docker login

login

Usage: docker login [OPTIONS] [SERVER]

Log in to a Docker registry server, if no server is
specified "https://index.docker.io/v1/" is the default.

  --help               Print usage
  -p, --password=""    Password
  -u, --username=""    Username

If you want to login to a self-hosted registry you can specify this by adding the server name.

example:
$ docker login localhost:8080

docker login requires user to use sudo or be root, except when:

1. connecting to a remote daemon, such as a docker-machine provisioned docker engine.
2. user is added to the docker group. This will impact the security of your system; the docker group is root equivalent. See Docker Daemon Attack Surface for details.

You can log into any public or private repository for which you have credentials. When you log in, the command stores encoded credentials in $HOME/.docker/config.json on Linux or %USERPROFILE%/.docker/config.json on Windows.

Note: When running sudo docker login credentials are saved in /root/.docker/config.json.

Credentials store

The Docker Engine can keep user credentials in an external credentials store, such as the native keychain of the operating system. Using an external store is more secure than storing credentials in the Docker configuration file.

To use a credentials store, you need an external helper program to interact with a specific keychain or external store. Docker requires the helper program to be in the client’s host $PATH.

This is the list of currently available credentials helpers and where you can download them from:

• D-Bus Secret Service: https://github.com/docker/docker-credential-helpers/releases
• Apple OS X keychain: https://github.com/docker/docker-credential-helpers/releases
• Microsoft Windows Credential Manager: https://github.com/docker/docker-credential-helpers/releases

Usage

You need to speficy the credentials store in $HOME/.docker/config.json to tell the docker engine to use it:

{
	"credsStore": "osxkeychain"
}

If you are currently logged in, run docker logout to remove the credentials from the file and run docker login again.

Protocol

Credential helpers can be any program or script that follows a very simple protocol. This protocol is heavily inspired by Git, but it differs in the information shared.

The helpers always use the first argument in the command to identify the action. There are only three possible values for that argument: store, get, and erase.

The store command takes a JSON payload from the standard input. That payload carries the server address, to identify the credential, the user name, and either a password or an identity token.

{
	"ServerURL": "https://index.docker.io/v1",
	"Username": "david",
	"Secret": "passw0rd1"
}

If the secret being stored is an identity token, the Username should be set to <token>.

The store command can write error messages to STDOUT that the docker engine will show if there was an issue.

The get command takes a string payload from the standard input. That payload carries the server address that the docker engine needs credentials for. This is an example of that payload: https://index.docker.io/v1.

The get command writes a JSON payload to STDOUT. Docker reads the user name and password from this payload:

{
	"Username": "david",
	"Secret": "passw0rd1"
}

The erase command takes a string payload from STDIN. That payload carries the server address that the docker engine wants to remove credentials for. This is an example of that payload: https://index.docker.io/v1.

The erase command can write error messages to STDOUT that the docker engine will show if there was an issue.