Beginner's question to docker model/download problem

Docker Hub
1

Hi,

probably a trivial problem: I just discovered the “docker model” plugin and wanted to try it out. Unfortunately, the sample command “docker model run ai/smollm2”. But it cannot download the model. I get “Failed to pull model: unexpected end of stream while pulling model ai/smollm2” after a minute. I tried to use the --debug option, but it did not generate any additional output. Yes, I am behind a firewall and using a proxy. But I succeed to download regular images from Docker Hub. I checked netstat during the attempt to see whether the proxy settings are unrecognised (i.e. connections in SYN state blocked by the firewall), but did not see anything. Searches on Google did not provide any helpful information.

Can someone please give me some hints how to fix my problem? Thanks in advance.

Klaus

Addendum: Found the following in the log (“docker model logs”):

time="2025-11-06T08:43:20Z" level=info msg="Starting model pull: ai/smollm2" component=model-manager
time="2025-11-06T08:43:50Z" level=info msg="Request canceled/timed out while pulling model \"ai/smollm2\""
time="2025-11-06T08:55:27Z" level=info msg="Getting model by reference: ai/smollm2" component=model-manager
time="2025-11-06T08:55:27Z" level=error msg="Failed to get model: model not found reference: ai/smollm2" component=model-manager
time="2025-11-06T08:55:27Z" level=info msg="Will estimate memory required for \"ai/smollm2\""
time="2025-11-06T08:55:27Z" level=info msg="Checking model by reference: ai/smollm2" component=model-manager
time="2025-11-06T08:55:57Z" level=warning msg="Failed to validate sufficient system memory for model \"ai/smollm2\": estimating required memory for model: failed to parse GGUF: getting remote model(ai/smollm2): error while getting remote model: failed to pull model \"ai/smollm2\": UNKNOWN - Get \"https://index.docker.io/v2/\": dial tcp 35.169.242.14:443: i/o timeout"
time="2025-11-06T08:55:57Z" level=info msg="Pulling model: ai/smollm2"
time="2025-11-06T08:55:57Z" level=info msg="Starting model pull: ai/smollm2" component=model-manager
time="2025-11-06T08:56:27Z" level=info msg="Request canceled/timed out while pulling model \"ai/smollm2\""
2

Please, show your docker info and docker version output, and remove anything from the output you would not want to share before posting.

According to the logs, index.docker.io is not available when pulling a model. .

3

Hi,

thanks for responding. Here they are:

docker info output:

Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:    28.5.1
 Context:    default
 Debug Mode: false
 Plugins:
  buildx: Docker Buildx (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.29.1
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx
  compose: Docker Compose (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v2.40.3
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose
  model: Docker Model Runner (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.1.44
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-model
  scan: Docker Scan (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.23.0
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-scan

Server:
 Containers: 1
  Running: 1
  Paused: 0
  Stopped: 0
 Images: 2
 Server Version: 28.5.1
 Storage Driver: overlay2
  Backing Filesystem: extfs
  Supports d_type: true
  Using metacopy: false
  Native Overlay Diff: true
  userxattr: false
 Logging Driver: json-file
 Cgroup Driver: systemd
 Cgroup Version: 2
 Plugins:
  Volume: local
  Network: bridge host ipvlan macvlan null overlay
  Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file local splunk syslog
 CDI spec directories:
  /etc/cdi
  /var/run/cdi
 Swarm: inactive
 Runtimes: io.containerd.runc.v2 runc
 Default Runtime: runc
 Init Binary: docker-init
 containerd version: b98a3aace656320842a23f4a392a33f46af97866
 runc version: v1.3.3-0-gd842d771
 init version: de40ad0
 Security Options:
  apparmor
  seccomp
   Profile: builtin
  cgroupns
 Kernel Version: 6.17.0-6-generic
 Operating System: Ubuntu 25.10
 OSType: linux
 Architecture: x86_64
 CPUs: 16
 Total Memory: 62.18GiB
 Name: xxxxxx
 ID: xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
 Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
 Debug Mode: false
 HTTP Proxy: http://proxy.xxxxx.de:8080
 HTTPS Proxy: http://proxy.xxxxx.de:8080
 No Proxy: 127.0.0.1, ::1, localhost, xxxxx
 Experimental: false
 Insecure Registries:
  ::1/128
  127.0.0.0/8
 Live Restore Enabled: false

docker version output:

Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           28.5.1
 API version:       1.51
 Go version:        go1.24.8
 Git commit:        e180ab8
 Built:             Fri Oct 10 13:04:33 2025
 OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
 Context:           default

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          28.5.1
  API version:      1.51 (minimum version 1.24)
  Go version:       go1.24.8
  Git commit:       f8215cc
  Built:            Fri Oct 10 13:04:33 2025
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          v1.7.28
  GitCommit:        b98a3aace656320842a23f4a392a33f46af97866
 runc:
  Version:          1.3.3
  GitCommit:        v1.3.3-0-gd842d771
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.19.0
  GitCommit:        de40ad0
4

Thanks for the outputs.

Did you also check proxy logs? Could it reject some requests even if the domain was allowed for another request?

5

Turns out to be a proxy problem. The company’s proxy software is not up to date and for some reason it has some problems when downloading from within the docker container. Strangely, I could download the LLMs via the web browser. Anyway, I managed to circumvent the proxy and the download succeeded. Thanks for your help nevertheless.