Minify and Secure Docker containers (free and open source!)

Don't change anything in your Docker container image and minify it by up to 30x making it secure too!

Keep doing what you are doing. No need to change anything. Use the base image you want. Use the package manager you want. Don't worry about hand optimizing your Dockerfile. You shouldn't have to throw away your tools and your workflow to have small container images.

Don't worry about manually creating Seccomp and AppArmor security profiles. You shouldn't have to become an expert in Linux syscalls, Seccomp and AppArmor to have secure containers. Even if you do know enough about it wasting time reverse engineering your application behavior can be time consuming.

docker-slim will optimize and secure your containers by understanding your application and what it needs using various analysis techniques. It will throw away what you don't need reducing the attack surface for your container. What if you need some of those extra things to debug your container? You can use dedicated debugging side-car containers for that (more details below).

docker-slim has been used with Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java, Golang, Rust, Elixir and PHP (some app types) running on Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Alpine and even Distroless.

Watch this screencast to see how an application image is minified by more than 30x.

When docker-slim runs it gives you an opportunity to interact with the temporary container it creates. By default, it will pause and wait for your input before it continues its execution. You can change this behavior using the --continue-after flag.

If your application exposes any web interfaces (e.g., when you have a web server or an HTTP API), you'll see the port numbers on the host machine you will need to use to interact with your application (look for the port.list and target.port.info messages on the screen). For example, in the screencast above you'll see that the internal application port 8000 is mapped to port 32911 on your host.

Note that docker-slim will interact with your application for you if you enable HTTP probing with the --http-probe flag or other related HTTP probe flags. Some web applications built with scripting languages like Python or Ruby require service interactions to load everything in the application. Enable HTTP probing unless it gets in your way.

Minification Examples

Node.js application images:

from ubuntu:14.04 - 432MB => 14MB (minified by 30.85X)
from debian:jessie - 406MB => 25.1MB (minified by 16.21X)
from node:alpine - 66.7MB => 34.7MB (minified by 1.92X)
from node:distroless - 72.7MB => 39.7MB (minified by 1.83X)

Python application images:

from ubuntu:14.04 - 438MB => 16.8MB (minified by 25.99X)
from python:2.7-alpine - 84.3MB => 23.1MB (minified by 3.65X)
from python:2.7.15 - 916MB => 27.5MB (minified by 33.29X)
from centos:7 - 647MB => 23MB (minified by 28.57X)
from centos/python-27-centos7 - 700MB => 24MB (minified by 29.01X)
from python2.7:distroless - 60.7MB => 18.3MB (minified by 3.32X)

Ruby application images:

from ubuntu:14.04 - 433MB => 13.8MB (minified by 31.31X)
from ruby:2.2-alpine - 319MB => 27MB (minified by 11.88X)
from ruby:2.5.3 - 978MB => 30MB (minified by 32.74X)

Golang application images:

from golang:latest - 700MB => 1.56MB (minified by 448.76X)
from ubuntu:14.04 - 531MB => 1.87MB (minified by 284.10X)
from golang:alpine - 258MB => 1.56MB (minified by 165.61X)
from centos:7 - 615MB => 1.87MB (minified by 329.14X)

Rust application images:

from rust:1.31 - 2GB => 14MB (minified by 147.16X)

JAVA application images:

from ubuntu:14.04 - 743.6 MB => 100.3 MB

PHP application images:

from php:7.0-cli - 368MB => 26.6MB (minified by 13.85X)

Haskell application images:

(Scotty service) from haskell:8 - 2.09GB => 16.6MB (minified by 125.32X)

Elixir application images:

(Phoenix service) from elixir:1.6 - 1.1 GB => 37 MB (minified by 29.25X)

Note: The examples are in a separate repository: https://github.com/docker-slim/examples

Table of Contents generated with DocToc

docker-slim: Lean and Mean Docker containers

RECENT UPDATES

Latest version: 1.25.3 (8/4/2019)

Now you can build minified images from the original Dockerfile (no need to create a separate fat container first). For more info about the latest release see the CHANGELOG.

INSTALLATION

Download the zip package for your platform.
Unzip the package.
Add the location where you unzipped the package to your PATH environment variable (optional).

