istio-base-fips

Chainguard Container for istio-base-fips

A minimal Istio base image with network debugging utilities

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/istio-base-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

The Chainguard istio-base-fips image is a drop-in replacement for the upstream istio/base image. It provides the same network debugging utilities required by Istio's sidecar proxies and network configuration, with FIPS-validated cryptographic modules.

User

The Chainguard image runs as a non-root user (istio-proxy, UID 1337) by default, matching Istio's expected user configuration. The upstream image does not set a default user. This aligns with Istio's security model where the sidecar proxy runs as UID 1337.

Entrypoint

The Chainguard FIPS image uses /bin/bash as the entrypoint rather than the default command. This is functionally equivalent for most use cases.

Environment variables

The Chainguard image does not include the DEBIAN_FRONTEND environment variable present in the upstream image, as this is specific to Debian package management and not required at runtime.

FIPS Support

This image includes FIPS-validated cryptographic modules through the openssl-config-fipshardened package. OpenSSL is configured to operate in FIPS mode by default, ensuring all TLS connections and cryptographic operations use FIPS 140-2/140-3 validated algorithms.

For organizations subject to FedRAMP, FISMA, or other compliance frameworks requiring FIPS validation, this image provides a compliant foundation for Istio deployments.

Prerequisites

To use the istio-base-fips image, you need:

• Docker installed and running, or a Kubernetes cluster with Istio
• Access to the Chainguard Registry
• An environment that requires FIPS 140-2/140-3 validated cryptographic modules

Getting Started

The istio-base-fips image is primarily used as a base image for Istio's sidecar proxy containers in environments requiring FIPS compliance. It includes essential network debugging utilities for troubleshooting service mesh connectivity.

Verifying network tools

You can verify the included network debugging utilities:

docker run --rm cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio-base-fips:latest -c "curl --version"
docker run --rm cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio-base-fips:latest -c "ip -Version"
docker run --rm cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio-base-fips:latest -c "dig -v"

Using with Istio

To use this image with Istio in a FIPS-compliant environment, configure the Istio Helm chart to use the Chainguard FIPS base image. Create a values file:

Available utilities

The image includes the following network debugging tools:

• curl - HTTP client for testing connectivity
• iptables and nft - Firewall rule management
• ip - Network interface configuration
• ping - ICMP connectivity testing
• tcpdump - Packet capture and analysis
• conntrack - Connection tracking
• netstat - Network statistics
• lsof - List open files and sockets
• nc (netcat) - Network utility for reading/writing connections
• dig - DNS lookup utility
• sudo - Privilege escalation for debugging

Configuration

User and group

The image uses the istio-proxy user and group (UID/GID 1337), which is the standard user for Istio sidecar containers.

Shell

The default entrypoint is /bin/bash, providing a shell environment for debugging and executing commands.

FIPS mode

The image includes the openssl-config-fipshardened package, which configures OpenSSL to operate in FIPS mode by default. All cryptographic operations use FIPS-validated modules.

Documentation and Resources

• Istio Official Documentation
• Istio GitHub Repository
• Istio Architecture Overview
• Chainguard FIPS 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.