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Rootless mode

Rootless mode allows running BuildKit daemon as a non-root user.

Distribution-specific hint

Using Ubuntu kernel is recommended.

Debian GNU/Linux 10

Add kernel.unprivileged_userns_clone=1 to /etc/sysctl.conf (or /etc/sysctl.d) and run sudo sysctl -p. This step is not needed for Debian GNU/Linux 11 and later.

RHEL/CentOS 7

Add user.max_user_namespaces=28633 to /etc/sysctl.conf (or /etc/sysctl.d) and run sudo sysctl -p. This step is not needed for RHEL/CentOS 8 and later.

Fedora, before kernel 5.13

You may have to disable SELinux, or run BuildKit with --oci-worker-snapshotter=fuse-overlayfs.

Container-Optimized OS from Google

⚠ Currently unsupported. See #879.

Known limitations

  • Using the overlayfs snapshotter requires kernel >= 5.11 or Ubuntu kernel. On kernel >= 4.18, the fuse-overlayfs snapshotter is used instead of overlayfs. On kernel < 4.18, the native snapshotter is used.
  • Network mode is always set to network.host.
  • No support for containerd worker. ("worker" here is a BuildKit term, not a Kubernetes term. Running rootless BuildKit in containerd is fully supported.)

Running BuildKit in Rootless mode

RootlessKit needs to be installed.

rootlesskit buildkitd

buildctl --addr unix:///run/user/$UID/buildkit/buildkitd.sock build ...

To isolate BuildKit daemon's network namespace from the host (recommended):

rootlesskit --net=slirp4netns --copy-up=/etc --disable-host-loopback buildkitd

Troubleshooting

Try running buildkitd with --oci-worker-snapshotter=fuse-overlayfs:

rootlesskit buildkitd --oci-worker-snapshotter=fuse-overlayfs

Try running buildkitd with --oci-worker-snapshotter=native:

rootlesskit buildkitd --oci-worker-snapshotter=native

See https://rootlesscontaine.rs/getting-started/common/subuid/

Containerized deployment

Kubernetes

See ../examples/kubernetes.

Docker

docker run \
  --name buildkitd \
  -d \
  --security-opt seccomp=unconfined \
  --security-opt apparmor=unconfined \
  --device /dev/fuse \
  moby/buildkit:rootless --oci-worker-no-process-sandbox

buildctl --addr docker-container://buildkitd build ...

If you don't mind using --privileged (almost safe for rootless), the docker run flags can be shorten as follows:

docker run --name buildkitd -d --privileged moby/buildkit:rootless

About --device /dev/fuse

Adding --device /dev/fuse to the docker run arguments is required only if you want to use fuse-overlayfs snapshotter.

About --oci-worker-no-process-sandbox

By adding --oci-worker-no-process-sandbox to the buildkitd arguments, BuildKit can be executed in a container without adding --privileged to docker run arguments. However, you still need to pass --security-opt seccomp=unconfined --security-opt apparmor=unconfined to docker run.

Note that --oci-worker-no-process-sandbox allows build executor containers to kill (and potentially ptrace depending on the seccomp configuration) an arbitrary process in the BuildKit daemon container.

To allow running rootless buildkitd without --oci-worker-no-process-sandbox, run docker run with --security-opt systempaths=unconfined. (For Kubernetes, set securityContext.procMount to Unmasked.)

The --security-opt systempaths=unconfined flag disables the masks for the /proc mount in the container and potentially allows reading and writing dangerous kernel files, but it is safe when you are running buildkitd as non-root.

Change UID/GID

The moby/buildkit:rootless image has the following UID/GID configuration:

Actual ID (shown in the host and the BuildKit daemon container) Mapped ID (shown in build executor containers)
1000 0
100000 1
... ...
165535 65536 
$ docker exec buildkitd id
uid=1000(user) gid=1000(user)
$ docker exec buildkitd ps aux
PID   USER     TIME   COMMAND
    1 user       0:00 rootlesskit buildkitd --addr tcp://0.0.0.0:1234
   13 user       0:00 /proc/self/exe buildkitd --addr tcp://0.0.0.0:1234
   21 user       0:00 buildkitd --addr tcp://0.0.0.0:1234
   29 user       0:00 ps aux
$ docker exec cat /etc/subuid
user:100000:65536

To change the UID/GID configuration, you need to modify and build the BuildKit image manually.

$ vi Dockerfile
$ make images
$ docker run ... moby/buildkit:local-rootless ...