[Bug]: docker registry seems to be private

[sgaunet]

What happened?

Following the quick start guide and got the below error:

$ vcluster platform start
18:10:31 info Automatically using --docker flag because driver is set to 'docker'
18:10:32 info Starting vCluster platform in Docker...
18:10:32 info Welcome to vCluster platform!
18:10:32 info This installer will help you configure and deploy vCluster platform.
18:10:32 info Starting vCluster platform...
Unable to find image 'ghcr.io/loft-sh/vcluster-platform:4.7.1' locally
docker: Error response from daemon: Head "https://ghcr.io/v2/loft-sh/vcluster-platform/manifests/4.7.1": denied: denied

Run 'docker run --help' for more information
18:10:33 fatal exit status 125

What did you expect to happen?

The download of the image ghcr.io/loft-sh/vcluster-platform:4.7.1

How can we reproduce it (as minimally and precisely as possible)?

vcluster platform start

vCluster config

sync:

vCluster and Docker version

Details

$ vcluster --version
vcluster version 0.32.1

$ docker version
Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           29.3.0
 API version:       1.54
 Go version:        go1.25.7
 Git commit:        5927d80
 Built:             Thu Mar  5 14:29:24 2026
 OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
 Context:           default

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          29.3.0
  API version:      1.54 (minimum version 1.40)
  Go version:       go1.25.7
  Git commit:       83bca51
  Built:            Thu Mar  5 14:25:30 2026
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          v2.2.1
  GitCommit:        dea7da592f5d1d2b7755e3a161be07f43fad8f75
 runc:
  Version:          1.3.4
  GitCommit:        v1.3.4-0-gd6d73eb8
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.19.0
  GitCommit:        de40ad0


$ uname -a
Linux fedora 6.19.6-200.fc43.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Mar  5 00:10:35 UTC 2026 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Operating System

Linux (x86_64)

Using vCluster Platform UI?

Yes - platform started before cluster creation

Relevant logs

Anything else we need to know?

No response

[sgaunet]

I've launched the command: vcluster use driver docker before the vcluster platform start

[iamabhijeet20]

A quick workaround if you're hitting this issue which i found:

You can fix it by updating your Docker config:

1. Open the config file:

~/.docker/config.json

2. If you see:

{
  "credsStore": "desktop"
}

Replace it with:

{}

3. Restart Docker:

sudo systemctl restart docker

After this, vcluster commands should work normally and the issue should be resolved.

[saiyam1814]

Thanks for reporting this @sgaunet, and thanks @iamabhijeet20 for the workaround!
The image ghcr.io/loft-sh/vcluster-platform is public, so this isn't actually a private registry issue. What's most likely happening is that you have a stale or invalid authentication token stored for ghcr.io in your Docker credentials. When Docker finds stored credentials for a registry, it sends them along even for public image pulls and if that token is invalid, GHCR rejects the request with "denied" instead of falling back to anonymous access.
The fix is to remove the stored GHCR credentials: docker logout ghcr.io
After that, Docker will pull public images anonymously and it should work fine.

The workaround of clearing ~/.docker/config.json also works, but it removes credential management for all registries, which you probably don't want if you're authenticated to other registries.
Hope that helps!