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Chapter 3. Deploying confidential containers on IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE


You deploy confidential containers on a Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cluster on IBM Z® and IBM® LinuxONE for your workloads.

Important

Confidential containers on IBM Z® and IBM® LinuxONE is a Technology Preview feature only. Technology Preview features are not supported with Red Hat production service level agreements (SLAs) and might not be functionally complete. Red Hat does not recommend using them in production. These features provide early access to upcoming product features, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process.

For more information about the support scope of Red Hat Technology Preview features, see Technology Preview Features Support Scope.

You deploy confidential containers by performing the following steps:

  1. Install the OpenShift sandboxed containers Operator.
  2. Create the peer pods secret.
  3. Enable the confidential containers feature gate.
  4. Optional: If you pull a peer pod VM image from a private registry such as registry.access.redhat.com, configure the pull secret for peer pods.
  5. Create initdata. See About initdata for details.
  6. Create the peer pods config map.
  7. Optional: Apply initdata to a peer pod.
  8. Optional: Select a custom peer pod VM image.
  9. Create the KataConfig CR.
  10. Verify the attestation process.
Note

IBM® Hyper Protect Confidential Container (HPCC) for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is now production-ready. HPCC enables Confidential Computing technology at the enterprise scale by providing a multiparty Hyper Protect Contract, deployment attestation, and validation of container runtime and OCI image integrity.

HPCC is supported by IBM Z17® and IBM® LinuxONE Emperor 5. For more information, see the IBM HPCC documentation.

3.1. Prerequisites

  • You have installed Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 or later on the cluster where you are running your confidential containers workload.
  • You have deployed Red Hat build of Trustee on an OpenShift Container Platform cluster in a trusted environment. For more information, see Deploying Red Hat build of Trustee.
  • You are using LinuxONE Emperor 4.
  • You have enabled Secure Unpack Facility on your Logical Partition (LPAR), which is necessary for the IBM Secure Execution. For more information, see Enabling the KVM host for IBM Secure Execution.

3.2. Installing the OpenShift sandboxed containers Operator

You install the OpenShift sandboxed containers Operator by using the command line interface (CLI).

Prerequisites

  • You have access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

Procedure

  1. Create an osc-namespace.yaml manifest file:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Namespace
    metadata:
      name: openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Create the namespace by running the following command:

    $ oc apply -f osc-namespace.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  3. Create an osc-operatorgroup.yaml manifest file:

    apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1
    kind: OperatorGroup
    metadata:
      name: sandboxed-containers-operator-group
      namespace: openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    spec:
      targetNamespaces:
      - openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  4. Create the operator group by running the following command:

    $ oc apply -f osc-operatorgroup.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  5. Create an osc-subscription.yaml manifest file:

    apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
    kind: Subscription
    metadata:
      name: sandboxed-containers-operator
      namespace: openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    spec:
      channel: stable
      installPlanApproval: Automatic
      name: sandboxed-containers-operator
      source: redhat-operators
      sourceNamespace: openshift-marketplace
      startingCSV: sandboxed-containers-operator.v1.10.1
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  6. Create the subscription by running the following command:

    $ oc apply -f osc-subscription.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  7. Verify that the Operator is correctly installed by running the following command:

    $ oc get csv -n openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    This command can take several minutes to complete.

  8. Watch the process by running the following command:

    $ watch oc get csv -n openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Example output

    NAME                             DISPLAY                                  VERSION             REPLACES                   PHASE
    openshift-sandboxed-containers   openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator  1.10.1    1.9.0        Succeeded
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

3.3. Creating the peer pods secret

You must create a peer pods secret. The secret stores credentials for creating the pod virtual machine (VM) image and peer pod instances.

Prerequisites

  • LIBVIRT_URI. This value is the default gateway IP address of the libvirt network. Check your libvirt network setup to obtain this value.

