Chainguard Image for eks-distro

An open-source distribution of Kubernetes from AWS

Chainguard Images are regularly-updated, minimal container images with low-to-zero CVEs.

Download this Image

This image is available on cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/eks-distro:latest

Be sure to replace the ORGANIZATION placeholder with the name used for your organization's private repository within the Chainguard registry.

Usage

Amazon EKS Distro (EKS-D) is a Kubernetes distribution based on and used by Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) to create reliable and secure Kubernetes clusters. For more Information

Components

This deployment includes the following critical components:

• CoreDNS: A DNS server that integrates with Kubernetes.
• EBS CSI Driver: A Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver for managing AWS Elastic Block Store volumes.
• Kubernetes CSI drivers: External provisioners, resizers, and snapshot controllers to manage storage resources effectively.

Installation

For installation instructions, visit the EBS CSI Driver Install Guide.

1. Using Helm Chart

To deploy using Helm charts, you can use the following command. This command overrides the default image to use the Chainguard image

kubectl apply -k "github.com/kubernetes-sigs/aws-ebs-csi-driver/deploy/kubernetes/overlays/stable/?ref=release-1.35"

helm repo add aws-ebs-csi-driver https://kubernetes-sigs.github.io/aws-ebs-csi-driver
helm repo update

helm upgrade --install aws-ebs-csi-driver \
   --namespace kube-system \
   aws-ebs-csi-driver/aws-ebs-csi-driver \
   --set sidecars.provisioner.image.repository=cgr.dev/chainguard/eks-distro-kubernetes-csi-external-provisioner \
   --set sidecars.provisioner.image.tag=latest \
   --set sidecars.attacher.image.repository=cgr.dev/chainguard/eks-distro-kubernetes-csi-external-attacher \
   --set sidecars.attacher.image.tag=latest \
   --set sidecars.resizer.image.repository=cgr.dev/chainguard/eks-distro-kubernetes-csi-external-resizer \
   --set sidecars.resizer.image.tag=latest \
   --set sidecars.livenessProbe.image.repository=cgr.dev/chainguard/eks-distro-kubernetes-csi-livenessprobe \
   --set sidecars.livenessProbe.image.tag=latest

Refer to the values.yaml file for more configuration options.

2. Using Amazon EKS/KOPS Clusters

To test the EBS CSI driver functionality and verify its deployment, we need to create and deploy an EKS cluster. Similarly, for testing kube-components, we can create and deploy a KOPS cluster and update the manifests accordingly.

Using EKS Distro Pause Image with EKS Distro

Using the Chainguard Pause image requires changing the containerd configuration on the EKS nodes. If you've SSH access to the underlying nodes of the cluster, then you can edit the containerd configuration file directly. If you don't have access to the nodes then you can use a plugin called kubectl-node-shell

In containerd configuration, the default sandbox_image needs to be replaced with the Chainguard pause image. Use the editor of your choice to replace the default pause image with the Chainguard pause image which is cgr.dev/chainguard/eks-distro-kubernetes-pause:latest. To replace the default pause image with the Chainguard pause image, you need to edit the containerd config file on the node.

[plugins."io.containerd.grpc.v1.cri"]
sandbox_image = "cgr.dev/chainguard/eks-distro-kubernetes-pause:latest"

After this, restart the containerd service:

$ sudo systemctl restart containerd

Checking the list of containers using the ctr command will show the pause container with the Chainguard pause image.

$ ctr -n k8s.io containers list

Additional Resources

• EKS-Distro GitHub Repository
• Kubernetes Documentation
• AWS EKS Documentation

Contact Support

If you have a Zendesk account (typically set up for you by your Customer Success Manager) you can reach out to Chainguard's Customer Success team through our Zendesk portal.

What are Chainguard Images?

Chainguard Images are a collection of container images designed for security and minimalism.

Many Chainguard Images are distroless; they contain only an open-source application and its runtime dependencies. These images do not even contain a shell or package manager. Chainguard Images are built with Wolfi, our Linux undistro designed to produce container images that meet the requirements of a secure software supply chain.

The main features of Chainguard Images include:

• Minimal design, with no unnecessary software bloat
• Automated nightly builds to ensure Images are completely up-to-date and contain all available security patches
• High quality build-time SBOMs (software bills of materials) attesting the provenance of all artifacts within the Image
• Verifiable signatures provided by Sigstore
• Reproducible builds with Cosign and apko (read more about reproducibility)

-dev Variants

As mentioned previously, Chainguard’s distroless Images have no shell or package manager by default. This is great for security, but sometimes you need these things, especially in builder images. For those cases, most (but not all) Chainguard Images come paired with a -dev variant which does include a shell and package manager.

Although the -dev image variants have similar security features as their distroless versions, such as complete SBOMs and signatures, they feature additional software that is typically not necessary in production environments. The general recommendation is to use the -dev variants only to build the application and then copy all application artifacts into a distroless image, which will result in a final container image that has a minimal attack surface and won’t allow package installations or logins.

That being said, it’s worth noting that -dev variants of Chainguard Images are completely fine to run in production environments. After all, the -dev variants are still more secure than many popular container images based on fully-featured operating systems such as Debian and Ubuntu since they carry less software, follow a more frequent patch cadence, and offer attestations for what they include.

Learn More

To better understand how to work with Chainguard Images, we encourage you to visit Chainguard Academy, our documentation and education platform.