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Quickstart: Build and run a container image using Azure Container Registry Tasks

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In this quickstart, you use Azure Container Registry Tasks commands to quickly build, push, and run a Docker container image natively within Azure, without a local Docker installation. ACR Tasks is a suite of features within Azure Container Registry to help you manage and modify container images across the container lifecycle. This example shows how to offload your "inner-loop" container image development cycle to the cloud with on-demand builds using a local Dockerfile.

After this quickstart, explore more advanced features of ACR Tasks using the tutorials. ACR Tasks can automate image builds based on code commits or base image updates, or test multiple containers, in parallel, among other scenarios.

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.

Prerequisites

  • This quickstart requires version 2.0.58 or later of the Azure CLI. If using Azure Cloud Shell, the latest version is already installed.

Create a resource group

If you don't already have a container registry, first create a resource group with the az group create command. An Azure resource group is a logical container into which Azure resources are deployed and managed.

The following example creates a resource group named myResourceGroup in the eastus location.

az group create --name myResourceGroup --location eastus

Create a container registry

Create a container registry using the az acr create command. The registry name must be unique within Azure, and contain 5-50 alphanumeric characters. In the following example, mycontainerregistry008 is used. Update this to a unique value.

az acr create --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --name mycontainerregistry008 --sku Basic

This example creates a Basic registry, a cost-optimized option for developers learning about Azure Container Registry. For details on available service tiers, see Container registry service tiers.

Build and push image from a Dockerfile

Now use Azure Container Registry to build and push an image. First, create a local working directory and then create a Dockerfile named Dockerfile with the single line: FROM mcr.microsoft.com/hello-world. This is a simple example to build a Linux container image from the hello-world image hosted at Microsoft Container Registry. You can create your own standard Dockerfile and build images for other platforms. If you are working at a bash shell, create the Dockerfile with the following command:

echo "FROM mcr.microsoft.com/hello-world" > Dockerfile

Run the az acr build command, which builds the image and, after the image is successfully built, pushes it to your registry. The following example builds and pushes the sample/hello-world:v1 image. The . at the end of the command sets the location of the Dockerfile, in this case the current directory.

az acr build --image sample/hello-world:v1 \
  --registry mycontainerregistry008 \
  --file Dockerfile .

Output from a successful build and push is similar to the following:

Packing source code into tar to upload...
Uploading archived source code from '/tmp/build_archive_b0bc1e5d361b44f0833xxxx41b78c24e.tar.gz'...
Sending context (1.856 KiB) to registry: mycontainerregistry008...
Queued a build with ID: ca8
Waiting for agent...
2019/03/18 21:56:57 Using acb_vol_4c7ffa31-c862-4be3-xxxx-ab8e615c55c4 as the home volume
2019/03/18 21:56:57 Setting up Docker configuration...
2019/03/18 21:56:58 Successfully set up Docker configuration
2019/03/18 21:56:58 Logging in to registry: mycontainerregistry008.azurecr.io
2019/03/18 21:56:59 Successfully logged into mycontainerregistry008.azurecr.io
2019/03/18 21:56:59 Executing step ID: build. Working directory: '', Network: ''
2019/03/18 21:56:59 Obtaining source code and scanning for dependencies...
2019/03/18 21:57:00 Successfully obtained source code and scanned for dependencies
2019/03/18 21:57:00 Launching container with name: build
Sending build context to Docker daemon  13.82kB
Step 1/1 : FROM mcr.microsoft.com/hello-world
latest: Pulling from hello-world
Digest: sha256:2557e3c07ed1e38f26e389462d03ed943586fxxxx21577a99efb77324b0fe535
Successfully built fce289e99eb9
Successfully tagged mycontainerregistry008.azurecr.io/sample/hello-world:v1
2019/03/18 21:57:01 Successfully executed container: build
2019/03/18 21:57:01 Executing step ID: push. Working directory: '', Network: ''
2019/03/18 21:57:01 Pushing image: mycontainerregistry008.azurecr.io/sample/hello-world:v1, attempt 1
The push refers to repository [mycontainerregistry008.azurecr.io/sample/hello-world]
af0b15c8625b: Preparing
af0b15c8625b: Layer already exists
v1: digest: sha256:92c7f9c92844bbbb5d0a101b22f7c2a7949e40f8ea90c8b3bc396879d95e899a size: 524
2019/03/18 21:57:03 Successfully pushed image: mycontainerregistry008.azurecr.io/sample/hello-world:v1
2019/03/18 21:57:03 Step ID: build marked as successful (elapsed time in seconds: 2.543040)
2019/03/18 21:57:03 Populating digests for step ID: build...
2019/03/18 21:57:05 Successfully populated digests for step ID: build
2019/03/18 21:57:05 Step ID: push marked as successful (elapsed time in seconds: 1.473581)
2019/03/18 21:57:05 The following dependencies were found:
2019/03/18 21:57:05
- image:
    registry: mycontainerregistry008.azurecr.io
    repository: sample/hello-world
    tag: v1
    digest: sha256:92c7f9c92844bbbb5d0a101b22f7c2a7949e40f8ea90c8b3bc396879d95e899a
  runtime-dependency:
    registry: registry.hub.docker.com
    repository: library/hello-world
    tag: v1
    digest: sha256:2557e3c07ed1e38f26e389462d03ed943586f744621577a99efb77324b0fe535
  git: {}

