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Builds and Image Streams

Builds

A build is the process of transforming input parameters into a resulting object. Most often, the process is used to transform input parameters or source code into a runnable image. A BuildConfig object is the definition of the entire build process.

OpenShift Container Platform leverages Kubernetes by creating Docker-formatted containers from build images and pushing them to a container registry.

Build objects share common characteristics: inputs for a build, the need to complete a build process, logging the build process, publishing resources from successful builds, and publishing the final status of the build. Builds take advantage of resource restrictions, specifying limitations on resources such as CPU usage, memory usage, and build or pod execution time.

The OpenShift Container Platform build system provides extensible support for build strategies that are based on selectable types specified in the build API. There are three primary build strategies available:

By default, Docker builds and S2I builds are supported.

The resulting object of a build depends on the builder used to create it. For Docker and S2I builds, the resulting objects are runnable images. For Custom builds, the resulting objects are whatever the builder image author has specified.

Additionally, the Pipeline build strategy can be used to implement sophisticated workflows:

  • continuous integration

  • continuous deployment

For a list of build commands, see the Developer’s Guide.

For more information on how OpenShift Container Platform leverages Docker for builds, see the upstream documentation.

Docker Build

The Docker build strategy invokes the docker build command, and it therefore expects a repository with a Dockerfile and all required artifacts in it to produce a runnable image.

Source-to-Image (S2I) Build

Source-to-Image (S2I) is a tool for building reproducible, Docker-formatted container images. It produces ready-to-run images by injecting application source into a container image and assembling a new image. The new image incorporates the base image (the builder) and built source and is ready to use with the docker run command. S2I supports incremental builds, which re-use previously downloaded dependencies, previously built artifacts, etc.

The advantages of S2I include the following:

Image flexibility

S2I scripts can be written to inject application code into almost any existing Docker-formatted container image, taking advantage of the existing ecosystem. Note that, currently, S2I relies on tar to inject application source, so the image needs to be able to process tarred content.
Speed

With S2I, the assemble process can perform a large number of complex operations without creating a new layer at each step, resulting in a fast process. In addition, S2I scripts can be written to re-use artifacts stored in a previous version of the application image, rather than having to download or build them each time the build is run.
Patchability

S2I allows you to rebuild the application consistently if an underlying image needs a patch due to a security issue.
Operational efficiency

By restricting build operations instead of allowing arbitrary actions, as a Dockerfile would allow, the PaaS operator can avoid accidental or intentional abuses of the build system.
Operational security

Building an arbitrary Dockerfile exposes the host system to root privilege escalation. This can be exploited by a malicious user because the entire Docker build process is run as a user with Docker privileges. S2I restricts the operations performed as a root user and can run the scripts as a non-root user.
User efficiency

S2I prevents developers from performing arbitrary yum install type operations, which could slow down development iteration, during their application build.
Ecosystem

S2I encourages a shared ecosystem of images where you can leverage best practices for your applications.
Reproducibility

Produced images can include all inputs including specific versions of build tools and dependencies. This ensures that the image can be reproduced precisely.

Custom Build

The Custom build strategy allows developers to define a specific builder image responsible for the entire build process. Using your own builder image allows you to customize your build process.

A Custom builder image is a plain Docker-formatted container image embedded with build process logic, for example for building RPMs or base images. The openshift/origin-custom-docker-builder image is available on the Docker Hub registry as an example implementation of a Custom builder image.

Pipeline Build

The Pipeline build strategy allows developers to define a Jenkins pipeline for execution by the Jenkins pipeline plugin. The build can be started, monitored, and managed by OpenShift Container Platform in the same way as any other build type.

Pipeline workflows are defined in a Jenkinsfile, either embedded directly in the build configuration, or supplied in a Git repository and referenced by the build configuration.

The first time a project defines a build configuration using a Pipeline strategy, OpenShift Container Platform instantiates a Jenkins server to execute the pipeline. Subsequent Pipeline build configurations in the project share this Jenkins server.

The Jenkins server is not automatically removed, even if all Pipeline build configurations are deleted, and must be deleted by the user.

For more information about Jenkins Pipelines, please see the Jenkins documentation.

