Remove "Docker Content Trust"

As an opener, I want to make it clear that this is 100% a self-motivated change; I am not making this change on behalf of Docker Inc, nor does my opinion here represent Docker Inc in any official capacity (ie, if you're writing a splashy news article about this, you're barking up the wrong tree by attributing it officially to Docker Inc; I'm "rogue" here / doing this on my own time as a personally interested party).

My biggest motivation for making this proposal is frankly the state of the upstream Notary (v1) project.  It has been completely unmaintained for at least a full year, and mostly unmaintained for quite a few years.  No matter what value this feature might have once had, it currently is vastly overshadowed by mass bitrot, and it is my argument/opinion that we are actively doing the community a very large disservice (and even harm) by continuing to "support" the feature in the Docker CLI.

Given the state of the upstream project, it is my belief that this should qualify for an exception to our regular "deprecation" process such that we remove the feature *immediately*, and IMO we could very reasonably even consider backporting this deprecation to any past supported branches.

Arguably, we should have some official means of integrating *other* "trusted image" solutions into the Docker platform, but IMO those belong in the Engine (unlike DCT which is entirely implemented in the CLI), and I see that (more complex) discussion as orthogonal to removing this bitrot.

There are still quite a few `TODO` items here (most notably that we probably need some period of time with no-op/warning/erroring `--disable-content-trust=xxx` flags and deprecation documentation).  I'm also certain I missed a few things, as I was mostly doing a pretty serious hack job to see how difficult this would be, not focused on creating a 100% optimal change (and this touches so many parts of the codebase that it's frankly more than I'm comfortable determining by myself whether I've made the changes correctly anyways).

Signed-off-by: Tianon Gravi <admwiggin@gmail.com>

Author: tianon

Dockerfile

@@ -105,10 +105,6 @@ FROM docker/buildx-bin:${BUILDX_VERSION}   AS buildx
 FROM docker/compose-bin:${COMPOSE_VERSION} AS compose
 
 FROM e2e-base-${BASE_VARIANT} AS e2e
-ARG NOTARY_VERSION=v0.6.1
-ADD --chmod=0755 https://github.com/theupdateframework/notary/releases/download/${NOTARY_VERSION}/notary-Linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/notary
-COPY --link e2e/testdata/notary/root-ca.cert /usr/share/ca-certificates/notary.cert
-RUN echo 'notary.cert' >> /etc/ca-certificates.conf && update-ca-certificates
 COPY --link --from=gotestsum /out/gotestsum /usr/bin/gotestsum
 COPY --link --from=build /out ./build/
 COPY --link --from=build-plugins /out ./build/

cli/command/cli.go

@@ -50,13 +50,11 @@ type Cli interface {
 	ServerInfo() ServerInfo
 	DefaultVersion() string
 	CurrentVersion() string
-	ContentTrustEnabled() bool
 	BuildKitEnabled() (bool, error)
 	ContextStore() store.Store
 	CurrentContext() string
 	DockerEndpoint() docker.Endpoint
 	TelemetryClient
-	DeprecatedNotaryClient
 	DeprecatedManifestClient
 }
 
@@ -70,7 +68,6 @@ type DockerCli struct {
 	err                *streams.Out
 	client             client.APIClient
 	serverInfo         ServerInfo
-	contentTrust       bool
 	contextStore       store.Store
 	currentContext     string
 	init               sync.Once
@@ -157,12 +154,6 @@ func (cli *DockerCli) ServerInfo() ServerInfo {
 	return cli.serverInfo
 }
 
-// ContentTrustEnabled returns whether content trust has been enabled by an
-// environment variable.
-func (cli *DockerCli) ContentTrustEnabled() bool {
-	return cli.contentTrust
-}
-
 // BuildKitEnabled returns buildkit is enabled or not.
 func (cli *DockerCli) BuildKitEnabled() (bool, error) {
 	// use DOCKER_BUILDKIT env var value if set and not empty
@@ -516,7 +507,6 @@ type ServerInfo struct {
 // environment.
 func NewDockerCli(ops ...CLIOption) (*DockerCli, error) {
 	defaultOps := []CLIOption{
-		WithContentTrustFromEnv(),
 		WithDefaultContextStoreConfig(),
 		WithStandardStreams(),
 	}

cli/command/cli_deprecated.go

@@ -7,18 +7,9 @@ import (
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/config"
 	manifeststore "github.com/docker/cli/cli/manifest/store"
 	registryclient "github.com/docker/cli/cli/registry/client"
-	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/trust"
 	"github.com/docker/docker/api/types/registry"
-	notaryclient "github.com/theupdateframework/notary/client"
 )
 
-type DeprecatedNotaryClient interface {
-	// NotaryClient provides a Notary Repository to interact with signed metadata for an image
-	//
-	// Deprecated: use [trust.GetNotaryRepository] instead. This method is no longer used and will be removed in the next release.
-	NotaryClient(imgRefAndAuth trust.ImageRefAndAuth, actions []string) (notaryclient.Repository, error)
-}
-
 type DeprecatedManifestClient interface {
 	// ManifestStore returns a store for local manifests
 	//
@@ -32,11 +23,6 @@ type DeprecatedManifestClient interface {
 	RegistryClient(bool) registryclient.RegistryClient
 }
 
