# Create SOCI indexes with nerdctl and SOCI CLI example
<a name="soci-indexing-example-create-indexes"></a>

The following page provides an example on how to create SOCI indexes with nerdctl and SOCI CLI.

**Create SOCI indexes example**

1. First set your variables for the AWS CLI commands that follow. The following is an example of setting up your variables.

   ```
   ACCOUNT_ID="111122223333"
   REGION="us-east-1"
   REPOSITORY_NAME="repository-name"
   ORIGINAL_IMAGE_TAG="original-image-tag"
   SOCI_IMAGE_TAG="soci-indexed-image-tag"
   ```

   Variable definitions:
   + `ACCOUNT_ID` is your AWS account ID
   + `REGION` is the AWS Region of your Amazon ECR private registry
   + `REPOSITORY_NAME` is the name of your Amazon ECR private registry
   + `ORIGINAL_IMAGE_TAG` is the tag of your original image
   + `SOCI_IMAGE_TAG` is the tag of your SOCI-indexed image

1. Install required tools:

   ```
   # Install SOCI CLI, containerd, and nerdctl
   sudo yum install soci-snapshotter
   sudo yum install containerd jq  
   sudo systemctl start soci-snapshotter
   sudo systemctl restart containerd
   sudo yum install nerdctl
   ```

1. Set your registry variables:

   ```
   REGISTRY_USER=AWS
   REGISTRY="$ACCOUNT_ID.dkr.ecr.$REGION.amazonaws.com"
   ```

1. Export your region and authenticate to Amazon ECR:

   ```
   export AWS_REGION=$REGION
   REGISTRY_PASSWORD=$(/usr/local/bin/aws ecr get-login-password --region $AWS_REGION)
   echo $REGISTRY_PASSWORD | sudo nerdctl login -u $REGISTRY_USER --password-stdin $REGISTRY
   ```

1. Pull your original container image:

   ```
   sudo nerdctl pull $REGISTRY/$REPOSITORY_NAME:$ORIGINAL_IMAGE_TAG
   ```

1. Create the SOCI index:

   ```
   sudo nerdctl image convert --soci $REGISTRY/$REPOSITORY_NAME:$ORIGINAL_IMAGE_TAG $REGISTRY/$REPOSITORY_NAME:$SOCI_IMAGE_TAG
   ```

1. Push the SOCI-indexed image:

   ```
   sudo nerdctl push --platform linux/amd64 $REGISTRY/$REPOSITORY_NAME:$SOCI_IMAGE_TAG
   ```

This process creates two artifacts for the original container image in your ECR repository:
+ SOCI index - Metadata enabling lazy loading
+ Image Index manifest - OCI-compliant manifest