If the directory where you extracted the binaries is not in your PATH then you'll need to run your docker-slim commands from that directory.

BASIC USAGE INFO

docker-slim [version|info|build|profile] [--http-probe|--remove-file-artifacts] <IMAGE_ID_OR_NAME>

Example: docker-slim build --http-probe my/sample-node-app

See the USAGE DETAILS section for more details. You can also get additional information about the parameters running docker-slim. Run docker-slim without any parameters and you'll get a high level overview of the available commands. Run a docker-slim command without any parameters and you'll get more information about that command (e.g., docker-slim build).

QUICK SECCOMP EXAMPLE

If you want to auto-generate a Seccomp profile AND minify your image use the build command. If you only want to auto-generate a Seccomp profile (along with other interesting image metadata) use the profile command.

Step one: run DockerSlim

docker-slim build --http-probe your-name/your-app

Step two: use the generated Seccomp profile

docker run --security-opt seccomp:<docker-slim directory>/.images/<YOUR_APP_IMAGE_ID>/artifacts/your-name-your-app-seccomp.json <your other run params> your-name/your-app

Feel free to copy the generated profile :-)

You can use the generated Seccomp profile with your original image or with the minified image.

USING AUTO-GENERATED SECCOMP PROFILES

You can use the generated profile with your original image or with the minified image DockerSlim created:

docker run -it --rm --security-opt seccomp:path_to/my-sample-node-app-seccomp.json -p 8000:8000 my/sample-node-app.slim

ORIGINAL DEMO VIDEO

Demo video on YouTube

DEMO STEPS

The demo run on Mac OS X, but you can build a linux version. Note that these steps are different from the steps in the demo video.

Get the docker-slim Mac, Linux or Linux ARM binaries. Unzip them and optionally add their directory to your PATH environment variable if you want to use the app from other locations.

The extracted directory contains two binaries:

docker-slim <- the main application
docker-slim-sensor <- the sensor application used to collect information from running containers

Clone the examples repo to use the sample apps (note: the examples have been moved to a separate repo). You can skip this step if you have your own app.

git clone https://github.com/docker-slim/examples.git

Create a Docker image for the sample node.js app in examples/node_ubuntu. You can skip this step if you have your own app.

cd examples/node_ubuntu

eval "$(docker-machine env default)" <- optional (depends on how Docker is installed on your machine and what kind of Docker version you are using); if the Docker host is not running you'll need to start it first: docker-machine start default; see the Docker connect options section for more details.

docker build -t my/sample-node-app .

Run docker-slim:

./docker-slim build --http-probe my/sample-node-app <- run it from the location where you extraced the docker-slim binaries (or update your PATH env var to include the docker-slim bin directory)

DockerSlim creates a special container based on the target image you provided. It also creates a resource directory where it stores the information it discovers about your image: <docker-slim directory>/.images/<TARGET_IMAGE_ID>.

Use curl (or other tools) to call the sample app (optional)

curl http://<YOUR_DOCKER_HOST_IP>:<PORT>

This is an optional step to make sure the target app container is doing something. Depending on the application it's an optional step. For some applications it's required if it loads new application resources dynamically based on the requests it's processing (e.g., Ruby or Python).

You'll see the mapped ports printed to the console when docker-slim starts the target container. You can also get the port number either from the docker ps or docker port <CONTAINER_ID> commands. The current version of DockerSlim doesn't allow you to map exposed network ports (it works like docker run … -P).

If you set the http-probe flag then docker-slim will try to call your application using HTTP/HTTPS: ./docker-slim build --http-probe my/sample-node-app

Press and wait until docker-slim says it's done

If you set the http-probe flag and you press before the HTTP probe is done the probe might produce an EOF error because DockerSlim will shut down the target container before all probe commands are done executing. It's ok to ignore it unless you really need the probe to finish.

Once DockerSlim is done check that the new minified image is there

docker images

You should see my/sample-node-app.slim in the list of images. Right now all generated images have .slim at the end of its name.

