<p>I have been trying Kubernetes, I have setup a master and minions in AWS. The documentation on docker + Kubernetes seems to be lacking, or maybe I was looking for it in the wrong place.</p>

<p>Lets say I build my docker containers on a local box (not in AWS). I donot have a docker registry. </p>

<p>Is it possible for me to tell Kubernetes to use my local containers when spinning up pods? Or do my containers need to be put in a docker registry?</p>

<p>If the image was built on a host where Kubernetes is running, then yes, Kubernetes may use it on some conditions:</p>

<ul>
<li>your pod is scheduled on a host where <strong>your image exists</strong> (<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/containers/images/#pre-pulled-images" rel="nofollow noreferrer">pre-built / pre-pulled image</a> scenario)</li>
<li>your pod <em>pull policy</em> is set to <code>IfNotPresent</code> (see Updating Images)</li>
</ul>

<p>Using a private registry would <a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/containers/images/#using-a-private-registry" rel="nofollow noreferrer">make your life easier</a> though, on top of that it's very easy to <a href="https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/tree/release-1.9/cluster/addons/registry" rel="nofollow noreferrer">set up a local Docker registry</a> with Kubernetes.</p>
