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    Elastic Container Instance:CreateImageCache

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    Elastic Container Instance:CreateImageCache

    Last Updated:Oct 17, 2025

    You can call the CreateImageCache operation to create an image cache. This accelerates image pulling and reduces the startup time for Elastic Container Instance (ECI) instances.

    Operation description

    Precautions

    • Creating an image cache incurs fees. Review the billing information before you proceed. For more information, see Image cache billing.

    • Before you create an image cache, evaluate the total size of the images to be cached. If the total image size exceeds the cache size, the creation fails.

    • When you create an image cache, the system automatically creates an ECI instance and an Enhanced SSD (ESSD) PL1 disk. Do not delete the ECI instance or the disk during the creation process. Otherwise, the image cache cannot be created.

    • When you create an image cache, a corresponding snapshot is generated. Do not delete the snapshot. Otherwise, the image cache becomes invalid.

    • If you use a software development kit (SDK), make sure that you use one of the following versions or a later version: Java 1.0.10 or Python 1.0.7.

    Usage suggestions

    • To enable password-free access for images from an ACR Enterprise instance that uses a custom domain name, set the AcrRegistryInfo parameters. When you set the AcrRegistryInfo parameters, you must also set the AcrRegistryInfo.N.InstanceId parameter.

    • If the image cache is used to create more than 1,000 ECI instances in a batch, set the StandardCopyCount and FlashCopyCount parameters to create multiple snapshot replicas. Multiple snapshot replicas are billed based on the incremental data size. Because the data in the snapshot replicas is the same, no additional fees are incurred.

    Note

    When you call the CreateImageCache operation, the system automatically creates the service-linked role AliyunServiceRoleForECI. This role is used to access other Alibaba Cloud services such as ECS and VPC. For more information, see Service-linked role for Elastic Container Instance.

    Try it now

    Try this API in OpenAPI Explorer, no manual signing needed. Successful calls auto-generate SDK code matching your parameters. Download it with built-in credential security for local usage.

    Test

    RAM authorization

    The table below describes the authorization required to call this API. You can define it in a Resource Access Management (RAM) policy. The table's columns are detailed below:

    • Action: The actions can be used in the Action element of RAM permission policy statements to grant permissions to perform the operation.

    • API: The API that you can call to perform the action.

    • Access level: The predefined level of access granted for each API. Valid values: create, list, get, update, and delete.

    • Resource type: The type of the resource that supports authorization to perform the action. It indicates if the action supports resource-level permission. The specified resource must be compatible with the action. Otherwise, the policy will be ineffective.

      • For APIs with resource-level permissions, required resource types are marked with an asterisk (*). Specify the corresponding Alibaba Cloud Resource Name (ARN) in the Resource element of the policy.

      • For APIs without resource-level permissions, it is shown as All Resources. Use an asterisk (*) in the Resource element of the policy.

    • Condition key: The condition keys defined by the service. The key allows for granular control, applying to either actions alone or actions associated with specific resources. In addition to service-specific condition keys, Alibaba Cloud provides a set of common condition keys applicable across all RAM-supported services.

    • Dependent action: The dependent actions required to run the action. To complete the action, the RAM user or the RAM role must have the permissions to perform all dependent actions.

    Action

    Access level

    Resource type

    Condition key

    Dependent action

    eci:CreateImageCache

    create

    *ImageCache

    acs:eci:{#regionId}:{#accountId}:imagecache/*
    • eci:tag
    		 None

    Request parameters

    Parameter

    Type

    Required

    Description

    Example
    RegionId

    string

    Yes

    The ID of the region.

    cn-hangzhou
    RegionId

    string

    Yes

    The ID of the region.

    cn-hangzhou
    ZoneId

    string

    No

    The zone.

    cn-hangzhou-g
    SecurityGroupId

    string

    No

    The ID of the security group.

    sg-uf66jeqopgqa9hdn****
    VSwitchId

    string

    No

    The ID of the vSwitch. You can specify up to 10 vSwitch IDs, separated by commas (,). For example, vsw-***,vsw-***.

    vsw-uf6h3rbwbm90urjwa****
    ImageCacheName

    string

    Yes

    The name of the image cache.

    testcache
    EipInstanceId

    string

    No

    The EIP. To pull images from the Internet, make sure that the ECI instance can access the Internet. To enable Internet access, configure an EIP or a NAT Gateway.

    eip-2zedsm5mfl3uhdj2d****
    ResourceGroupId

    string

    No

    The ID of the resource group.

    rg-aekzh43v*****
    ClientToken

    string

    No

    A client token to ensure the idempotence of the request. Generate a value from your client to make sure that the value is unique among different requests. The token can contain only ASCII characters and cannot exceed 64 characters in length. For more information, see How to ensure idempotence.