    Note

    If libvirt uses the default bridge virtual network, you can obtain the LIBVIRT_URI by running the following commands:

    $ virtint=$(bridge_line=$(virsh net-info default | grep Bridge);  echo "${bridge_line//Bridge:/}" | tr -d [:blank:])
    
    $ LIBVIRT_URI=$( ip -4 addr show $virtint | grep -oP '(?<=inet\s)\d+(\.\d+){3}')
    
    $ LIBVIRT_GATEWAY_URI="qemu+ssh://root@${LIBVIRT_URI}/system?no_verify=1"
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  • REDHAT_OFFLINE_TOKEN. You have generated this token to download the RHEL image at Red Hat API Tokens.
  • HOST_KEY_CERTS. The Host Key Document (HKD) certificate enables secure execution on IBM Z®. For more information, see Obtaining a host key document from Resource Link in the IBM documentation.

Procedure

  1. Create a peer-pods-secret.yaml manifest file according to the following example:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Secret
    metadata:
      name: peer-pods-secret
      namespace: openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    type: Opaque
    stringData:
      CLOUD_PROVIDER: "libvirt"
      LIBVIRT_URI: "<libvirt_gateway_uri>" 
    1
    
      REDHAT_OFFLINE_TOKEN: "<rh_offline_token>" 
    2
    
      HOST_KEY_CERTS: "<host_key_crt_value>" 
    3
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    1
    Specify the libvirt URI.
    2
    Specify the Red Hat offline token, which is required for the Operator-built image.
    3
    Specify the HKD certificate value to enable IBM Secure Execution for the Operator-built image.
  2. Create the secret by running the following command:

    $ oc create -f peer-pods-secret.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

3.4. Enabling the confidential containers feature gate

You enable the confidential containers feature gate by creating the osc-feature-gates config map.

Procedure

  1. Create a cc-feature-gate.yaml manifest file:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: ConfigMap
    metadata:
      name: osc-feature-gates
      namespace: openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    data:
      confidential: "true"
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Create the osc-feature-gates config map by running the following command:

    $ oc create -f cc-feature-gate.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

3.5. Configuring the pull secret for peer pods

To pull pod VM images from a private registry, you must configure the pull secret for peer pods.

Then, you can link the pull secret to the default service account or you can specify the pull secret in the peer pod manifest.

Procedure

  1. Set the NS variable to the namespace where you deploy your peer pods:

    $ NS=<namespace>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Copy the pull secret to the peer pod namespace:

    $ oc get secret pull-secret -n openshift-config -o yaml \
      | sed "s/namespace: openshift-config/namespace: ${NS}/" \
      | oc apply -n "${NS}" -f -
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    You can use the cluster pull secret, as in this example, or a custom pull secret.

  3. Optional: Link the pull secret to the default service account:

    $ oc secrets link default pull-secret --for=pull -n ${NS}
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  4. Alternatively, add the pull secret to the peer pod manifest:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: <Pod>
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: <container_name>
        image: <image_name>
      imagePullSecrets:
      - name: pull-secret
    # ...
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

3.6. Creating initdata

You create an initdata.toml file and convert it to a Base64-encoded string in gzip format.

You specify this string as the INITDATA value in the peer pods config map, for global configuration, or as an annotation in a peer pod manifest, for a specific pod.

Important

You must delete the kbs_cert setting if you configure insecure_http = true in the kbs-config config map.

Procedure

  1. Obtain the Red Hat build of Trustee IP address by running the following command:

    $ oc get node $(oc get pod -n trustee-operator-system \
      -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.nodeName}') \
      -o jsonpath='{.status.addresses[?(@.type=="InternalIP")].address}'
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Example output

    192.168.122.22
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Obtain the port by running the following command:

    $ oc get svc kbs-service -n trustee-operator-system
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Example output

    NAME         TYPE        CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)          AGE
    kbs-service  NodePort    172.30.116.11   <none>        8080:32178/TCP   12d
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Create the initdata.toml file:

    algorithm = "sha384"
    version = "0.1.0"
    
    [data]
    "aa.toml" = '''
    [token_configs]
    [token_configs.coco_as]
    
    url = '<trustee_url>'
    
    [token_configs.kbs]
    url = '<trustee_url>'
    cert = """
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    <kbs_certificate>
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    """
    '''
    
    "cdh.toml" = '''
    socket = 'unix:///run/confidential-containers/cdh.sock'
    credentials = []
    
