2.5 Do not use the aufs storage driver

Information

Do not use 'aufs' as storage driver for your Docker instance.

Rationale:

The 'aufs' storage driver is the oldest storage driver. It is based on a Linux kernel patch-set that is unlikely to be merged into the main Linux kernel. 'aufs' driver is also known to cause some serious kernel crashes. 'aufs' just has legacy support from Docker. Most importantly, 'aufs' is not a supported driver in many Linux distributions using latest Linux kernels.

Solution

Do not explicitly use 'aufs' as storage driver.

For example, do not start Docker daemon as below:

dockerd --storage-driver aufs

Impact:

'aufs'is the only storage driver that allows containers to share executable and shared library memory. It might be useful if you are running thousands of containers with the same program or libraries.



Default Value:

By default, Docker uses 'devicemapper' as the storage driver on most of the platforms. Default storage driver can vary based on your OS vendor. You should use the storage driver that is best supported by your preferred vendor.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/1476

Item Details

Category: CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

References: 800-53|CM-7b.

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 0478c676a39f2e4e4e223abde79378c4a49b4aa20ae119f01558dd44f43e681c