Chapter 14. Working with containers

Containers include all the necessary components like libraries, frameworks, and other additional dependencies that are isolated and self-sufficient within their own executable. A Red Hat container certification ensures supportability of both the operating system and the application layers. It provides enhanced security by vulnerability scanning and health grading of the Red Hat components, and lifecycle commitment whenever the Red Hat or partner components are updated.

However, containers running in privileged mode, or privileged containers, stretch their boundaries and interact with their host to run commands or access the host’s resources. For example, a container that reads or writes to a filesystem mounted on the host must run in privileged mode.

Privileged containers might create a security risk. A compromised privileged container might also compromise its host and the integrity of the environment as a whole.

Moreover, privileged containers are susceptible to incompatibilities with the host as operating system interfaces such as commands, libraries, ABI, and APIs might change or deprecate over time. This can put privileged containers at risk of interacting with the host in an unsupported way.

You must ensure that your containers can run on any supported hosts in the customer’s environment. Red Hat encourages you to adopt a continuous integration model that lets you test your containers with public betas or earlier versions of Red Hat products to maximize compatibility.

Partner Validation - Select this type of certification, if you want to validate your product using your own criteria and test suite on Red Hat platforms. This partner validation allows you to publish your software offerings on the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog more quickly. However, validated workloads may not incorporate all of Red Hat integration requirements and best practices. We encourage you to continue your efforts toward Red Hat certification.

Certified - Select this type of certification, if you want your product to undergo thorough testing by using Red Hat’s test suite, and benefit from collaborative support. Your products will meet your standards and Red Hat’s criteria, including interoperability, lifecycle management, security, and support requirements.

Products that meet the requirements and complete the certification workflow get listed on the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog. Partners will receive a logo to promote their product certification.

Task Summary

The certification workflow includes the three primary stages-

Follow these steps to perform a multi-arch container certification test: