Prerequisites

All examples in this guide use the public image. If you've mirrored the repository for your own use (for example, to your Docker Hub namespace), update your commands to reference the mirrored image instead of the public one.

For example:

• Public image: dhi.io/harbor-exporter:<tag>
• Mirrored image: <your-namespace>/dhi-harbor-exporter:<tag>

For the examples, you must first use docker login dhi.io to authenticate to the registry to pull the images.

About this harbor-exporter Hardened image

This image contains the Harbor Exporter binary. It is one of several services in a Harbor deployment and is intended to run alongside harbor-portal, harbor-jobservice, harbor-registry, PostgreSQL, and Redis. The entrypoint for this image is /usr/local/bin/harbor-exporter.

Start a harbor-exporter image

Harbor Exporter is configured entirely via environment variables. It must be able to reach a running Harbor instance (PostgreSQL database, Redis, and Harbor core service) to collect metrics.

Basic usage

docker run -d --name harbor-exporter -p 9090:9090 \
  -e HARBOR_DATABASE_HOST=harbor-db \
  -e HARBOR_DATABASE_PORT=5432 \
  -e HARBOR_DATABASE_USERNAME=postgres \
  -e HARBOR_DATABASE_PASSWORD=<password> \
  -e HARBOR_DATABASE_DBNAME=registry \
  -e HARBOR_DATABASE_SSLMODE=disable \
  -e HARBOR_REDIS_URL=redis://harbor-redis:6379/1 \
  -e HARBOR_SERVICE_HOST=harbor-core \
  -e HARBOR_SERVICE_PORT=8080 \
  dhi.io/harbor-exporter:<tag>

Entrypoint and ports

• Container listens on 9090/tcp by default (controlled by HARBOR_EXPORTER_PORT).
• Metrics are served at /metrics by default (controlled by HARBOR_EXPORTER_METRICS_PATH).

Environment variables and configuration

Harbor Exporter is configured exclusively through environment variables using the HARBOR_ prefix.

Exporter settings

Harbor connection settings

TLS settings

Common harbor-exporter use cases

• Harbor monitoring: scrape the exporter with Prometheus to track Harbor project quota usage, replication job queues, garbage collection status, and overall registry health.

• Alerting: use the exposed harbor_health and harbor_up metrics to alert when Harbor components become unavailable.

• Kubernetes: deploy as a sidecar or standalone Deployment alongside Harbor, and configure a ServiceMonitor for Prometheus Operator to automatically discover and scrape the exporter.

Prometheus scrape configuration

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: harbor
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['<exporter-hostname-or-ip>:9090']

Image variants

Docker Hardened Images come in different variants depending on their intended use. Image variants are identified by their tag.

• Runtime variants are designed to run your application in production. These images are intended to be used either directly or as the FROM image in the final stage of a multi-stage build. These images typically:

  • Run as a nonroot user
  • Do not include a shell or a package manager
  • Contain only the minimal set of libraries needed to run the app

• Build-time variants typically include dev in the tag name and are intended for use in the first stage of a multi-stage Dockerfile. These images typically:

  • Run as the root user
  • Include a shell and package manager
  • Are used to build or compile applications

• FIPS variants include fips in the variant name and tag. They come in both runtime and build-time variants. These variants use cryptographic modules that have been validated under FIPS 140, a U.S. government standard for secure cryptographic operations. For example, usage of MD5 fails in FIPS variants.

To view the image variants and get more information about them, select the Tags tab for this repository, and then select a tag.

Migrate to a Docker Hardened Image

To migrate your application to a Docker Hardened Image, you must update your Dockerfile. At minimum, you must update the base image in your existing Dockerfile to a Docker Hardened Image. This and a few other common changes are listed in the following table of migration notes.

The following steps outline the general migration process.

1. Find hardened images for your app.

   A hardened image may have several variants. Inspect the image tags and find the image variant that meets your needs.

2. Update the base image in your Dockerfile.

   Update the base image in your application's Dockerfile to the hardened image you found in the previous step. For framework images, this is typically going to be an image tagged as dev because it has the tools needed to install packages and dependencies.

3. For multi-stage Dockerfiles, update the runtime image in your Dockerfile.

   To ensure that your final image is as minimal as possible, you should use a multi-stage build. All stages in your Dockerfile should use a hardened image. While intermediary stages will typically use images tagged as dev, your final runtime stage should use a non-dev image variant.

Troubleshooting migration

The following are common issues that you may encounter during migration.

General debugging

The hardened images intended for runtime don't contain a shell nor any tools for debugging. The recommended method for debugging applications built with Docker Hardened Images is to use Docker Debug⁠ to attach to these containers. Docker Debug provides a shell, common debugging tools, and lets you install other tools in an ephemeral, writable layer that only exists during the debugging session.

Permissions

By default image variants intended for runtime, run as the nonroot user. Ensure that necessary files and directories are accessible to the nonroot user. You may need to copy files to different directories or change permissions so your application running as the nonroot user can access them.

No shell

By default, image variants intended for runtime don't contain a shell. Use dev images in build stages to run shell commands and then copy any necessary artifacts into the runtime stage. In addition, use Docker Debug to debug containers with no shell.

Entry point

Docker Hardened Images may have different entry points than images such as Docker Official Images. Use docker inspect to inspect entry points for Docker Hardened Images and update your Dockerfile if necessary.