-// NotaryClient provides a Notary Repository to interact with signed metadata for an image
-func (cli *DockerCli) NotaryClient(imgRefAndAuth trust.ImageRefAndAuth, actions []string) (notaryclient.Repository, error) {
-	return trust.GetNotaryRepository(cli.In(), cli.Out(), UserAgent(), imgRefAndAuth.RepoInfo(), imgRefAndAuth.AuthConfig(), actions...)
-}
-
 // ManifestStore returns a store for local manifests
 //
 // Deprecated: use [manifeststore.NewStore] instead. This method is no longer used and will be removed in the next release.

cli/command/cli_options.go

@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@ import (
 	"io"
 	"net/http"
 	"os"
-	"strconv"
 	"strings"
 
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/streams"
@@ -76,28 +75,6 @@ func WithErrorStream(err io.Writer) CLIOption {
 	}
 }
 
-// WithContentTrustFromEnv enables content trust on a cli from environment variable DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST value.
-func WithContentTrustFromEnv() CLIOption {
-	return func(cli *DockerCli) error {
-		cli.contentTrust = false
-		if e := os.Getenv("DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST"); e != "" {
-			if t, err := strconv.ParseBool(e); t || err != nil {
-				// treat any other value as true
-				cli.contentTrust = true
-			}
-		}
-		return nil
-	}
-}
-
-// WithContentTrust enables content trust on a cli.
-func WithContentTrust(enabled bool) CLIOption {
-	return func(cli *DockerCli) error {
-		cli.contentTrust = enabled
-		return nil
-	}
-}
-
 // WithDefaultContextStoreConfig configures the cli to use the default context store configuration.
 func WithDefaultContextStoreConfig() CLIOption {
 	return func(cli *DockerCli) error {

cli/command/cli_options_test.go

@@ -298,15 +298,12 @@ func TestExperimentalCLI(t *testing.T) {
 
 func TestNewDockerCliAndOperators(t *testing.T) {
 	// Test default operations and also overriding default ones
-	cli, err := NewDockerCli(
-		WithContentTrust(true),
-	)
+	cli, err := NewDockerCli()
 	assert.NilError(t, err)
 	// Check streams are initialized
 	assert.Check(t, cli.In() != nil)
 	assert.Check(t, cli.Out() != nil)
 	assert.Check(t, cli.Err() != nil)
-	assert.Equal(t, cli.ContentTrustEnabled(), true)
 
 	// Apply can modify a dockerCli after construction
 	inbuf := bytes.NewBuffer([]byte("input"))

cli/command/cli_test.go

@@ -20,7 +20,6 @@ import (
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/command/stack"
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/command/swarm"
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/command/system"
-	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/command/trust"
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/command/volume"
 	"github.com/spf13/cobra"
 )
@@ -52,7 +51,6 @@ func AddCommands(cmd *cobra.Command, dockerCli command.Cli) {
 		network.NewNetworkCommand(dockerCli),
 		plugin.NewPluginCommand(dockerCli),
 		system.NewSystemCommand(dockerCli),
-		trust.NewTrustCommand(dockerCli),
 		volume.NewVolumeCommand(dockerCli),
 
 		// orchestration (swarm) commands

cli/command/commands/commands.go

@@ -12,10 +12,8 @@ import (
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli"
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/command"
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/command/completion"
-	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/command/image"
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/internal/jsonstream"
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/streams"
-	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/trust"
 	"github.com/docker/cli/opts"
 	"github.com/docker/docker/api/types/container"
 	imagetypes "github.com/docker/docker/api/types/image"
@@ -35,11 +33,10 @@ const (
 )
 
 type createOptions struct {
-	name      string
-	platform  string
-	untrusted bool
-	pull      string // always, missing, never
-	quiet     bool
+	name     string
+	platform string
+	pull     string // always, missing, never
+	quiet    bool
 }
 
 // NewCreateCommand creates a new cobra.Command for `docker create`
@@ -76,7 +73,7 @@ func NewCreateCommand(dockerCli command.Cli) *cobra.Command {
 	flags.Bool("help", false, "Print usage")
 
 	command.AddPlatformFlag(flags, &options.platform)
-	command.AddTrustVerificationFlags(flags, &options.untrusted, dockerCli.ContentTrustEnabled())
+	// TODO add a (hidden) --disable-content-trust flag that throws a deprecation/removal warning and does nothing
 	copts = addFlags(flags)
 
 	addCompletions(cmd, dockerCli)
@@ -210,11 +207,6 @@ func createContainer(ctx context.Context, dockerCli command.Cli, containerCfg *c
 	warnOnOomKillDisable(*hostConfig, dockerCli.Err())
 	warnOnLocalhostDNS(*hostConfig, dockerCli.Err())
 
