Docker Content Trust

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Docker Content Trust is a security feature that provides cryptographic verification of the origin and integrity of Docker images. It uses digital signatures to ensure that only trusted images are used in a Docker environment. With Docker Content Trust, users can verify the integrity and authenticity of a Docker image before pulling or deploying it.

When enabled, Docker Content Trust requires all images to be signed by the publisher before they can be pulled or used. This is achieved through the use of public key infrastructure (PKI) and cryptographic hashes. When a publisher signs an image, a digital signature is added to the image manifest and stored in a remote trust server. When a user tries to pull the image, the Docker daemon verifies the signature and the integrity of the image using the public key stored in the trust server. If the image fails the verification process, the Docker daemon will not allow it to be used.

Docker Content Trust helps prevent image tampering, unauthorized distribution, and other types of attacks that can compromise the security and integrity of a Docker environment. By using this feature, organizations can ensure that only trusted images are used in their deployments, reducing the risk of security breaches and data loss.

It’s not easy to find the digest of a particular image tag. This is because it is computed from the hash of the image contents and stored in the image manifest. The image manifest is then stored in the Registry. This is why we needed a docker pull by tag to find digests previously. It would also be desirable to have additional security guarantees such as image freshness.

Enter Docker Content Trust: a system currently in the Docker Engine that verifies the publisher of images without sacrificing usability. Docker Content Trust implements The Update Framework (TUF), an NSF-funded research project succeeding Thandy of the Tor project. TUF uses a key hierarchy to ensure recoverable key compromise and robust freshness guarantees.

Under the hood, Docker Content Trust handles name resolution from IMAGE tags to IMAGE digests by signing its own metadata – when Content Trust is enabled, docker will verify the signatures and expiration dates in the metadata before rewriting a pull by tag command to a pull by digest.

In this step you will enable Docker Content Trust, sign images as you push them, and pull signed and unsigned images.

Enable Docker Content Trust by setting the DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST environment variable.

   $ export DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST=1

Note: If you are using sudo with your Docker commands, you will need to preceded the above command so that it looks like thissudo export DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST=1

It is worth nothing that although Docker Content Trust is now enabled, all Docker commands remain the same. Docker Content Trust will work silently in the background.

Pull the riyaz/dockercon:trust signed image.

$ docker pull riyaz/dockercon:trust

Pull (1 of 1): riyaz/dockercon:trust@sha256:88a7163227a54bf0343aae9e7a4404fdcdcfef8cc777daf9686714f4376ede46
sha256:88a7163227a54bf0343aae9e7a4404fdcdcfef8cc777daf9686714f4376ede46: Pulling from riyaz/dockercon
fae91920dcd4: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:88a7163227a54bf0343aae9e7a4404fdcdcfef8cc777daf9686714f4376ede46
Status: Downloaded newer image for riyaz/dockercon@sha256:88a7163227a54bf0343aae9e7a4404fdcdcfef8cc777daf9686714f4376ede46
Tagging riyaz/dockercon@sha256:88a7163227a54bf0343aae9e7a4404fdcdcfef8cc777daf9686714f4376ede46 as riyaz/dockercon:trust

Look closely at the output of the docker pull command and take particular notice of the name translation – how the command is translated to the digest as shown below:

Pull (1 of 1): riyaz/dockercon:trust@sha256:88a7163227a54bf0343aae9e7a4404fdcdcfef8cc777daf9686714f4376ede46

Pull and unsigned image.

   $ docker pull riyaz/dockercon:untrusted

   No trust data for untrusted

You cannot pull unsigned images with Docker Content Trust enabled. Once Docker Content Trust is enabled you can only pull, run, or build with trusted images.

Tag and push your own signed image with Docker Content Trust.