    123e4567-xxx-xxx-xxxx-42665544xxxx
    ImageCacheSize

    integer

    No

    The size of the image cache. The default value is 20 GiB.

    20
    RetentionDays

    integer

    No

    The retention period of the image cache. The image cache is cleared after the retention period expires. By default, the image cache never expires.

    Note

    An image cache that fails to be created is retained for only one day.

    7
    AutoMatchImageCache

    boolean

    No

    Specifies whether to enable image cache reuse. If you enable this feature, new image caches can reuse the image layers of existing image caches. This speeds up the creation of image caches. Valid values:

    • true

    • false

    Default value: false.

    true
    ImageRegistryCredential

    array<object>

    No

    The credentials of the image repository.

    object

    No

    The credentials of the image repository.

    Password

    string

    No

    The password for the image repository.

    password
    Server

    string

    No

    The address of the image repository. Do not include the http:// or https:// prefix.

    registry-vpc.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com
    UserName

    string

    No

    The username for the image repository.

    username
    Image

    array

    Yes

    The container images used to create the image cache.

    registry-vpc.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/eci_open/nginx:1.15.10-perl

    string

    No

    The container images used to create the image cache.

    registry-vpc.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/eci_open/nginx:1.15.10-perl
    Tag

    array<object>

    No

    The tags of the image cache. You can specify up to 20 tags.

    object

    No

    The tags of the image cache. You can specify up to 20 tags.

    Key

    string

    No

    The key of the image cache tag.

    imc
    Value

    string

    No

    The value of the image cache tag.

    test
    Flash

    boolean

    No

    Specifies whether to enable the instant image cache feature. If you enable this feature, the creation of the image cache is accelerated. Valid values:

    • true

    • false

    Default value: false.

    true
    AcrRegistryInfo

    array<object>

    No

    The information about the ACR instance. For more information, see Use a password-free method to pull images from an ACR repository.

    object

    No

    The information about the ACR instance.

    Domain

    array

    No

    The domain names of the ACR Enterprise instance. By default, all domain names of the instance are specified. You can specify one or more domain names. Separate multiple domain names with commas (,).

    test****-registry.cn-beijing.cr.aliyuncs.com

    string

    No

    The domain names of the ACR Enterprise instance. By default, all domain names of the instance are specified. You can specify one or more domain names. Separate multiple domain names with commas (,).

    test****-registry.cn-beijing.cr.aliyuncs.com
    InstanceName

    string

    No

    The name of the ACR Enterprise instance.

    test****
    InstanceId

    string

    No

    The ID of the ACR Enterprise instance.

    cri-nwj395hgf6f3****
    RegionId

    string

    No

    The region where the ACR Enterprise instance resides.

    cn-beijing
    ArnService

    string

    No

    The Alibaba Cloud Resource Name (ARN) of the RAM role that belongs to the account of the resource, such as an ECI instance.

    acs:ram::1609982529******:role/role-assume
    ArnUser

    string

    No

    The ARN of the RAM role that belongs to the account of the ACR instance.

    acs:ram::1298452580******:role/role-acr
    Annotations

    string

    No

    The annotations. This parameter is not for external use.

    hide
    PlainHttpRegistry

    string

    No

    The address of a self-managed image repository. When you create an image cache using an image from a self-managed image repository that uses the HTTP protocol, set this parameter to allow ECI to pull the image over HTTP. This prevents image pull failures caused by protocol mismatch.

    "harbor***.pre.com,192.168.XX.XX:5000,reg***.test.com:80"
    InsecureRegistry

    string

    No

    The address of a self-managed image repository.

    When you create an image cache using an image from a self-managed image repository that uses a self-signed certificate, set this parameter to skip certificate verification. This prevents image pull failures caused by certificate verification failures.

    "harbor***.pre.com,192.168.XX.XX:5000,reg***.test.com:80"
    StandardCopyCount

    integer

    No

    The number of standard snapshot replicas. By default, one image cache corresponds to one snapshot. If the image cache is used to create multiple ECI instances in a batch, create multiple snapshot replicas. Add one snapshot replica for every 1,000 ECI instances.

    Note

    If the instant image cache feature is disabled (Flash is set to false), only standard snapshots are created during the image cache creation process.