Use the minified image

docker run -it --rm --name="slim_node_app" -p 8000:8000 my/sample-node-app.slim

USAGE DETAILS

docker-slim [global options] command [command options] <Docker image ID or name>

Commands:

build - Collect fat image information and build a slim image from it
profile - Collect fat image information and generate a fat container report
info - Collect fat image information and reverse engineers its Dockerfile (no runtime container analysis)
version - Show docker-slim and docker version information
update - Update docker-slim

Global options:

--report - command report location (target location where to save the executed command results)
--check-version - check if the current version is outdate
--version - print the version
--debug - enable debug logs
--verbose - enable info logs
--log-level - set the logging level ('debug', 'info', 'warn' (default), 'error', 'fatal', 'panic')
--log-format - set the format used by logs ('text' (default), or 'json')
--log - log file to store logs
--host - Docker host address
--tls - use TLS connecting to Docker
--tls-verify - do TLS verification
--tls-cert-path - path to TLS cert files
--state-path value - DockerSlim state base path (must set it if the DockerSlim binaries are not in a writable directory!)

To get more command line option information run docker-slim without any parameters or select one of the top level commands to get the command-specific information.

To disable the version checks set the global --check-version flag to false (e.g., --check-version=false) or you can use the DSLIM_CHECK_VERSION environment variable.

`BUILD` COMMAND OPTIONS

--http-probe - enables HTTP probing (ENABLED by default; you have to disable the probe if you don't need it)
--http-probe-cmd - additional HTTP probe command [zero or more]
--http-probe-cmd-file - file with user defined HTTP probe commands
--http-probe-retry-count - number of retries for each HTTP probe (default: 5)
--http-probe-retry-wait - number of seconds to wait before retrying HTTP probe (doubles when target is not ready; default: 8)
--http-probe-ports - explicit list of ports to probe (in the order you want them to be probed; excluded ports are not probed!)
--http-probe-full - do full HTTP probe for all selected ports (if false, finish after first successful scan; default: false)
--show-clogs - show container logs (from the container used to perform dynamic inspection)
--show-blogs - show build logs (when the minified container is built)
--"copy-meta-artifacts - copy meta artifacts to the provided location
--remove-file-artifacts - remove file artifacts when command is done (note: you'll loose autogenerated Seccomp and Apparmor profiles)
--tag - use a custom tag for the generated image (instead of the default: <original_image_name>.slim)
--entrypoint - override ENTRYPOINT analyzing image
--cmd - override CMD analyzing image
--mount - mount volume analyzing image (the mount parameter format is identical to the -v mount command in Docker) [zero or more]
--include-path - Include directory or file from image [zero or more]
--include-path-file - Load directory or file includes from a file
--include-bin value - Include binary from image (executable or shared object using its absolute path)
--include-exe value - Include executable from image (by executable name)
--include-shell - Include basic shell functionality
--env - override ENV analyzing image [zero or more]
--workdir - override WORKDIR analyzing image
--network - override default container network settings analyzing image
--expose - use additional EXPOSE instructions analyzing image [zero or more]
--link - add link to another container analyzing image [zero or more]
--hostname - override default container hostname analyzing image
--etc-hosts-map - add a host to IP mapping to /etc/hosts analyzing image [zero or more]
--container-dns - add a dns server analyzing image [zero or more]
--container-dns-search - add a dns search domain for unqualified hostnames analyzing image [zero or more]
--continue-after - Select continue mode: enter | signal | probe | timeout or numberInSeconds (default: enter)
--from-dockerfile - The source Dockerfile name to build the fat image before it's minified.

The --include-path option is useful if you want to customize your minified image adding extra files and directories. The --include-path-file option allows you to load multiple includes from a newline delimited file. Use this option if you have a lot of includes. The includes from --include-path and --include-path-file are combined together. Future versions will also include the --exclude-path option to have even more control.

The --continue-after option is useful if you need to script docker-slim. If you pick the probe option then docker-slim will continue executing the build command after the HTTP probe is done executing. If you pick the timeout option docker-slim will allow the target container to run for 60 seconds before it will attempt to collect the artifacts. You can specify a custom timeout value by passing a number of seconds you need instead of the timeout string. If you pick the signal option you'll need to send a USR1 signal to the docker-slim process.

