Issue with Image Pulling When Using .image Unit with Authenticated Registry

[bsv9]

When I set the Image in the .container unit to reference the .image unit (Image=test-pull-missing.image), it always tries to pull the image - even if it’s already present locally.

Jun  8 09:59:24 host-container test-pull-missing-image[8377]: Error: initializing source docker://registry/test-pull-missing:1.0: pinging container registry registry: Get "https://registry/v2/": dial tcp 127.0.0.1:443: connect: connection refused

However, if I change the line to use the full image reference directly like this "Image=registry/test-pull-missing:1.0" then everything works as expected, and the image is not pulled again if it already exists.

In my case, I use custom authentication for my private registry, so the .image unit is required.

How to repeat

test-pull-missing.image

[Unit]
Description=Test Pull Missing Image

[Image]
Image=registry/test-pull-missing:1.0
AuthFile=/etc/containers/systemd/authfile.json

test-pull-missing.container

[Unit]
Description=Test Pull missing container

[Container]
ContainerName=test-pull-missing

# This image specification works fine with the Pull policy:
# Image=registry/test-pull-missing:1.0

# This one does not work:
Image=test-pull-missing.image

Pull=missing

image already present in the system for user root

# podman image inspect registry/test-pull-missing:1.0 --format '{{ .Id }}'
48f9bb128d291fe56f9edf38e57706638fb898b765407566d5c17aa3caadca9b
#

Is this a known issue or expected behavior when using .image units with authentication and Pull=missing?