- The OCI Image Layout is the directory structure for OCI content-addressable blobs and location-addressable references (refs).
- This layout MAY be used in a variety of different transport mechanisms: archive formats (e.g. tar, zip), shared filesystem environments (e.g. nfs), or networked file fetching (e.g. http, ftp, rsync).
Given an image layout and a ref, a tool can create an OCI Runtime Specification bundle by:
- Following the ref to find a manifest, possibly via an image index
- Applying the filesystem layers in the specified order
- Converting the image configuration into an OCI Runtime Specification
config.json
The image layout is as follows:
blobs
directory- Contains content-addressable blobs
- A blob has no schema and SHOULD be considered opaque
- Directory MUST exist and MAY be empty
- See blobs section
oci-layout
file- It MUST exist
- It MUST be a JSON object
- It MUST contain an
imageLayoutVersion
field - See oci-layout file section
- It MAY include additional fields
index.json
file- It MUST exist
- It MUST be an image index JSON object.
- See index.json section
This is an example image layout:
$ cd example.com/app/
$ find . -type f
./index.json
./oci-layout
./blobs/sha256/3588d02542238316759cbf24502f4344ffcc8a60c803870022f335d1390c13b4
./blobs/sha256/4b0bc1c4050b03c95ef2a8e36e25feac42fd31283e8c30b3ee5df6b043155d3c
./blobs/sha256/7968321274dc6b6171697c33df7815310468e694ac5be0ec03ff053bb135e768
Blobs are named by their contents:
$ shasum -a 256 ./blobs/sha256/afff3924849e458c5ef237db5f89539274d5e609db5db935ed3959c90f1f2d51
afff3924849e458c5ef237db5f89539274d5e609db5db935ed3959c90f1f2d51 ./blobs/sha256/afff3924849e458c5ef237db5f89539274d5e609db5db935ed3959c90f1f2d51
- Object names in the
blobs
subdirectories are composed of a directory for each hash algorithm, the children of which will contain the actual content. - The content of
blobs/<alg>/<encoded>
MUST match the digest<alg>:<encoded>
(referenced per descriptor). For example, the content ofblobs/sha256/da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709
MUST match the digestsha256:da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709
. - The character set of the entry name for
<alg>
and<encoded>
MUST match the respective grammar elements described in descriptor. - The blobs directory MAY contain blobs which are not referenced by any of the refs.
- The blobs directory MAY be missing referenced blobs, in which case the missing blobs SHOULD be fulfilled by an external blob store.
$ cat ./blobs/sha256/9b97579de92b1c195b85bb42a11011378ee549b02d7fe9c17bf2a6b35d5cb079 | jq
{
"schemaVersion": 2,
"manifests": [
{
"mediaType": "application/vnd.oci.image.manifest.v1+json",
"size": 7143,
"digest": "sha256:afff3924849e458c5ef237db5f89539274d5e609db5db935ed3959c90f1f2d51",
"platform": {
"architecture": "ppc64le",
"os": "linux"
}
},
...
$ cat ./blobs/sha256/afff3924849e458c5ef237db5f89539274d5e609db5db935ed3959c90f1f2d51 | jq
{
"schemaVersion": 2,
"config": {
"mediaType": "application/vnd.oci.image.config.v1+json",
"size": 7023,
"digest": "sha256:5b0bcabd1ed22e9fb1310cf6c2dec7cdef19f0ad69efa1f392e94a4333501270"
},
"layers": [
{
"mediaType": "application/vnd.oci.image.layer.v1.tar+gzip",
"size": 32654,
"digest": "sha256:9834876dcfb05cb167a5c24953eba58c4ac89b1adf57f28f2f9d09af107ee8f0"
},
...
$ cat ./blobs/sha256/5b0bcabd1ed22e9fb1310cf6c2dec7cdef19f0ad69efa1f392e94a4333501270 | jq
{
"architecture": "amd64",
"author": "Alyssa P. Hacker <alyspdev@example.com>",
"config": {
"Hostname": "8dfe43d80430",
"Domainname": "",
"User": "",
"AttachStdin": false,
"AttachStdout": false,
"AttachStderr": false,
"Tty": false,
"OpenStdin": false,
"StdinOnce": false,
"Env": [
"PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"
],
"Cmd": null,
"Image": "sha256:6986ae504bbf843512d680cc959484452034965db15f75ee8bdd1b107f61500b",
...
$ cat ./blobs/sha256/9834876dcfb05cb167a5c24953eba58c4ac89b1adf57f28f2f9d09af107ee8f0
[gzipped tar stream]
This JSON object serves as a marker for the base of an Open Container Image Layout and to provide the version of the image-layout in use.
The imageLayoutVersion
value will align with the OCI Image Specification version at the time changes to the layout are made, and will pin a given version until changes to the image layout are required.
This section defines the application/vnd.oci.layout.header.v1+json
media type.
{
"imageLayoutVersion": "1.0.0"
}
This REQUIRED file is the entry point for references and descriptors of the image-layout. The image index is a multi-descriptor entry point.
This index provides an established path (/index.json
) to have an entry point for an image-layout and to discover auxiliary descriptors.
- No semantic restriction is given for the "org.opencontainers.image.ref.name" annotation of descriptors.
- In general the
mediaType
of each descriptor object in themanifests
field will be eitherapplication/vnd.oci.image.index.v1+json
orapplication/vnd.oci.image.manifest.v1+json
. - Future versions of the spec MAY use a different mediatype (i.e. a new versioned format).
- An encountered
mediaType
that is unknown SHOULD be safely ignored.
Implementor's Note: A common use case of descriptors with a "org.opencontainers.image.ref.name" annotation is representing a "tag" for a container image. For example, an image may have a tag for different versions or builds of the software. In the wild you often see "tags" like "v1.0.0-vendor.0", "2.0.0-debug", etc. Those tags will often be represented in an image-layout repository with matching "org.opencontainers.image.ref.name" annotations like "v1.0.0-vendor.0", "2.0.0-debug", etc.
{
"schemaVersion": 2,
"mediaType": "application/vnd.oci.image.index.v1+json",
"manifests": [
{
"mediaType": "application/vnd.oci.image.index.v1+json",
"size": 7143,
"digest": "sha256:0228f90e926ba6b96e4f39cf294b2586d38fbb5a1e385c05cd1ee40ea54fe7fd",
"annotations": {
"org.opencontainers.image.ref.name": "stable-release"
}
},
{
"mediaType": "application/vnd.oci.image.manifest.v1+json",
"size": 7143,
"digest": "sha256:e692418e4cbaf90ca69d05a66403747baa33ee08806650b51fab815ad7fc331f",
"platform": {
"architecture": "ppc64le",
"os": "linux"
},
"annotations": {
"org.opencontainers.image.ref.name": "v1.0"
}
},
{
"mediaType": "application/xml",
"size": 7143,
"digest": "sha256:b3d63d132d21c3ff4c35a061adf23cf43da8ae054247e32faa95494d904a007e",
"annotations": {
"org.freedesktop.specifications.metainfo.version": "1.0",
"org.freedesktop.specifications.metainfo.type": "AppStream"
}
}
],
"annotations": {
"com.example.index.revision": "r124356"
}
}
This illustrates an index that provides two named references and an auxiliary mediatype for this image layout.
The first named reference (stable-release
) points to another index that might contain multiple references with distinct platforms and annotations.
Note that the org.opencontainers.image.ref.name
annotation SHOULD only be considered valid when on descriptors on index.json
.
The second named reference (v1.0
) points to a manifest that is specific to the linux/ppc64le platform.