The --include-shell option provides a simple way to keep a basic shell in the minified container. Not all shell commands are included. To get additional shell commands or other command line utilities use the --include-exe' and/or --include-bin' options. Note that the extra apps and binaries might missed some of the non-binary dependencies (which don't get picked up during static analysis). For those additional dependencies use the --include-path and --include-path-file options.

The --from-dockerfile option makes it possible to build a new minified image directly from source Dockerfile. Pass the Dockerfile name as the value for this flag and pass the build context directory or URL instead of the docker image name as the last parameter for the docker-slim build command: docker-slim build --from-dockerfile Dockerfile --tag my/custom_minified_image_name . If you want to see the console output from the build stages (when the fat and slim images are built) add the --show-blogs build flag. Note that the build console output is not interactive and it's printed only after the corresponding build step is done. The fat image created during the build process has the .fat suffix in its name. If you specify a custom image tag (with the --tag flag) the .fat suffix is added to the name part of the tag. If you don't provide a custom tag the generated fat image name will have the following format: docker-slim-tmp-fat-image.<pid_of_docker-slim>.<current_timestamp>. The minified image name will have the .slim suffix added to that auto-generated container image name (docker-slim-tmp-fat-image.<pid_of_docker-slim>.<current_timestamp>.slim). Take a look at this python examples to see how it's using the --from-dockerfile flag.

DOCKER CONNECT OPTIONS

If you don't specify any Docker connect options docker-slim expects to find the following environment variables: DOCKER_HOST, DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY (optional), DOCKER_CERT_PATH (required if DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY is set to "1")

On Mac OS X you get them when you run eval "$(docker-machine env default)" or when you use the Docker Quickstart Terminal.

If the Docker environment variables are configured to use TLS and to verify the Docker cert (default behavior), but you want to disable the TLS verification you can override the TLS verification behavior by setting the --tls-verify to false:

docker-slim --tls-verify=false build --http-probe=true my/sample-node-app-multi

You can override all Docker connection options using these flags: --host, --tls, --tls-verify, --tls-cert-path. These flags correspond to the standard Docker options (and the environment variables).

If you want to use TLS with verification:

docker-slim --host=tcp://192.168.99.100:2376 --tls-cert-path=/Users/youruser/.docker/machine/machines/default --tls=true --tls-verify=true build --http-probe=true my/sample-node-app-multi

If you want to use TLS without verification:

docker-slim --host=tcp://192.168.99.100:2376 --tls-cert-path=/Users/youruser/.docker/machine/machines/default --tls=true --tls-verify=false build --http-probe=true my/sample-node-app-multi

If the Docker environment variables are not set and if you don't specify any Docker connect options docker-slim will try to use the default unix socket.

HTTP PROBE COMMANDS

If the HTTP probe is enabled (note: it is enabled by default) it will default to running GET / with HTTP and then HTTPS on every exposed port. You can add additional commands using the --http-probe-cmd and --http-probe-cmd-file options.

The --http-probe-cmd option is good when you want to specify a small number of simple commands where you select some or all of these HTTP command options: protocol, method (defaults to GET), resource (path and query string).

If you only want to use custom HTTP probe command and you don't want the default GET / command added to the command list you explicitly provided you'll need to set --http-probe to false when you specify your custom HTTP probe command. Note that this inconsistency will be addressed in the future releases to make it less confusing.

Here are a couple of examples:

Adds two extra probe commands: GET /api/info and POST /submit (tries http first, then tries https): docker-slim build --show-clogs --http-probe-cmd /api/info --http-probe-cmd POST:/submit my/sample-node-app-multi

Adds one extra probe command: POST /submit (using only http): docker-slim build --show-clogs --http-probe-cmd http:POST:/submit my/sample-node-app-multi

The --http-probe-cmd-file option is good when you have a lot of commands and/or you want to select additional HTTP command options.

Here's an example:

docker-slim build --show-clogs --http-probe-cmd-file probeCmds.json my/sample-node-app-multi

Commands in probeCmds.json:

{
  "commands":
  [
   {
     "resource": "/api/info"
   },
   {
     "method": "POST",
     "resource": "/submit"
   },
   {
     "procotol": "http",
     "resource": "/api/call?arg=one"
   },
   {
     "protocol": "http",
     "method": "POST",
     "resource": "/submit2",
     "body": "key=value"
   }
  ]
}

The HTTP probe command file path can be a relative path (relative to the current working directory) or it can be an absolute path.