    [kbc]
    name = 'cc_kbc'
    url = '<trustee_url>'
    kbs_cert = """
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    <kbs_certificate>
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    """
    '''
    
    "policy.rego" = '''
    package agent_policy
    
    default AddARPNeighborsRequest := true
    default AddSwapRequest := true
    default CloseStdinRequest := true
    default CopyFileRequest := true
    default CreateContainerRequest := true
    default CreateSandboxRequest := true
    default DestroySandboxRequest := true
    default ExecProcessRequest := false
    default GetMetricsRequest := true
    default GetOOMEventRequest := true
    default GuestDetailsRequest := true
    default ListInterfacesRequest := true
    default ListRoutesRequest := true
    default MemHotplugByProbeRequest := true
    default OnlineCPUMemRequest := true
    default PauseContainerRequest := true
    default PullImageRequest := true
    default ReadStreamRequest := true
    default RemoveContainerRequest := true
    default RemoveStaleVirtiofsShareMountsRequest := true
    default ReseedRandomDevRequest := true
    default ResumeContainerRequest := true
    default SetGuestDateTimeRequest := true
    default SetPolicyRequest := true
    default SignalProcessRequest := true
    default StartContainerRequest := true
    default StartTracingRequest := true
    default StatsContainerRequest := true
    default StopTracingRequest := true
    default TtyWinResizeRequest := true
    default UpdateContainerRequest := true
    default UpdateEphemeralMountsRequest := true
    default UpdateInterfaceRequest := true
    default UpdateRoutesRequest := true
    default WaitProcessRequest := true
    default WriteStreamRequest := true
    '''
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    • <trustee-url>: Specify the Red Hat build of Trustee IP address and the port, for example, https://192.168.122.22:32178.
    • <kbs_certificate>: Specify the Base64-encoded TLS certificate for the attestation agent.
    • kbs_cert: Delete the kbs_cert setting if you configure insecure_http = true in the kbs-config config map.
  4. Convert the initdata.toml file to a Base64-encoded string in gzip format in a text file by running the following command:

    $ cat initdata.toml | gzip | base64 -w0 > initdata.txt
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Record this string for the peer pods config map or a peer pod manifest.

  5. Calculate the SHA-256 hash of an initdata.toml file and assign its value to the hash variable by running the following command:

    $ hash=$(sha256sum initdata.toml | cut -d' ' -f1)
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  6. Assign 32 bytes of 0s to the initial_pcr variable by running the following command:

    $ initial_pcr=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  7. Calculate the SHA-256 hash of hash and initial_pcr and assign its value to the PCR8_HASH variable by running the following command:

    $ PCR8_HASH=$(echo -n "$initial_pcr$hash" | xxd -r -p | sha256sum | cut -d' ' -f1) && echo $PCR8_HASH
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Record the PCR8_HASH value for the. Calculate the SHA-256 hash of an initdata.toml file and assign its value to the hash variable by running the following command:

    $ hash=$(sha256sum initdata.toml | cut -d' ' -f1)
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  8. Assign 32 bytes of 0s to the initial_pcr variable by running the following command:

    $ initial_pcr=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  9. Calculate the SHA-256 hash of hash and initial_pcr and assign its value to the PCR8_HASH variable by running the following command:

    $ PCR8_HASH=$(echo -n "$initial_pcr$hash" | xxd -r -p | sha256sum | cut -d' ' -f1) && echo $PCR8_HASH
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Record the PCR8_HASH value for the RVPS config map.

3.7. Creating the peer pods config map

You must create the peer pods config map.

