Bitnami package for Notation

What is Notation?

Overview of Notation⁠ Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

TL;DR

docker run -it --name notation bitnami/notation

Why use Bitnami Images?

• Bitnami closely tracks upstream source changes and promptly publishes new versions of this image using our automated systems.
• With Bitnami images the latest bug fixes and features are available as soon as possible.
• Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
• All our images are based on minideb⁠ -a minimalist Debian based container image that gives you a small base container image and the familiarity of a leading Linux distribution- or scratch -an explicitly empty image-.
• All Bitnami images available in Docker Hub are signed with Notation⁠. Check this post⁠ to know how to verify the integrity of the images.
• Bitnami container images are released on a regular basis with the latest distribution packages available.

Looking to use Notation in production? Try VMware Tanzu Application Catalog⁠, the commercial edition of the Bitnami catalog.

Only latest stable branch maintained in the free Bitnami catalog

Starting December 10th 2024, only the latest stable branch of any container will receive updates in the free Bitnami catalog. To access up-to-date releases for all upstream-supported branches, consider upgrading to Bitnami Premium. Previous versions already released will not be deleted. They are still available to pull from DockerHub.

Please check the Bitnami Premium page in our partner Arrow Electronics⁠ for more information.

Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links

Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page⁠.

You can see the equivalence between the different tags by taking a look at the tags-info.yaml file present in the branch folder, i.e bitnami/ASSET/BRANCH/DISTRO/tags-info.yaml.

Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/containers GitHub repo⁠.

Get this image

The recommended way to get the Bitnami Notation Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/notation:latest

To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/notation:[TAG]

If you wish, you can also build the image yourself by cloning the repository, changing to the directory containing the Dockerfile and executing the docker build command. Remember to replace the APP, VERSION and OPERATING-SYSTEM path placeholders in the example command below with the correct values.

git clone https://github.com/bitnami/containers.git
cd bitnami/APP/VERSION/OPERATING-SYSTEM
docker build -t bitnami/APP:latest .

Maintenance

Upgrade this image

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of Notation, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container.

Step 1: Get the updated image

docker pull bitnami/notation:latest

Step 2: Remove the currently running container

docker rm -v notation

Step 3: Run the new image

Re-create your container from the new image.

docker run --name notation bitnami/notation:latest

Configuration

Running commands

To run commands inside this container you can use docker run, for example to execute notation --help you can follow the example below:

docker run --rm --name notation bitnami/notation:latest --help

Customize configuration file

You can import a custom configuration by setting a volume pointing to /.config:

docker run -v $(pwd)/config:/.config bitnami/notation key ls
NAME              KEY PATH                                        CERTIFICATE PATH                                ID   PLUGIN NAME
* my-domain.com   /.config/notation/localkeys/my-domain.com.key   /.config/notation/localkeys/my-domain.com.crt

For doing that, the config folder should follow Notation directory structure⁠, for example:

config
└── notation
    ├── config.json
    ├── localkeys
    │   ├── my-domain.com.crt
    │   └── my-domain.com.key
    ├── signingkeys.json
    └── truststore
        └── x509
            └── ca
                └── my-domain.com
                    └── my-domain.com.crt

Here a sample signingkeys.json based on the Notation example⁠:

{
    "default": "my-domain.com",
    "keys": [
        {
            "name": "my-domain.com",
            "keyPath": "/.config/notation/localkeys/my-domain.com.key",
            "certPath": "/.config/notation/localkeys/my-domain.com.crt"
        }
    ]
}

Generate a test key and self-signed certificate

The following command generates a test key and a self-signed X.509 certificate:

docker run -v $(pwd)/config:/.config bitnami/notation \
    cert generate-test --default "my-domain.com"
generating RSA Key with 2048 bits
generated certificate expiring on 2023-10-19T10:31:41Z
wrote key: /.config/notation/localkeys/my-domain.com.key
wrote certificate: /.config/notation/localkeys/my-domain.com.crt
Successfully added my-domain.com.crt to named store my-domain.com of type ca
my-domain.com: added to the key list
my-domain.com: mark as default signing key

Confirm the signing key and certificate are correctly configured:

docker run -v $(pwd)/config:/.config bitnami/notation key ls
NAME              KEY PATH                                        CERTIFICATE PATH                                ID   PLUGIN NAME
* my-domain.com   /.config/notation/localkeys/my-domain.com.key   /.config/notation/localkeys/my-domain.com.crt

docker run -v $(pwd)/config:/.config bitnami/notation cert ls
/.config/notation/truststore/x509/ca/my-domain.com/my-domain.com.crt

Sign a container image

Assuming you have a registry in registry.my-network from which notation container has connectivity. If you are running a registry locally, you can create a docker network, for example by running docker network create my-network, and use that network whenever you need to access the registry from the notation container.

docker inspect localhost:5000/<image-name>:v1 | grep RepoDigests -A1 | grep sha256 | cut -d\" -f2
localhost:5000/<image-name>@sha256:cab52de182d770cae8c3622eb5252a36fcdd24cfb33818a68a4f012c5c0a2d2a

In case you do not want to deal with HTTPS configuration, create a config/notation/config.js file with the following content:

{
    "insecureRegistries": [
        "registry.my-network:5000"
    ]
}

Run the following command to sign a container image:

docker run -v $(pwd)/config:/.config --network <network-name> \
    bitnami/notation sign registry.my-network:5000/<image-name>@sha256:073b75987e95b89f187a89809f08a32033972bb63cda279db8a9ca16b7ff555a
Successfully signed registry.my-network:5000/<image-name>@sha256:073b75987e95b89f187a89809f08a32033972bb63cda279db8a9ca16b7ff555a

Check that your signature has been created as expected:

docker run -v $(pwd)/config:/.config --network <network-name> \
    bitnami/notation ls registry.my-network:5000/<image-name>@sha256:073b75987e95b89f187a89809f08a32033972bb63cda279db8a9ca16b7ff555a
registry.my-network:5000/<image-name>@sha256:073b75987e95b89f187a89809f08a32033972bb63cda279db8a9ca16b7ff555a
└── application/vnd.cncf.notary.signature
    └── sha256:528017e21fc9f8342d4a888ed91bb61031974814695001f453bb829517cfe931

Check the official Notation documentation⁠ for more information about how to use Notation.

Notable Changes

Starting January 16, 2024

• The docker-compose.yaml file has been removed, as it was solely intended for internal testing purposes.

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this Docker image. You can request new features by creating an issue⁠ or submitting a pull request⁠ with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue⁠. For us to provide better support, be sure to fill the issue template.

License

Copyright © 2025 Broadcom. The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0⁠

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.