minideb VS graylog-docker

postgres:15-bullseye 2bb008a38e7c 379MB

[1] https://github.com/bitnami/minideb

However, it is sometimes a good idea to benchmark the speed of different images, as sometimes a significant speed loss is possible.

as is stated initially, that goes back to how bitnami is building its Docker images, basing on a set of debian packages (minideb) - there's also a shell library/framework embedded that does useful things, but that makes you read more code when you go check how the sausage is made. That minideb is the basis for the higher CVE count compared to scratch or alpine images.

> it’s a well-kept secret that no one wants to talk about

the maintainer side most casual docker image users aren't aware of I'd rephrase, but bitnami at least documents the issue

https://github.com/bitnami/minideb#security

https://docs.bitnami.com/kubernetes/open-cve-policy/

Ah, yeah it's a little more confusing because it's using the debootstrap tool (https://wiki.debian.org/Debootstrap) to build the container image filesystem. You can see all the gory logic here: https://github.com/bitnami/minideb/blob/master/buildone and https://github.com/bitnami/minideb/blob/master/mkimage It's a bunch of shell scripting that's not really meant to be interpreted by anyone that isn't a debian expert though, so don't feel bad if it looks really confusing. I think the overall thing is that minideb installs the absolute bare minimum system with debootstrap and even strips out a few essential packages like trusted SSL CAs, etc. If you need anything (including those essential packages) you're meant to just install_packages install them--it's all using the same apt sources and packages as debian.

Do you know why this is? Because it's part of the base file system. Here is a line from the build script for minideb (basically the smallest image needed to run a container): https://github.com/bitnami/minideb/blob/e4f37e8a5d271d93b79c3f4caa49c4ceb95d8eec/mkimage#L52

version: '3' services: # MongoDB: https://hub.docker.com/_/mongo/ mongo: image: mongo:5.0.13 networks: - graylog # Elasticsearch: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.10/docker.html elasticsearch: image: docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-oss:7.10.2 environment: - http.host=0.0.0.0 - transport.host=localhost - network.host=0.0.0.0 - "ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Dlog4j2.formatMsgNoLookups=true -Xms512m -Xmx512m" ulimits: memlock: soft: -1 hard: -1 deploy: resources: limits: memory: 1g networks: - graylog # Graylog: https://hub.docker.com/r/graylog/graylog/ graylog: image: graylog/graylog:5.0 environment: # CHANGE ME (must be at least 16 characters)! - GRAYLOG_PASSWORD_SECRET=somepasswordpepper # Password: admin - GRAYLOG_ROOT_PASSWORD_SHA2=8c6976e5b5410415bde908bd4dee15dfb167a9c873fc4bb8a81f6f2ab448a918 - GRAYLOG_HTTP_EXTERNAL_URI=http://127.0.0.1:9000/ entrypoint: /usr/bin/tini -- wait-for-it elasticsearch:9200 -- /docker-entrypoint.sh networks: - graylog restart: always depends_on: - mongo - elasticsearch ports: # Graylog web interface and REST API - 9000:9000 # Syslog TCP - 514:514 # Syslog UDP - 514:514/udp # GELF TCP - 12201:12201 # GELF UDP - 12201:12201/udp networks: graylog: driver: bridge

So I surveyed docker images in my personal use:

Postgres (Docker provided - https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres): Debian (with alternates for alpine or other debian versions)

Jellyfin (Developer provided - https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/blob/master/Dockerfile): They use an alpine build step but the final distributed image is debian

Calibre-Web (Linuxserver provided - https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-calibre-web/blob/maste...): Ubuntu

Graylog (Developer provided - https://github.com/Graylog2/graylog-docker/blob/4.2/docker/o...): Debian

Vaultwarden (Developer provided - https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/blob/main/docker/...): Debian (with alpine alternate available)

For professional use, our company mandates all images used are built off a common base image, which is Ubuntu based (my previous employer was similar, but used a Red Hat based image).

The ROOT_PASSWORD_SHA2 environment variable is only for the web interface. The underlying container is built on an openjdk Debian Bullseye image, as you can see here: https://github.com/Graylog2/graylog-docker/blob/4.2/docker/enterprise/Dockerfile