feature, which means AI displays summarized content when users search, further reducing the likelihood of users accessing the website. Interestingly, when Search Labs was introduced, English articles have taken over the rankings for the most accessed content.

    My articles are usually very long, sometimes reaching up to 2000 words. Writing such an article takes a lot of time. It's normal for many articles to go unread. I know and accept this because not everyone encounters the issues being discussed. For me, writing is a way to cultivate patience and thoughtfulness. Being able to help someone through my writing is a wonderful thing.

    Therefore, I am thinking of focusing on shorter and medium-length content to be able to write more. Long content will only be used when I want to write in detail or delve deeply into a particular topic. So, I am looking for ways to redesign the blog. Everyone, please stay tuned! 😄

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    Now, the game with AI Agents is different. AI Agents have to actively seek out information sources and conveniently "crawl" your data, then mix it up or do something with it that we can't even know. So this is almost a game that benefits only one side 🤔!?

    CloudFlare's move is to make AI Agents pay for each time they retrieve data from your website. If they don’t pay, then I won’t let them read my data. Something like that. Let’s wait a bit longer and see 🤓.

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    JavaScript™ Trademark Update

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The Problem

Are you using Docker in any of your projects? If so, you must have encountered the need to store and share images. The default Docker Registry limits the number of private images you can have. This means that if you have multiple projects, you have to make these images public, which compromises the privacy of your projects.

Normally, some people choose to pay for Docker to get more private images. Others prefer to set up their own registry to store internal images. Docker provides an open-source solution for creating your registry. For more details, see the Docker Registry.

If you are an individual user and can't afford a paid service or don't have resources to set up your own registry, then this article is for you. Gitlab currently offers a completely free registry, all you need is a Gitlab account.

Usage

Gitlab's registry is tied to a repository. This means that to use it, you need to create repositories first. Images will be associated with repositories, and you can store them by pushing Docker images with the same name as the repository to Gitlab.

To use Gitlab's registry, follow these steps:

Step 1: Generate an Access Token by going to Profile > Preferences > Access Tokens. Enter a name for the token and make sure to select the "read & write registry" permission.

Access Token

After successfully generating the token, save it somewhere safe for future use.

Step 2: Log in to Gitlab's registry by running the following command:

$ docker login registry.gitlab.com

Enter your Gitlab username as the username and the Access Token generated in Step 1 as the password.

Step 3: Create a repository on Gitlab. For example, let's create a repository named "system".

Step 4: Build an image and make sure to name it the same as the Gitlab repository you created. For example:

$ docker build -t gitlab.com/hoaitx/system:latest .  

Step 5: Push the image as usual:

$ docker push gitlab.com/hoaitx/system:latest

Step 6: To check if the image has been uploaded to the registry, go to the repository you created, then navigate to Deploy > Container Registry. You will see all the images along with their tags.

Container Registry

This registry can be used for pulling and pushing images just like any other registry. However, it is a private registry, so you need to log in to perform any operations.

Limits

One concern when using free services is the limitations that come with them. It's strange that there isn't any specific documentation regarding the storage limit for images in Gitlab's registry. A search in the community led to the conclusion that there are no storage limits! You can refer to the Gitlab forum for more information.

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