Procedure

  1. Create a peer-pods-cm.yaml manifest file according to the following example:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: ConfigMap
    metadata:
      name: peer-pods-cm
      namespace: openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    data:
      CLOUD_PROVIDER: "libvirt"
      LIBVIRT_POOL: "<libvirt_pool>"
      LIBVIRT_VOL_NAME: "<libvirt_volume>"
      LIBVIRT_DIR_NAME: "/var/lib/libvirt/images/<directory_name>"
      LIBVIRT_NET: "default"
      PEERPODS_LIMIT_PER_NODE: "10"
      ROOT_VOLUME_SIZE: "6"
      DISABLECVM: "false"
      INITDATA: "<initdata_string>"
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    LIBVIRT_POOL
    If you have manually configured the libvirt pool, use the same name as in your KVM host configuration.
    LIBVIRT_VOL_NAME
    If you have manually configured the libvirt volume, use the same name as in your KVM host configuration.
    LIBVIRT_DIR_NAME
    Specify the libvirt directory for storing virtual machine disk images, such as .qcow2, or .raw files. To ensure libvirt has read and write access permissions, use a subdirectory of the libvirt storage directory. The default is /var/lib/libvirt/images/.
    LIBVIRT_NET
    Specify a libvirt network if you do not want to use the default network.
    PEERPODS_LIMIT_PER_NODE
    You can increase this value to run more peer pods on a node. The default value is 10.
    ROOT_VOLUME_SIZE
    You can increase this value for pods with larger container images. Specify the root volume size in gigabytes for the pod VM. The default and minimum size is 6 GB.
  2. Create the config map by running the following command:

    $ oc create -f peer-pods-cm.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

3.8. Applying initdata to a pod

You can override the global INITDATA setting you applied in the peer pods config map by applying customized initdata to a specific pod for special use cases, such as development and testing with a relaxed policy, or when using different Red Hat build of Trustee configurations. You can customize initdata by adding an annotation to the workload pod YAML.

Prerequisite

  • You have created an initdata string.

Procedure

  1. Add the initdata string to the pod manifest:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Pod
    metadata:
      name: ocp-cc-pod
      labels:
        app: ocp-cc-pod
      annotations:
        io.katacontainers.config.runtime.cc_init_data: <initdata_string>
    spec:
      runtimeClassName: kata-remote
      containers:
      - name: <container_name>
        image: registry.access.redhat.com/ubi9/ubi:latest
        command:
        - sleep
        - "36000"
        securityContext:
          privileged: false
          seccompProfile:
            type: RuntimeDefault
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Apply the pod manifest by running the following command:

    $ oc apply -f my-pod.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

3.9. Selecting a custom peer pod VM image

You can select a custom peer pod virtual machine (VM) image, tailored to your workload requirements by adding an annotation to the pod manifest. The custom image overrides the default image specified in the peer pods config map.

You create a new libvirt volume in your libvirt pool and upload the custom peer pod VM image to the new volume. Then, you update the pod manifest to use the custom peer pod VM image.

Procedure

  1. Set the LIBVIRT_POOL variable by running the following command:

    $ export LIBVIRT_POOL=<libvirt_pool>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Set the LIBVIRT_VOL_NAME variable to a new libvirt volume by running the following command:

    $ export LIBVIRT_VOL_NAME=<new_libvirt_volume>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  3. Create a libvirt volume for the pool by running the following command:

    $ virsh -c qemu:///system \
      vol-create-as --pool $LIBVIRT_POOL \
      --name $LIBVIRT_VOL_NAME \
      --capacity 20G \
      --allocation 2G \
      --prealloc-metadata \
      --format qcow2
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  4. Upload the custom peer pod VM image to the new libvirt volume:

    $ virsh -c qemu:///system vol-upload \
      --vol $LIBVIRT_VOL_NAME <custom_podvm_image.qcow2> \
      --pool $LIBVIRT_POOL --sparse
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  5. Create a my-pod-manifest.yaml file according to the following example:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Pod
    metadata:
      name: my-pod-manifest
      annotations:
        io.katacontainers.config.hypervisor.image: "<new_libvirt_volume>"
    spec:
      runtimeClassName: kata-remote
      containers:
      - name: <example_container>
        image: registry.access.redhat.com/ubi9/ubi:9.3
        command: ["sleep", "36000"]
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  6. Create the pod by running the following command:

    $ oc create -f my-pod-manifest.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

3.10. Creating the KataConfig custom resource

You must create the KataConfig custom resource (CR) to install kata-remote as a runtime class on your worker nodes.

OpenShift sandboxed containers installs kata-remote as a secondary, optional runtime on the cluster and not as the primary runtime.

