--- title: "Auto-cleaning Docker Registry with a Scheduled Jenkins Pipeline" description: "Walks through using a Jenkins Pipeline on a schedule to automatically clean up old images from a Docker Registry, solving the disk-space problem on a private registry." canonical_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/jenkins-clear-docker-registry" author: "Mark Ku" author_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku" site: "Mark Ku's Tech Notes" date_published: "2024-11-19 01:01:35 +0800" category: "DevOps" tags: ["jenkins", "docker", "registry", "pipeline", "automation", "cron", "devops"] language: "en" license: "CC BY 4.0" license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" attribution: "when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original" --- # Auto-cleaning Docker Registry with a Scheduled Jenkins Pipeline ## The Problem After a private Docker Registry has been used for a while, it tends to run out of disk space. In the past I had to delete and rebuild it every once in a while, so I wrote a script to solve it. ## When running the registry container, add REGISTRY_STORAGE_DELETE_ENABLED = true ``` docker run -d -p 5000:5000 -e REGISTRY_STORAGE_DELETE_ENABLED=true --name registry registry:2 docker update --restart=always registry ``` ## Build Triggers > Build periodically > Enter If you want the Jenkins job to run at 3 AM every Sunday, use the following CRON expression: ``` 0 3 * * 0 ``` 0: minute (fixed at 0, no need to be precise to the second). 3: hour, meaning 3 AM. *: every day (no day-of-month restriction). *: every month (no month restriction). 0: Sunday. ![build periodically](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/jenkins-clear-docker-registry/images/build-periodically.png) P.S. Ask ChatGPT for whatever schedule you want. ## Install Plugin - Pipeline Utility Steps ## Create a Pipeline Job and write the Jenkins pipeline ``` pipeline { agent any environment { REGISTRY = "192.168.50.50:5000" } stages { stage('Clean Registry') { steps { script { try { // Fetch all repositories def response = httpRequest url: "http://${env.REGISTRY}/v2/_catalog", validResponseCodes: '200' def repositories = readJSON(text: response.content).repositories for (repository in repositories) { echo "Processing repository: $repository" // Fetch tags for the repository def tagsResponse = httpRequest url: "http://${env.REGISTRY}/v2/${repository}/tags/list", validResponseCodes: '200,404' def tagsList = readJSON(text: tagsResponse.content).tags // Handle case when tagsList is null if (tagsList == null || tagsList instanceof net.sf.json.JSONNull) { echo "No tags found for repository: $repository. Skipping..." continue } // Ensure tagsList is a serializable list tagsList = new ArrayList(tagsList) for (tag in tagsList) { echo "Processing tag: $tag for repository: $repository" try { // Fetch manifest and digest def manifestResponse = httpRequest( url: "http://${env.REGISTRY}/v2/${repository}/manifests/${tag}", customHeaders: [[name: 'Accept', value: 'application/vnd.docker.distribution.manifest.v2+json']], validResponseCodes: '200,404', httpMode: 'HEAD' ) // Retrieve digest from headers def digest = manifestResponse.headers['Docker-Content-Digest']?.first() if (digest) { // Delete the image by digest httpRequest( url: "http://${env.REGISTRY}/v2/${repository}/manifests/${digest}", httpMode: 'DELETE', validResponseCodes: '202' ) echo "Deleted ${repository}:${tag} with digest: ${digest}" } else { echo "Digest for ${repository}:${tag} not found! Skipping..." } } catch (Exception e) { echo "Failed to process tag: $tag for repository: $repository. Error: ${e.message}" } } } } catch (Exception e) { echo "Failed to clean registry. Error: ${e.message}" error("Pipeline terminated due to errors.") } } } } } } ``` --- ## About this article and its author Originally published on [Mark Ku's Tech Notes](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/jenkins-clear-docker-registry) License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original ### About the author **[Mark Ku](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku)** — Software Solution Provider - 10+ years senior software engineer, now an AI Builder - Focused on large-platform architecture — North-American e-commerce, AI SaaS subscription billing - Combining AI Agents and automation to build evolvable product foundations ### Free tools built by the author All of these are free to use: - [Free PDF Sign Tool](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/pdf-sign): Online PDF sign tool — draw, type, or upload a signature, then drag, resize, and download. 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No sign-up, nothing uploaded to a server, and mermaid.live share links work as-is. - [React Intl Phone Number](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-intl-phone-number): react-intl-phone-number is an open-source React component: framework-agnostic and antd-free, with E.164 in/out, a searchable flag / country-code dropdown, configurable validation levels (strict / mobile-strict / loose), themeable CSS, and i18n — phone logic powered by google-libphonenumber. Lightweight and fully typed. Free and open source (MIT). - [Uptime Kuma Cluster](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/uptime-kuma-cluster): Turn single-node Uptime Kuma into a highly available cluster: OpenResty + Lua smart load balancing, shared MariaDB state, health checks and automatic failover, plus cluster-management REST APIs. One Docker Compose command to start. 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