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stage1-implementors-guide.md

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Stage 1 ACI implementor's guide

Background

rkt's execution of pods is divided roughly into three separate stages:

  1. Stage 0: discovering, fetching, verifying, storing, and compositing of both application (stage 2) and stage 1 images for execution.
  2. Stage 1: execution of the stage 1 image from within the composite image prepared by stage 0.
  3. Stage 2: execution of individual application images within the containment afforded by stage 1.

This separation of concerns is reflected in the file-system and layout of the composite image prepared by stage 0:

  1. Stage 0: rkt executable, and the pod manifest created at /var/lib/rkt/pods/prepare/$uuid/pod.
  2. Stage 1: stage1.aci, made available at /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid/stage1 by rkt run.
  3. Stage 2: $app.aci, made available at /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid/stage1/rootfs/opt/stage2/$appname by rkt run, where $appname is the name of the app in the pod manifest.

The stage 1 implementation is what creates the execution environment for the contained applications. This occurs via entrypoints from stage 0 on behalf of rkt run and rkt enter. These entrypoints are executable programs located via annotations from within the stage 1 ACI manifest, and executed from within the stage 1 of a given pod at /var/lib/rkt/pods/$state/$uuid/stage1/rootfs.

Stage 2 is the deployed application image. Stage 1 is the vehicle for getting there from stage 0. For any given pod instance, stage 1 may be replaced by a completely different implementation. This allows users to employ different containment strategies on the same host running the same interchangeable ACIs.

Entrypoints

rkt run => coreos.com/rkt/stage1/run

  1. rkt prepares the pod's stage 1 and stage 2 images and pod manifest under /var/lib/rkt/pods/prepare/$uuid, acquiring an exclusive advisory lock on the directory. Upon a successful preparation, the directory will be renamed to /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid.
  2. chdirs to /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid.
  3. resolves the coreos.com/rkt/stage1/run entrypoint via annotations found within /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid/stage1/manifest.
  4. executes the resolved entrypoint relative to /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid/stage1/rootfs.

It is the responsibility of this entrypoint to consume the pod manifest and execute the constituent apps in the appropriate environments as specified by the pod manifest.

The environment variable RKT_LOCK_FD contains the file descriptor number of the open directory handle for /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid. It is necessary that stage 1 leave this file descriptor open and in its locked state for the duration of the rkt run.

In the bundled rkt stage 1 which includes systemd-nspawn and systemd, the entrypoint is a static Go program found at /init within the stage 1 ACI rootfs. The majority of its execution entails generating a systemd-nspawn argument list and writing systemd unit files for the constituent apps before executing systemd-nspawn. Systemd-nspawn then boots the stage 1 systemd with the just-written unit files for launching the contained apps. The /init program's primary job is translating a pod manifest to systemd-nspawn systemd.services.

An alternative stage 1 could forego systemd-nspawn and systemd altogether, or retain these and introduce something like novm or qemu-kvm for greater isolation by first starting a VM. All that is required is an executable at the place indicated by the coreos.com/rkt/stage1/run entrypoint that knows how to apply the pod manifest and prepared ACI file-systems to good effect.

The resolved entrypoint must inform rkt of its PID for the benefit of rkt enter. Stage 1 implementors have two options for doing so; only one must be implemented:

  • /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid/pid: the PID of the process that will be given to the "enter" entrypoint.
  • /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid/ppid: the PID of the parent of the process that will be given to the "enter" entrypoint. That parent process must have exactly one child process.

Arguments

  • --debug to activate debugging
  • --net[=$NET1,$NET2,...] to configure the creation of a contained network. See the rkt networking documentation for details.
  • --mds-token=$TOKEN passes the auth token to the apps via AC_METADATA_URL env var
  • --interactive to run a pod interactively, that is, pass standard input to the application (only for pods with one application)
  • --local-config=$PATH to override the local configuration directory
  • --private-users=$SHIFT to define a UID/GID shift when using user namespaces. SHIFT is a two-value colon-separated parameter, the first value is the first host UID to assign to the container and the second one is the number of host UIDs to assign.
Arguments added in interface version 2
  • --hostname=$HOSTNAME configures the host name of the pod. If empty, it will be "rkt-$PODUUID".

rkt enter => coreos.com/rkt/stage1/enter

  1. rkt verifies the pod and image to enter are valid and running
  2. chdirs to /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid
  3. resolves the coreos.com/rkt/stage1/enter entrypoint via annotations found within /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid/stage1/manifest
  4. executes the resolved entrypoint relative to /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid/stage1/rootfs

In the bundled rkt stage 1, the entrypoint is a statically-linked C program found at /enter within the stage 1 ACI rootfs. This program enters the namespaces of the systemd-nspawn container's PID 1 before executing the /enterexec program. enterexec then chroots into the ACI's rootfs, loading the application and its environment.

An alternative stage 1 would need to do whatever is appropriate for entering the application environment created by its own coreos.com/rkt/stage1/run entrypoint.

Arguments

  1. --pid=$PID passes the PID of the process that is PID 1 in the container. rkt finds that PID by one of the two supported methods described in the rkt run section.
  2. --appname=$NAME passes the app name of the specific application to enter.
  3. the separator --
  4. cmd to execute.
  5. optionally, any cmd arguments.

rkt gc => coreos.com/rkt/stage1/gc

The gc entrypoint deals with garbage collecting resources allocated by stage 1. For example, it removes the network namespace of a pod.

Arguments

  • --debug to activate debugging
  • UUID of the pod

Versioning

The stage1 command line interface is versioned using an annotation with the name coreos.com/rkt/stage1/interface-version. If the annotation is not present, rkt assumes the version is 1.

The current version of the stage1 interface is 2.

Examples

Stage 1 ACI manifest

{
    "acKind": "ImageManifest",
    "acVersion": "0.7.4",
    "name": "foo.com/rkt/stage1",
    "labels": [
        {
            "name": "version",
            "value": "0.0.1"
        },
        {
            "name": "arch",
            "value": "amd64"
        },
        {
            "name": "os",
            "value": "linux"
        }
    ],
    "annotations": [
        {
            "name": "coreos.com/rkt/stage1/run",
            "value": "/ex/run"
        },
        {
            "name": "coreos.com/rkt/stage1/enter",
            "value": "/ex/enter"
        },
        {
            "name": "coreos.com/rkt/stage1/gc",
            "value": "/ex/gc"
        },
        {
            "name": "coreos.com/rkt/stage1/interface-version",
            "value": "2"
        }
    ]
}

Filesystem Layout Assumptions

The following paths are reserved for the stage 1 image, and they will be created during stage0. When creating a stage 1 image, developers SHOULD NOT create or use these paths in the image's filesystem.

opt/stage2

This directory path is used for extracting the ACI of every app in the pod. Each app's rootfs will appear under this directory, e.g. /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid/stage1/rootfs/opt/stage2/$appname/rootfs.

rkt/status

This directory path is used for storing the apps' exit statuses. For example, if an app named foo exits with status = 42, stage 1 should write 42 in /var/lib/rkt/pods/run/$uuid/stage1/rootfs/rkt/status/foo. Later the exit status can be retrieved and shown by rkt status $uuid.

rkt/env

This directory path is used for passing environment variables to each app. For example, environment variables for an app named foo will be stored in rkt/env/foo.