Install Singularity¶
Singularity is a tool that creates docker-like process containers but without giving extra privileges to unprivileged users. It is used by grid pilot jobs (which are submitted by per-VO grid workload management systems) to isolate user jobs from the pilot's files and processes and from other users' files and processes. It also supplies a chroot environment in order to run user jobs in different operating system images under one Linux kernel.
Kernels with a version 3.10.0-957 or newer include a feature called unprivileged user namespaces that allows singularity to run completely unprivileged. This kernel version is the default for RHEL/CentOS/Scientific Linux 7.6 and is available for previous 7.x releases. Although the feature is available, it needs to be enabled to be usable (instructions below) on RHEL 7. The feature is enabled by default on RHEL 8, but not available at all on RHEL 6.
Without unprivileged user namespaces, singularity must be installed and run with setuid-root executables. Singularity keeps the privileged code to a minimum in order to reduce the potential for vulnerabilities.
The OSG has installed singularity in OASIS, so most sites will not need to install singularity locally if they enable it to run unprivileged. An RPM installation can be configured to be unprivileged or privileged.
Kernel vs. Userspace Security
Enabling unprivileged user namespaces increases the risk to the kernel. However, the kernel is much more widely reviewed than singularity and the additional capability given to users is more limited. OSG Security considers the non-setuid, kernel-based method to have a lower security risk.
This document is intended for system administrators that wish to enable, install, and/or configure singularity.
Before Starting¶
As with all OSG software installations, there are some one-time (per host) steps to prepare in advance:
- Ensure the host has a supported operating system
- Obtain root access to the host
- Prepare the required Yum repositories. Note that with OSG 3.5 and later, the singularity RPM comes from the EPEL yum repository. OSG validates that distribution, and detailed instructions are still here. With unprivileged singularity, no yum repository is needed.
In addition, this is highly recommended for image distribution:
- Install CVMFS
Choosing Unprivileged vs Privileged Singularity¶
There are two sets of instructions on this page:
OSG VOs all support running singularity directly from CVMFS when unprivileged singularity is enabled. Unprivileged singularity is enabled by default on RHEL 8, and OSG recommends that system administrators enable it on RHEL 7 worker nodes. When unprivileged singularity is enabled, OSG recommends that sites not install the singularity RPM unless they have non-OSG users that require it. Sites that do install the RPM may choose to configure their RHEL 7 or later RPM installations to run unprivileged. RHEL 6 installations have no option for unprivileged singularity so there the RPM has to be installed and left configured as privileged.
In addition to improved security, unprivileged singularity enables
condor_ssh_to_job
to enter a container namespace without itself
needing privileges.
On the other hand, there are some rare use cases that require singularity to run privileged:
-
Using single-file container images. Some systems, especially High Performance Computing (HPC) systems, deal poorly with collections of small files. In this case, container images stored in a single file (as opposed to an unpacked directory) may be needed.
However, OSG VO container images are usually directory-based in CVMFS, and when possible we recommend disabling this feature on privileged installations in order to avoid potential kernel exploits.
-
The overlay feature. The "overlay" feature of singularity uses the kernel overlayfs module to add bind mounts where mount points don't exist in the underlying image.
However, singularity has an "underlay" feature that is equivalent which does not require privileges, and the overlay feature has been a source of security vulnerabilities in the past. For these reasons, we recommend replacing overlay with underlay even on privileged installations.
overlayfs is also used to make the appearance of writable images when building containers, so it may be needed on some systems for that purpose.
Enabling Unprivileged Singularity¶
The instructions in this section are for enabling singularity to run unprivileged.
-
Enable user namespaces via
sysctl
on EL 7:If the operating system is an EL 7 variant and has been updated to the EL 7.6 kernel or later, enable unprivileged singularity with the following steps. This step is not needed on EL 8 because it is enabled by default.
[email protected] # echo "user.max_user_namespaces = 15000" \ > /etc/sysctl.d/90-max_user_namespaces.conf [email protected] # sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/90-max_user_namespaces.conf
-
(Optional) Disable network namespaces:
[email protected] # echo "user.max_net_namespaces = 0" \ > /etc/sysctl.d/90-max_net_namespaces.conf [email protected] # sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/90-max_net_namespaces.conf
OSG VOs do not need network namespaces with singularity, and disabling them reduces the risk profile of enabling user namespaces.
