Proposed title of this feature request

Achieve feature parity for recently introduced functionality for all modes of operation

Nature and description of the request

Currently there are gaps in functionality within oc mirror that we would like addressed.

1. Support oci: references within mirror.operators[].catalog in an ImageSetConfiguration when running in all modes of operation with the full functionality provided by oc mirror.

Currently oci: references such as the following are allowed only in limited circumstances:

mirror:
   operators:
   - catalog: oci:///tmp/oci/ocp11840
   - catalog: icr.io/cpopen/ibm-operator-catalog
 

Currently supported scenarios

• Mirror to Mirror

In this mode of operation the images are fetched from the oci: reference rather than being pulled from a source docker image repository. These catalogs are processed through similar (yet different) mechanisms compared to docker image references. The end result in this scenario is that the catalog is potentially modified and images (i.e. catalog, bundle, related images, etc.) are pushed to their final docker image repository. This provides the full capabilities offered by oc mirror (e.g. catalog "filtering", image pruning, metadata manipulation to keep track of what has been mirrored, etc.)

Desired scenarios
In the following scenarios we would like oci: references to be processed in a similar way to how docker references are handled (as close as possible anyway given the different APIs involved). Ultimately we want oci: catalog references to provide the full set of functionality currently available for catalogs provided as a docker image reference. In other words we want full feature parity (e.g. catalog "filtering", image pruning, metadata manipulation to keep track of what has been mirrored, etc.)

• Mirror to Disk

In this mode of operation the images are fetched from the oci: reference rather than being pulled from a docker image repository. These catalogs are processed through similar yet different mechanisms compared to docker image references. The end result of this scenario is that all mappings and catalogs are packaged into tar archives (i.e. the "imageset").

• Disk to Mirror

In this mode of operation the tar archives (i.e. the "imageset") are processed via the "publish mechanism" which means unpacking the tar archives, processing the metadata, pruning images, rebuilding catalogs, and pushing images to their destination. In theory if the mirror-to-disk scenario is handled properly, then this mode should "just work".

Below the line was the original RFE for requesting the OCI feature and is only provided for reference.