   $ docker tag alpine:edge <your-docker-id>/alpine:trusted
   $ docker push <your-docker-id>/alpine:trusted

   The push refers to a repository [docker.io/nigelpoulton/alpine]
   4fe15f8d0ae6: Pushed
   trusted: digest: sha256:dc89ce8401da81f24f7ba3f0ab2914ed9013608bdba0b7e7e5d964817067dc06 size: 528
   Signing and pushing trust metadata
   You are about to create a new root signing key passphrase. This passphrase
   will be used to protect the most sensitive key in your signing system. Please
   choose a long, complex passphrase and be careful to keep the password and the
   key file itself secure and backed up. It is highly recommended that you use a
   password manager to generate the passphrase and keep it safe. There will be no way to recover this key. You can find the key in your config directory.
   Enter passphrase for new root key with ID fef644e:
   Repeat passphrase for new root key with ID fef644e:
   Enter passphrase for new repository key with ID b4fd76d (docker.io/nigelpoulton/alpine):
   Repeat passphrase for new repository key with ID b4fd76d (docker.io/nigelpoulton/alpine):
   Finished initializing "docker.io/nigelpoulton/alpine"
   Successfully signed "docker.io/nigelpoulton/alpine":trusted

This command will prompt you for passphrases. This is because Docker Content Trust is generating a hierarchy of keys with different signing roles. Each key is encrypted with a passphrase, and it is best practice is to provide different passphrases for each key.

The root key is the most important key in TUF as it can rotate any other key in the system. The root key should be kept offline, ideally in hardware crypto device. It is stored in ~/.docker/trust/private/root_keys by default.

The tagging key is the only local key required to push new tags to an existing repo, and is stored in ~/.docker/trust/private/tuf_keys by default.

Feel free to explore the ~/.docker/trust directory to view the internal metadata and key information that Docker Content Trust generates.

Disable Docker Content Trust.
```
$ export DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST=0
```

Pull the image you just pushed in the previous step.

$ docker pull <your-docker-id>/alpine:trusted

trusted: Pulling from nigelpoulton/alpine
Digest: sha256:dc89ce8401da81f24f7ba3f0ab2914ed9013608bdba0b7e7e5d964817067dc06
Status: Image is up to date for nigelpoulton/alpine:trusted

Enable Docker Content Trust.
```
$ export DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST=1
```

Pull the same image again.

$ docker pull <your-docker-id>/alpine:trusted

Pull (1 of 1): nigelpoulton/alpine:trusted@sha256:dc89ce8401da81f24f7ba3f0ab2914ed9013608bdba0b7e7e5d964817067dc06
sha256:dc89ce8401da81f24f7ba3f0ab2914ed9013608bdba0b7e7e5d964817067dc06: Pulling from nigelpoulton/alpine
Digest: sha256:dc89ce8401da81f24f7ba3f0ab2914ed9013608bdba0b7e7e5d964817067dc06
Status: Downloaded newer image for nigelpoulton/alpine@sha256:dc89ce8401da81f24f7ba3f0ab2914ed9013608bdba0b7e7e5d964817067dc06
Tagging nigelpoulton/alpine@sha256:dc89ce8401da81f24f7ba3f0ab2914ed9013608bdba0b7e7e5d964817067dc06 as nigelpoulton/alpine:trusted

Take note of the difference between the pull of a signed image with Docker Content Trust enabled and disabled. With Docker Content Trust enabled the image pull is converted from a tagged image pull to a digest image pull.

In this step you have seen how to enable and disable Docker Content Trust. You have also seen how to sign images that you push. For more information about Docker Content Trust, see the documentation.

Step 4: Official images

All images in Docker Hub under the library organization (currently viewable at: https://hub.docker.com/explore/) are deemed “Official Images.” These images undergo a rigorous, open-source review process to ensure they follow best practices. These best practices include signing, being lean, and having clearly written Dockerfiles. For these reasons, it is strongly recommended that you use official images whenever possible.

Official images can be pulled with just their name and tag. You do not have to precede the image name with library/ or any other repository name.

Step 5: Extra for Experts

Docker Content Trust is powered by Notary, an open-source TUF-client and server that can operate over arbitrary trusted collections of data. Notary has its own CLI with robust features such as the ability to rotate keys and remove trust data. In this step you will play with the Notary CLI and a local instance of the Notary server instead of the one deployed alongside Docker Hub.

Get a notary client.

This can be done by downloading a binary directly from the releases page, or by cloning the notary repository into a valid Go repository structure (instructions at the end of the README) and building a client by running make binaries. If you build the notary binary yourself, it will be placed in the bin subdirectory within the notary git repo directory.