Run ID: ca8 was successful after 10s

Run the image

Now quickly run the image you built and pushed to your registry. Here you use az acr run to run the container command. In your container development workflow, this might be a validation step before you deploy the image, or you could include the command in a multi-step YAML file.

The following example uses $Registry to specify the endpoint of the registry where you run the command:

az acr run --registry mycontainerregistry008 \
  --cmd '$Registry/sample/hello-world:v1' /dev/null

The cmd parameter in this example runs the container in its default configuration, but cmd supports additional docker run parameters or even other docker commands.

Output is similar to the following:

Packing source code into tar to upload...
Uploading archived source code from '/tmp/run_archive_ebf74da7fcb04683867b129e2ccad5e1.tar.gz'...
Sending context (1.855 KiB) to registry: mycontainerre...
Queued a run with ID: cab
Waiting for an agent...
2019/03/19 19:01:53 Using acb_vol_60e9a538-b466-475f-9565-80c5b93eaa15 as the home volume
2019/03/19 19:01:53 Creating Docker network: acb_default_network, driver: 'bridge'
2019/03/19 19:01:53 Successfully set up Docker network: acb_default_network
2019/03/19 19:01:53 Setting up Docker configuration...
2019/03/19 19:01:54 Successfully set up Docker configuration
2019/03/19 19:01:54 Logging in to registry: mycontainerregistry008.azurecr.io
2019/03/19 19:01:55 Successfully logged into mycontainerregistry008.azurecr.io
2019/03/19 19:01:55 Executing step ID: acb_step_0. Working directory: '', Network: 'acb_default_network'
2019/03/19 19:01:55 Launching container with name: acb_step_0

Hello from Docker!
This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.

To generate this message, Docker took the following steps:
 1. The Docker client contacted the Docker daemon.
 2. The Docker daemon pulled the "hello-world" image from the Docker Hub.
    (amd64)
 3. The Docker daemon created a new container from that image which runs the
    executable that produces the output you are currently reading.
 4. The Docker daemon streamed that output to the Docker client, which sent it
    to your terminal.

To try something more ambitious, you can run an Ubuntu container with:
 $ docker run -it ubuntu bash

Share images, automate workflows, and more with a free Docker ID:
 https://hub.docker.com/

For more examples and ideas, visit:
 https://docs.docker.com/get-started/

2019/03/19 19:01:56 Successfully executed container: acb_step_0
2019/03/19 19:01:56 Step ID: acb_step_0 marked as successful (elapsed time in seconds: 0.843801)

Run ID: cab was successful after 6s

Clean up resources

When no longer needed, you can use the az group delete command to remove the resource group, the container registry, and the container images stored there.

az group delete --name myResourceGroup

Next steps

In this quickstart, you used features of ACR Tasks to quickly build, push, and run a Docker container image natively within Azure, without a local Docker installation. Continue to the Azure Container Registry Tasks tutorials to learn about using ACR Tasks to automate image builds and updates.

Azure Container Registry Tasks tutorials