How do I run private docker images on Google Container Engine

You can push your image to Google Container Registry and reference them from your pod manifest.

Detailed instructions

Assuming you have a DOCKER_HOST properly setup , a GKE cluster running the last version of Kubernetes and Google Cloud SDK installed.

1. Setup some environment variables

   gcloud components update kubectl
   gcloud config set project <your-project>
   gcloud config set compute/zone <your-cluster-zone>
   gcloud config set container/cluster <your-cluster-name>
   gcloud container clusters get-credentials <your-cluster-name>
   

2. Tag your image

   docker tag <your-image> gcr.io/<your-project>/<your-image>
   

3. Push your image

   gcloud docker push gcr.io/<your-project>/<your-image>
   

4. Create a pod manifest for your container: my-pod.yaml

   id: my-pod
   kind: Pod
   apiVersion: v1
   desiredState:
     manifest:
       containers:
       - name: <container-name>
         image: gcr.io/<your-project>/<your-image>
       ...
   

5. Schedule this pod

   kubectl create -f my-pod.yaml
   

6. Repeat from step (4) for each pod you want to run. You can have multiple definitions in a single file using a line with --- as delimiter.

Step 1: Specify the container in which you have to work on

gcloud container clusters get-credentials [$cluster_name]

Step 2: Tag the docker image you want to run

docker tag nginx gcr.io/first-project/nginx

Step 3: Push image

gcloud docker push gcr.io/first-project/nginx

Step4:Create yaml file (test.yaml)

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
containers:
- name : nginx1
  image: gcr.io/first-project/nginx

Step 5 : Create the pod

kubectl create –f test.yaml

The setup I use is to deploy my own docker registry combined with ssh port forwarding. For that purpose I set up a ssh server in the cluster and use ~/.ssh/config to configure a port forward to the registry.

Also I use jenkins to build the images right in the cloud.