A well-designed multi-stage build contains only the minimal binary files and dependencies required for the final image, with no build tools or intermediate files. Make use of multistage building features to have reproducible builds inside containers. Carefully select base images to ensure they suit your purposes, and if necessary, build your own minimal base image. Docker images often require sensitive data for their normal operations, such as credentials, tokens, SSH keys, TLS certificates, database names or connection strings. For example, a successful kernel exploit can enable attackers to break out of a non-privileged container and gain root access to the host. Avoid networking misconfiguration by allowing Docker to make changes to iptables, and avoid experimental features during production. When a container is compromised, attackers may try to make use of the underlying host resources to perform malicious activity. You can use one or more of the following Linux security capabilities: A simple and effective security trick is to run containers with a read-only filesystem. Previously Rani was also a management consultant in the London office of Booz & Co. In a multistage build, you create an intermediate container or stage with all the required tools to compile or produce your final artifacts (i.e., the final executable). But as it ages and new vulnerabilities are discovered, it might become dangerous. A common example is using a base image with a full Debian Stretch distribution, whereas your specific project does not really require operating system libraries or utilities. You can take a look at the predefined annotations from the OCI image spec, which deprecate the previous Label schema standard draft. Exposing the port does not automatically allow connections for all EXPOSED ports when running the container (unless you use docker run --publish-all). It will help you shift left security by checking for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, allowing you to act before threats are deployed. Aqua protects Docker application at runtime, ensuring container immutability and prohibiting changes to running containers, isolating the container from the host via custom machine-learned SECCOMP profiles. If you are unable to complete this form, please email us at [emailprotected] and a sales rep will contact you. This reduces the attack surface, decreasing vulnerabilities. "https://yarnpkg.com/downloads/$YARN_VERSION/yarn-v$YARN_VERSION.tar.gz". If you use a base image to create new images, any vulnerability in the base image will extend to your new images. He holds an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. You can also include Tini directly in your Dockerfile, ensuring your process is always started with an init wrapper. Running binaries that were created elsewhere requires a significant amount of trust, and the same is true for binaries in containers. Forcing a specific UID (i.e., the first standard user with, When using custom images, check for the image source and the Dockerfile, and. Labels will help in image management, like including the application version, a link to the website, how to contact the maintainer, and more. Images containing software with security vulnerabilities are susceptible to attacks during container runtime. Previously, we talked about using a non-root user when building a container. Processes in a container should not run as root, or assume that they are root. Just like you wouldnt (or shouldnt) run anything as root on your server, you shouldnt run anything as root in a container on your server. Top Dockerfile Best Practices. It is important to set resource quotas, to limit the resources your container can usefor security reasons, and to ensure each container has the appropriate resources and does not disrupt other services running on the host. For example: Also, create a .dockerignore file to explicitly exclude files and directories. They can also be used to categorize containers and their contents for compliance purposes, for example labeling a container as containing protected data. The default bridge network exists on all Docker hostsif you do not specify a different network, new containers automatically connect to it. Ability to install a new instance of the Docker platform, using the host's kernel capabilities, and run Docker within Docker. By default, this socket is owned by the root user. It is a security best practice to apply the shift left security paradigm by directly scanning your images, as soon as they are built, in your CI pipelines before pushing to the registry. This is critical when designing a secure system. Apply per need SELinux security options, and overwrite the default ulimit at runtime. Take note that it is possible to bind the daemon socket to a network interface, making the Docker container available remotely. Only whitelisted connections will be allowed, both within a Swarm or Kubernetes cluster, and also between clusters. Many images just run as root and leave it up to you to figure out how to securely run them. To follow this best practice, try to avoid: Most of the time, you can just drop the --chown app:app option (or RUN chown commands). Since the kernel is shared by the container and the host, kernel exploits when an attacker manages to run on a container can directly affect the host. Copyright 2022 Sysdig, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you need to upgrade/downgrade yarn for a local install, you can do so by issuing the following commands in your Dockerfile: Note that if you create some other directory which is not a descendant one from where you ran the command, you will end up using the global (dated) version. However, because tags can be changed, it is possible for several images to have a latest tag, causing confusion and inconsistent behavior in automated builds. That way, in case your container is compromised, the range of action available to an attacker is limited. If you need more control, you can create a Docker network plugin. Images that follow this pattern are easier to run securely by limiting access to resources. Building on top of untrusted or unmaintained images will inherit all of the problems and vulnerabilities from that image into your containers. First off this reduces the number of processes running inside of your container. There are very