kapitan

packaged by Chainguard

Chainguard Container for kapitan

Generic templated configuration management for Kubernetes, Terraform and other things

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/kapitan: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 kapitan image is a replacement for the upstream kapicorp/kapitan image. Kapitan is a generic templated configuration management tool for Kubernetes, Terraform, and other systems, built with Python and licensed under the Apache License 2.0. It compiles a hierarchical reclass inventory through Jsonnet, Jinja2, Kadet, Helm, and other input engines, and manages secrets with GPG, Vault, and cloud KMS backends.

Like the upstream image, the entrypoint is kapitan and the working directory is /src, which is also declared as a volume. The image includes git, openssh-client, gpg, helm, and cue for the corresponding Kapitan features. The application virtual environment is available at /opt/venv, matching the upstream layout.

The kapitan image is not a full drop-in replacement for the upstream image. The upstream image installs Kapitan with its gojsonnet, omegaconf, reclass-rs, and rapidyaml extras and also adds yq to the virtual environment. This image installs Kapitan with its base dependencies only, so the following are not included:

• The omegaconf and reclass-rs inventory backends. The default reclass inventory backend is available.
• Go Jsonnet (gojsonnet). Jsonnet input uses the default C++ jsonnet Python binding.
• rapidyaml, the optional fast YAML parser.
• The yq command-line tool.

Projects that select the omegaconf or reclass-rs inventory backend, or that depend on Go Jsonnet, rapidyaml, or yq, need these components added before they can use this image.

Like upstream, the image runs as the non-root kapitan user with UID and GID 1000. Any directory mounted at /src must be writable by UID 1000, because Kapitan writes compiled output (and the Helm cache under .cache/helm) into the working directory.

Getting Started

Print the Kapitan version:

docker run --rm cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/kapitan:latest --version

Compile all targets of a Kapitan project in the current directory:

docker run --rm -v "$PWD":/src cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/kapitan:latest compile

Compiled manifests are written to compiled/<target>/ inside the mounted project.

Compile a single target:

docker run --rm -v "$PWD":/src cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/kapitan:latest compile -t demo

Reveal a secret reference:

docker run --rm -v "$PWD":/src cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/kapitan:latest refs --reveal --tag '?{base64:mysecret}'

Configuration

• SEARCHPATH defaults to /src.
• HELM_CACHE_HOME defaults to .cache/helm, relative to the working directory.
• VIRTUAL_ENV is set to /opt/venv, and /opt/venv/bin comes first on PATH.

Documentation and Resources

• Kapitan documentation
• Kapitan GitHub

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.