On the heels of our recent update on image tag details, the Docker Hub team is excited to share the availability of personal access tokens (PATs) as an alternative way to authenticate into Docker Hub.
Already available as part of Docker Trusted Registry, personal access tokens can now be used as a substitute for your password in Docker Hub, especially for integrating your Hub account with other tools. You’ll be able to leverage these tokens for authenticating your Hub account from the Docker CLI – either from Docker Desktop or Docker Engine:
docker login --username <username>
When you’re prompted for a password, enter your token instead.
The advantage of using tokens is the ability to create and manage multiple tokens at once so you can generate different tokens for each integration – and revoke them independently at any time.
Create and Manage Personal Access Tokens in Docker Hub
Personal access tokens are created and managed in your Account Settings.
From here, you can:
- Create new access tokens
- Modify existing tokens
- Delete access tokens
Note that the actual token is only shown once, at the time of creation. You will need to copy the token and save it in either a credential manager or use it immediately. If you lose a token, you will need to delete the lost token and create a new one.
The Next Step for Tokens
Personal access tokens open a new set of ways to authenticate into your Docker Hub account. Their introduction also serves as a foundational building block for more advanced access control capabilities, including multi-factor authentication and team-based access controls – both areas that we’re working on at the moment. We’re excited to share this and many other updates that are coming to Docker Hub over the next few months. Give access tokens a try and let us know what you think!
To learn more about personal access tokens for Docker Hub:
- Read more about Docker Hub
- Explore the Docker Hub documentation
- Get started with Docker by creating your Hub account