Harbor

Self-Hosted

Secure, scalable container registry for Kubernetes and Docker

Active(95)

26.7kstars

0views

Updated 1 day ago

Overview

Discover what makes Harbor powerful

Harbor is a CNCF‑graduated, cloud‑native registry that extends Docker Distribution with enterprise‑grade security, policy enforcement, and multi‑tenant management. It is designed to sit close to build pipelines or runtime clusters, reducing image transfer latency and ensuring that artifacts are compliant with an organization’s governance rules before they reach production. Harbor exposes a RESTful API and a web UI that allow developers to automate artifact lifecycle operations, audit changes, and integrate with CI/CD workflows.

Container & Helm Chart Support

Role‑Based Access Control (RBAC)

Policy Enforcement

Replication

Overview

Key Features

Container & Helm Chart Support – Stores OCI‑compatible container images and Helm charts, providing a single source of truth for all cloud‑native artifacts.
Role‑Based Access Control (RBAC) – Projects act as namespaces; users receive fine‑grained permissions on repositories, tags, and chart versions.
Policy Enforcement – Image signing (cosign), vulnerability scanning (Trivy, Clair), and content trust policies prevent unapproved artifacts from entering a project.
Replication – Bidirectional or one‑way replication across multiple Harbor instances, enabling geo‑distributed deployments and disaster recovery.
Audit & Activity Logging – Every push, pull, delete, or policy change is logged and exportable for compliance reporting.

Technical Stack

Layer	Technology
Backend	Go (Golang) – core services, API server, and job workers
Storage	PostgreSQL for metadata; MySQL or MariaDB are supported alternatives
Object Store	MinIO, AWS S3, Azure Blob, GCS, or any OCI‑compatible storage; data is stored in a dedicated “storage” backend
Frontend	Vue.js (SPA) with Go templates for server‑side rendering of static assets
Container Runtime	Docker / containerd; Harbor itself is distributed as a Docker Compose bundle or Helm chart
CI/CD Integration	Webhooks, S3‑compatible APIs, and a plugin SDK for extending authentication or policy engines

The core distribution is compiled into a single binary that interacts with the database and storage via RESTful calls. Harbor’s modular architecture allows swapping authentication providers (LDAP, OIDC) or scanning engines without touching the core.

Deployment & Infrastructure

Harbor is self‑hosted and can run on any Linux host with Docker or Kubernetes. Typical deployments use:

Docker Compose – For single‑node or small cluster environments; all services (UI, API, job service) are containerized.
Helm Chart – For Kubernetes; each component becomes a Deployment/StatefulSet, enabling horizontal scaling and rolling upgrades.
High Availability – Multiple API nodes behind a load balancer, shared PostgreSQL, and replicated object storage provide fault tolerance.
Scalability – The job service can be scaled horizontally to process scanning and replication tasks in parallel. Storage backends are usually object stores that scale independently of the registry.

Integration & Extensibility

Authentication Plug‑Ins – LDAP, OIDC, or custom backends via the auth service.
Scanning Plug‑Ins – Harbor accepts custom scanners; a default Trivy scanner is included.
Webhooks & Callbacks – Trigger CI/CD jobs on push/pull events; expose a REST API for external tooling.
Policy Engine – JSON‑based policies can be defined per project, enabling automated image signing or vulnerability thresholds.
CLI & SDK – The harborctl CLI and Go SDK let developers script registry operations or embed Harbor logic into larger tools.

Developer Experience

Harbor’s API follows standard REST conventions and is documented with OpenAPI specifications, making it straightforward to generate client libraries. The UI provides intuitive project and repository management, while the audit logs can be exported as JSON or CSV for downstream analysis. Community support is robust: active Slack channels, a dedicated mailing list, and frequent CNCF community meetings keep the project well‑maintained. The codebase is heavily covered by unit and integration tests, and the CI pipeline runs on GitHub Actions with coverage reports.

Use Cases

Scenario	Why Harbor?
CI/CD Artifact Store	Securely store build artifacts, enforce signing before promotion to staging/production.
Multi‑Tenant DevOps	Isolate teams with projects, apply per‑team policies, and audit activity.
Disaster Recovery	Replicate images across regions; pull from the nearest Harbor instance.
Compliance Auditing	Export audit logs, enforce vulnerability thresholds, and ensure only scanned images are deployed.
Hybrid Cloud	Run Harbor on-premises for sensitive workloads while mirroring to public registries.

Advantages Over Alternatives

Open Source with Enterprise Features – Combines Docker Distribution’s performance with enterprise security controls without licensing costs.
Strong Community & CNCF Backing – Regular releases, security patches, and a large contributor base.
Extensible Architecture – Plug‑in points for authentication, scanning, and policy engines allow tailoring to specific security frameworks.
Kubernetes‑Native Deployment – Helm chart and operator support make it a first‑class citizen in cloud‑native stacks.
Scalable Storage Model – Offloads heavy payloads to object stores, keeping the registry lightweight.

Harbor delivers a developer‑friendly, secure, and scalable artifact repository that integrates seamlessly into modern CI/CD pipelines and Kubernetes environments, making it a compelling choice for any organization looking to enforce strict image governance without sacrificing performance.