Tetragon 1.0: eBPF-Powered Runtime Security and Observability

Introduction

Tetragon 1.0, released on November 1, 2024, marks a significant milestone in Kubernetes security observability. Developed by Isovalent, Tetragon leverages eBPF to provide real-time visibility and runtime enforcement capabilities with kernel-level precision and minimal performance overhead.

Real-Time Security Observability

• Process execution tracking provides complete visibility into all processes running in containers and pods.
• Network connection monitoring captures all network activity including connections, DNS queries, and socket operations.
• File access monitoring tracks file system operations with detailed metadata about file opens, reads, and writes.
• System call tracking enables deep visibility into kernel-level operations for comprehensive security analysis.

Runtime Policy Enforcement

1. TracingPolicies CRDs enable declarative security policies that can block malicious activities in real-time.
2. Kernel-level enforcement provides immediate response to security threats without application-level overhead.
3. Policy matching supports complex conditions based on process names, file paths, network endpoints, and system calls.
4. Action enforcement allows blocking, killing, or logging security violations with configurable responses.

eBPF Performance Benefits

• Low overhead ensures minimal impact on application performance with CPU usage typically under 1%.
• Kernel-level operation eliminates the need for sidecars or agents in every pod.
• Zero-trust enforcement provides security at the kernel level, independent of application code.
• Scalability supports large clusters with thousands of nodes and pods without performance degradation.

Integration with Cilium

• Native integration with Cilium networking provides unified security and networking policies.
• Shared eBPF infrastructure reduces resource consumption and simplifies deployment.
• Unified observability combines network and security telemetry in a single platform.
• Policy coordination enables consistent security policies across networking and runtime layers.

Use Cases

• Intrusion detection identifies and blocks unauthorized access attempts and malicious activities.
• Compliance monitoring ensures adherence to security policies and regulatory requirements.
• Forensic analysis provides detailed audit trails for security incident investigation.
• Zero-trust security implements defense-in-depth with kernel-level enforcement.

Getting Started

helm repo add cilium https://helm.cilium.io/
helm repo update
helm install tetragon cilium/tetragon -n kube-system

Create a TracingPolicy to monitor process executions:

apiVersion: cilium.io/v1alpha1
kind: TracingPolicy
metadata:
  name: "process-monitoring"
spec:
  kprobes:
  - call: "sys_execve"
    syscall: true
    args:
    - index: 0
      type: "string"
    - index: 1
      type: "string"
    - index: 2
      type: "string"
    selectors:
    - matchBinaries:
      - operator: In
        values:
        - "/usr/bin/bash"
        - "/bin/sh"

Summary

Tetragon 1.0 establishes a new standard for Kubernetes runtime security, providing teams with comprehensive visibility and enforcement capabilities without compromising performance.