Google Cloud Container Registry
Storing container images in GCP.
The GCP container registry is a container registry flavor that comes built-in with ZenML and uses the Google Artifact Registry.
Important Notice: Google Container Registry is being replaced by Artifact Registry. Please start using Artifact Registry for your containers. As per Google's documentation, "after May 15, 2024, Artifact Registry will host images for the gcr.io domain in Google Cloud projects without previous Container Registry usage. After March 18, 2025, Container Registry will be shut down." The terms container registry and artifact registry will be used interchangeably throughout this document.
When to use it
You should use the GCP container registry if:
one or more components of your stack need to pull or push container images.
you have access to GCP. If you're not using GCP, take a look at the other container registry flavors.
How to deploy it
Would you like to skip ahead and deploy a full ZenML cloud stack already, including a Google Artifact Registry? Check out thein-browser stack deployment wizard, the stack registration wizard, or the ZenML GCP Terraform module for a shortcut on how to deploy & register this stack component.
When using the Google Artifact Registry, you need to:
How to find the registry URI
When using the Google Artifact Registry, the GCP container registry URI should have the following format:
<REGION>-docker.pkg.dev/<PROJECT_ID>/<REPOSITORY_NAME>
# Examples:
europe-west1-docker.pkg.dev/zenml/my-repo
southamerica-east1-docker.pkg.dev/zenml/zenml-test
asia-docker.pkg.dev/my-project/another-repoTo figure out the URI for your registry:
Go here and select the repository that you want to use to store Docker images. If you don't have a repository yet, take a look at the deployment section.
On the top, click the copy button to copy the full repository URL.
How to use it
To use the GCP container registry, we need:
Docker installed and running.
The registry URI. Check out the previous section on the URI format and how to get the URI for your registry.
We can then register the container registry and use it in our active stack:
You also need to set up authentication required to log in to the container registry.
Authentication Methods
Integrating and using a GCP Container Registry in your pipelines is not possible without employing some form of authentication. If you're looking for a quick way to get started locally, you can use the Local Authentication method. However, the recommended way to authenticate to the GCP cloud platform is through a GCP Service Connector. This is particularly useful if you are configuring ZenML stacks that combine the GCP Container Registry with other remote stack components also running in GCP.
This method uses the Docker client authentication available in the environment where the ZenML code is running. On your local machine, this is the quickest way to configure a GCP Container Registry. You don't need to supply credentials explicitly when you register the GCP Container Registry, as it leverages the local credentials and configuration that the GCP CLI and Docker client store on your local machine. However, you will need to install and set up the GCP CLI on your machine as a prerequisite, as covered in the GCP CLI documentation, before you register the GCP Container Registry.
With the GCP CLI installed and set up with credentials, we'll need to configure Docker, so it can pull and push images:
for a Google Container Registry:
for a Google Artifact Registry:
Stacks using the GCP Container Registry set up with local authentication are not portable across environments. To make ZenML pipelines fully portable, it is recommended to use a GCP Service Connector to link your GCP Container Registry to the remote GCR registry.
To set up the GCP Container Registry to authenticate to GCP and access a Google Artifact Registry, it is recommended to leverage the many features provided by the GCP Service Connector such as auto-configuration, local login, best security practices regarding long-lived credentials and reusing the same credentials across multiple stack components.
If you don't already have a GCP Service Connector configured in your ZenML deployment, you can register one using the interactive CLI command. You have the option to configure a GCP Service Connector that can be used to access a Google Artifact Registry or even more than one type of GCP resource:
A non-interactive CLI example that leverages the GCP CLI configuration on your local machine to auto-configure a GCP Service Connector targeting a GCR registry is:
Note: Please remember to grant the entity associated with your GCP credentials permissions to read and write to your GCR registry. For a full list of permissions required to use a GCP Service Connector to access a GCR registry, please refer to the GCP Service Connector GCR registry resource type documentation or read the documentation available in the interactive CLI commands and dashboard. The GCP Service Connector supports many different authentication methods with different levels of security and convenience. You should pick the one that best fits your use-case.
If you already have one or more GCP Service Connectors configured in your ZenML deployment, you can check which of them can be used to access the GCR registry you want to use for your GCP Container Registry by running e.g.:
After having set up or decided on a GCP Service Connector to use to connect to the target GCR registry, you can register the GCP Container Registry as follows:
A non-interactive version that connects the GCP Container Registry to a target GCR registry through a GCP Service Connector:
Linking the GCP Container Registry to a Service Connector means that your local Docker client is no longer authenticated to access the remote registry. If you need to manually interact with the remote registry via the Docker CLI, you can use the local login Service Connector feature to temporarily authenticate your local Docker client to the remote registry:
As a final step, you can use the GCP Container Registry in a ZenML Stack:
For more information and a full list of configurable attributes of the GCP container registry, check out the SDK Docs .
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