Manage trusted repositories

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Once you install the Notary CLI client, you can use it to manage your signing keys, authorize other team members to sign images, and rotate the keys if a private key has been compromised.

When using the Notary CLI client you need to specify where is Notary server you want to communicate with, and where to store the private keys and cache for the CLI client.

# Create an alias to always have the notary client talking to the right server
$ alias notary="notary -s https://<dtr_url> -d ~/.docker/trust"

Manage staged changes

The Notary CLI client stages changes before publishing them to the server. You can manage the changes that are staged by running:

# Check what changes are staged
$ notary status <dtr_url>/<account>/<repository>

# Unstage a specific change
$ notary status <dtr_url>/<account>/<repository> --unstage 0

# Alternatively, unstage all changes
$ notary status <dtr_url>/<account>/<repository> --reset

When you’re ready to publish your chages to the Notary server, run:

$ notary publish <dtr_url>/<account>/<repository>

Delete trust data

Administrator users can remove all signatures from a trusted repository by running:

$ notary delete <dtr_url>/<account>/<repository> --remote

If you don’t include the --remote flag, Notary deletes local cached content but will not delete data from the Notary server.

Change the passphrase for a key

The Notary CLI client manages the keys used to sign the image metadata. To list all the keys managed by the Notary CLI client, run:

$ notary key list

To chance the passphrase used to encrypt one of the keys, run:

$ notary key passwd <key_id>

Rotate keys

If one of the private keys is compromised you can rotate that key, so that images that were signed with those keys stop being trusted.

For keys that are kept offline and managed by the Notary CLI client, such the keys with the root, targets, and snapshot roles, you can rotate them with:

$ notary key rotate <dtr_url>/<account>/<repository> <key_role>

The Notary CLI client generates a new key for the role you specified, and prompts you for a passphrase to encrypt it. Then you’re prompted for the passphrase for the key you’re rotating, and if it is correct, the Notary CLI client contacts the Notary server to publish the change.

You can also rotate keys that are stored in the Notary server, such as the keys with the snapshot or timestamp role. For that, run:

$ notary key rotate <dtr_url>/<account>/<repository> <key_role> --server-managed

Manage keys for delegation roles

To delegate image signing to other UCP users, get the cert.pem file that’s included in their client bundle and run:

$ notary delegation add -p <dtr_url>/<account>/<repository> targets/<role> --all-paths user1.pem user2.pem

You can also remove keys from a delegation role:

# Remove the given keys from a delegation role
$ notary delegation remove -p <dtr_url>/<account>/<repository> targets/<role> <keyID1> <keyID2>

# Alternatively, you can remove keys from all delegation roles
$ notary delegation purge <dtr_url>/<account>/<repository> --key <keyID1> --key <keyID2>

Troubleshooting

Notary CLI has a -D flag that you can use to increase the logging level. You can use this for troubleshooting.

Usually most problems are fixed by ensuring you’re communicating with the correct Notary server, using the -s flag, and that you’re using the correct directory where your private keys are stored, with the -d flag.

Where to go next

Feedback? Suggestions? Can't find something in the docs?
Edit this page ● Request docs changes ● Get support
Rate this page:

On this page: