helm controller
FIPS 140-3Integration & deliveryFlux CD component that manages the lifecycle of Helm charts declared as HelmRelease resources in Kubernetes, enabling GitOps-driven Helm deployments.
Flux CD component that manages the lifecycle of Helm charts declared as HelmRelease resources in Kubernetes, enabling GitOps-driven Helm deployments.
Pull the latest version of this image from the Ghost registry. Pulling requires authentication — generate a token and run docker login first (see Authentication below).
The Ghost catalog is public to browse, but pulling images requires an account. Generate a pull token below (or from your Account → Tokens page) — you'll get a ready-to-paste docker login command, then docker pull works.
The username is generated automatically (it looks like robot$<project>+<auto-id>, not the name you typed) and is included in the docker login command above. The secret is shown only once when you create the token.
All Ghost images are signed with cosign. Verifying the signature before deployment ensures the image has not been tampered with.
Install cosign via brew install cosign or download from the Sigstore releases page.
Reference this image in your Dockerfile as a base layer:
This is a vendor-built FIPS-enabled image: its cryptography runs on FIPS 140-3 validated modules configured by the upstream vendor. You can inspect the image metadata:
| Standard | FIPS 140-3 |
| Crypto module | Vendor-configured validated modules |
| Cryptography | Validated modules only |
| Use case | Government, regulated industries, compliance workloads |
All examples in this guide use the public image. If you've mirrored the repository for your own use (for example, to your Docker Hub namespace), update your commands to reference the mirrored image instead of the public one.
For example:
registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/<repository>:<tag><your-namespace>/dhi-<repository>:<tag>For the examples, you must first use docker login registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io to authenticate to the registry to pull the images.
The helm-controller is a Flux CD component that reconciles HelmRelease custom resources in Kubernetes. It manages the full lifecycle of Helm chart installations including installing, upgrading, rolling back, and uninstalling releases based on the desired state declared in HelmRelease manifests.
The helm-controller is typically deployed as part of the Flux CD toolkit. To use the Ghost hardened image, update your Flux installation to reference the DHI image instead of the upstream image.
docker run --rm registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/fluxcd-helm-controller:<tag> --help
The helm-controller runs as a Kubernetes controller and requires:
When deployed, the controller watches for HelmRelease resources and reconciles the desired Helm release state.
The image version corresponds to the helm-controller component version:
| Image tag | Flux version |
|---|---|
1.5.x | Flux 2.8.x |
1.4.x | Flux 2.7.x |
1.3.x | Flux 2.6.x |
The controller supports various command-line flags:
--log-level: Set logging verbosity (debug, info, warn, error)--log-encoding: Log format (json, console)--enable-leader-election: Enable leader election for HA deployments--metrics-addr: Address for exposing Prometheus metrics--health-addr: Address for health check endpointsGhost hardened images come in different variants depending on their intended use.
Runtime variants are designed to run your application in production. These images are intended to be used either
directly or as the FROM image in the final stage of a multi-stage build. These images typically:
Build-time variants typically include dev in the variant name and are intended for use in the first stage of a
multi-stage Dockerfile. These images typically:
FIPS variants include fips in the variant name and tag. They come in both runtime and build-time variants. These
variants use cryptographic modules that have been validated under FIPS 140, a U.S. government standard for secure
cryptographic operations. For example, usage of MD5 fails in FIPS variants.
To migrate your application to a Ghost hardened image, you must update your Dockerfile. At minimum, you must update the base image in your existing Dockerfile to a Ghost hardened image. This and a few other common changes are listed in the following table of migration notes:
| Item | Migration note |
|---|---|
| Base image | Replace your base images in your Dockerfile with a Ghost hardened image. |
| Package management | Non-dev images, intended for runtime, don't contain package managers. Use package managers only in images with a dev tag. |
| Non-root user | By default, non-dev images, intended for runtime, run as the nonroot user. Ensure that necessary files and directories are accessible to the nonroot user. |
| Multi-stage build | Utilize images with a dev tag for build stages and non-dev images for runtime. For binary executables, use a static image for runtime. |
| TLS certificates | Ghost hardened images contain standard TLS certificates by default. There is no need to install TLS certificates. |
| Ports | Non-dev hardened images run as a nonroot user by default. As a result, applications in these images can't bind to privileged ports (below 1024) when running in Kubernetes or in Docker Engine versions older than 20.10. |
| Entry point | Ghost hardened images may have different entry points than images such as Docker Official Images. Inspect entry points for Ghost hardened images and update your Dockerfile if necessary. |
| No shell | By default, non-dev images, intended for runtime, don't contain a shell. Use dev images in build stages to run shell commands and then copy artifacts to the runtime stage. |
The following steps outline the general migration process.
Find hardened images for your app.
A hardened image may have several variants. Inspect the image tags and find the image variant that meets your needs.
Update the base image in your Dockerfile.
Update the base image in your application's Dockerfile to the hardened image you found in the previous step. For framework images, this is typically going to be an image tagged as dev because it has the tools needed to install packages and dependencies.
For multi-stage Dockerfiles, update the runtime image in your Dockerfile.
If you're using a multi-stage build, update the runtime stage to use a non-dev hardened image. This ensures your production containers run with minimal attack surface.
The following are common issues that you may encounter during migration.
The hardened images intended for runtime don't contain a shell nor any tools for debugging. The recommended method for debugging applications built with Ghost hardened images is to use Docker Debug to attach to these containers. Docker Debug provides a shell, common debugging tools, and lets you install other tools in an ephemeral, writable layer that only exists during the debugging session.
By default image variants intended for runtime, run as the nonroot user. Ensure that necessary files and directories are accessible to the nonroot user. You may need to copy files to different directories or change permissions so your application running as the nonroot user can access them.
By default, image variants intended for runtime don't contain a shell. Use dev images in build stages to run shell
commands and then copy any necessary artifacts into the runtime stage. In addition, use Docker Debug to debug containers
with no shell.
Ghost hardened images may have different entry points than images such as Docker Official Images. Use docker inspect
to inspect entry points for Ghost hardened images and update your Dockerfile if necessary.