Aptible customers have always been able to streamline deployment by building from base images hosted in public Docker registries. For example, the Aptible Ruby on Rails Quickstart uses FROM quay.io/aptible/ruby:2.3, eliminating the need to install Ruby during each Aptible build.

Many customers would like to do even more work outside their Aptible build, including prebuilding code that should be kept private. In those cases, pulling a base image from a public Docker registry is not feasible, so today we are happy to announce that you can now deploy Aptible apps from private images hosted on Docker Hub, Quay.io, and other private registries! This feature is supported for all v2 stacks.

How does it work?

To start from scratch, first create an app on Aptible. You will still need to use git, since we will still push a repo with a single Procfile file, used to define the app’s services and their commands. If your entire app is prebuilt in the image, you do not need a Dockerfile.

Next, use the Aptible CLI’s aptible config:set command to set a few environment variables:

• The name of the image to pull, in the format registry_host/repo/image_name:tag. Repo and image name are required. Tag is optional and will default to latest. If you are not using Docker Hub (if for example you’re using ) then the registry host name is also required.

• The private registry host to pull from. Required when pulling from a private registry. Defaults to docker.io

• The username to use when pulling the image. Required when pulling from a private registry.

• The password of the registry to pull from. Required when pulling from a private registry.

• The e-mail to use when pulling. Optional. Defaults to .

Note that you can omit a Dockerfile and only set APTIBLE_DOCKER_IMAGE to initiate a deploy from a public Docker registry image.

Example

To illustrate the steps above, assume we have a basic Ruby on Rails app image prebuilt and hosted in a private registry:

$ mkdir example-docker-app $ cd example-docker-app && git init . $ aptible apps:create example-docker-app --environment my-env > App example-docker-app created! > Git remote: git@beta.aptible.com:my-env/example-docker-app.git $ aptible config:set APTIBLE_PRIVATE_REGISTRY_HOST=[registry host] APTIBLE_DOCKER_IMAGE=[image name] APTIBLE_PRIVATE_REGISTRY_USERNAME=[username] APTIBLE_PRIVATE_REGISTRY_PASSWORD=[password] $ echo "web: bundle exec rails s" > Procfile $ git add Procfile && commit -m "test docker pull" $ git remote add aptible git@beta.aptible.com:my-env/example-docker-app.git $ git push aptible master

In this example, because you set APTIBLE_DOCKER_IMAGE, when you git push the platform will pull and run the image specified using the provided credentials.

Note that if a Dockerfile is present, APTIBLE_DOCKER_IMAGE will override the Dockerfile and the Dockerfile will be ignored.

Extending a Private Image

You may want to still build an app from scratch upon deploy, but would like to standardize or harden a private base image. In this case, your Aptible app will still need a Dockerfile commited to version control, but the Dockerfile’s FROM directive can reference a private image. Be sure to specify your registry credentials with the variables above, but be sure to omit APTIBLE_DOCKER_IMAGE(since otherwise the Dockerfile will be ignored).

As usual, we would love to hear your feedback! If you have any questions or comments, please let us know!