Chainguard Container for flannel-fips

A FIPS-compliant Flannel image for Kubernetes. FIPS-compliant Flannel is a network fabric for Kubernetes, providing a way to manage network configurations across a cluster.

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/flannel-fips:latest

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

Compatibility Notes

This image is comparable to the upstream Flannel image. Switching to the Chainguard image should not require any changes to your existing setup.

Note that Chainguard's flannel-fips image runs as root by default, which is required for network operations.

FIPS Support

The flannel-fips Chainguard Image ships with a validated redistribution of the OpenSSL's FIPS provider module. For more on FIPS support in Chainguard Images, consult the guide on FIPS-enabled Chainguard Images on Chainguard Academy.

WireGuard backend cannot be supported in the flannel-fips image because WireGuard's cryptographic implementations do not comply with FIPS 140-2/140-3 requirements. WireGuard uses modern cryptographic primitives (ChaCha20, Poly1305, Curve25519) that are not included in the FIPS-approved algorithms list. For FIPS-compliant environments, use alternative backends like VXLAN, host-gw, or IPSec which can use FIPS-validated cryptographic modules.

Important: The Flannel Fips image runs as root by default, which is required for network operations.

Getting Started

To deploy the Chainguard Flannel image with Helm, first add the Flannel Helm repository:

helm repo add flannel https://flannel-io.github.io/flannel/
helm repo update

Next create a values file. The following is a minimal example:

# values.yaml

# Image configuration
image:
  repository: "cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/flannel-fips"
  tag: "latest"

Finally, install Flannel. This example assumes the values file is named values.yaml:

helm install flannel-fips flannel/flannel \
  --namespace kube-flannel \
  --create-namespace \
  -f values.yaml

Troubleshooting

For troubleshooting, you can use the -dev variant which includes additional tools:

kubectl exec -it -n kube-flannel <flannel-pod-name> -- /bin/sh

Documentation and Resources

For more information about Flannel, refer to the following resources:

• Flannel GitHub Repository
• Flannel Documentation
• Flannel CNI Plugin Documentation
• Kubernetes Networking with Flannel

For FIPS-specific information:

• FIPS 140-2 Compliance
• Chainguard FIPS Documentation

What are Chainguard Containers?

Chainguard Containers are minimal container images that are secure by default.

In many cases, the Chainguard Containers tagged as :latest contain only an open-source application and its runtime dependencies. These minimal container images typically do not contain a shell or package manager. Chainguard Containers are built with Wolfi, our Linux undistro 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 -dev variant.

Although the -dev container image variants have similar security features as their more minimal versions, they feature additional software that is typically not necessary in production environments. We recommend using multi-stage builds to leverage the -dev variants, copying application artifacts into a final minimal container that offers a reduced attack surface that won’t allow package installations or logins.

Learn More

To better understand how to work with Chainguard Containers, please visit Chainguard Academy and Chainguard Courses.

In addition to Containers, Chainguard offers VMs and Libraries. Contact Chainguard to access additional products.

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.