Image pulls

Last updated 2 November 2026

Find out what Tonbo does with your image, from its reference to the disk a wake boots, when an image is slow to become ready or is refused.

Resolution

At a create, and at an update that names an image, Tonbo’s API resolves the reference: it reads the image index and picks the linux/arm64 manifest, built as multi-platform builds make them, and stores its digest with the canonical repository. A name with no registry host is a Docker Hub name. Nothing else is resolved later, so a new push under the same tag is not seen until it is named again.

The pull

A host pulls by digest, anonymously, over HTTPS on port 443, as the distribution specification describes. Manifests are never followed through a redirect and blobs through at most three; every blob’s digest is checked. The layers are flattened into one ext4 filesystem, with the image configuration kept beside it, and cached on the host. A Machine that wakes on another host is pulled there again. Some registries limit anonymous pulls per address, and every Machine of a region pulls from one address.

The limits

A host refuses an image past the bounds on Limits, and bounds every pull in time and memory.

Failures

A pull that fails records why on the Machine, which tonbo machine show prints, and wakes are refused with image_failed until an update names an image that pulls. The specifications end at the OCI image specification’s repository.