For each HTTP probe call docker-slim will print the call status. Example: info=http.probe.call status=200 method=GET target=http://127.0.0.1:32899/ attempt=1 error=none.

You can execute your own external HTTP requests using the target.port.list field in the container info message docker-slim prints when it starts its test container: docker-slim[build]: info=container name=<your_container_name> id=<your_container_id> target.port.list=[<comma_separated_list_of_port_numbers_to_use>] target.port.info=[<comma_separated_list_of_port_mapping_records>]. Example: docker-slim[build]: info=container name=dockerslimk_42861_20190203084955 id=aa44c43bcf4dd0dae78e2a8b3ac011e7beb6f098a65b09c8bce4a91dc2ff8427 target.port.list=[32899] target.port.info=[9000/tcp => 0.0.0.0:32899]. With this information you can run curl or other HTTP request generating tools: curl http://localhost:32899.

DEBUGGING MINIFIED CONTAINERS

You can create dedicated debugging side-car container images loaded with the tools you need for debugging target containers. This allows you to keep your production container images small. The debugging side-car containers attach to the running target containers.

Assuming you have a running container named node_app_alpine you can attach your debugging side-car with a command like this: docker run --rm -it --pid=container:node_app_alpine --net=container:node_app_alpine --cap-add sys_admin alpine sh. In this example, the debugging side-car is a regular alphine image. This is exactly what happens with the node_alpine app sample (located in the node_alpine directory of the examples repo) and the run_debug_sidecar.command helper script.

If you run the ps command in the side-car you'll see the application from the target container:

# ps
PID   USER     TIME   COMMAND
    1 root       0:00 node /opt/my/service/server.js
   13 root       0:00 sh
   38 root       0:00 ps

You can access the target container file system through /proc/<TARGET_PID>/root:

# ls -lh /proc/1/root/opt/my/service
total 8
drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root        4.0K Sep  2 15:51 node_modules
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         415 Sep  8 00:52 server.js

Some of the useful debugging commands include cat /proc/<TARGET_PID>/cmdline, ls -l /proc/<TARGET_PID>/cwd, cat /proc/1/environ, cat /proc/<TARGET_PID>/limits, cat /proc/<TARGET_PID>/status and ls -l /proc/<TARGET_PID>/fd.

MINIFYING COMMAND LINE TOOLS

Unless the default CMD instruction in your Dockerfile is sufficient you'll have to specify command line parameters when you execute the build command in DockerSlim. This can be done with the --cmd option.

Other useful command line parameters:

--show-clogs - use it if you want to see the output of your container.
--mount - use it to mount a volume when DockerSlim inspects your image.
--entrypoint - use it if you want to override the ENTRYPOINT instruction when DockerSlim inspects your image.

Note that the --entrypoint and --cmd options don't override the ENTRYPOINT and CMD instructions in the final minified image.

Here's a sample build command:

docker-slim build --show-clogs=true --cmd docker-compose.yml --mount $(pwd)/data/:/data/ dslim/container-transform

It's used to minify the container-transform tool. You can get the minified image from Docker Hub.

CURRENT STATE

It works pretty well with the sample Node.js, Python (2 and 3), Ruby, Java and Golang images (see the sample applications in the examples repo). PHP support is WIP. There's already one PHP example, but more needs to be done to support Apache and Nginx based PHP apps. More testing needs to be done to see how it works with other images.

You can also run docker-slim in the info mode and it'll generate useful image information including a "reverse engineered" Dockerfile.

DockerSlim now also generates Seccomp (usable) and AppArmor (WIP, need more testing) profiles for your container.

Note:

You don't need Docker 1.10 or above to generate Seccomp profiles, but you do need it if you want to use the generated profiles.

FAQ

Is it safe for production use?

Yes! Either way, you should test your Docker images.

How can I contribute if I don't know Go?

You don't need to read the language spec and lots of books :-) Go through the Tour of Go and optionally read 50 Shades of Go and you'll be ready to contribute!

What's the best application for DockerSlim?