few use cases where the container needs to execute as root, so dont forget to include the USER instruction to change the default effective UID to a non-root user. This resulting image now follows the best practice outlined here, and will run securely by default. Prevention and shifting security left is essential for improving your security posture and reducing the management overhead. While these two alternatives are better than running as root, it might not work in restricted environments like Openshift. We also added a bonus section summarizing the security best practices of the Docker CIS Security Benchmark, so you can be aware of secure configuration best practices. Run the container as a non-root user, but dont make that user UID a requirement. Protecting a container is exactly the same as protecting any process running on Linux. If you wish to upgrade yarn globally follow the instructions in the next section. Since RUN, COPY, ADD, and other instructions will create a new container layer, grouping multiple commands together will reduce the number of layers. Remember that order in the Dockerfile instructions is very important. So dont copy confidential files and then remove them, they will be not visible in the final container filesystem but still be easily accessible. This will block the executing user from modifying existing binaries or scripts, which could enable different attacks. Therefore, it is critical to identify problems early and remediate them at the sourcefor example, by identifying a faulty image, fixing it, and rebuilding all containers using that image. Aqua customers are among the worlds largest enterprises in financial services, software, media, manufacturing and retail, with implementations across a broad range of cloud providers and modern technology stacks spanning containers, serverless functions and cloud VMs. This is extremely important to mitigate vulnerabilities in daemons and container runtimes, which can grant root access of entire nodes and clusters to an attacker. Docker provides a privileged mode, which lets a container run as root on the local machine. Our recent report highlighted that 58% of images are running the container entrypoint as root (UID 0). Make sure your /var/run/docker.sock has the correct permissions, and if docker is exposed via TCP (which is not recommended at all), make sure it is properly protected. Container image scanning is the process of analyzing the content and composition of images to detect security issues, misconfigurations or vulnerabilities. As new security vulnerabilities are discovered continuously, it is a general security best practice to stick to the latest security patches. As of Docker 1.13, you can use the --init flag to wrap your Node.js process with a lightweight init system that properly handles running as PID 1. Implement vulnerability scanning to ensure clean code at all stages of the development lifecycle. Do not run Docker images with an option like. Container Security, To avoid this issue, follow these best practices: Docker provides rootless mode, which lets you run Docker daemons and containers as non-root users. Follow these best practices: In a container, you can choose to allow or deny any system calls. Ideally, the operating system on a container host should protect the host kernel from container escapes, and prevent mutual influence between containers. has the last word on who is the running container effective user. Create a minimum number of manager nodes in a swarm, Bind swarm services are bound to a specific host interface, Encrypt containers data exchange on different overlay network nodes, Manage secrets in a Swarm cluster with Docker's secret management commands, Rotate swarm manager auto-lock key periodically, Rotate node and CA certificates as needed, Separate management plane traffic from data plane traffic. The start of a Dockerfile should follow this pattern: Using this pattern, its easy to run a container in the context of a user/group with the least privileges required. My Web Development Journey, Or How I Fell In Love With WebStorm, Building My First Gem: Learning What I Dont Know. Dont share the host's network namespace and the host's process namespace, the host's IPC namespace, mount propagation mode, the host's UTS namespace, the host's user namespaces. Developer #golang, #erlang and more. This set of recommendations, focused on Dockerfiles best practices, will help you in this mission. It may unintentionally contain security vulnerabilities, or may have intentionally been replaced with an image compromised by attackers. You should design a way to maintain containers without needing to directly access them. This has both operational and security advantages. Please note that even though the Dockerfile offers the EXPOSE command, this command is only informational and for documentation purposes. Avoid giving open access to your entire teamthis simplifies operations, but increases the risk that a team member, or an attacker compromising their attack, can introduce unwanted artifacts into an image. Some of these (official images) will follow this best practices and run as a normal user account. The tradeoff here is that you need to rebuild your image when the base image is updated. By creating a user in your Dockerfile, you are making it not only secure by default but also easier to keep secure. Container orchestrators like Kubernetes and Docker Swarm provide a secrets management capability which can solve this problem. Store your credentials as secrets, don't leave them in your source code. The following table summarizes recommendations from the CIS Docker Community Edition Benchmark, specifying how to set up a safe docker configuration. Previously founder of @lookioapp. Limit memory usage for container and bind incoming container traffic to a specific host interface. The default value /tmp will allow the application to execute as any UID and still write temporary data to /tmp. Rani has worked in enterprise software companies more than 25 years, spanning project management, product management and marketing, including a decade as VP of marketing for innovative startups in the cyber-security and cloud arenas. Distroless are a nice alternative. That means having a smaller and restricted build context will make your builds faster. [Webinar] Docker images are commonly built