Network namespaces are, however, utilized by other software, such as Docker. Disabling network namespaces may break other software, or limit its capabilities (such as requiring the
--net=host
option in Docker).Disabling network namespaces blocks the systemd PrivateNetwork feature, which is a feature that is used by some EL 8 services. It is also configured for some EL 7 services but they are all disabled by default. To check them all, look for PrivateNetwork in
/lib/systemd/system/*.service
and see which of those services are enabled but failed to start. The only default such service on EL 8 is systemd-hostnamed, and a popular non-default such service is mlocate-updatedb. The PrivateNetwork feature can be turned off for a service without modifying an RPM-installed file through a<service>.d/*.conf
file, for example for systemd-hostnamed:[email protected] # cd /etc/systemd/system [email protected] # mkdir -p systemd-hostnamed.service.d [email protected] # (echo "[Service]"; echo "PrivateNetwork=no") \ >systemd-hostnamed.service.d/no-private-network.conf [email protected] # systemctl daemon-reload [email protected] # systemctl start systemd-hostnamed [email protected] # systemctl status systemd-hostnamed
-
If docker is being used to run jobs, the following options are recommended to allow unprivileged singularity to run (it does not need
--privileged
or any added capabilities):--security-opt seccomp=unconfined --security-opt systempaths=unconfined
--security-opt seccomp=unconfined
enables unshare to be called (which is needed to create namespaces), and--security-opt systempaths=unconfined
allows /proc to be mounted in an unprivileged process namespace (as done by singularity exec -p).--security-opt systempaths=unconfined
requires Docker 19.03 or later. The options are secure as long as the system administrator controls the images and does not allow user code to run as root, and are generally more secure than adding capabilities. If at this point no setuid programs needs to be run within the container, adding the following option will add security by preventing any privilege escalation (singularity uses the same feature on its containers):--security-opt no-new-privileges
In addition, the following option is recommended for allowing unprivileged fuse mounts on kernels that support that (RHEL >= 7.8):
--device=/dev/fuse
Configuring Unprivileged Singularity¶
When unprivileged singularity is enabled and VOs run singularity from
CVMFS, the singularity configuration file also comes from CVMFS so local
sites have no control over changing the configuration. However, the
most common local configuration change to the singularity RPM is to add
additional local "bind path" options to map extra local file paths into
containers. This can instead be accomplished by setting the
SINGULARITY_BINDPATH
variable in the environment of jobs, for
example through
configuration
on your compute entrypoint.
This is a comma-separated list of paths to bind, following the syntax of the
singularity exec --bind
option.
There are also other environment variables that can affect singularity operation; see the singularity documentation for details.
Validating Unprivileged Singularity¶
If you haven't yet installed CVMFS, please do so. Alternatively, use the cvmfsexec package configured for osg as an unprivileged user and mount the oasis.opensciencegrid.org and singularity.opensciencegrid.org repositories.
As an unprivileged user verify that singularity in OASIS works with this command:
[email protected] $ /cvmfs/oasis.opensciencegrid.org/mis/singularity/bin/singularity \
exec --contain --ipc --pid --bind /cvmfs \
/cvmfs/singularity.opensciencegrid.org/opensciencegrid/osgvo-el6:latest \
ps -ef
UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
user 1 0 2 21:27 ? 00:00:00 shim-init
user 2 1 0 21:27 ? 00:00:00 ps -ef
Singularity via RPM¶
The instructions in this section are for the singularity RPM, which includes setuid-root executables. The setuid-root executables can however be disabled by configuration, details below.
Installing Singularity via RPM¶
To install the singularity RPM, make sure that your host is up to date before installing the required packages:
-
Clean yum cache:
[email protected] # yum clean all --enablerepo=*
-
Update software:
[email protected] # yum update
This command will update all packages
-
Install Singularity
[email protected] # yum install singularity
Configuring Singularity RPM¶
singularity includes an option called underlay
that enables using bind
mount points that do not exist in the container image.
By default it is enabled, but only if the similar overlay
option cannot
be used, such as on RHEL 6 where kernel support for overlayfs is missing
or when running in unprivileged mode. On RHEL 7 and RHEL 8 is recommended to
completely disable overlay
, because it is more vulnerable to security
problems than underlay
.
Set this option in /etc/singularity/singularity.conf
:
enable overlay = no
Warning
If you modify /etc/singularity/singularity.conf
, be careful with
your upgrade procedures.
RPM will not automatically merge your changes with new upstream
configuration keys, which may cause a broken install or inadvertently
change the site configuration. Singularity changes its default
configuration file more frequently than typical OSG software.
Look for singularity.conf.rpmnew
after upgrades and merge in any
changes to the defaults.
Configuring the RPM to be Unprivileged¶
If you choose to run the RPM unprivileged, after
enabling unprivileged singularity,
change the line in /etc/singularity/singularity.conf
that says
allow setuid = yes
to
allow setuid = no
Note that the setuid-root executables stay installed, but they will exit very early if invoked when the configuration file disallows setuid, so the risk is very low. There are non-setuid equivalent executables that are used instead when setuid is disallowed.
Limiting Image Types¶
A side effect of disabling privileged singularity is that loopback mounts are disallowed. If the installation is privileged, also consider the following.
Images based on loopback devices carry an inherently higher exposure to unknown kernel exploits compared to directory-based images distributed via CVMFS. See this article for further discussion.
The loopback-based images are the default image type produced by singularity
users and are common at sites with direct user logins. However (as of April
2019) we are only aware of directory-based images being used by OSG VOs.
Hence, it is reasonable to disable the loopback-based images by setting
the following option in /etc/singularity/singularity.conf
:
max loop devices = 0
While reasonable for some sites, this is not required as there are currently no public kernel exploits for this issue; any exploits are patched by Red Hat when they are discovered.
Validating Singularity RPM¶
After singularity is installed, as an ordinary user run the following command to verify it:
[email protected] $ singularity exec --contain --ipc --pid --bind /cvmfs \
/cvmfs/singularity.opensciencegrid.org/opensciencegrid/osgvo-el6:latest \
ps -ef
WARNING: Container does not have an exec helper script, calling 'ps' directly
UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
user 1 0 1 21:41 ? 00:00:00 shim-init
user 2 1 0 21:41 ? 00:00:00 ps -ef
Starting and Stopping Services¶
singularity has no services to start or stop.