Protect the Docker daemon socket
By default, Docker runs through a non-networked UNIX socket. It can also optionally communicate using SSH or a TLS (HTTPS) socket.
Use SSH to protect the Docker daemon socket
Note
The given
USERNAME
must have permissions to access the docker socket on the remote machine. Refer to manage Docker as a non-root user to learn how to give a non-root user access to the docker socket.
The following example creates a
docker context
to connect with a remote dockerd
daemon on host1.example.com
using SSH, and
as the docker-user
user on the remote machine:
$ docker context create \
--docker host=ssh://docker-user@host1.example.com \
--description="Remote engine" \
my-remote-engine
my-remote-engine
Successfully created context "my-remote-engine"
After creating the context, use docker context use
to switch the docker
CLI
to use it, and to connect to the remote engine:
$ docker context use my-remote-engine
my-remote-engine
Current context is now "my-remote-engine"
$ docker info
<prints output of the remote engine>
Use the default
context to switch back to the default (local) daemon:
$ docker context use default
default
Current context is now "default"
Alternatively, use the DOCKER_HOST
environment variable to temporarily switch
the docker
CLI to connect to the remote host using SSH. This does not require
creating a context, and can be useful to create an ad-hoc connection with a different
engine:
$ export DOCKER_HOST=ssh://docker-user@host1.example.com
$ docker info
<prints output of the remote engine>
SSH Tips
For the best user experience with SSH, configure ~/.ssh/config
as follows to allow
reusing a SSH connection for multiple invocations of the docker
CLI:
ControlMaster auto
ControlPath ~/.ssh/control-%C
ControlPersist yes
Use TLS (HTTPS) to protect the Docker daemon socket
If you need Docker to be reachable through HTTP rather than SSH in a safe manner,
you can enable TLS (HTTPS) by specifying the tlsverify
flag and pointing Docker's
tlscacert
flag to a trusted CA certificate.
In the daemon mode, it only allows connections from clients authenticated by a certificate signed by that CA. In the client mode, it only connects to servers with a certificate signed by that CA.
Important
Using TLS and managing a CA is an advanced topic. Familiarize yourself with OpenSSL, x509, and TLS before using it in production.
Create a CA, server and client keys with OpenSSL
Note
Replace all instances of
$HOST
in the following example with the DNS name of your Docker daemon's host.
First, on the Docker daemon's host machine, generate CA private and public keys:
$ openssl genrsa -aes256 -out ca-key.pem 4096
Generating RSA private key, 4096 bit long modulus
..............................................................................++
........++
e is 65537 (0x10001)
Enter pass phrase for ca-key.pem:
Verifying - Enter pass phrase for ca-key.pem:
$ openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -key ca-key.pem -sha256 -out ca.pem
Enter pass phrase for ca-key.pem:
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Queensland
Locality Name (eg, city) []:Brisbane
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:Docker Inc
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Sales
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:$HOST
Email Address []:Sven@home.org.au
Now that you have a CA, you can create a server key and certificate signing request (CSR). Make sure that "Common Name" matches the hostname you use to connect to Docker:
Note
Replace all instances of
$HOST
in the following example with the DNS name of your Docker daemon's host.
$ openssl genrsa -out server-key.pem 4096
Generating RSA private key, 4096 bit long modulus
.....................................................................++
.................................................................................................++
e is 65537 (0x10001)
$ openssl req -subj "/CN=$HOST" -sha256 -new -key server-key.pem -out server.csr
Next, we're going to sign the public key with our CA:
Since TLS connections can be made through IP address as well as DNS name, the IP addresses
need to be specified when creating the certificate. For example, to allow connections
using 10.10.10.20
and 127.0.0.1
:
$ echo subjectAltName = DNS:$HOST,IP:10.10.10.20,IP:127.0.0.1 >> extfile.cnf
Set the Docker daemon key's extended usage attributes to be used only for server authentication:
$ echo extendedKeyUsage = serverAuth >> extfile.cnf
Now, generate the signed certificate:
$ openssl x509 -req -days 365 -sha256 -in server.csr -CA ca.pem -CAkey ca-key.pem \
-CAcreateserial -out server-cert.pem -extfile extfile.cnf
Signature ok
subject=/CN=your.host.com
Getting CA Private Key
Enter pass phrase for ca-key.pem:
Authorization plugins offer more fine-grained control to supplement authentication from mutual TLS. In addition to other information described in the above document, authorization plugins running on a Docker daemon receive the certificate information for connecting Docker clients.
