Chapter 7. Clair for Red Hat Quay

Clair v4 (Clair) is an open source application that leverages static code analyses for parsing image content and reporting vulnerabilities affecting the content. Clair is packaged with Red Hat Quay and can be used in both standalone and Operator deployments. It can be run in highly scalable configurations, where components can be scaled separately as appropriate for enterprise environments.

7.1. Clair vulnerability databases

Clair uses the following vulnerability databases to report for issues in your images:

  • Ubuntu Oval database
  • Debian Oval database
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Oval database
  • SUSE Oval database
  • Oracle Oval database
  • Alpine SecDB database
  • VMWare Photon OS database
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) UpdateInfo
  • Pyup.io (Python) database

For information about how Clair does security mapping with the different databases, see ClairCore Severity Mapping.

7.2. Setting up Clair on standalone Red Hat Quay deployments

For standalone Red Hat Quay deployments, you can set up Clair manually.

Procedure

  1. In your Red Hat Quay installation directory, create a new directory for the Clair database data:

    $ mkdir /home/<user-name>/quay-poc/postgres-clairv4
  2. Set the appropriate permissions for the postgres-clairv4 file by entering the following command:

    $ setfacl -m u:26:-wx /home/<user-name>/quay-poc/postgres-clairv4
  3. Deploy a Clair Postgres database by entering the following command:

    $ sudo podman run -d --name postgresql-clairv4 \
      -e POSTGRESQL_USER=clairuser \
      -e POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=clairpass \
      -e POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=clair \
      -e POSTGRESQL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=adminpass \
      -p 5433:5433 \
      -v /home/<user-name>/quay-poc/postgres-clairv4:/var/lib/pgsql/data:Z \
      {postgresimage}
  4. Install the Postgres uuid-ossp module for your Clair deployment:

    $ podman exec -it postgresql-clairv4 /bin/bash -c 'echo "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS \"uuid-ossp\"" | psql -d clair -U postgres'

    Example output

    CREATE EXTENSION

    Note

    Clair requires the uuid-ossp extension to be added to its Postgres database. For users with proper privileges, creating the extension will automatically be added by Clair. If users do not have the proper privileges, the extension must be added before start Clair.

    If the extension is not present, the following error will be displayed when Clair attempts to start: ERROR: Please load the "uuid-ossp" extension. (SQLSTATE 42501).

  5. Stop the Quay container if it is running and restart it in configuration mode, loading the existing configuration as a volume:

    $ sudo podman run --rm -it --name quay_config \
      -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
      -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
      {productrepo}/{quayimage}:{productminv} config secret
  6. Log in to the configuration tool and click Enable Security Scanning in the Security Scanner section of the UI.
  7. Set the HTTP endpoint for Clair using a port that is not already in use on the quay-server system, for example, 8081.
  8. Create a pre-shared key (PSK) using the Generate PSK button.

    Security Scanner UI

    Security Scanner

  9. Validate and download the config.yaml file for Red Hat Quay, and then stop the Quay container that is running the configuration editor.
  10. Extract the new configuration bundle into your Red Hat Quay installation directory, for example:

    $ tar xvf quay-config.tar.gz -d /home/<user-name>/quay-poc/
  11. Create a folder for your Clair configuration file, for example:

    $ mkdir /etc/opt/clairv4/config/
  12. Change into the Clair configuration folder:

    $ cd /etc/opt/clairv4/config/
  13. Create a Clair configuration file, for example:

    http_listen_addr: :8081
    introspection_addr: :8088
    log_level: debug
    indexer:
      connstring: host=quay-server.example.com port=5433 dbname=clair user=clairuser password=clairpass sslmode=disable
      scanlock_retry: 10
      layer_scan_concurrency: 5
      migrations: true
    matcher:
      connstring: host=quay-server.example.com port=5433 dbname=clair user=clairuser password=clairpass sslmode=disable
      max_conn_pool: 100
      run: ""
      migrations: true
      indexer_addr: clair-indexer
    notifier:
      connstring: host=quay-server.example.com port=5433 dbname=clair user=clairuser password=clairpass sslmode=disable
      delivery_interval: 1m
      poll_interval: 5m
      migrations: true
    auth:
      psk:
        key: "MTU5YzA4Y2ZkNzJoMQ=="
        iss: ["quay"]
    # tracing and metrics
    trace:
      name: "jaeger"
      probability: 1
      jaeger:
        agent_endpoint: "localhost:6831"
        service_name: "clair"
    metrics:
      name: "prometheus"

    For more information about Clair’s configuration format, see Clair configuration reference.

  14. Start Clair by using the container image, mounting in the configuration from the file you created:

    $ sudo podman run -d --name clairv4 \
    -p 8081:8081 -p 8088:8088 \
    -e CLAIR_CONF=/clair/config.yaml \
    -e CLAIR_MODE=combo \
    -v /etc/opt/clairv4/config:/clair:Z \
    registry.redhat.io/quay/clair-rhel8:v3.8.15
    Note

    Running multiple Clair containers is also possible, but for deployment scenarios beyond a single container the use of a container orchestrator like Kubernetes or OpenShift Container Platform is strongly recommended.

7.3. Clair on OpenShift Container Platform

To set up Clair v4 (Clair) on a Red Hat Quay deployment on OpenShift Container Platform, it is recommended to use the Red Hat Quay Operator. By default, the Red Hat Quay Operator will install or upgrade a Clair deployment along with your Red Hat Quay deployment and configure Clair automatically.

7.4. Testing Clair

Use the following procedure to test Clair on either a standalone Red Hat Quay deployment, or on an OpenShift Container Platform Operator-based deployment.

Prerequisites

  • You have deployed the Clair container image.

Procedure

  1. Pull a sample image by entering the following command:

    $ podman pull ubuntu:20.04
  2. Tag the image to your registry by entering the following command:

    $ sudo podman tag docker.io/library/ubuntu:20.04 <quay-server.example.com>/<user-name>/ubuntu:20.04
  3. Push the image to your Red Hat Quay registry by entering the following command:

    $ sudo podman push --tls-verify=false quay-server.example.com/quayadmin/ubuntu:20.04
  4. Log in to your Red Hat Quay deployment through the UI.
  5. Click the repository name, for example, quayadmin/ubuntu.
  6. In the navigation pane, click Tags.

    Report summary

    Security scan information appears for scanned repository images

  7. Click the image report, for example, 45 medium, to show a more detailed report:

    Report details

    See all vulnerabilities or only those that are fixable