Harbor 2.2: Enterprise Container Registry

Introduction

Harbor 2.2 — Enterprise Container Registry — was released on March 10, 2021.

Policy usually becomes urgent the first time you need to stop a risky manifest from shipping — or when you’re trying to make standards repeatable across teams.

In this release: Harbor 2.2 enhances the enterprise container registry with improved security scanning, better OCI artifact support, and enhanced Kubernetes integration for cloud-native deployments.

Security Enhancements

• Vulnerability scanning improvements provide more accurate and comprehensive security assessments.
• Scan policy enforcement enables automatic blocking of images with critical vulnerabilities.
• SBOM support (Software Bill of Materials) provides better supply chain security.
• Image signing enhancements improve verification of image authenticity and integrity.

OCI Artifact Support

1. OCI compatibility improvements enable storing and managing OCI artifacts beyond container images.
2. Helm charts support enables managing Helm charts alongside container images.
3. Artifact management provides unified storage for different types of cloud-native artifacts.
4. Registry API enhancements improve compatibility with OCI distribution specification.

Kubernetes Integration

• Image pull secrets automation simplifies credential management for Kubernetes clusters.
• Webhook integration enables automatic image scanning and policy enforcement.
• RBAC improvements provide better access control for registry resources.
• Operator support simplifies deployment and management in Kubernetes.

Operational Features

• Performance optimizations reduce image pull and push latency.
• Storage improvements enable better management of large image repositories.
• Replication enhancements simplify multi-registry deployments.
• Backup and restore improvements enable better disaster recovery.

Getting Started

helm repo add harbor https://helm.goharbor.io
helm install harbor harbor/harbor

Configure image pull secrets:

kubectl create secret docker-registry harbor-secret \
  --docker-server=harbor.example.com \
  --docker-username=admin \
  --docker-password=<password>

Summary

Harbor 2.2 continues to evolve as the standard for enterprise container registries, providing teams with secure, compliant image management for Kubernetes deployments.