Cannot prevent oc-mirror to perform content removal from a mirror registry

What is the nature and description of the request?

oc-mirror documentation (https://github.com/openshift/oc-mirror/tree/release-4.11#lifecycle-management) stated that oc-mirror performs content deletions from mirror registries. This is conceptually different approach than what is applied in 4.9 and 4.10 where oc client tool ("oc adm catalog mirror") is used in mirroring operators.

Moreover, according to documentation, the only way to prevent content deletions requires

• using a registry account that does not have permissions to perform content deletions, AND
• bypass error checking (--continue-on-error flag)

We cannot rely that the registry account user provides doesn't have permission to delete, in a case if we really don't want anything to be deleted. And most certainly bypassing error checking is a no-go. We already have a real live example on this related to oc client (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2088483).

In this case, the expectation is:

• there should be a command line option which can be used to control whether mirroring process is allowed - gracefully - to remove content or not.

Why does the customer need this?

The customer wishes to prevent undesirable remotion of content in the mirror.

List any affected packages or components

oc mirror
Mirror Registry