# Docker Hub Rate Limits Causing ImagePullBackOff

**URL:** <https://community.okteto.com/t/docker-hub-rate-limits-causing-imagepullbackoff/1456>\
**Category:** Not sure?\
**Created:** [March 11, 2026, 8:46am UTC](https://community.okteto.com/t/docker-hub-rate-limits-causing-imagepullbackoff/1456 "2026-03-11T08:46:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mario](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.okteto.com/mario/32/292_2.png) [@mario](https://community.okteto.com/u/mario)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2026, 8:52am UTC](https://community.okteto.com/t/docker-hub-rate-limits-causing-imagepullbackoff/1456/2 "2026-03-11T08:52:17Z")

</div>

Starting **March 11** , Docker Hub rate limits may cause image pull failures for clusters pulling Okteto images without authentication.

This can affect installations running **Okteto versions earlier than 1.40** , which still use Docker Hub as the default registry.

## Syntoms

Your deployments or Okteto components may fail with errors similar to:

```auto
You have reached your pull rate limit. You may increase the limit by authenticating and upgrading:
https://www.docker.com/increase-rate-limits

```

In Kubernetes, this typically appears as:

```auto
ImagePullBackOff
ErrImagePull

```

## Why this happens

Docker Hub enforces **anonymous pull rate limits**.  
If your Kubernetes cluster pulls Okteto images without authentication, these limits can be reached quickly, especially in shared clusters.

## How to fix it

You have **two options** depending on your setup.

**Option 1 — Upgrade Okteto to 1.40+ (Recommended)**

Starting with **Okteto 1.40** , container images are pulled from **GitHub Container Registry (GHCR)** instead of Docker Hub.

This avoids Docker Hub rate limits entirely.

Upgrade instructions and details:

[https://community.okteto.com/t/okteto-container-images-moving-to-github-container-registry-in-1-40/1446](https://community.okteto.com/t/okteto-container-images-moving-to-github-container-registry-in-1-40/1446?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

**Option 2 — Configure Docker credentials in your cluster**

If you cannot upgrade immediately, you should configure Kubernetes to authenticate to Docker Hub.

The easiest way is using Okteto’s **registry credentials feature** , which ensures all workloads in your cluster can pull images.

Documentation:

[https://www.okteto.com/docs/admin/registry-credentials/](https://www.okteto.com/docs/admin/registry-credentials/)

This allows your cluster to authenticate to Docker Hub and avoid anonymous rate limits.

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_[View the full topic](https://community.okteto.com/t/docker-hub-rate-limits-causing-imagepullbackoff/1456)._