Chainguard Image for python

Minimal Python image based on Wolfi.

Chainguard Images are regularly-updated, minimal container images with low-to-zero CVEs.

Download this Image

This image is available on cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/python:latest

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

Description

The python Chainguard Image provides a minimal Python runtime suitable for workloads such as web applications, CLI utilities, interfacing with APIs, or other tasks.

Variants

We have two image variants available:

• A python:latest-dev variant that contains the pip and apk package managers and the bash, ash, and sh shells.
• A minimal runtime variant that removes shells and package managers for additional security.

To pull the minimal runtime variant from cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/chainguard/python:latest

To pull the dev variant:

docker pull cgr.dev/chainguard/python:latest-dev

Usage Notes

The entrypoint for the python Chainguard Image is /usr/bin/python. Commands run as part of docker run or a CMD statement in a Dockerfile will be passed as arguments to python.

To access the shell in the python:latest-dev image, you'll need to include an --entrypoint option, as in the following example.

docker run -it --entrypoint /bin/bash chainguard/python:latest-dev

Also note that the python image uses the nonroot user by default. To perform operations such as installing packages with apk, run the image as root.

docker run -it --user root --entrypoint /bin/bash chainguard/python:latest-dev

We recommend against using the root user in a production environment.

Packages

If you require additional packages that can be installed with the pip package manager, we recommend using a multistage build. This process involves installing packages in a virtual environment using the latest-dev variant, then copying this environment over to the minimal runtime image.

The following is a minimal example of a Dockerfile that uses a multistage build to run an app.py script after installing dependencies listed in a requirements.txt file.

# syntax=docker/dockerfile:1

FROM cgr.dev/chainguard/python:latest-dev as dev

WORKDIR /app

RUN python -m venv venv
ENV PATH="/app/venv/bin":$PATH
COPY requirements.txt requirements.txt
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt

FROM cgr.dev/chainguard/python:latest

WORKDIR /app

COPY app.py app.py
COPY --from=dev /app/venv /app/venv
ENV PATH="/app/venv/bin:$PATH"

ENTRYPOINT ["python", "app.py"]

For a more complete example, see Getting Started with the Python Chainguard Image on Chainguard Academy.

Resources

• Getting Started with the Python Chainguard Image
• Migrating to Python Chainguard Images
• Updating a Python Microservice for Chainguard Images
• Debugging Distroless Images
• Blog Post: Securely Containerize a Python Application with Chainguard Images
• Video: How to containerize a Python application with a multi-stage build using Chainguard Images
• Learning Lab: Deploying a Flask App with Python and nginx Chainguard Images

Contact Support

If you have a Zendesk account (typically set up for you by your Customer Success Manager) you can reach out to Chainguard's Customer Success team through our Zendesk portal.

What are Chainguard Images?

Chainguard Images are a collection of container images designed for security and minimalism.

Many Chainguard Images are distroless; they contain only an open-source application and its runtime dependencies. These images do not even contain a shell or package manager. Chainguard Images are built with Wolfi, our Linux undistro designed to produce container images that meet the requirements of a secure software supply chain.

The main features of Chainguard Images include:

• Minimal design, with no unnecessary software bloat
• Automated nightly builds to ensure Images are completely up-to-date and contain all available security patches
• High quality build-time SBOMs (software bills of materials) attesting the provenance of all artifacts within the Image
• Verifiable signatures provided by Sigstore
• Reproducible builds with Cosign and apko (read more about reproducibility)

-dev Variants

As mentioned previously, Chainguard’s distroless Images have no shell or package manager by default. This is great for security, but sometimes you need these things, especially in builder images. For those cases, most (but not all) Chainguard Images come paired with a -dev variant which does include a shell and package manager.

Although the -dev image variants have similar security features as their distroless versions, such as complete SBOMs and signatures, they feature additional software that is typically not necessary in production environments. The general recommendation is to use the -dev variants only to build the application and then copy all application artifacts into a distroless image, which will result in a final container image that has a minimal attack surface and won’t allow package installations or logins.

That being said, it’s worth noting that -dev variants of Chainguard Images are completely fine to run in production environments. After all, the -dev variants are still more secure than many popular container images based on fully-featured operating systems such as Debian and Ubuntu since they carry less software, follow a more frequent patch cadence, and offer attestations for what they include.

Learn More

To better understand how to work with Chainguard Images, we encourage you to visit Chainguard Academy, our documentation and education platform.