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Field Kit Enablement CoP

Enablement Practices for the Field-Kit Team

Getting Started with Quay.io: The Basics for New Users

Quay.io (often just called Quay) is a hosted container image registry service provided by Red Hat. Think of it as GitHub for your container images (Docker, OCI images, etc.). It’s where you store, manage, and distribute your containerized applications.

What is Quay.io?

Why Use Quay.io?

Basic Usage for New Users

1. Create a Quay.io Account

Head over to Quay.io and sign up. You’ll likely use your Red Hat credentials if you have them, or create a new account. Your chosen username will be part of your default namespace for repositories (e.g., quay.io/<your_username>/my-repo).

2. Understand Repositories

3. Create Your First Repository

Once you’re logged in, look for an option like “Create New Repository.”

4. Authenticate with Quay.io

To push or pull images, you’ll need to log in from your local machine using a container client like Podman or Docker.


# Using Podman (recommended by Red Hat):
podman login quay.io

# Using Docker:
docker login quay.io

You’ll be prompted for your Quay.io username and password.

5. Pulling an Image

To download an image from Quay.io:


podman pull quay.io/<username_or_org>/<repository_name>:<tag>
# Example: podman pull quay.io/myuser/my-app:latest

If the repository is public, you can pull it even without logging in.

6. Pushing an Image

To upload an image to Quay.io:

a. Build your image locally:

podman build -t my-app:latest . # Or docker build

b. Tag your image for Quay.io:

You need to retag your local image with the Quay.io registry address and your repository name.

podman tag my-app:latest quay.io/<username_or_org>/my-app:latest

c. Push the tagged image:

podman push quay.io/<username_or_org>/my-app:latest

7. Managing Tags

8. Explore Security Features

After you push an image, Quay.io will automatically scan it for vulnerabilities. You can view these reports in the web UI for your repository. Be sure to check out Robot Accounts for automated pushes and pulls from CI/CD pipelines.

9. Organizations and Teams (for collaboration)

If you’re working with a team, create an Organization in Quay.io. This provides a shared namespace for repositories that multiple users can access. Within an organization, you can create Teams and assign specific permissions (read, write, admin) to those teams for different repositories.

Next Steps

Quay.io offers a robust set of features for managing your container images, especially with its focus on security and collaboration. Start with the basics of creating repositories, pushing/pulling images, and then explore its advanced capabilities as your needs grow.