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A multi-dimensional analysis of technical lag in Debian-based Docker images

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Abstract

Container-based solutions, such as Docker, have become increasingly relevant in the software industry to facilitate deploying and maintaining software systems. Little is known, however, about how outdated such containers are at the moment of their release or when used in production. This article addresses this question, by measuring and comparing five different dimensions of technical lag that Docker container images can face: package lag, time lag, version lag, vulnerability lag, and bug lag. We instantiate the formal technical lag framework from previous work to operationalise these different dimensions of lag on Docker Hub images based on the Debian Linux distribution. We carry out a large-scale empirical study of such technical lag, over a three-year period, in 140,498 Debian images. We compare the differences between official and community images, as well as between images with different Debian distributions: OldStable, Stable or Testing. The analysis shows that the different dimensions of technical lag are complementary, providing multiple insights. Official Debian images consistently have a lower lag than community images for all considered lag dimensions. The amount of lag incurred depends on the type of Debian distribution and the considered lag dimension. Our research offers empirical evidence that developers and deployers of Docker images can benefit from identifying to which extent their containers are outdated according to the considered dimensions, and mitigate the risks related to such outdatedness.

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Notes

  1. https://github.com/shogun-toolbox/shogun/blob/develop/configs/shogun-sdk/Dockerfile

  2. https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/outdated.html

  3. https://www.mojohaus.org/versions-maven-plugin/

  4. https://david-dm.org/

  5. https://guides.rubygems.org/command-reference/#gem-outdated

  6. https://github.com/containrrr/watchtower

  7. https://github.com/pyouroboros/ouroboros

  8. https://github.com/neglectos/ConPan

  9. An example of rule violation is forgetting the -y flag when using apt-get install.

  10. Certified images are built with best practices, tested and validated against the Docker Enterprise Edition and pass security requirements.

  11. Verified images are high-quality images from verified publishers. These products are published and maintained directly by a commercial entity.

  12. https://registry.hub.docker.com/v2/repositories/library/debian/

  13. https://hub.docker.com/_/debian

  14. Downloading all available images would have taken at least 6 extra months, and would have required considerably more storage capacity.

  15. https://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/ and snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian-security/

  16. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/data/json

  17. https://cve.mitre.org/cve/

  18. https://nvd.nist.gov

  19. https://udd.debian.org/bugs/

  20. https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer

  21. https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#version

  22. If n different tests are carried out over the same dataset, for each individual test one can only reject H0 if \(p< \frac {0.01}{n}\). In our case n = 28, i.e., p < 0.00036.

  23. Extra analysis and results, distinguishing the evolution trends both for official and community images, can be found in our reproduction package.

  24. https://www.debian.org/News/2016/20160917

  25. https://github.com/docker-library/official-images/commit/a0884f0cd8758a0a30cf187f25ef217e3915979f

  26. https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170114

  27. https://github.com/docker-library/official-images/commit/fbbcd34e82dcea6e75f5a5ea465d49912d996261

  28. https://www.debian.org/News/2017/index.en.html

  29. https://www.debian.org/News/2018/20180310

  30. An example of this was provided with the Dockerfile for the community image shogun-dev:latest presented in Section 2.2.

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Acknowledgements

This research is carried out in the context of the Excellence of Science project 30446992 SECO-Assist financed by FWO-Vlaanderen and F.R.S.-FNRS. We acknowledge the support of the Government of Spain through project “BugBirth” (RTI2018-101963-B-100).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Languages Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit WE - DINF - SOFT, Pleinlaan 2, 1050, Brussels, Belgium

    Ahmed Zerouali

  2. Software Engineering Lab, Université de Mons, Avenue Maistriau 15, 7000, Mons, Belgium

    Ahmed Zerouali, Tom Mens & Alexandre Decan

  3. Grupo de Sistemas y Comunicaciones, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Camino del Molino s/n, Campus de Fuenlabrada, Fuenlabrada, Madrid, Spain

    Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona & Gregorio Robles

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  1. Ahmed Zerouali
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Correspondence to Ahmed Zerouali.

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Communicated by: Emad Shihab and David Lo

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Zerouali, A., Mens, T., Decan, A. et al. A multi-dimensional analysis of technical lag in Debian-based Docker images. Empir Software Eng 26, 19 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-020-09908-6

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