Run Krkn-AI (Container)

Krkn-AI can be run inside containers, which simplifies integration with continuous testing workflows.

Container Image

A pre-built container image is available on Quay.io:

podman pull quay.io/krkn-chaos/krkn-ai:latest

Running the Container

The container supports two modes controlled by the MODE environment variable:

1. Discovery Mode

Discovers cluster components and generates a configuration file.

Usage:

# create a folder
mkdir -p ./tmp/container/

# copy kubeconfig to ./tmp/container

# execute discover command
podman run --rm \
  --net="host" \
  -v ./tmp/container:/mount:Z \
  -e MODE="discover" \
  -e KUBECONFIG="/mount/kubeconfig.yaml" \
  -e OUTPUT_DIR="/mount" \
  -e NAMESPACE="robot-shop" \
  -e POD_LABEL="service" \
  -e NODE_LABEL="kubernetes.io/hostname" \
  -e SKIP_POD_NAME="nginx-proxy.*" \
  -e VERBOSE="2" \
  quay.io/krkn-chaos/krkn-ai:latest

Environment Variables (Discovery):

• MODE=discover (required)
• KUBECONFIG (required) - Path to kubeconfig file (default: /input/kubeconfig)
• OUTPUT_DIR (optional) - Output directory (default: /output)
• NAMESPACE (optional) - Namespace pattern (default: .*)
• POD_LABEL (optional) - Pod label pattern (default: .*)
• NODE_LABEL (optional) - Node label pattern (default: .*)
• SKIP_POD_NAME (optional) - Pod names to skip (comma-separated regex)
• VERBOSE (optional) - Verbosity level 0-2 (default: 0)

2. Run Mode

Executes Krkn-AI tests based on a configuration file.

Usage:

podman run --rm \
  --net="host" \
  --privileged \
  -v ./tmp/container:/mount:Z \
  -e MODE=run \
  -e CONFIG_FILE="/mount/krkn-ai.yaml" \
  -e KUBECONFIG="/mount/kubeconfig.yaml" \
  -e OUTPUT_DIR="/mount/result/" \
  -e EXTRA_PARAMS="HOST=${HOST}" \
  -e VERBOSE=2 \
  quay.io/krkn-chaos/krkn-ai:latest

Environment Variables (Run):

• MODE=run (required)
• KUBECONFIG (required) - Path to kubeconfig file (default: /input/kubeconfig)
• CONFIG_FILE (required) - Path to krkn-ai config file (default: /input/krkn-ai.yaml)
• OUTPUT_DIR (optional) - Output directory (default: /output)
• FORMAT (optional) - Output format: json or yaml (default: yaml)
• EXTRA_PARAMS (optional) - Additional parameters in key=value format (comma-separated)
• VERBOSE (optional) - Verbosity level 0-2 (default: 0)

Podman Considerations

Container version only supports krknhub runner type at the moment due to limitations around mounting podman socket.

Run without --privileged flag

If you do not want to use the --privileged flag due to security concerns, you can leverage the host’s fuse-overlayfs to run a Podman container.

mkdir -p ./tmp/container/result && chmod 777 ./tmp/container/result

podman run --rm \
  --net="host" \
  --user podman \
  --device=/dev/fuse --security-opt label=disable \
  -v ./tmp/container:/mount:Z \
  -e MODE=run \
  -e CONFIG_FILE="/mount/krkn-ai.yaml" \
  -e KUBECONFIG="/mount/kubeconfig.yaml" \
  -e OUTPUT_DIR="/mount/result/" \
  -e EXTRA_PARAMS="HOST=${HOST}" \
  -e VERBOSE=2 \
  quay.io/krkn-chaos/krkn-ai:latest

Cache KrknHub images

When running Krkn-AI as a Podman container inside another container with FUSE, you can mount a volume to the container’s shared storage location to enable downloading and caching of KrknHub images.

podman volume create mystorage

mkdir -p ./tmp/container/result && chmod 777 ./tmp/container/result

podman run --rm \
  --net="host" \
  --user podman \
  --device=/dev/fuse --security-opt label=disable \
  -v ./tmp/container:/mount:Z \
  -v mystorage:/home/podman/.local/share/containers:rw \
  -e MODE=run \
  -e CONFIG_FILE="/mount/krkn-ai.yaml" \
  -e KUBECONFIG="/mount/kubeconfig.yaml" \
  -e OUTPUT_DIR="/mount/result/" \
  -e EXTRA_PARAMS="HOST=${HOST}" \
  -e VERBOSE=2 \
  quay.io/krkn-chaos/krkn-ai:latest