Image Streams

An image stream comprises any number of Docker-formatted container images identified by tags. It presents a single virtual view of related images, similar to an image repository, and may contain images from any of the following:

  1. Its own image repository in OpenShift Container Platform’s integrated registry

  2. Other image streams

  3. Image repositories from external registries

Image streams can be used to automatically perform an action when new images are created. Builds and deployments can watch an image stream to receive notifications when new images are added and react by performing a build or deployment, respectively.

For example, if a deployment is using a certain image and a new version of that image is created, a deployment could be automatically performed.

See the Developer Guide for details on managing images and image streams.
Example 1. Image Stream Object Definition
apiVersion: v1
kind: ImageStream
metadata:
  annotations:
    openshift.io/generated-by: OpenShiftNewApp
  creationTimestamp: 2016-01-29T13:33:49Z
  generation: 1
  labels:
    app: ruby-sample-build
    template: application-template-stibuild
  name: origin-ruby-sample
  namespace: test
  resourceVersion: "633"
  selflink: /oapi/v1/namespaces/test/imagestreams/origin-ruby-sample
  uid: ee2b9405-c68c-11e5-8a99-525400f25e34
spec: {}
status:
  dockerImageRepository: 172.30.56.218:5000/test/origin-ruby-sample
  tags:
  - items:
    - created: 2016-01-29T13:40:11Z
      dockerImageReference: 172.30.56.218:5000/test/origin-ruby-sample@sha256:47463d94eb5c049b2d23b03a9530bf944f8f967a0fe79147dd6b9135bf7dd13d
      generation: 1
      image: sha256:47463d94eb5c049b2d23b03a9530bf944f8f967a0fe79147dd6b9135bf7dd13d
    tag: latest

Image Stream Mappings

When the integrated registry receives a new image, it creates and sends an ImageStreamMapping to OpenShift Container Platform, providing the image’s namespace (i.e., its project), name, tag, and image metadata.

This information is used to create a new image (if it does not already exist) and to tag the image into the image stream. OpenShift Container Platform stores complete metadata about each image, such as commands, entrypoint, and environment variables. Images in OpenShift Container Platform are immutable and the maximum name length is 63 characters.

See the Developer Guide for details on manually tagging images.

The following ImageStreamMapping example results in an image being tagged as test/origin-ruby-sample:latest:

