Chainguard Container for k8s-agents-operator

k8s-agents-operator auto-instruments containerized workloads in Kubernetes with New Relic agents.

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/k8s-agents-operator: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 'docker.io/newrelic/k8s-agents-operator:latest'. Switching to the Chainguard image should not require any changes to your existing deployment configuration.

Getting Started

The k8s-agent-operator automatically instruments containerized workloads in Kubernetes with New Relic agents. It supports auto-instrumentation for various language runtimes including Java, Node.js, Python, and .NET.

Prerequisites

• A Kubernetes cluster with version 1.20+
• Cert-manager installed in your cluster (for webhook functionality)
• New Relic account and license key

Basic Deployment

Deploy the operator using the official Helm chart with the Chainguard image:

cat > values.yaml <<EOF
    licenseKey = ""your-license-key-here""
    controllerManager = {
      manager = {
        image = {
          repository = cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/k8s-agent-operator
          version = latest
        }
EOF

Install using Helm:

helm repo add newrelic https://helm-charts.newrelic.com
helm repo update
helm install newrelic-k8s-agents-operator newrelic/newrelic-k8s-agents-operator \
  -f values.yaml \
  -n newrelic-system \
  --create-namespace

Creating an Instrumentation Resource

Create an Instrumentation resource to define how applications should be instrumented:

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: newrelic.com/v1alpha2
kind: Instrumentation
metadata:
  name: selective-java-instrumentation
spec:
  agent:
    image: newrelic/newrelic-java-init:latest
    language: java
  podLabelSelector:
    matchLabels:
      instrument: "java"
  namespaceLabelSelector:
    matchLabels:
      instrumentation: "enabled"
EOF

kubectl apply -f instrumentation.yaml

Auto-Instrumentation via Annotations

Annotate your workloads to enable auto-instrumentation:

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: fully-matched-pod
  namespace: k8s-agents-operator-test
  labels:
    instrument: "java"
    app: java-app
spec:
  containers:
  - name: app
    image: busybox:1.35
    command: ["sleep", "3600"]
EOF

Configuration

The operator supports various configuration options through environment variables:

• NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY: Your New Relic license key (required)
• WEBHOOK_PORT: Port for the admission webhook (default: 9443)
• METRICS_BIND_ADDRESS: Address for metrics server (default: :8080)
• HEALTH_PROBE_BIND_ADDRESS: Address for health probes (default: :8081)

Documentation and Resources

• K8s Agents Operator GitHub Repository

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.