For client authentication, create a client key and certificate signing request:
Note
For simplicity of the next couple of steps, you may perform this step on the Docker daemon's host machine as well.
$ openssl genrsa -out key.pem 4096
Generating RSA private key, 4096 bit long modulus
.........................................................++
................++
e is 65537 (0x10001)
$ openssl req -subj '/CN=client' -new -key key.pem -out client.csr
To make the key suitable for client authentication, create a new extensions config file:
$ echo extendedKeyUsage = clientAuth > extfile-client.cnf
Now, generate the signed certificate:
$ openssl x509 -req -days 365 -sha256 -in client.csr -CA ca.pem -CAkey ca-key.pem \
-CAcreateserial -out cert.pem -extfile extfile-client.cnf
Signature ok
subject=/CN=client
Getting CA Private Key
Enter pass phrase for ca-key.pem:
After generating cert.pem
and server-cert.pem
you can safely remove the
two certificate signing requests and extensions config files:
$ rm -v client.csr server.csr extfile.cnf extfile-client.cnf
With a default umask
of 022, your secret keys are world-readable and
writable for you and your group.
To protect your keys from accidental damage, remove their write permissions. To make them only readable by you, change file modes as follows:
$ chmod -v 0400 ca-key.pem key.pem server-key.pem
Certificates can be world-readable, but you might want to remove write access to prevent accidental damage:
$ chmod -v 0444 ca.pem server-cert.pem cert.pem
Now you can make the Docker daemon only accept connections from clients providing a certificate trusted by your CA:
$ dockerd \
--tlsverify \
--tlscacert=ca.pem \
--tlscert=server-cert.pem \
--tlskey=server-key.pem \
-H=0.0.0.0:2376
To connect to Docker and validate its certificate, provide your client keys, certificates and trusted CA:
Tip
This step should be run on your Docker client machine. As such, you need to copy your CA certificate, your server certificate, and your client certificate to that machine.
Note
Replace all instances of
$HOST
in the following example with the DNS name of your Docker daemon's host.
$ docker --tlsverify \
--tlscacert=ca.pem \
--tlscert=cert.pem \
--tlskey=key.pem \
-H=$HOST:2376 version
Note
Docker over TLS should run on TCP port 2376.
Warning
As shown in the example above, you don't need to run the
docker
client withsudo
or thedocker
group when you use certificate authentication. That means anyone with the keys can give any instructions to your Docker daemon, giving them root access to the machine hosting the daemon. Guard these keys as you would a root password!
Secure by default
If you want to secure your Docker client connections by default, you can move
the files to the .docker
directory in your home directory --- and set the
DOCKER_HOST
and DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY
variables as well (instead of passing
-H=tcp://$HOST:2376
and --tlsverify
on every call).
$ mkdir -pv ~/.docker
$ cp -v {ca,cert,key}.pem ~/.docker
$ export DOCKER_HOST=tcp://$HOST:2376 DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY=1
Docker now connects securely by default:
$ docker ps
Other modes
If you don't want to have complete two-way authentication, you can run Docker in various other modes by mixing the flags.
Daemon modes
tlsverify
,tlscacert
,tlscert
,tlskey
set: Authenticate clientstls
,tlscert
,tlskey
: Do not authenticate clients
Client modes
tls
: Authenticate server based on public/default CA pooltlsverify
,tlscacert
: Authenticate server based on given CAtls
,tlscert
,tlskey
: Authenticate with client certificate, do not authenticate server based on given CAtlsverify
,tlscacert
,tlscert
,tlskey
: Authenticate with client certificate and authenticate server based on given CA
If found, the client sends its client certificate, so you just need
to drop your keys into ~/.docker/{ca,cert,key}.pem
. Alternatively,
if you want to store your keys in another location, you can specify that
location using the environment variable DOCKER_CERT_PATH
.
$ export DOCKER_CERT_PATH=~/.docker/zone1/
$ docker --tlsverify ps
Connecting to the secure Docker port using curl
To use curl
to make test API requests, you need to use three extra command line
flags:
$ curl https://$HOST:2376/images/json \
--cert ~/.docker/cert.pem \
--key ~/.docker/key.pem \
--cacert ~/.docker/ca.pem