Example 2. Image Stream Mapping Object Definition
apiVersion: v1
kind: ImageStreamMapping
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: origin-ruby-sample
  namespace: test
tag: latest
image:
  dockerImageLayers:
  - name: sha256:5f70bf18a086007016e948b04aed3b82103a36bea41755b6cddfaf10ace3c6ef
    size: 0
  - name: sha256:ee1dd2cb6df21971f4af6de0f1d7782b81fb63156801cfde2bb47b4247c23c29
    size: 196634330
  - name: sha256:5f70bf18a086007016e948b04aed3b82103a36bea41755b6cddfaf10ace3c6ef
    size: 0
  - name: sha256:5f70bf18a086007016e948b04aed3b82103a36bea41755b6cddfaf10ace3c6ef
    size: 0
  - name: sha256:ca062656bff07f18bff46be00f40cfbb069687ec124ac0aa038fd676cfaea092
    size: 177723024
  - name: sha256:63d529c59c92843c395befd065de516ee9ed4995549f8218eac6ff088bfa6b6e
    size: 55679776
  - name: sha256:92114219a04977b5563d7dff71ec4caa3a37a15b266ce42ee8f43dba9798c966
    size: 11939149
  dockerImageMetadata:
    Architecture: amd64
    Config:
      Cmd:
      - /usr/libexec/s2i/run
      Entrypoint:
      - container-entrypoint
      Env:
      - RACK_ENV=production
      - OPENSHIFT_BUILD_NAMESPACE=test
      - OPENSHIFT_BUILD_SOURCE=https://github.com/openshift/ruby-hello-world.git
      - EXAMPLE=sample-app
      - OPENSHIFT_BUILD_NAME=ruby-sample-build-1
      - PATH=/opt/app-root/src/bin:/opt/app-root/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
      - STI_SCRIPTS_URL=image:///usr/libexec/s2i
      - STI_SCRIPTS_PATH=/usr/libexec/s2i
      - HOME=/opt/app-root/src
      - BASH_ENV=/opt/app-root/etc/scl_enable
      - ENV=/opt/app-root/etc/scl_enable
      - PROMPT_COMMAND=. /opt/app-root/etc/scl_enable
      - RUBY_VERSION=2.2
      ExposedPorts:
        8080/tcp: {}
      Labels:
        build-date: 2015-12-23
        io.k8s.description: Platform for building and running Ruby 2.2 applications
        io.k8s.display-name: 172.30.56.218:5000/test/origin-ruby-sample:latest
        io.openshift.build.commit.author: Ben Parees <bparees@users.noreply.github.com>
        io.openshift.build.commit.date: Wed Jan 20 10:14:27 2016 -0500
        io.openshift.build.commit.id: 00cadc392d39d5ef9117cbc8a31db0889eedd442
        io.openshift.build.commit.message: 'Merge pull request #51 from php-coder/fix_url_and_sti'
        io.openshift.build.commit.ref: master
        io.openshift.build.image: centos/ruby-22-centos7@sha256:3a335d7d8a452970c5b4054ad7118ff134b3a6b50a2bb6d0c07c746e8986b28e
        io.openshift.build.source-location: https://github.com/openshift/ruby-hello-world.git
        io.openshift.builder-base-version: 8d95148
        io.openshift.builder-version: 8847438ba06307f86ac877465eadc835201241df
        io.openshift.s2i.scripts-url: image:///usr/libexec/s2i
        io.openshift.tags: builder,ruby,ruby22
        io.s2i.scripts-url: image:///usr/libexec/s2i
        license: GPLv2
        name: CentOS Base Image
        vendor: CentOS
      User: "1001"
      WorkingDir: /opt/app-root/src
    Container: 86e9a4a3c760271671ab913616c51c9f3cea846ca524bf07c04a6f6c9e103a76
    ContainerConfig:
      AttachStdout: true
      Cmd:
      - /bin/sh
      - -c
      - tar -C /tmp -xf - && /usr/libexec/s2i/assemble
      Entrypoint:
      - container-entrypoint
      Env:
      - RACK_ENV=production
      - OPENSHIFT_BUILD_NAME=ruby-sample-build-1
      - OPENSHIFT_BUILD_NAMESPACE=test
      - OPENSHIFT_BUILD_SOURCE=https://github.com/openshift/ruby-hello-world.git
      - EXAMPLE=sample-app
      - PATH=/opt/app-root/src/bin:/opt/app-root/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
      - STI_SCRIPTS_URL=image:///usr/libexec/s2i
      - STI_SCRIPTS_PATH=/usr/libexec/s2i
      - HOME=/opt/app-root/src
      - BASH_ENV=/opt/app-root/etc/scl_enable
      - ENV=/opt/app-root/etc/scl_enable
      - PROMPT_COMMAND=. /opt/app-root/etc/scl_enable
      - RUBY_VERSION=2.2
      ExposedPorts:
        8080/tcp: {}
      Hostname: ruby-sample-build-1-build
      Image: centos/ruby-22-centos7@sha256:3a335d7d8a452970c5b4054ad7118ff134b3a6b50a2bb6d0c07c746e8986b28e
      OpenStdin: true
      StdinOnce: true
      User: "1001"
      WorkingDir: /opt/app-root/src
    Created: 2016-01-29T13:40:00Z
    DockerVersion: 1.8.2.fc21
    Id: 9d7fd5e2d15495802028c569d544329f4286dcd1c9c085ff5699218dbaa69b43
    Parent: 57b08d979c86f4500dc8cad639c9518744c8dd39447c055a3517dc9c18d6fccd
    Size: 441976279
    apiVersion: "1.0"
    kind: DockerImage
  dockerImageMetadataVersion: "1.0"
  dockerImageReference: 172.30.56.218:5000/test/origin-ruby-sample@sha256:47463d94eb5c049b2d23b03a9530bf944f8f967a0fe79147dd6b9135bf7dd13d