Image Streams in OpenShift: What You Need to Know

If you’ve been playing around with OpenShift and kicking the tyres a bit, you might have come across the mysterious object called the image stream.

What is it? (pokes awkwardly at object lying in the corner)

“It’s this thing which seems to make your images available in the cluster, or something?”

Yes, but what exactly are image streams? How do you use them? And what do you really need to know about them?

In this OpenShift image stream tutorial, I’m going to tell you how I understand image streams, and how I use them. Let’s go.

Firstly, the terminology sucks

The name “stream” makes it so confusing. There’s no streaming involved here.

No Netflix, no data streaming.

An image stream is just a set of references (tags) which point to Docker images.

If I could rename image streams, I’d probably call them image references.

What does an image stream do?

An image stream acts as a pointer to a set of images. It’s like a shortcut or a reference.

Illustration showing tags in an image stream, pointing to images in registries. Text: An image stream contains tags; Each tag points to an image registry

Image streams are useful

An image stream doesn’t contain the Docker image itself. It’s a signpost to images, which can be in any registry – either OpenShift’s internal registry, or an external one.

I regularly use image streams in builds and deployments on OpenShift.

But what’s the point? Why use them?

Why would you use them?

An image stream is a single pointer to a set of related images.

One image stream can contain many different tags (latest, develop, 1.0, etc), each of which points to an image in a registry.

Whenever you want to deploy an application in a project, instead of having to hardcode the registry URL and tag, you can just refer to the image stream tag.

If the source image changes location in future, you just need to update the image stream definition, instead of updating all your deployments individually!

This is how the Red Hat images work in OpenShift. The Red Hat images are installed as image streams in the openshift project. You can reference them from any other project in the cluster.

When an image changes, trigger a new build or deployment

Image streams can also be used as triggers. This means that you can set an image stream as a source for a Build or a Deployment. When the image changes, this can trigger a new Build, or trigger a redeployment of your app.

Access control for images

You can lock away your images in a private registry and control access to them through image streams.

Because image streams are like other objects in OpenShift, they can be restricted, if you like. So you can restrict images to only be used by specific service accounts.

How do you create an image stream?

Here’s how I would create an image stream using the command line.

Create an image stream using the oc import-image command. Give the image stream a name and then the image you want to import.

oc import-image approved-apache:2.4 \
    --from=bitnami/apache:2.4 \
    --confirm

This creates an image stream in your project, called approved-apache. It has one tag, 2.4, which points to the tag 2.4 on the image bitnami/apache.

But wait, you didn’t specify a registry?

That’s right. I don’t specify a registry here, because Docker Hub is configured as one of OpenShift’s default search registries. So it’ll search in the Red Hat registry and Docker Hub, which is where it will find the image.

Then the image will be pulled into OpenShift’s internal registry.

If you’re a cluster-admin, you can see the image in the OpenShift registry, by typing oc get images:

$ oc get images | grep bitnami
sha256:aa742bfa021b81f8d...   bitnami/apache@sha256:aa742bfa021b81f8d...

Declaring it with YAML

Once you’ve learned how to create image streams using the oc command, you probably want to progress on to creating objects declaratively. This is a much better way to do it, because you can store all of your configuration as files in Git, rather than a bunch of commands.

To do this, you create an ImageStream object in YAML. The YAML for an ImageStream looks something like this:

apiVersion: image.openshift.io/v1
kind: ImageStream
metadata:
  name: approved-apache
spec:
  lookupPolicy:
    local: false
  tags:
  - name: "2.4"
    from:
      kind: DockerImage
      name: bitnami/apache:2.4
    referencePolicy:
      type: Source

Then apply this using oc apply.

How do you use an image stream?

The way I use image streams is as sources for Builds and Deployments.

Deploying an image stream

Once you’ve created an image stream, you can run oc new-app --image-stream=<name> to easily create a Deployment and a Service from it.

OpenShift will inspect the image to see which ports to expose, and then create a Deployment and a Service for your app.

Let’s import a sample image that I made:

oc import-image my-python \ 
    --from=quay.io/tdonohue/python-hello-world:latest \ 
    --confirm

Now I create a Deployment and a Service to deploy it in my project:

oc new-app --image-stream=my-python

Using an image stream as a source image in a build

Or, you can use an image stream as a source for a build.

Here’s an example of a BuildConfig which uses an image stream as a source:

kind: BuildConfig
apiVersion: build.openshift.io/v1
metadata:
  name: example-app
spec:
  source:
    type: Git
    git:
      uri: 'https://github.com/sclorg/nodejs-ex.git'
  strategy:
    type: Source
    sourceStrategy:
      from:
        kind: ImageStreamTag
        name: 'nodejs-8-centos7:latest'
  output:
    to:
      kind: ImageStreamTag
      name: 'example-app:latest'
  triggers:
    - type: ConfigChange
    - type: ImageChange

What if your image is in a private registry?

Yep, you can still use image streams if your image is in a private registry.

Firstly, if the registry is password-protected, make sure you create a Secret with your credentials for the external registry, so OpenShift can pull the image.

