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Running containers as a privileged user weakens their runtime security, allowing any user whose code runs on the container to perform
administrative actions.
In Linux containers, the privileged user is usually named root. In Windows containers, the equivalent is
ContainerAdministrator.
A malicious user can run code on a system either thanks to actions that could be deemed legitimate - depending on internal business logic or
operational management shells - or thanks to malicious actions. For example, with arbitrary code execution after exploiting a service that the
container hosts.
Suppose the container is not hardened to prevent using a shell, interpreter, or Linux capabilities. In this case, the malicious user can read and exfiltrate any
file (including Docker volumes), open new network connections, install malicious software, or, worse, break out of the container’s isolation context
by exploiting other components.
This means giving the possibility to attackers to steal important infrastructure files, intellectual property, or personal data.
Depending on the infrastructure’s resilience, attackers may then extend their attack to other services, such as Kubernetes clusters or cloud
providers, in order to maximize their reach.
Ask Yourself Whether
This container:
- Serves services accessible from the Internet.
- Does not require a privileged user to run.
There is a risk if you answered yes to any of those questions.
Recommended Secure Coding Practices
In the Dockerfile:
- Create a new default user and use it with the
USER statement.
- Some container maintainers create a specific user to be used without explicitly setting it as default, such as
postgresql or
zookeeper. It is recommended to use these users instead of root.
- On Windows containers, the
ContainerUser is available for this purpose.
Or, at launch time:
- Use the
user argument when calling Docker or in the docker-compose file.
- Add fine-grained Linux capabilities to perform specific actions that require root privileges.
If this image is already explicitly set to launch with a non-privileged user, you can add it to the safe images list rule property of your
SonarQube instance, without the tag.
Sensitive Code Example
For any image that does not provide a user by default, regardless of their underlying operating system:
# Sensitive
FROM alpine
ENTRYPOINT ["id"]
For multi-stage builds, the last stage is non-compliant if it does not contain the USER instruction with a non-root user:
FROM alpine AS builder
COPY Makefile ./src /
RUN make build
USER nonroot
# Sensitive, previous user settings are dropped
FROM alpine AS runtime
COPY --from=builder bin/production /app
ENTRYPOINT ["/app/production"]
Compliant Solution
For Linux-based images and scratch-based images that untar a Linux distribution:
FROM alpine
RUN addgroup -S nonroot \
&& adduser -S nonroot -G nonroot
USER nonroot
ENTRYPOINT ["id"]
For Windows-based images, you can use ContainerUser or create a new user:
FROM mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:ltsc2019
RUN net user /add nonroot
USER nonroot
For multi-stage builds, the non-root user should be on the last stage:
FROM alpine as builder
COPY Makefile ./src /
RUN make build
FROM alpine as runtime
RUN addgroup -S nonroot \
&& adduser -S nonroot -G nonroot
COPY --from=builder bin/production /app
USER nonroot
ENTRYPOINT ["/app/production"]
For images that use scratch as their base, it is not possible to add non-privileged users by default. To do this, add an additional
build stage to add the group and user, and later copy /etc/passwd.
Here is an example that uses adduser in the first stage to generate a user and add it to the /etc/passwd file. In the
next stage, this user is added by copying that file over from the previous stage:
FROM alpine:latest as security_provider
RUN addgroup -S nonroot \
&& adduser -S nonroot -G nonroot
FROM scratch as production
COPY --from=security_provider /etc/passwd /etc/passwd
USER nonroot
COPY production_binary /app
ENTRYPOINT ["/app/production_binary"]
See