    7
    FlashCopyCount

    integer

    No

    The number of local snapshot replicas. By default, one image cache corresponds to one snapshot. If the image cache is used to create multiple ECI instances in a batch, create multiple snapshot replicas. Add one snapshot replica for every 1,000 ECI instances.

    Note

    If the instant image cache feature is enabled (Flash is set to true), local snapshots are first created during the image cache creation process. After the local snapshots are created, standard snapshots are created. After the standard snapshots are created, the local snapshots are automatically deleted.

    7
    EliminationStrategy

    string

    No

    The eviction policy of the image cache. The default value is empty, which indicates that the image cache is always retained.

    You can set this parameter to LRU, which indicates that the image cache can be automatically deleted. When the number of image caches reaches the quota limit, the system automatically deletes the image caches that are least recently used and have EliminationStrategy set to LRU.

    LRU
    OsType

    string

    No

    The operating system of the container image. Valid values:

    • Linux (default)

    • Windows

    Note

    Windows is in invitational preview. To use this feature, submit a ticket.

    Linux

    Response elements

    Element

    Type

    Description

    Example

    object

    RequestId

    string

    The ID of the request.

    0E234675-3465-4CC3-9D0F-9A864BC391DD
    ImageCacheId

    string

    The ID of the image cache.

    imc-2zebxkiifuyzzlhl****
    ContainerGroupId

    string

    The ID of the ECI instance that is used to create the image cache.

    eci-2zebxkiifuyzzlhl****

    Examples

    Success response

    JSON format

    {
  "RequestId": "0E234675-3465-4CC3-9D0F-9A864BC391DD",
  "ImageCacheId": "imc-2zebxkiifuyzzlhl****",
  "ContainerGroupId": "eci-2zebxkiifuyzzlhl****"
}

    Error codes

    HTTP status code

    Error code

    Error message

    Description
    400 Account.Arrearage Your account has an outstanding payment. Your account has an outstanding payment.
    400 DryRunOperation Request validation has been passed with DryRun flag set. Request validation has been passed with DryRun flag set.
    400 InvalidParameter.CPU.Memory The specified cpu and memory are not allowed
    400 IncorrectStatus %s
    400 ServiceNotEnabled %s The service on which this request depends has not been activated. Please activate and try again.
    400 DiskVolume.NotSupport The disk volume is not supported. Disk volume does not support your structure. If you want to enable this function, contact us.
    400 RamRole.NotSupport The RAM role is not supported. The RAM role is not supported.
    400 ImageCache.IncorrectStatus %s
    400 ImageCacheNotSupport Image cache is not available for all users. If you want to enable this function, contact us. Container image cache is currently not available to all users. Submit a ticket if you need to use the feature.
    400 EipAddressPoolIpNotEnough The ip address of specified PublicIpAddressPool is not enough.
    400 OperationConflict The request was denied. It conflicts with a previous request.
    403 OperationDenied.VswZoneMisMatch The specified VSwitchId is not in the specified Zone.
    403 QuotaExceeded %s quota exceeded.
    403 Zone.NotOnSale The specified zone is not available for purchase.
    403 Forbidden.RiskControl This operation has been identified as an abnormal operation and cannot be processed.
    403 Forbidden.SubUser The specified action is not available for you.
    403 Forbidden.OnlyForInvitedTest Eci create action is only open to invited users during public beta.
    403 OperationDenied.SecurityGroupMisMatch The specified VSwitchId and SecurityGroupId are not in the same VPC.
    403 InvalidVSwitchId.IpNotEnough The specified VSwitch does not have enough IP addresses.
    403 Forbidden.UserBussinessStatus This operation is not allowed, because you have overdue bills. Pay the overdue bill and try again.
    403 Forbidden.UserNotRealNameAuthentication This operation is not allowed, because you have not passed the real-name verification.
    403 InvalidUser.PassRoleForbidden The RAM user is not authorized to assume a RAM role. The RAM user is not authorized to assume a RAM role.
    403 OperationDenied.NoStock Sales of this resource are temporarily suspended in the specified zone. We recommend that you use the multi-zone creation function to avoid the risk of insufficient resource. For more information, see https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/document_detail/157290.html
    403 NoPermission The RAM role AliyunECIContainerGroupRole does not belong to eci.aliyuncs.com. Please check and try again.
    403 SecurityRisk.3DVerification We have detected a security risk with your default credit or debit card. Please proceed with verification via the link in your email.
    403 CreateServiceLinkedRole.Denied Please make sure the account has ram:CreateServiceLinkedRole permission. Please make sure the account has ram:CreateServiceLinkedRole permission.

    See Error Codes for a complete list.

    Release notes

    See Release Notes for a complete list.