Use the notary client to inspect the existing Alpine repository on Docker Hub.

   $ notary -s https://notary.docker.io -d ~/.docker/trust list docker.io/library/alpine

   NAME                                 DIGEST                                SIZE (BYTES)    ROLE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.6      e9cec9aec697d8b9d450edd32860ecd363f2f3174c8338beb5f809422d182c63   1374           targets
2.7      9f08005dff552038f0ad2f46b8e65ff3d25641747d3912e3ea8da6785046561a   1374           targets
3.1      0796cca706c64170c29cfefbdd67f32e25dab2247fc31956c86773dae825800f   506            targets
3.2      9c6c40abb6a9180603068a413deca450ef13c381974b392a25af948ca87c3c14   506            targets
3.3      4fa633f4feff6a8f02acfc7424efd5cb3e76686ed3218abf4ca0fa4a2a358423   506            targets
3.4      3dcdb92d7432d56604d4545cbd324b14e647b313626d99b889d0626de158f73a   506            targets
edge     e5ab6f0941eb01c41595d35856f16215021a941e9893501d632ed4c0ee4e53a6   506            targets
latest   3dcdb92d7432d56604d4545cbd324b14e647b313626d99b889d0626de158f73a   506            targets

Note that docker.io/ must be prepended to the image name for hub images. You should also try your own image you pushed to hub earlier!

If you haven’t already, clone the Notary repository.

   $ git clone https://github.com/docker/notary.git

   Cloning into 'notary'...
   remote: Counting objects: 17156, done.
   remote: Compressing objects: 100% (26/26), done.
   remote: Total 17156 (delta 5), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 17129
   Receiving objects: 100% (17156/17156), 27.07 MiB | 11.20 MiB/s, done.
   Resolving deltas: 100% (9734/9734), done.
   Checking connectivity... done.

Bring up a local notary server and signer.

You will need to run this command from inside the root folder of the notary repository. The operation may take a minute or two to complete.

$ docker-compose up -d
Pulling mysql (mariadb:10.1.10)...
10.1.10: Pulling from library/mariadb
03e1855d4f31: Pull complete
a3ed95caeb02: Pull complete
ea9cb3d7d346: Pull complete
e47839e262bb: Pull complete
f568a56c1fd0: Pull complete
cc98c1dfbf81: Pull complete
98a99d2efdc4: Pull complete
0b304232c8e6: Pull complete
d65a44f4573e: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:10d0179f08a4fb0c785142ca73367921f46a93c2ee7c84831ae3543522156a6c
Status: Downloaded newer image for mariadb:10.1.10
<SNIP>
Creating notary_mysql_1
Creating notary_signer_1
Creating notary_server_1

Add 127.0.0.1 notary-server to /etc/hosts (or if using docker-machine, add $(docker-machine ip) notary-server).

Copy the config and certificate required to talk to your local Notary server.

$ mkdir -p ~/.notary && cp cmd/notary/config.json cmd/notary/root-ca.crt ~/.notary

Initialize a new trusted collection on your local server

   $ notary init example.com/scripts

   No root keys found. Generating a new root key...
You are about to create a new root signing key passphrase. This passphrase
will be used to protect the most sensitive key in your signing system. Please
choose a long, complex passphrase and be careful to keep the password and the
key file itself secure and backed up. It is highly recommended that you use a
password manager to generate the passphrase and keep it safe. There will be no
way to recover this key. You can find the key in your config directory.
Enter passphrase for new root key with ID 6f3b2d0:
Repeat passphrase for new root key with ID 6f3b2d0:
Enter passphrase for new targets key with ID 4bc290d (example.com/scripts):
Repeat passphrase for new targets key with ID 4bc290d (example.com/scripts):

You will be prompted for passphrases for the root and repository keys. This is for the same reasons as it was when you first pushed a repo with Docker Content Trust enabled.

