Chainguard Container for falco

A minimal, wolfi-based image for falco. This streamlined variant of Falco designed for real-time security monitoring on Linux, replaces the traditional kernel module with eBPF technology, thus enhancing portability in containerized environments.

Chainguard Containers are regularly-updated, secure-by-default container images.

Download this Container Image

For those with access, this container image is available on cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/falco:latest

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

Compatibility Notes

The falco image is based on the upstream Falco project with the following differences:

• Uses eBPF (modern-bpf driver) instead of traditional kernel modules for system call monitoring
• Does not require loading separate kernel modules, making it more portable across different environments
• Includes the modern-bpf driver bundled within the image
• Built on Chainguard OS for enhanced security and minimal attack surface
• No shell or package manager included (distroless design)

Falco does not run on macOS. For local testing, use a Linux VM or pass the --nodriver argument (though this will not collect any security events).

Prerequisites

• Linux environment with kernel version 4.14 or later
• Privileged container access for eBPF functionality
• Access to /proc and /var/run/docker.sock for system monitoring

Getting Started

The falco image provides real-time security monitoring by detecting suspicious activity using runtime security rules:

Docker

Run Falco with eBPF for container and host monitoring:

docker run --rm -i -t \
    --privileged \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/host/var/run/docker.sock \
    -v /proc:/host/proc:ro \
    cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/falco:latest falco --modern-bpf

For testing without drivers (limited functionality):

docker run --rm -i -t \
    cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/falco:latest falco --nodriver

Kubernetes with Helm

Deploy Falco in Kubernetes using the official Helm chart. Create a values file:

cat > falco-values.yaml <<EOF
image:
  registry: cgr.dev
  repository: ORGANIZATION/falco
  tag: latest

driver:
  kind: modern-bpf

falcoctl:
  image:
    registry: cgr.dev
    repository: ORGANIZATION/falcoctl
    tag: latest

# Configure rules
rulesFiles:
  - /etc/falco/falco_rules.yaml
  - /etc/falco/k8s_audit_rules.yaml
EOF

Install the chart:

helm repo add falcosecurity https://falcosecurity.github.io/charts
helm repo update

helm install falco falcosecurity/falco \
  --namespace falco \
  --create-namespace \
  --values falco-values.yaml

Configuration

Configure Falco for your specific security monitoring needs:

Custom Security Rules

Create custom security rules by mounting a configuration file:

cat > custom-rules.yaml <<EOF
- rule: Unexpected Network Activity
  desc: Detect unexpected network connections
  condition: evt.type=connect and not proc.name in (nginx, curl, wget)
  output: Unexpected network activity (command=%proc.cmdline)
  priority: WARNING

- rule: Privilege Escalation Attempt
  desc: Detect potential privilege escalation
  condition: spawned_process and proc.name=sudo and not user.name=root
  output: Privilege escalation attempt (user=%user.name command=%proc.cmdline)
  priority: HIGH
EOF

docker run --rm -i -t \
    --privileged \
    -v $(pwd)/custom-rules.yaml:/etc/falco/custom-rules.yaml \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/host/var/run/docker.sock \
    -v /proc:/host/proc:ro \
    cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/falco:latest falco --modern-bpf

Environment Variables

Configure Falco behavior using environment variables:

docker run --rm -i -t \
    --privileged \
    -e FALCO_PRIORITY=WARNING \
    -e FALCO_BUFFERED_OUTPUTS=true \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/host/var/run/docker.sock \
    -v /proc:/host/proc:ro \
    cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/falco:latest falco --modern-bpf

Documentation and Resources

• Falco Official Documentation
• Falco Rules Documentation
• Falco Helm Chart
• eBPF Driver Documentation

What are Chainguard Containers?

Chainguard's free tier of Starter container images are built with Wolfi, our minimal Linux undistro.

All other Chainguard Containers are built with Chainguard OS, Chainguard's minimal Linux operating system designed to produce container images that meet the requirements of a more secure software supply chain.

The main features of Chainguard Containers include:

• Minimal design, without unnecessary software bloat
• Daily builds to ensure container images are up-to-date with available security patches
• High quality build-time SBOMs attesting to the provenance of all artifacts within the image
• Verifiable signatures provided by Sigstore
• Reproducible builds with Cosign and apko (read more about reproducibility)

For cases where you need container images with shells and package managers to build or debug, most Chainguard Containers come paired with a development, or -dev, variant.

In all other cases, including Chainguard Containers tagged as :latest or with a specific version number, the container images include only an open-source application and its runtime dependencies. These minimal container images typically do not contain a shell or package manager.

Although the -dev container image variants have similar security features as their more minimal versions, they include additional software that is typically not necessary in production environments. We recommend using multi-stage builds to copy artifacts from the -dev variant into a more minimal production image.

Need additional packages?

To improve security, Chainguard Containers include only essential dependencies. Need more packages? Chainguard customers can use Custom Assembly to add packages, either through the Console, chainctl, or API.

To use Custom Assembly in the Chainguard Console: navigate to the image you'd like to customize in your Organization's list of images, and click on the Customize image button at the top of the page.

Learn More

Refer to our Chainguard Containers documentation on Chainguard Academy. Chainguard also offers VMs and Libraries — contact us for access.

Trademarks

This software listing is packaged by Chainguard. The trademarks set forth in this offering are owned by their respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement by such companies.