DockerSlim will work for any dockerized application; however, DockerSlim automates app interactions for applications with an HTTP API. You can use DockerSlim even if your app doesn't have an HTTP API. You'll need to interact with your application manually to make sure DockerSlim can observe your application behavior.

Can I use DockerSlim with dockerized command line tools?

Yes. The --cmd, --entrypoint, and --mount options will help you minify your image. The container-transform tool is a good example.

Notes:

You can explore the artifacts DockerSlim generates when it's creating a slim image. You'll find those in <docker-slim directory>/.images/<TARGET_IMAGE_ID>/artifacts. One of the artifacts is a "reverse engineered" Dockerfile for the original image. It'll be called Dockerfile.fat.

If you'd like to see the artifacts without running docker-slim you can take a look at the examples/artifacts directory in this repo. It doesn't include any image files, but you'll find:

a reverse engineered Dockerfile (Dockerfile.fat)
a container report file (creport.json)
a sample AppArmor profile (which will be named based on your original image name)
and a sample Seccomp profile

If you don't want to create a minified image and only want to "reverse engineer" the Dockerfile you can use the info command.

What if my Docker images uses the USER command?

The current version of DockerSlim includes an experimental support for Docker images with USER commands. Please open tickets if it doesn't work for you.

For older versions of DockerSlim where you have non-default/non-root user declared in your Dockerfile you can use these workarounds to make sure DockerSlim can minify your image:

Don't add an explicit USER statement in your Dockerfile.
Explicitly include /etc/passwd when you minify your image with DockerSlim (using the --include-path docker-slim parameter).

Example: docker-slim --debug build --http-probe --include-path /etc/passwd your-docker-image-name

Use an explicit -u parameter in docker run. Example: docker run -d -u "your-user-name" -p 8000:8000 your-minified-docker-image-name

Note that you should be able to avoid including /etc/passwd if you are ok with using UIDs instead of text user name in the -u parameter to docker run.

Nginx fails in my minified image

If you see nginx: [emerg] mkdir() "/var/lib/nginx/body" failed it means your nginx setup uses a non-standard temporary directory. Nginx will fail if the base directory for its temporary folders doesn't exist (they won't create the missing intermediate directories). Normally it's /var/lib/nginx, but if you have a custom config that points to something else you'll need to add an --include-path flag as an extra flag when you run docker-slim.

DockerSlim fails with a 'no permission to read from' error

You can get around this problem by running DockerSlim from a root shell. That way it will have access to all exported files.

DockerSlim copies the relevant image artifacts trying to preserve their permissions. If the permissions are too restrictive the master app might not have sufficient priviledge to access these files when it's building the new minified image.

BUILD PROCESS

Go 1.8 or higher is recommended. You can use earlier version of Go, but it can't be lower than Go 1.5.1. Versions prior to 1.5.1 have a Docker/ptrace related bug (Go kills processes if your app is PID 1). When the 'monitor' is separate from the 'launcher' process it will be possible to user older Go versions again.

Before you build docker-slim you need to install gox. Additional tools to install:golint and govendor) (optional; you'll need it only if you have problems pulling the dependencies with vanilla go get)

Tools:

gox - Must install it if you want to use the build scripts (not required if you want to do native builds). See https://github.com/mitchellh/gox for more details.
govendor - Should install if you intend to add/change dependencies (you can still manage dependencies manually if want). See https://github.com/kardianos/govendor for more details.
golint - Optional tool for code analysis. See https://github.com/golang/lint for more details.

You can install these tools using the tools.get.sh shell script in the scripts directory.

Notes:

Make sure you have golint if you intend to run the src.inspect.sh or mac.src.inspect.command scripts. Install it with go get -u github.com/golang/lint/golint if you don't have it.

Local Build Steps

Once you install the dependencies (GOX - required; Godep - optional) run these scripts:

Prepare the code (do it once after you download the code): ./scripts/src.prep.sh
Build it: ./scripts/src.build.sh

You can use the clickable .command scripts on Mac OS X (located in the scripts directory):

mac.src.prep.command
mac.src.build.command

Notes:

These helper scripts make it possible to build the code anywhere on the system. It doesn't have to be in the $GOPATH/src directory.

