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Image pull policy

Each container in a pod has a container image. After you have created an image and pushed it to a registry, you can then refer to it in the pod.

Image pull policy overview

When OKD creates containers, it uses the container imagePullPolicy to determine if the image should be pulled prior to starting the container. There are three possible values for imagePullPolicy:

Table 1. imagePullPolicy values
Value Description

Always

Always pull the image.

IfNotPresent

Only pull the image if it does not already exist on the node.

Never

Never pull the image.

If a container imagePullPolicy parameter is not specified, OKD sets it based on the image tag:

  1. If the tag is latest, OKD defaults imagePullPolicy to Always.

  2. Otherwise, OKD defaults imagePullPolicy to IfNotPresent.