Here I’m connecting to the registry on the Mars rover (well, maybe one day Mars rovers will run OpenShift):

oc create secret docker-registry my-mars-secret \
  --docker-server=registry.marsrover.space \
  --docker-username="[email protected]" \
  --docker-password=thepasswordishere

Then link the secret to your builder and default service accounts:

oc secrets link builder my-mars-secret
oc secrets link default my-mars-secret --for=pull

Now we’re good to import the image, using the oc import-image command:

oc import-image marsview \ 
    --from=registry.marsrover.space/engine/marsview \
    --confirm

Congrats! You’ve created an image stream to import an image from a private registry, with authentication.

What about triggering when the source image changes?

If your image stream points to an image in OpenShift’s internal registry (perhaps, like an image you’ve built inside OpenShift), then OpenShift gets notified automatically when your image changes.

But if you want to tell OpenShift to keep checking an external image for changes, you’ll need to use the --scheduled tag when you use oc import-image.

oc import-image marsview \ 
    --from=registry.marsrover.space/engine/marsview \
    --scheduled --confirm

When you use this option, you’ll see this in the output from oc import-image. Note how it says “updates automatically”:

Name:			marsview
Namespace:		toms-project
Created:		12 minutes ago
Labels:			<none>
Annotations:		openshift.io/image.dockerRepositoryCheck=2021-01-13T18:54:19Z
Image Repository:	image-registry.openshift-image-registry.svc:5000/toms-project/marsview
Image Lookup:		local=false
Unique Images:		1
Tags:			1

latest
  updates automatically from registry registry.marsrover.space/engine/marsview:latest

  * registry.marsrover.space/engine/marsview@sha256:a7ca9b84c7a642ac14294679ba6fb9c80918ea210f3c63154d23231912d41394
      About a minute ago

When does the image update?

OpenShift will keep checking the image, usually around every 15 minutes (see below for how to change this.)

Wait 15 minutes. Put the kettle on. Whatever it takes to run down the clock.

If a new image is pushed, you’ll see something like this, when you run oc describe is/marsview:

latest
  updates automatically from registry registry.marsrover.space/engine/marsview:latest

  * registry.marsrover.space/engine/marsview@sha256:77dc2d9740a2450dec03cef69d4c42ad3ca900b6b0d93dcbf0c7f46b598f8d9c
      About a minute ago
    registry.marsrover.space/engine/marsview@sha256:a7ca9b84c7a642ac14294679ba6fb9c80918ea210f3c63154d23231912d41394
      19 minutes ago

Bingo, the image updated about a minute ago!

Then, as long as your DeploymentConfig is configured with a Trigger of “ImageChange”, it will automatically trigger a redeployment.

Here’s what a DeploymentConfig for this app would look like, with a trigger:

kind: DeploymentConfig
apiVersion: apps.openshift.io/v1
metadata:
  name: marsview
spec:
  selector:
    deploymentconfig: marsview
  replicas: 1
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        deploymentconfig: marsview
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: main
          image: marsview    # OpenShift will replace this with the 'real' image URL
          ports:
            - containerPort: 8080
              protocol: TCP
          imagePullPolicy: Always
      restartPolicy: Always
  triggers:
    - type: ConfigChange
    - type: ImageChange
      imageChangeParams:
        automatic: true       # Set automatic=true to trigger a redeployment on image change
        containerNames:
          - marsview
        from:
          kind: ImageStreamTag
          namespace: toms-project
          name: 'marsview:latest'

This allows you to implement basic continuous deployment. The moment that a new image is pushed to your latest tag, OpenShift will automatically trigger an update of your app. Fab.

How often are images imported?

How often images are imported, is a cluster-wide setting. Look for these settings in /etc/origin/master/master-config.yaml:

imagePolicyConfig:
    MaxScheduledImageImportsPerMinute: 10
    ScheduledImageImportMinimumIntervalSeconds: 1800
    disableScheduledImport: false
    maxImagesBulkImportedPerRepository: 3

Adding additional tags to the image stream

To add additional tags to an image stream, you can use oc tag.

The new tag doesn’t need to be in the same registry, it could be somewhere else entirely.

Here I’m adding a develop tag to my image stream, pointing to a different registry (registry.spacedev.com):

oc tag registry.spacedev.com/engine/marsview:develop \
    marsview:develop \
    --scheduled

which will say this:

Tag marsview:develop set to import registry.marsrover.space/engine/marsview:develop periodically.

Job done. Now I can reference the develop tag from my development registry.

TL;DR. Do I really need them?

No, you don’t really need them. But they are useful for:

  • Creating one place to pull images from external registries, so you don’t have to keep track of everywhere you’re using an image

  • Creating triggers for your builds and deployments

  • Understanding how the built-in Red Hat images are installed in the cluster (you’ll see them in the openshift project)

And here are the key terms.

Term What it is
Image stream A set of pointers (tags). Each tag points to a Docker image.
Image stream tag A tag within an image stream. The tag points to an individual Docker image in a registry somewhere, either the internal registry or an external one.
Image stream image A pointer from within an image stream, to a particular image ID. Basically lets you get all the details (metadata) of the actual image itself.

Just….don’t cross the streams! (Bad joke.)

Tom Donohue

By Tom Donohue, Editor | Twitter | LinkedIn

Tom is the founder of Tutorial Works. He’s an engineer and open source advocate. He uses the blog as a vehicle for sharing tutorials, writing about technology and talking about himself in the third person. His very first computer was an Acorn Electron.

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