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Production-Grade Container Scheduling and Management
Chainguard Containers are regularly-updated, secure-by-default container images.
For those with access, this container image is available on cgr.dev
:
Be sure to replace the ORGANIZATION
placeholder with the name used for your organization's private repository within the Chainguard Registry.
Kubernetes, often referred to as K8s, is an open-source platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and operation of containerized applications. It provides key features such as service discovery, load balancing, storage orchestration, and self-healing.
Kubernetes builds upon years of experience running production workloads at scale within Google, leveraging concepts from the Borg system. It has since grown into a robust, production-grade system hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).
For more information on how Kubernetes works and the community behind it, refer to:
This image includes the following core Kubernetes components:
Schedules pods to run on specific nodes based on resource availability and constraints. For more info
Manages network connectivity and load balancing between services. For more info
Runs various controllers that handle node management, pod replication, and more. For more info
The central management entity that exposes the Kubernetes API, handles requests, and processes updates. For more info
Each component plays a critical role in managing the lifecycle and operation of a Kubernetes cluster. These components work together to ensure scalability, availability, and reliability of containerized applications.
Using the Chainguard kubernetes-pause
image requires changing the containerd configuration on the nodes. If you've set up SSH access to the underlying nodes of the cluster, then you can edit the containerd configuration file directly.
If you don't have access to the nodes then you can use a plugin called kubectl-node-shell
In the containerd configuration on the node, the default sandbox_image
needs to be replaced with the Chainguard pause image. Use the editor of your choice to replace the default pause image with the Chainguard pause image:
After this, restart the containerd service:
Checking the list of containers using the ctr
command will show the pause container with the Chainguard pause image:
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:
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.
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.
Refer to our Chainguard Containers documentation on Chainguard Academy. Chainguard also offers VMs and Libraries — contact us for access.
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.
Chainguard container images contain software packages that are direct or transitive dependencies. The following licenses were found in the "latest" tag of this image:
Apache-2.0
LGPL-2.1-or-later
MIT
MPL-2.0
For a complete list of licenses, please refer to this Image's SBOM.
Software license agreementA FIPS validated version of this image is available for FedRAMP compliance. STIG is included with FIPS image.