Chainguard Container for ollama-fips

Get up and running with Llama 3.3, DeepSeek-R1, Phi-4, Gemma 3, Mistral Small 3.1 and other large language models.

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/ollama-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

Chainguard's Ollama image is meant to serve as a drop-in replacement for the official Ollama image from Docker Hub. There are, however, a number of differences between the two images that one should be aware of before migrating to the Chainguard Ollama image:

• The Chainguard Ollama image does not run as the root user and contains only the minimum packages it needs to operate.
• This image also does not currently have support for ROCM or any other ollama version that is not the current latest release

FIPS Support

The ollama-fips Chainguard Image ships with a validated redistribution of the OpenSSL's FIPS provider module. For more on FIPS support in Chainguard Images, consult the guide on FIPS-enabled Chainguard Images on Chainguard Academy

Getting started

The quickest way of getting started with this image is by using docker:

docker run --rm -it -p 11434:11434 cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/ollama-fips:latest

Then you can interact with it via the Ollama CLI client or by calling the REST API:

ollama run gemma3:1b

>>> Hello, world!
Hello there! It's good to be chatting with you. 😊

How can I help you today?
>>>

curl http://$OLLAMA_HOST/api/generate -d '{
  "model": "gemma3:1b",
  "prompt":"Why is the sky blue?"
}'

{"model":"gemma3:1b","created_at":"2025-05-22T19:31:45.090887Z","response":"The","done":false}
{"model":"gemma3:1b","created_at":"2025-05-22T19:31:45.098279Z","response":" sky","done":false}
{"model":"gemma3:1b","created_at":"2025-05-22T19:31:45.105558Z","response":" is","done":false}
{"model":"gemma3:1b","created_at":"2025-05-22T19:31:45.113124Z","response":" blue","done":false}
{"model":"gemma3:1b","created_at":"2025-05-22T19:31:45.120545Z","response":" due","done":false}
{"model":"gemma3:1b","created_at":"2025-05-22T19:31:45.131319Z","response":" to","done":false}
{"model":"gemma3:1b","created_at":"2025-05-22T19:31:45.139226Z","response":" a","done":false}
# ...

Helm Chart

Alternatively, an unofficial Helm chart for Ollama is actively maintained. To deploy Ollama with Helm, add the repository:

helm repo add ollama-helm https://otwld.github.io/ollama-helm/
helm repo update

Create a values manifest:

image:
  repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/ollama-fips
  tag: latest

Then install the chart:

helm install ollama ollama-helm/ollama --namespace ollama --create-namespace --values ./values.yaml

Optionally port forward the API:

kubectl port-forward deployment/ollama --namespace ollama 11434

Then use the CLI as described on the previous section:

ollama run gemma3:1b

Resources and Documentation

• Ollama Documentation
• Ollama API reference
• Ollama Troubleshooting
• Unofficial Ollama Helm chart

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.