Creating a sibling process to a container using containerd

Question

I have a Kubernetes cluster (Docker and containerd) where I deployed the Weave CNI plugin.

When inspecting the master node processes (ps -aef --forest) I can see that the containerd-shim process that runs the weave plugin has 3 processes in it's tree:

31175  16241 \_ containerd-shim -namespace moby -workdir /var/lib/containerd/io.containerd.runtime.v1.linux/moby/836489.. -address /run/containerd/contai
31199  31175 |   \_ /bin/sh /home/weave/launch.sh
31424  31199 |   |   \_ /home/weave/weaver --port=6783 --datapath=datapath --name=36:e4:33:8
31656  31175 |   \_ /home/weave/kube-utils -run-reclaim-daemon -node-name=ubuntu -peer-name=36:e4

What I fail to understand is how the kube-utils process (pid 31656), which is issued from the launch.sh script process (pid 31199) is a sibling process of it and not a child process?

I have tried to create a similar environment to emulate this scenario, by creating a docker image from the following:

FROM ubuntu:18.04
ADD ./launch.sh /home/temp/
ENTRYPOINT ["/home/temp/launch.sh"]

Where launch.sh in my case is similar in the idea to that of weave:

#!/bin/sh

start() {
    sleep 2000&
}

start &

sleep 4000

After deploying this to the cluster I get the following process tree:

114944  16241 \_ containerd-shim -namespace moby -workdir /var/lib/containerd/io.containerd.runtime.v1.linux/moby/d9a6904 -address /run/containerd/contai
114972 114944     \_ /bin/sh /home/temp/launch.sh
115002 114972         \_ sleep 4000
115003 114972         \_ sleep 2000

And you can see that both processes are children of the main container process and not a sibling.

According to the weave scenario above, I would expect that the sleep 2000 process would be a sibling to the launch.sh process and not a child.

Any idea how to explain the weave situation above? how can I reproduce this locally? or in what scenario is a sibling process created to the container process?

Thank you all.

Answer 1

According to the weave scenario above, I would expect that the sleep 2000 process would be a sibling to the launch.sh process and not a child.

I reproduced the setup you were having and encountered similar situation (one of the sleep command was not a sibling to launch.sh). To achieve that you will need following parameters in your Deployment or Pod YAML:

• hostPid

• securityContext: 
    privileged: true
  

You can read more about hostPid here:

• Medium.com: Limiting pod privileges
• Stackoverflow.com: Questions: What do hostpid and hostipc options mean in a kubernetes pod

You can read more about securityContext here:

• Kubernetes.io: Configure pod container: Security context

---

It's working with Weave as it's having parameters mentioned above. You can look them up here:

• Github.com: Weaveworks: weave-daemonset-k8s-1.11.yaml :
  • line 141
  • line 172
  • line 180

Also this processes are running by:

• Github.com: Weaveworks: weave-kube: launch.sh: Line 186

---

Example

This is an example to show how you can have a setup where the sleep command will be a sibling to launch.sh.

The process can differ:

• using ConfigMap with a script as an entrypoint
• building an image with all the files included

launch.sh file:

#!/bin/bash
start() {
    sleep 10030 &
}
start &
( sleep 10040 &)
sleep 10050 &
/bin/sh -c 'sleep 10060'

Using ConfigMap with a script as an entrypoint

You can use above script to create a configMap which will be used to run a pod:

• $ kubectl create cm --from-file=launch.sh

Pod YAML definition:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  labels:
    run: bashtest
  name: bashtest
spec:
  containers:
  - image: ubuntu
    name: bashtest
    command: ["/mnt/launch.sh"]
    resources: {}
    securityContext:
       privileged: true
    volumeMounts:
    - mountPath: /mnt/launch.sh
      name: ep
      subPath: launch.sh
  dnsPolicy: ClusterFirst
  restartPolicy: Always
  hostPID: true
  volumes:
    - name: ep
      configMap:
        defaultMode: 0750
        items:
        - key: launch.sh
          path: launch.sh
        name: entrypoint

Building an image with all the files included

You can also build an image. Please remember that this image is only for example purposes.

Dockerfile:

FROM ubuntu:18.04
ADD ./launch.sh /
RUN chmod 777 ./launch.sh
ENTRYPOINT ["/launch.sh"]

Pod YAML definition:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: process
  labels:
    app: ubuntu
spec:
  containers:
  - image: gcr.io/dkruk-test-00/bashtest
    imagePullPolicy: Always
    name: ubuntu
    securityContext:
       privileged: true
  hostPID: true
  restartPolicy: Always

---

After applying the manifest for this resources (either with built image or with a ConfigMap), you should be able to run (on a node that is running this Pod):

• $ ps -aef --forest

and see the output similar to this (only part):

root     2297272     290  0 09:44 ?        00:00:00  \_ containerd-shim -namespace moby -workdir /var/lib/containerd/io.containerd.runtime.v1.linux/moby/5c802039033683464d5a586
root     2297289 2297272  0 09:44 ?        00:00:00      \_ /bin/bash /launch.sh
root     2297306 2297289  0 09:44 ?        00:00:00      |   \_ sleep 10050
root     2297307 2297289  0 09:44 ?        00:00:00      |   \_ /bin/sh -c sleep 10060
root     2297310 2297307  0 09:44 ?        00:00:00      |       \_ sleep 10060
root     2297305 2297272  0 09:44 ?        00:00:00      \_ sleep 10040
root     2297308 2297272  0 09:44 ?        00:00:00      \_ sleep 10030