-	var (
-		trustedRef reference.Canonical
-		namedRef   reference.Named
-	)
-
 	containerIDFile, err := newCIDFile(hostConfig.ContainerIDFile)
 	if err != nil {
 		return "", err
@@ -225,26 +217,15 @@ func createContainer(ctx context.Context, dockerCli command.Cli, containerCfg *c
 	if err != nil {
 		return "", err
 	}
+	var namedRef reference.Named
 	if named, ok := ref.(reference.Named); ok {
 		namedRef = reference.TagNameOnly(named)
-
-		if taggedRef, ok := namedRef.(reference.NamedTagged); ok && !options.untrusted {
-			var err error
-			trustedRef, err = image.TrustedReference(ctx, dockerCli, taggedRef)
-			if err != nil {
-				return "", err
-			}
-			config.Image = reference.FamiliarString(trustedRef)
-		}
 	}
 
 	pullAndTagImage := func() error {
 		if err := pullImage(ctx, dockerCli, config.Image, options); err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
-		if taggedRef, ok := namedRef.(reference.NamedTagged); ok && trustedRef != nil {
-			return trust.TagTrusted(ctx, dockerCli.Client(), dockerCli.Err(), trustedRef, taggedRef)
-		}
 		return nil
 	}
 

cli/command/container/create.go

@@ -13,7 +13,6 @@ import (
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli"
 	"github.com/docker/cli/cli/config/configfile"
 	"github.com/docker/cli/internal/test"
-	"github.com/docker/cli/internal/test/notary"
 	"github.com/docker/docker/api/types/container"
 	"github.com/docker/docker/api/types/image"
 	"github.com/docker/docker/api/types/network"
@@ -142,10 +141,9 @@ func TestCreateContainerImagePullPolicy(t *testing.T) {
 			}
 			fakeCLI := test.NewFakeCli(client)
 			id, err := createContainer(context.Background(), fakeCLI, config, &createOptions{
-				name:      "name",
-				platform:  runtime.GOOS,
-				untrusted: true,
-				pull:      tc.PullPolicy,
+				name:     "name",
+				platform: runtime.GOOS,
+				pull:     tc.PullPolicy,
 			})
 
 			if tc.ExpectedErrMsg != "" {
@@ -221,53 +219,6 @@ func TestCreateContainerValidateFlags(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 }
 
-func TestNewCreateCommandWithContentTrustErrors(t *testing.T) {
-	testCases := []struct {
-		name          string
-		args          []string
-		expectedError string
-		notaryFunc    test.NotaryClientFuncType
-	}{
-		{
-			name:          "offline-notary-server",
-			notaryFunc:    notary.GetOfflineNotaryRepository,
-			expectedError: "client is offline",
-			args:          []string{"image:tag"},
-		},
-		{
-			name:          "uninitialized-notary-server",
-			notaryFunc:    notary.GetUninitializedNotaryRepository,
-			expectedError: "remote trust data does not exist",
-			args:          []string{"image:tag"},
-		},
-		{
-			name:          "empty-notary-server",
-			notaryFunc:    notary.GetEmptyTargetsNotaryRepository,
-			expectedError: "No valid trust data for tag",
-			args:          []string{"image:tag"},
-		},
-	}
-	for _, tc := range testCases {
-		fakeCLI := test.NewFakeCli(&fakeClient{
-			createContainerFunc: func(config *container.Config,
-				hostConfig *container.HostConfig,
-				networkingConfig *network.NetworkingConfig,
-				platform *specs.Platform,
-				containerName string,
-			) (container.CreateResponse, error) {
-				return container.CreateResponse{}, errors.New("shouldn't try to pull image")
-			},
-		}, test.EnableContentTrust)
-		fakeCLI.SetNotaryClient(tc.notaryFunc)
-		cmd := NewCreateCommand(fakeCLI)
-		cmd.SetOut(io.Discard)
-		cmd.SetErr(io.Discard)
-		cmd.SetArgs(tc.args)
-		err := cmd.Execute()
-		assert.ErrorContains(t, err, tc.expectedError)
-	}
-}
-
 func TestNewCreateCommandWithWarnings(t *testing.T) {
 	testCases := []struct {
 		name    string

cli/command/container/create_test.go

@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ func TestNewPortCommandOutput(t *testing.T) {
 					}
 					return ci, nil
 				},
-			}, test.EnableContentTrust)
+			})
 			cmd := NewPortCommand(cli)
 			cmd.SetErr(io.Discard)
 			cmd.SetArgs([]string{"some_container", tc.port})

cli/command/container/port_test.go

@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ func NewRunCommand(dockerCli command.Cli) *cobra.Command {
 	flags.Bool("help", false, "Print usage")
 
 	command.AddPlatformFlag(flags, &options.platform)
-	command.AddTrustVerificationFlags(flags, &options.untrusted, dockerCli.ContentTrustEnabled())
+	// TODO add a (hidden) --disable-content-trust flag that throws a deprecation/removal warning and does nothing
 	copts = addFlags(flags)
 
 	_ = cmd.RegisterFlagCompletionFunc("detach-keys", completeDetachKeys)