alt Hacker NewsBut, this “vulnerability” is the thing everybody knows about docker since forever. I always make my user part of the docker group, so my NixOS also has this, and any Ubuntu I’ve used over the past year. What is different here?
Start a docker container with the docker socket mounted in the container and now you can have yourself mount / as rw. Everybody knows this. How is everybody so shocked here. Many instructions online tell you to make yourself part of the docker group for convenience (like the digital ocean one).
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I don't think this is as widely known as you believe: I use dockerd via colima so it's not a limitation I've encountered - if I had, I likely would've switched to podman wholesale instead of compromising my system.
Either way though, I would hope it's self-evident to most that taking glaring security holes in a single app (docker) & transforming them into glaring security holes in an entire OS is generally not desirable.
> I always make my user part of the docker group
I don't, and I migrated to Podman because Docker is poorly designed and full of footguns. For example, it it will silently overwrite iptables rules and punch holes in your firewall.
> I always make my user part of the docker group, so my NixOS also has this, and any Ubuntu I’ve used over the past year.
You may do that, but I don't. I always use sudo to manage the few docker containers I need, and I prefer podman where possible specifically because I can run it rootless.
If you want to give your user passwordless root for convenience, go ahead, but that should never be the default.
A distro should be secure-by-default. Omarchy’s design here was insecure by default while the docs have the impression that Docker might be running rootless. Pairing insecure defaults with docs that claim better security is bad.
It depends on what distinction you’re making…
If you are asking concerning security, the answer is that it’s an insecure default that should have protected an unwitting user.
If you are asking concerning consistency with real world situations, then there is no difference and it feels like the fit is over a somewhat controversial figure (DHH) and how he created the distro’s recent release without reading any of the code himself. The counter is that no one installing a distro actually understands how their distro is configured, and trusts someone else’s judgement. Here that judgment was farmed out to AI, and while that is controversial, the uncomfortable truth is that this is how an awful lot of real people are told to configure their Docker installations.
IMO Docker running as a root daemon is a bad idea in the first place and I’d much rather use Podman’s rootless containers.
This. Was also super confused when I saw the post. Like every docker guide literally screams at you when you use rootfull docker. Either add yourself to the docker group with `newgrp` for a termimal session or use rootless docker.
“This house has a hole in its roof but I cut several holes into my roof to water my indoor plants so what’s the problem?”
> What is different here?
I don’t understand how this is a question.
What’s different is that it comes configured this way out of the box, silently, without warning. It’s functionally equivalent to opting in to giving all user accounts root privileges, which is not what anyone expects the default configuration to be.
You can choose to configure your installs this way if you choose to do so. It should not come this way quietly by default.