hmm, using the k3s-airgap images from github works. but if i put additional images into the same folder, they appear in the registry but k3s is still trying to pull, even though the image is already available. anyone had that problem?

Did you have the ImagePullPolicy set to Always in your pod spec?

nope. IfNotPresent. It turns out that you need to do docker save <imageList> > file.tar and then gzip it. With -o it won't work here