Chainguard Container for kong

Kong is a Cloud-Native API Gateway and AI Gateway

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/kong:latest

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

Compatibility Notes

Chainguard’s Kong image is a lean, Wolfi-based container image. It mirrors the Docker image from the Kong project in functionality but has fewer dependencies, minimizing the attack surface.

Getting Started

The following is an simple example of running the Chainguard Kong image in DB-less mode using Docker:

docker run -d --name kong \
  -p 8000:8000 \
  -p 8443:8443 \
  -e KONG_DATABASE=off \
  -e KONG_DECLARATIVE_CONFIG=/etc/kong/kong.yml \
  cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/kong:latest

Once the container is running, you can test Kong’s gateway functionality by sending requests to http://localhost:8000.

Using Kong With a Database

If you prefer to run Kong using a database (PostgreSQL or Cassandra), you can do so by setting the appropriate environment variables.

First, create a custom Docker network to allow the containers to discover and communicate with each other:

docker network create kong-net

Then start a database container. To illustrate, we will use a PostgreSQL container:

docker run -d --name kong-database \
 --network=kong-net \
 -p 5432:5432 \
 -e "POSTGRES_USER=kong" \
 -e "POSTGRES_DB=kong" \
 -e "POSTGRES_PASSWORD=kongpass" \
 postgres:13

Next, prepare the Kong database:

docker run --rm --network=kong-net \
 -e "KONG_DATABASE=postgres" \
 -e "KONG_PG_HOST=kong-database" \
 -e "KONG_PG_PASSWORD=kongpass" \
 -e "KONG_PASSWORD=test" \
  cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/kong:latest kong migrations bootstrap

Run the following command to start a container with Kong Gateway:

docker run -d --name kong-gateway \
--network=kong-net \
-e "KONG_DATABASE=postgres" \
-e "KONG_PG_HOST=kong-database" \
-e "KONG_PG_USER=kong" \
-e "KONG_PG_PASSWORD=kongpass" \
-e "KONG_PROXY_ACCESS_LOG=/dev/stdout" \
-e "KONG_ADMIN_ACCESS_LOG=/dev/stdout" \
-e "KONG_PROXY_ERROR_LOG=/dev/stderr" \
-e "KONG_ADMIN_ERROR_LOG=/dev/stderr" \
-e "KONG_ADMIN_LISTEN=0.0.0.0:8001, 0.0.0.0:8444 ssl" \
-e "KONG_ADMIN_GUI_URL=http://localhost:8002" \
-p 8000:8000 \
-p 8443:8443 \
-p 127.0.0.1:8001:8001 \
-p 127.0.0.1:8002:8002 \
-p 127.0.0.1:8444:8444 \
cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/kong:latest

Documentation and Resources

Please refer to Kong’s official documentation for details on configuring your database and other advanced features.

You can explore the following resources to learn more about Kong:

• Kong Official Documentation
• Kong Developer Guide
• Kong Source Code on GitHub

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.