Traditional Go Way to Build

If you don't want to use the helper scripts you can build docker-slim using regular go commands:

cd $GOPATH
mkdir -p src/github.com/docker-slim
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/docker-slim
git clone https://github.com/docker-slim/docker-slim.git <- if you decide to use go get to pull the docker-slim repo make sure to use the -d flag, so Go doesn't try to build it
cd docker-slim
go build -v ./cmd/docker-slim <- builds the main app in the repo's root directory
env GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -v ./cmd/docker-slim-sensor <- builds the sensor app (must be built as a linux executable)

Builder Image Steps

You can also build docker-slim using a "builder" Docker image. The helper scripts are located in the scripts directory.

Create the "builder" image: ./docker-slim-builder.build.sh (or click on docker-slim-builder.build.command if you are using Mac OS X)
Build the tool: docker-slim-builder.run.sh (or click on docker-slim-builder.run.command if you are using Mac OS X)

DESIGN

CORE CONCEPTS

Inspect container metadata (static analysis)
Inspect container data (static analysis)
Inspect running application (dynamic analysis)
Build an application artifact graph
Use the collected application data to build small images
Use the collected application data to auto-generate various security framework configurations.

DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OPTIONS

Instrument the container image (and replace the entrypoint/cmd) to collect application activity data
Use kernel-level tools that provide visibility into running containers (without instrumenting the containers)
Disable relevant namespaces in the target container to gain container visibility (can be done with runC)

SECURITY

The goal is to auto-generate Seccomp, AppArmor, (and potentially SELinux) profiles based on the collected information.

AppArmor profiles
Seccomp profiles

CHALLENGES

Some of the advanced analysis options require a number of Linux kernel features that are not always included. The kernel you get with Docker Machine / Boot2docker is a great example of that.

DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS

TODO

AppArmor profile improvements
Better support for command line applications (e.g., ability to specify multiple executions)
Discover HTTP endpoints to make the HTTP probe more intelligent.
Scripting language dependency discovery in the "scanner" app.
Explore additional dependency discovery methods.
Build/use a custom Boot2docker kernel with every required feature turned on.
"Live" image create mode - to create new images from containers where users install their applications interactively.

ORIGINS

DockerSlim was a Docker Global Hack Day #dockerhackday project. It barely worked at the time, but it did get a win in Seattle and it took the second place in the Plumbing category overall :-)

Since then it's been improved and it works pretty well for its core use cases. It can be better though. That's why the project needs your help! You don't need to know much about Docker and you don't need to know anything about Go. You can contribute in many different ways. For example, use DockerSlim on your images and open a Github issue documenting your experience even if it worked just fine :-)

ONLINE

IRC (freenode): #dockerslim

Docker Hub: dslim (dockerslim is already taken :-()

MINIFIED DOCKER HUB IMAGES

container-transform

CONTRIBUTING

If the project sounds interesting or if you found a bug see CONTRIBUTING.md and submit a PR!

LICENSE

Apache License v2, see LICENSE for details.

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

Minify and Secure Docker containers (free and open source!)

Minification Examples

RECENT UPDATES

INSTALLATION

BASIC USAGE INFO

QUICK SECCOMP EXAMPLE

USING AUTO-GENERATED SECCOMP PROFILES

ORIGINAL DEMO VIDEO

DEMO STEPS

USAGE DETAILS

BUILD COMMAND OPTIONS

DOCKER CONNECT OPTIONS

HTTP PROBE COMMANDS

DEBUGGING MINIFIED CONTAINERS

MINIFYING COMMAND LINE TOOLS

CURRENT STATE

FAQ

Is it safe for production use?

How can I contribute if I don't know Go?

What's the best application for DockerSlim?

Can I use DockerSlim with dockerized command line tools?

What if my Docker images uses the USER command?

Nginx fails in my minified image

DockerSlim fails with a 'no permission to read from' error

BUILD PROCESS

Local Build Steps

Traditional Go Way to Build

Builder Image Steps

DESIGN

CORE CONCEPTS

DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OPTIONS

SECURITY

CHALLENGES

DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS

TODO

ORIGINS

ONLINE

MINIFIED DOCKER HUB IMAGES

CONTRIBUTING

LICENSE

`BUILD` COMMAND OPTIONS