on top of base images. Openshift, by default, will use random UIDs when running containers. These are designed to contain only the minimal set of libraries required to run Go, Python, or other frameworks. It would be Dockerfile best practices to create a subfolder containing the files that need to be copied inside the container, use it as the build context, and when possible, be explicit for the COPY instructions (avoid wildcards). Learn how to prevent security issues and optimize containerized applications by applying a quick set of Dockerfile best practices in your image builds. The Aqua Platform provides prevention, detection, and response automation across the entire application lifecycle to secure the build, secure cloud infrastructure and secure running workloads, wherever they are deployed. Much of this overhead can be prevented by shifting left security, tackling potential problems as soon as possible in your development workflow. Aqua further enhances securing Docker as follows: Aquas container firewall lets you visualize network connections, develop rules based on application services, and map legitimate connections automatically. Enabling signature verification is different on each runtime. Never make the daemon socket available for remote connections, unless you are using Docker's encrypted HTTPS socket, which supports authentication. myapp) execute: For alpine based images, you do not have groupmod nor usermod, so to change the uid/gid you have to delete the previous user: By default, any Docker Container may consume as much of the hardware such as CPU and RAM. It is a Dockerfile best practice to include metadata labels when building your image. The key difference is that Trivyruns according to the build steps created within your Dockerfile. We recommend you check this NodeJS application example or this efficient Python with Django multi-stage build. A well crafted Dockerfile will avoid the need for privileged containers, exposing unnecessary ports, unused packages, leaked credentials, etc., or anything that can be used for an attack. The solution is to use a private registry deployed behind your own firewall, to reduce the risk of tampering. It is a Dockerfile best practice to keep the images minimal. Ensure containers use only trusted images, Ensure unnecessary packages are not installed in the container, Include security patches during scans and rebuilding processes, Dont use update instructions in a single line or alone in the Dockerfile. Following the best practices, patterns, and recommendations for the tools you use will help you avoid common errors and pitfalls. In some cases it is preferred to use the RUN instruction over ADD to download a package using curl or wget, extract it, and then remove the original file in a single step, reducing the number of layers. Well designed systems adhere to the principle of least privilege. While Docker requires root to run, containers themselves do not. You want to run the container as an unprivileged user whenever possible. Apply base device size for containers and a daemon-wide custom SECCOMP profile to limit calls. Implement drift prevention to ensure container immutability. In a multi-stage build, you create an intermediate container that contains all the tools you need to compile or generate the final artifact. Operations teams should create an optimized environment to run containers. Best of all, never use them in any environment. Specifying a non-root user in the Dockerfile will make the container run securely by default. Im logged in as a normal (non-root) user. For example, a latest tag is used to indicate that this is the latest version of an image. Some tools can also test a container image for security best practices and misconfigurations. If running your images in Kubernetes, use livenessProbe configuration inside the container definitions, as the docker HEALTHCHECK instruction wont be applied. However, together with this convenience comes a security risk. Instead, create a user in your Dockerfile with a known UID and GID, and run your process as this user. Unsafe images should not be pushed to a container registry accessible by production systems. If you are familiar with containerized applications and microservices, you might have realized that your services might be micro; but detecting vulnerabilities, investigating security issues, and reporting and fixing them after the deployment is making your management overhead macro. Then, you copy only the resulting artifacts to the final image, without additional development dependencies, temporary build files, etc. Instead, write temporary data to /tmp (where any user can write, thanks to the sticky bit permissions). My Dockerfile now looks like this: Running this container with the same command as before: Now, the default behavior of this container is that it does not have root privileges on the host. Ensure you have robust auditing and forensics for quick troubleshooting and compliance reporting. Each container image can have multiple running instances. First, one option is to create another image, using the original image as the FROM layer. Well written, secure and reusable Docker images should not expect to be run as root and should provide a predictable and easy method to limit access. You can use secrets to manage sensitive data a container needs at runtime, without storing it in the image or in source code. Aqua Security is the largest pure-play cloud native security company, providing customers the freedom to innovate and accelerate their digital transformations. In this article, you will learn about the following Docker security best practices: Docker and Host Configuration Keep Host and Docker Up to Date Do Not Expose the Docker Daemon Socket Run Docker in Rootless Mode Avoid Privileged Containers Limit Container Resources Segregate Container Networks Improve Container Isolation Set Filesystem and Volumes to Read only Complete Lifecycle Management Restrict System Calls from Within Containers Securing Images Scan & Verify Container Images Use Minimal Base Images Dont Leak Sensitive Info to Docker ImagesUse Multi Stage Builds Secure Container Registries Use Fixed Tags for Immutability Monitoring ContainersMonitor Container Activity Secure Containers at Runtime Save Troubleshooting Data Separately from Containers Use Metadata Labels for Images.