To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Use RHEL AI with 1.4
2. set environment variable ILAB_HOME=/mnt
3. Execute the ilab command
4. See error
5.  

   [cloud-user@ecosystem-qe-auto ~]$ ilab
   Usage: ilab [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...
     CLI for interacting with InstructLab.
     If this is your first time running ilab, it's best to start with `ilab
     config init` to create the environment.
   Options:
     --config PATH  Path to a configuration file.  [default: /var/home/cloud-
                    user/.config/instructlab/config.yaml]
     -v, --verbose  Enable debug logging (repeat for even more verbosity)
     --version      Show the version and exit.
     --help         Show this message and exit.
   Commands:
     config    Command group for interacting with the config of InstructLab.
     data      Command group for interacting with the data generated by...
     model     Command group for interacting with the models in InstructLab.
     process   Command group for interacting with the processes run by...
     rag       Command group for interacting with the RAG for InstructLab.
     system    Command group for all system-related command calls.
     taxonomy  Command group for interacting with the taxonomy of InstructLab.
   Aliases:
     chat      model chat
     generate  data generate
     serve     model serve
     train     model train
   [cloud-user@ecosystem-qe-auto ~]$ export ILAB_HOME=/mnt
   [cloud-user@ecosystem-qe-auto ~]$ ilab --version
   Trying to pull registry.stage.redhat.io/rhelai1/instructlab-nvidia-rhel9:1.4-1738266244...
   Error: initializing source docker://registry.stage.redhat.io/rhelai1/instructlab-nvidia-rhel9:1.4-1738266244: unable to retrieve auth token: invalid username/password: unauthorized: Please login to the Red Hat Registry using your Customer Portal credentials. Further instructions can be found here: https://access.redhat.com/RegistryAuthentication
   

    

Expected behavior

• Overriding ILAB_HOME to work properly

Screenshots

• Attached Image

Device Info (please complete the following information):

• Hardware Specs: gx3d-160x1792x8h100
• OS Version: RHEL AI 1.4
  • InstructLab Version: ilab, version 0.23.1
• Provide the output of these two commands:

  •   booted:
        image:
          image:
            image: registry.stage.redhat.io/rhelai1/bootc-nvidia-rhel9:1.4
            transport: registry
          version: 9.20250108.0
          timestamp: null
          imageDigest: sha256:78c989bd3724797251c59013c17fa5ea005a6a989da0f02b9ddd0da024273090

Bug impact

• Users using ILAB_HOME will face auth errors

Known workaround

• Users can login to the registry , still this requires a token
• Even if they log in, while running ilab command, the image is pulled from registry:

• [cloud-user@ecosystem-qe-auto ~]$ export ILAB_HOME=/mnt
  [cloud-user@ecosystem-qe-auto ~]$ podman login -u='REDACTED' -p=REDACTED registry.stage.redhat.io
  Login Succeeded!
  [cloud-user@ecosystem-qe-auto ~]$ 
  [cloud-user@ecosystem-qe-auto ~]$ 
  [cloud-user@ecosystem-qe-auto ~]$ ilab --version
  Trying to pull registry.stage.redhat.io/rhelai1/instructlab-nvidia-rhel9:1.4-1738266244...
  Getting image source signatures
  Copying blob 51c49ef1bc20 [====>---------------------------------] 1.5GiB / 11.2GiB | 366.7 MiB/s

Additional context

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