How to Pull Images From Oracle's Container Registry

Written by Sean Scott | Mar 14, 2024 11:00:00 AM

Once Upon a Time, Oracle shared container images in the kingdom of Docker Hub. They were freely available and easy to pull from a magical well that held a bounty of images that came together from every corner of the land. These were the Good Old Days when containers were still new (but not yet very popular in the database community).

One day, a lawyer visited the kingdom of Docker Hub and saw that the people were getting Oracle images without first accepting the License Agreement. This made the Lawyer unhappy, and over time, the Lawyer caused the spring that fed Oracle images into the well to dry up. But the Lawyer replaced the well with another, in the nearby kingdom of Oracle Container Registry. Here, the people could drink freely from the spring flowing with Oracle container images, with the caveat that they must first accept the License Agreement.

The Lawyer was now happy, but the people were sad, for when they went to the spring to pull images, they needed a special token. If they didn’t have the token, the magic well of images said to them:

unable to retrieve auth token: invalid username/password: authentication required

The people voiced their lament in the GitHub, a place filled with great knowledge and complaint, for the Lawyer for the kingdom of the Oracle Container Registry had neglected to share the secrets for obtaining the magical token in a very clear way. That is, until one day, a visitor arrived from across the sea carrying a book of spells, including one for obtaining the magical token that granted access to the well of Oracle images. It read as follows:

Navigate to https://container-registry.oracle.com/
In the upper right corner, click on "Sign In."
A mighty Gatekeeper will appear and demand your Oracle SSO username and password. Do not fear the Gatekeeper; provide them what is asked and know they will keep your secret password safe!
The Gatekeeper will return you to the registry, where you’ll find many different springs from which to drink and enjoy. Choose one. My personal favorite is the Fountain of Databases—https://container-registry.oracle.com/ords/ocr/ba/database. Fear not! The procedure for others is very similar!
You'll now see a list of repositories representing the different flavors of databases available for your enjoyment! It will appear like this:

It is once again time to choose! Each row in the list will show whether you’ve accepted the License Agreement. In the image above, notice that I’ve already appeased the Lawyer’s demands for the enterprise and rac repositories, as indicated by the legalese and mighty Green Checkmark of Legal Acceptance. However, I have not yet accepted the quest for gsm. Before doing so, I must agree to its Terms by clicking upon the Continue button. Whichever repository you prefer, click on its Continue button and then carefully read and accept the scroll of agreement the repository shares.
Upon your acceptance, you’ll return to the repository page, where you should now see the Green Checkmark of Legal Acceptance, indicating that you are agreeable and promise not to use the images to bring evil into the land.

Huzzah! You’ve passed the first test! There is still one more task to complete before pulling images from the well—logging into the registry from your host. This spell is performed on the host command line and, if you work on multiple hosts, must be completed on each.

Login to the repo using the special incantation:
docker login container-registry.oracle.com (Replace docker with the appropriate command for your runtime of choice.)
The Gatekeeper appears again to request your Oracle SSO username and password! Provide the same credentials that granted access to the container registry page.

Congratulations! Success is at hand! You’ve obtained a token to appease the Laywer and opened the magic portal to the kingdom of Oracle Container Registry! Images will now flow freely from every repository bearing the Green Checkmark of Legal Acceptance!

A Final Thought on Oracle Images from Other Repositories

I am but a humble storyteller and do not speak the language of the Lawyer. However, I respect that the Lawyer has an important job, and while we may poke fun at them, running afoul of licensing is nothing to laugh about. I therefore ask that you keep the following in mind:

Anyone who legally obtains Oracle software—whether via download of installation files, pulling pre-built images from Oracle’s container registry, or read from physical media—must agree to Oracle’s Terms and Restrictions. (Anyone who obtains software illegally, well… did so illegally.)

I do not pretend to be a licensing expert, but I’m pretty confident that you’re not legally allowed to redistribute Oracle software. This means that anyone sharing Oracle software on Docker Hub (or elsewhere) is likely violating their license. Pulling or downloading images for Oracle software from such sources may also put you at legal risk. So, while it may be inconvenient to go through the steps outlined above, please resist the temptation to docker pull some random image that popped up in a search result.

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