---
description: Registry Access Management
keywords: registry, access, managment
title: Registry Access Management
---

Registry Access Management is a feature available to organizations with a Docker Business subscription. This feature lets organization owners manage the registries that their developers can access while using Docker Desktop.  When using this feature, organization owners can ensure that their developers can only access their trusted registries, such as a secure private registry on Artifactory, thereby reducing the security risks that can occur when developers interact with public registries.

> **Note**
>
> Registry Access Management is currently offered as a closed beta to a closed group of Docker Business customers.
{: .important}

## Configure Registry Access Management permissions

To configure Registry Access Management permissions, perform the following steps:

1. Sign into your [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com){: target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="_"} account as an organization owner.
2. Select an organization, navigate to the **Settings** tab on the **Organizations** page and click **Registry Access**.
3. Enable Registry Access Management to set the permissions for your registry.

     > **Note**
     >
     > When enabled, the Docker Hub registry is set by default, however you can also restrict this registry for your developers.

4. Click **Add** and enter your registry details in the applicable fields, and click **Create** to add the registry to your list.
5. Verify that the registry appears in your list and click **Save & Apply**.  You can verify that your changes are saved in the Activity tab.

      > **Note**
      >
      > Once you add a registry, it can take up to 24 hours for the changes to be enforced on your developers’ machines. If you want to apply the changes sooner, you must force a Docker logout on your developers’ machine and have the developers re-authenticate for Docker Desktop.  Also, there is no limit on the number of registries you can add. See the [Caveats](#caveats) section to learn more about limitations when using this feature.

![Registry Access Management](images/registry-access-management.png){:width="700px"}

## Enforce authentication

To ensure that each org member uses Registry Access Management on their local machine, you can perform the steps below to enforce sign-in under your organization. To do this:

1. Download the latest version of Docker Desktop, and then
2. Create a `registry.json` file.

Download Docker Desktop 4.5 or a later release.

- [Download and install for Windows](/desktop/windows/install/)
- [Download and install for Mac](/desktop/mac/install/)

{% include configure-registry-json.md %}

## Verify the restrictions

   After you’ve created the registry.json file and deployed it onto the developers’ machines, you can verify whether the changes have taken effect by asking the developers to start Docker Desktop.

   If the configuration is successful, Docker Desktop prompts the developer to authenticate using the organization credentials on start. If the developer fails to authenticate, or authenticates as a developer in the wrong organization they will see an error message, and they will be denied access to Docker Desktop.

### Caveats

  There are certain limitations when using Registry Access Management; they are as follows:

  * Windows image pulls, and image builds are not restricted
  * Builds such as `docker buildx` using a Kubernetes driver are not restricted
  * Builds such as `docker buildx` using a custom docker-container driver are not restricted
  * Blocking is DNS-based; you must use a registry's access control mechanisms to distinguish between “push” and “pull”
  * WSL 2 requires at least a 5.4 series Linux kernel  (this does not apply to earlier Linux kernel series)
 * Under the WSL 2 network, traffic from all Linux distributions is restricted (this will be resolved in the updated 5.15 series Linux kernel)

  Also, Registry Access Management operates on the level of hosts, not IP addresses. Developers can bypass this restriction within their domain resolution, for example by running Docker against a local proxy or modifying their operating system's `sts` file. Blocking these forms of manipulation is outside the remit of Docker Desktop.

