Overview

The IBM Z® and Cloud Modernization Stack offering uses OCI artifacts to install software onto z/OS systems using the IBM z/OS Package Manager. This section of the documentation provides details such as OCI artifact specifications, OCI Containerfile specifications, and the procedure to build OCI artifacts via Podman tool that are compatible with IBM z/OS Package Manager.

There are two types of image format.

• An OCI container image contains a software (or a product) that can be run within a container. OCI images are also referred to as container images. The images are typically downloaded from an OCI registry.
• An OCI artifact is similar to an OCI container image. An OCI artifact contains software (or a product) that is stored as a non-image type within an OCI registry.

Use Containerfile to build an OCI artifact through the Podman tool on platforms other than z/OS. These OCI artifacts can only be run by using IBM z/OS Package Manager.

You can trust and pull OCI image artifacts obtained from the IBM trusted registry (icr.io) into your enterprise registry namespace. You are advised to follow a process to perform scans/validations before using any OCI artifact. Make sure to only add OCI artifacts that have been ‘validated’ and deemed trusted.