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Getting Started

Note You can follow this interactive tutorial to get started with Ratify within 5 minutes in an online playground.

Try out ratify in Kubernetes through Gatekeeper as the admission controller.

Prerequisites:

  • Kubernetes v1.20 or higher
  • OPA Gatekeeper v3.10 or higher

Step 1: Setup Gatekeeper with external data

NOTE: If you have added Helm repository for Gatekeeper and Ratify, you can update them by executing helm repo update before installation.

helm repo add gatekeeper https://open-policy-agent.github.io/gatekeeper/charts

helm install gatekeeper/gatekeeper \
--name-template=gatekeeper \
--namespace gatekeeper-system --create-namespace \
--set enableExternalData=true \
--set validatingWebhookTimeoutSeconds=5 \
--set mutatingWebhookTimeoutSeconds=2

NOTE: validatingWebhookTimeoutSeconds and mutationWebhookTimeoutSeconds increased from 3 to 5 and 1 to 2 respectively, so all Ratify operations complete in complex scenarios. See discussion here to remove this requirement. Kubernetes v1.20 or higher is REQUIRED to increase timeout. Timeout is configurable in helm chart under provider.timeout section.

Step 2: Deploy ratify on gatekeeper in the default namespace.

  • Option 1: Install the last released version of Ratify

Note: if the crt/key/cabundle are NOT set under provider.tls in values.yaml, helm would generate a CA certificate and server key/certificate for you.

helm repo add ratify https://deislabs.github.io/ratify
# download the notary verification certificate
curl -sSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/deislabs/ratify/main/test/testdata/notary.crt
helm install ratify \
ratify/ratify --atomic \
--namespace gatekeeper-system \
--set-file notaryCert=./notary.crt
  • Option 2: Install ratify with charts from your local branch.
    Note: Latest chart in main may not be compatible with the last released version of ratify image.
git clone https://github.com/deislabs/ratify.git
cd ratify
helm install ratify \
./charts/ratify --atomic \
--namespace gatekeeper-system \
--set-file notaryCert=./test/testdata/notary.crt

Step 3: See Ratify in action

  • Deploy a demo constraint.
kubectl apply -f https://deislabs.github.io/ratify/library/default/template.yaml
kubectl apply -f https://deislabs.github.io/ratify/library/default/samples/constraint.yaml

Once the installation is completed, you can test the deployment of an image that is signed using Notary V2 solution.

  • This will successfully create the pod demo
kubectl run demo --image=wabbitnetworks.azurecr.io/test/notary-image:signed
kubectl get pods demo

Optionally you can see the output of the pod logs via: kubectl logs demo

  • Now deploy an unsigned image
kubectl run demo1 --image=wabbitnetworks.azurecr.io/test/notary-image:unsigned

You will see a deny message from Gatekeeper denying the request to create it as the image doesn't have any signatures.

Error from server (Forbidden): admission webhook "validation.gatekeeper.sh" denied the request: [ratify-constraint] Subject failed verification: wabbitnetworks.azurecr.io/test/net-monitor:unsigned

You just validated the container images in your k8s cluster!

Step 4: Uninstall Ratify

Notes: Helm does NOT support upgrading CRDs, so uninstalling Ratify will require you to delete the CRDs manually. Otherwise, you might fail to install CRDs of newer versions when installing Ratify.

kubectl delete -f https://deislabs.github.io/ratify/library/default/template.yaml
kubectl delete -f https://deislabs.github.io/ratify/library/default/samples/constraint.yaml
helm delete ratify --namespace gatekeeper-system
kubectl delete crd stores.config.ratify.deislabs.io verifiers.config.ratify.deislabs.io certificatestores.config.ratify.deislabs.io

Notes

If the image reference provided resolves to an OCI Index or a Docker Manifest List, validation will occur ONLY at the index or manifest list level. Ratify currently does NOT support image validation based on automatic platform selection. For more information, see this issue.