tigera operator
FIPS 140-3NetworkingKubernetes operator for managing Calico and Calico Enterprise installations.
Kubernetes operator for managing Calico and Calico Enterprise installations.
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 images from the DHI catalog. If you've mirrored the repository for your own use (for example, to your Docker Hub namespace), update your commands to reference the mirrored images instead of the public ones.
For example:
registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/<repository>:<tag><your-namespace>/dhi-<repository>:<tag>For more details about customizing to reference other images, see the documentation.
The Tigera Operator is typically installed using the official Calico Helm chart. You can override the operator image to use the Ghost hardened image.
First, add the Calico Helm repository:
helm repo add projectcalico https://docs.tigera.io/calico/charts
Then create a values.yaml file to customize the installation:
tigeraOperator:
registry: registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io
image: tigera-operator
# Due to a bug in the Helm chart, purely numeric tags (such as `"1.36"`) will fail even when properly quoted.
# Use a tag that includes non-numeric characters, such as `1.36-debian13`.
version: <tag>
installation:
imagePullSecrets:
- name: dhi-pull-secret
# Optional: Specify your Kubernetes provider for optimized settings
kubernetesProvider: "" # Valid options: EKS, GKE, AKS, RKE2, OpenShift, DockerEnterprise, TKG
Replace dhi-pull-secret with the name of the image pull secret you created earlier.
Now install the operator. The version of the Helm chart should match the version of Calico you want to install. Check
the Calico version that the operator will install by running docker run -it --rm dhi/tigera-operator:X.YY --version.
kubectl create namespace tigera-operator
helm install calico projectcalico/tigera-operator \
--version vX.YY.Z \
--namespace tigera-operator \
-f values.yaml
The Tigera Operator will deploy resources in the calico-system namespace. Watch the pods to verify successful
deployment:
watch kubectl get pods -n calico-system
All pods should reach the Running status:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
calico-kube-controllers-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx 1/1 Running 0 2m
calico-node-xxxxx 1/1 Running 0 2m
calico-typha-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx 1/1 Running 0 2m
You can also verify the operator itself is running:
kubectl get pods -n tigera-operator
To check the Installation custom resource status:
kubectl get installation default -o yaml
Look for status.conditions to confirm the installation is progressing or complete.
Ghost 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. To avoid issues, configure your application to listen on port 1025 or higher inside the container. |
| 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 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.