Docker Images, No More Begging: Build Your Own 13 GB Private Registry From Scratch

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:30:00 +0800

TL;DR

My home server runs a single registry:2 container that currently holds 13 GB of cached blobs across 95 repositories. Every NAS, Proxmox node, Mac, and Windows machine on my LAN pulls through it. A cold start of alpine:3.19 finishes in under a second, with zero traffic going out to the public Docker Hub.

This isn’t a one-line “install Docker and run a container” tutorial. I’ll show you the production-grade deployment script I actually run, walk through the Docker v2 auth flow, and call out the four reverse-proxy pitfalls that turn every docker login into a 401 mystery. You’ll leave able to: ① bring up an authenticated registry in 10 minutes; ② explain why the WWW-Authenticate header is sacred; ③ describe the whole thing to a non-technical family member without losing accuracy.

From 5m14s to 0.6s: How I Rebuilt My Docker Hub Mirror After Hitting Three Walls

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 07:20:00 +0800

TL;DR

My home lab had a registry:2 pull-through cache fronting Docker Hub for years, and it was fine. Then one day pulling a 5 MB alpine:3.19 took 5 minutes and 14 seconds. This post is the full forensic log of how I traced the slowdown, evaluated 8 candidate mirrors with real measurements (not vibes), and finished with a 5-line bash script on cron that auto-fails-over when the primary mirror goes down. Every number in this article was captured on my own hardware, in my own network, at one specific moment in time.

If you also self-host a Docker Hub mirror, or your team runs an internal registry, the Q&A at the bottom will probably save you 3 hours of pain.

Registry on Margrop Blog

Docker Images, No More Begging: Build Your Own 13 GB Private Registry From Scratch

From 5m14s to 0.6s: How I Rebuilt My Docker Hub Mirror After Hitting Three Walls