Add content to your trusted collection by running a sequence of notary add example.com/scripts <NAME> <FILE>, notary publish example.com/scripts, and notary list example.com/scripts. This is a the sequence, in order:
- Stages adding a target with notary add
- Attempts to publish this target to the server with notary publish
- Fetches and displays all trust data for example.com (verifying output as it is downloaded)

To remove targets, you can make use of the notary remove example.com/scripts <NAME> command, followed by a notary publish example.com/scripts.

Please note that this docker-compose setup will persist notary’s database data in a volume; if you’d like to wipe out all state when running this lab running multiple times, you will have to remove this volume in addition to restarting the notary server, signer, and database containers.

Key rotation with the notary client

Let’s look at key rotation with Notary.

In the event of key-compromise, it’s a simple procedure to rotate keys with notary. Simply determine which key you wish to rotate, and run notary key rotate.

List all of the keys in your notary repository

$ notary key list
ROLE             GUN                                        KEY ID                                          LOCATION
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
root                             6f3b2d0269343cafafca59f05d738389a27c9408cbe1345188325913620a6b80   file (/root/.notary/private)
snapshot   example.com/scripts   7c9487f2d2a42d1f91020285483d15b5d85d8e22799c64141c5cafc87997795c   file (/root/.notary/private)
targets    example.com/scripts   4bc290d883fa33020a528abbce61accf78745f4f28be243f3cc9f44f11297258   file (/root/.notary/private)

Rotate a key.

In this example we’ll rotate the targets key.

$ notary key rotate example.com/scripts targets

Enter passphrase for new targets key with ID a4413c0 (example.com/scripts):
Repeat passphrase for new targets key with ID a4413c0  (example.com/scripts):
Enter passphrase for root key with ID 6f3b2d0:
Enter passphrase for snapshot key with ID 7c9487f (example.com/scripts):

Confirm that the targets key ID has changed.

$ notary key list

ROLE             GUN                                        KEY ID                                          LOCATION
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
root                             6f3b2d0269343cafafca59f05d738389a27c9408cbe1345188325913620a6b80   file (/root/.notary/private)
snapshot   example.com/scripts   7c9487f2d2a42d1f91020285483d15b5d85d8e22799c64141c5cafc87997795c   file (/root/.notary/private)
targets    example.com/scripts   a4413c080788746ac34db2077a0bcc41be84dfce34d8a7d2d55942d125e4c69f   file (/root/.notary/private)

For more information about keys, please see the this section of the Notary Service Architecture documentation

Role delegation with notary

Now we’ll explore delegation roles in notary. Delegation roles are a subset of the targets role, and are ideal for assigning signing privileges to collaborators and CI systems because no private key sharing is required. Here’s a demo of setting up delegation roles to illustrate the steps below:

Rotate the snapshot key to the server.

This is done by default when creating new Content Trust repositories in Docker 1.10+.
```
$ notary key rotate example.com/scripts snapshot -r
Enter passphrase for root key with ID 6f3b2d0:
```
This is so that delegation roles will only require their own delegation’s private key to publish to trusted collections.
Have your delegate generate an x509 certificate + private key pair with openssl – instructions here.
Retrieve their certificate, delegation.crt.
Add their delegation role.
```
$ notary delegation add example.com/scripts targets/releases delegation.crt --all-paths
```
This command will allow the collaborator to push any target (from --all-paths) to the targets/releases role if they can sign with their private key delegation.key in order to produce a valid signature that can be verified by delegation.crt’s public key material.

Be aware that this commmand only stages the delegation role addition.
Publish the addition of the delegation role
```
$ notary publish example.com/scripts
```

Check that the delegation role was added.

$ notary delegation list example.com/scripts

Your collaborator should now be able to publish content (docker push) with Docker Content Trust enabled, or with a notary add example.com/scripts <NAME> <FILE> -r targets/releases. You can verify their pushes by running a notary list example.com/scripts -r targets/releases

You can add additional keys to the same role with additional delegation add commands, like so: notary delegation add example.com/scripts targets/releases delegation2.crt delegation3.crt, followed by a publish

For more commands over delegation roles, please consult the notary advanced usage documentation.

Summary

Congratulations. You now know the advantages of image digests over image tags. You have also seen how to enable Docker Content Trust and push signed images. Finally you have seen how to perform some advanced tasks using the notary server and client.