Using watchtower to monitor without pulling new images #557

latimeria68 · 2020-05-27T22:01:22Z

latimeria68
May 27, 2020

Hello,
I have started today using watchtower through portainer stack with compose file below; everything seems working except that watchtower does not detect newer images on docker hub. Is this some kind of known problem with portainer?
The scope is to just have an email notification when a new image is released.
Thank you

version: "2"
services:
  watchtower:
    image: containrrr/watchtower
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/Rome
      - WATCHTOWER_DEBUG=true
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATIONS_LEVEL=debug
      - WATCHTOWER_CLEANUP=false
      - DOCKER_API_VERSION=1.24
      - WATCHTOWER_INCLUDE_STOPPED=true
      - WATCHTOWER_POLL_INTERVAL=3600
      - WATCHTOWER_NO_PULL=true
      - WATCHTOWER_MONITOR_ONLY=true
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATIONS=email
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER_TLS_SKIP_VERIFY=false
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER_PORT=587
      - [email protected]
      - [email protected]
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER=smtp.gmail.com
      - [email protected]
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER_PASSWORD=myapppwd
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_DELAY=2
    restart: unless-stopped

from the log:

time="2020-05-27T23:56:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Scheduled next run: 2020-05-27 23:59:47 +0200 CEST"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Checking containers for updated images"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Retrieving containers including stopped and exited"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Skipping image pull."
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="No new images found for /watchtower_watchtower_1"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Skipping image pull."
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="No new images found for /diun"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Skipping image pull."
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="No new images found for /nextcloud"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Skipping image pull."
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="No new images found for /letsencrypt"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Skipping image pull."
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="No new images found for /mariadb"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Skipping image pull."
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="No new images found for /droppy"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Skipping image pull."
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="No new images found for /transmission"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Skipping image pull."
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="No new images found for /sickchill"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Skipping image pull."
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="No new images found for /portainer"
time="2020-05-27T23:59:47+02:00" level=debug msg="Scheduled next run: 2020-05-28 00:02:47 +0200 CEST"

Answered by simskij

Jun 5, 2020

Hi, and welcome to the community! 🎉

Watchtower works great with portainer, I've been using it this way myself for the last couple of years. I noticed though that you've got both WATCHTOWER_NO_PULL and WATCHTOWER_MONITOR_ONLY enabled.

To quote the docs for --no-pull:

Do not pull new images. When this flag is specified, watchtower will not attempt to pull new images from the registry. Instead it will only monitor the local image cache for changes. Use this option if you are building new images directly on the Docker host without pushing them to a registry.

What this means is that; as the only way watchtower is able to check for new remote images is to pull them, you can't really disable p…

View full answer

simskij · 2020-06-05T20:53:09Z

simskij
Jun 5, 2020
Maintainer

Hi, and welcome to the community! 🎉

Watchtower works great with portainer, I've been using it this way myself for the last couple of years. I noticed though that you've got both WATCHTOWER_NO_PULL and WATCHTOWER_MONITOR_ONLY enabled.

To quote the docs for --no-pull:

Do not pull new images. When this flag is specified, watchtower will not attempt to pull new images from the registry. Instead it will only monitor the local image cache for changes. Use this option if you are building new images directly on the Docker host without pushing them to a registry.

What this means is that; as the only way watchtower is able to check for new remote images is to pull them, you can't really disable pulling new images and still getting notifications about whether a new remote image is available.

https://docker-notify.com/ for instance seems to send an email digest with updated images. Maybe this could be what you're looking for? Do note though that I've not tried this service, so I can't really vouch for it's quality.

2 replies

piksel Jun 6, 2020
Maintainer

Maybe we should warn/fatal on doing this combination of options, since Watchtower will essentially be useless with both those specified?

simskij Jun 7, 2020
Maintainer

Good suggestion. Created #570 to track this.

latimeria68 · 2020-06-07T14:14:47Z

latimeria68
Jun 7, 2020
Author

Hello,
so which option set alone will make watchtower just send an email alert when a new image version is released, without pulling and updating? or maybe watchtower simply cannot do it.
Thank you

4 replies

piksel Jun 7, 2020
Maintainer

Not without pulling, no.

simskij Jun 8, 2020
Maintainer

WATCHTOWER_MONITOR_ONLY will pull but not update. This is as close as you'll get with watchtower I'm afraid.

breeegz Aug 6, 2023

Does "Monitor Only" generate a report for Notifications (for instance, Discord/Slack)?

piksel Aug 8, 2023
Maintainer

@breeegz Yes. You probably want to enable --notification-report, though.

chris4prez · 2024-03-16T20:38:54Z

chris4prez
Mar 16, 2024

@breeegz Yes. You probably want to enable --notification-report, though.

