Can image auto-import be disabled?

[mes5k]

Is it possible to disable the image auto-import functionality described here: #9759?

This feature presents a problem for us when we're upgrading our software since we're on a very space constrained system. Copying images into the agent/images directory AND loading the images can cause us to hit eviction limits.

[brandond]

You can create a .cache.json file in the images dir, which will prevent the archive from being re-processed if it hasn't changed since last time it was processed. Ref:

• https://docs.k3s.io/installation/airgap?airgap-load-images=Manually+Deploy+Images#enable-conditional-image-imports
• Add support for conditional image tarball imports #12237

If you don't want things to be imported at all then just... don't place the tarball in the images dir? You can create a .txt file (instead of a tarball) to trigger pulling during k3s startup, or just let the kubelet pull the image from a registry when it needs it. Nobody is MAKING you put things in the images dir.