Creating the KataConfig CR automatically reboots the worker nodes. The reboot can take from 10 to more than 60 minutes. The following factors can increase the reboot time:

  • A large OpenShift Container Platform deployment with a greater number of worker nodes.
  • Activation of the BIOS and Diagnostics utility.
  • Deployment on a hard disk drive rather than an SSD.
  • Deployment on physical nodes such as bare metal, rather than on virtual nodes.
  • A slow CPU and network.

Procedure

  1. Create an example-kataconfig.yaml manifest file according to the following example:

    apiVersion: kataconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: KataConfig
    metadata:
      name: example-kataconfig
    spec:
      enablePeerPods: true
      logLevel: info
    #  kataConfigPoolSelector:
    #    matchLabels:
    #      <label_key>: '<label_value>' 
    1
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    1
    Optional: If you have applied node labels to install kata-remote on specific nodes, specify the key and value, for example, cc: 'true'.
  2. Create the KataConfig CR by running the following command:

    $ oc apply -f example-kataconfig.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    The new KataConfig CR is created and installs kata-remote as a runtime class on the worker nodes.

    Wait for the kata-remote installation to complete and the worker nodes to reboot before verifying the installation.

  3. Monitor the installation progress by running the following command:

    $ watch "oc describe kataconfig | sed -n /^Status:/,/^Events/p"
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    When the status of all workers under kataNodes is installed and the condition InProgress is False without specifying a reason, the kata-remote is installed on the cluster.

  4. Verify that you have built the peer pod image and uploaded it to the libvirt volume by running the following command:

    $ oc describe configmap peer-pods-cm -n openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Example output

    Name: peer-pods-cm
    Namespace: openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator
    Labels: <none>
    Annotations: <none>
    
    Data
    ====
    CLOUD_PROVIDER: libvirt
    DISABLECVM: false 
    1
    
    LIBVIRT_IMAGE_ID: fa-pp-vol 
    2
    
    
    BinaryData
    ====
    Events: <none>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    1
    Enables the Confidential VM during IBM Secure Execution for the Operator-built image.
    2
    Contains a value if you have built the peer pod image and uploaded it to the libvirt volume.
  5. Monitor the kata-oc machine config pool progress to ensure that it is in the UPDATED state, when UPDATEDMACHINECOUNT equals MACHINECOUNT, by running the following command:

    $ watch oc get mcp/kata-oc
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  6. Verify the daemon set by running the following command:

    $ oc get -n openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator ds/osc-caa-ds
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  7. Verify the runtime classes by running the following command:

    $ oc get runtimeclass
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Example output

    NAME             HANDLER          AGE
    kata-remote      kata-remote      152m
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

3.11. Verifying attestation

You can verify the attestation process by creating a BusyBox pod. The pod image deploys the confidential workload where you can retrieve the key.

Important

This procedure is an example to verify that attestation is working. Do not write sensitive data to standard I/O, because the data can be captured by using a memory dump. Only data written to memory is encrypted.

Procedure

  1. Create a test-pod.yaml manifest file:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Pod
    metadata:
      name: busybox
      namespace: default
      annotations:
        io.katacontainers.config.runtime.cc_init_data: <initdata_string>
      labels:
        run: busybox
    spec:
      runtimeClassName: kata-remote
      restartPolicy: Never
      containers:
      - name: busybox
        image: quay.io/prometheus/busybox:latest
        imagePullPolicy: Always
        command:
          - "sleep"
          - "3600"
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Create the pod by running the following command:

    $ oc create -f test-pod.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  3. Log in to the pod by running the following command:

    $ oc exec -it busybox -n default -- /bin/sh
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  4. Fetch the pod secret by running the following command:

    $ wget http://127.0.0.1:8006/cdh/resource/default/kbsres1/key1
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Example output

    Connecting to 127.0.0.1:8006 (127.0.0.1:8006)
    saving to 'key1'
    key1                 100% |*******************************************|     8  0:00:00 ETA
    'key1' saved
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  5. Display the key1 value by running the following command:

    $ cat key1
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Example output

    res1val1/ #
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

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