credentials not used for pulling images even though they exist

[paytrail-max]

Expected Behaviour

When pulling images during build, use dockerhub credentials from ~/.docker/config.json to avoid image pull rate limits.

Actual Behaviour

testcontainer correctly reads correctly the config made with docker login but it does not use them correctly when pulling images from the DockerImageClient.indexServerAddress, which in my case should be "https://index.docker.io/v1/" . The image that is pulled as a base for a dockerfile (for e.g. node) resolves to localhost registry and therefore GenericContainerBuilder.getRegistryConfig appears to try to resolve auth config for localhost, even though it should resolve auth for "https://index.docker.io/v1/".

Testcontainer Logs

2026-02-17T14:42:52.562Z testcontainers [DEBUG] Auth config cache hit for registry "https://index.docker.io/v1/"
2026-02-17T14:42:52.562Z testcontainers [DEBUG] No auth config found for registry "localhost"
...
2026-02-17T14:42:52.825Z testcontainers:build [localhost/b791bf657a34:342e57541ebf] {"stream":"Step 1/10 : FROM postgres:17.7"}
--
2026-02-17T14:42:52.825Z testcontainers:build [localhost/b791bf657a34:342e57541ebf] {"stream":"\n"}
2026-02-17T14:42:53.916Z testcontainers:build [localhost/b791bf657a34:342e57541ebf] {"status":"Pulling from library/postgres","id":"17.7"}
2026-02-17T14:42:54.218Z testcontainers:build [localhost/b791bf657a34:342e57541ebf] {"errorDetail":{"message":"toomanyrequests: You have reached your unauthenticated pull rate limit. https://www.docker.com/increase-rate-limit"},"error":"toomanyrequests: You have reached your unauthenticated pull rate limit. https://www.docker.com/increase-rate-limit"}

Steps to Reproduce

1. npm i testcontainers@11.11.0
2. Place a Dockerfile into a directory and create container with

const DOCKER_CONTEXT = 'your_directory'
const image = await GenericContainer.fromDockerfile(DOCKER_CONTEXT).build();

3. before running the project perform docker login so ~/.docker/config.json has auth data
4. Spam until rate limit for unauthenticated user is hit. (it should not be, since you are authenticated)

Environment Information

• Operating System: ubuntu:20.04 (aws/codebuild/standard:5.0 CI machine)
• Docker Version: 20.10.24
• Node version: 22.22.0
• Testcontainers version: 11.11.0

Are you willing to try to solve this?

Yes.

[cristianrgreco]

Spam until rate limit for unauthenticated user is hit. (it should not be, since you are authenticated)

There are still rate limits for authenticated users

[paytrail-max]

There are still rate limits for authenticated users

Good point. Forgot to specify that we are using a pro account, so rate limits should not concern us 👍

[cristianrgreco]

Thanks for the report. I need a bit more detail to triage this. Could you share:

1. The full Dockerfile you’re building (or a minimized equivalent).
2. The exact Node snippet (from fromDockerfile(...) through build() / start()).
3. Full debug logs with DEBUG=testcontainers* for one failing run.

[paytrail-max]

Hello,
thank you for your fast reply. I'm working on for items requested in the following days.
Updated the docker version and corrected the os version in the ticket (brain fart on my end hehe).

[cristianrgreco]

Thanks for the update. One thing I’d suggest checking first is your environment baseline:

• You’re on Docker 20.10.24, which is from an old, unmaintained line (20.x / 20.10 is effectively EOL).
• You’re also on Ubuntu 20.04 in CodeBuild, which is past standard support (ESM only).

Could you try reproducing on a newer baseline (for example Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 + a current Docker Engine release), then share whether the issue still occurs?