I'm looking to do similar to what's being described in this thread, and want to augment the following notification-report template to provide:

Current Output
7 Scanned, 0 Updated, 0 Failed

/watchtower (containrrr/watchtower:latest): Fresh

Desired Output
7 Scanned, 1 Found New, 0 Updated, 0 Failed

/watchtower (containrrr/watchtower:latest): Fresh
/heimdall (heimdall:latest):Found New

However, I'm unable to find a list of the log entries or notification.data structs I can reference to augment below template I'm using to add the ability to reference a new image found but not deployed due to monitoring only.

{{- if .Report -}}
{{- with .Report -}}
{{len .Scanned}} Scanned, {{len .Updated}} Updated, {{len .Failed}} Failed
{{- range .Updated}}

{{.Name}} ({{.ImageName}}): {{.CurrentImageID.ShortID}} updated to {{.LatestImageID.ShortID}}
{{- end -}}
{{- range .Fresh}}
{{.Name}} ({{.ImageName}}): {{.State}}
{{- end -}}
{{- range .Skipped}}
{{.Name}} ({{.ImageName}}): {{.State}}: {{.Error}}
{{- end -}}
{{- range .Failed}}
{{.Name}} ({{.ImageName}}): {{.State}}: {{.Error}}
{{- end -}}
{{- end -}}
{{- else -}}
{{range .Entries -}}{{.Message}}{{"\n"}}{{- end -}}
{{- end -}}

0 replies

unstressable · 2024-03-19T22:01:53Z

unstressable
Mar 19, 2024

here is my compose file, with some advantages for the same functionality:

version: "2"
services:
watchtower:
image: containrrr/watchtower
container_name: watchtower

volumes:
  - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
environment:
  - TZ=Europe/Rome
  - WATCHTOWER_DEBUG=true
  - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATIONS_LEVEL=debug
  - WATCHTOWER_CLEANUP=false
  - DOCKER_API_VERSION=1.24
  - WATCHTOWER_INCLUDE_STOPPED=true
  - WATCHTOWER_POLL_INTERVAL=36000 #Check every 10h
  - WATCHTOWER_MONITOR_ONLY=true
  - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATIONS=email
  - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER_TLS_SKIP_VERIFY=false
  - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER_PORT=587
  - [email protected]
  - [email protected]
  - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER=smtp.gmail.com
  - [email protected]
  - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER_PASSWORD=my-app-password #can be found at google account under security->2-factor-authentication
  - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_DELAY=2
restart: unless-stopped

1 reply

unstressable Mar 19, 2024

there is just one more thing:
I get emails like:
"Making sure everything is sane before starting"
"Retrieving running, stopped and exited containers"
"There are no additional watchtower containers"

Everytime I update my compose/stack and redeploy.
Is there a way to prevent this?

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Using watchtower to monitor without pulling new images #557

latimeria68 May 27, 2020

Replies: 4 comments · 7 replies

simskij Jun 5, 2020 Maintainer

piksel Jun 6, 2020 Maintainer

simskij Jun 7, 2020 Maintainer

latimeria68 Jun 7, 2020 Author

piksel Jun 7, 2020 Maintainer

simskij Jun 8, 2020 Maintainer

breeegz Aug 6, 2023

piksel Aug 8, 2023 Maintainer

chris4prez Mar 16, 2024

unstressable Mar 19, 2024

unstressable Mar 19, 2024

latimeria68
May 27, 2020

Replies: 4 comments 7 replies

simskij
Jun 5, 2020
Maintainer

piksel Jun 6, 2020
Maintainer

simskij Jun 7, 2020
Maintainer

latimeria68
Jun 7, 2020
Author

piksel Jun 7, 2020
Maintainer

simskij Jun 8, 2020
Maintainer

piksel Aug 8, 2023
Maintainer

chris4prez
Mar 16, 2024

unstressable
Mar 19, 2024