How to distribute a plugin

Introduction

In this article, we'll focus on the steps to build the OCI artifacts containing the plugin and its rules and how to distribute them on Github Packages.

To get more familiar with the OCI artifacts, you can read our blog posts about falcoctl and GitOps for rules

In the next sections we'll describe how to:

set up a Github Actions workflow to:
- create a release with GoReleaser when a tag is pushed
- build the OCI artifacts of the plugin and its rules
create the index.yaml used by falcoctl

Requirements

This tutorial is based on a Github repo, with the possibility to run workflows in Github Actions and store OCI artifacts in Github Packages. If you use a different system or even just private repositories, you'll need to adapt the examples to your context.

To make it work, you must have the code organization proposed in how to develop a plugin page.

GoReleaser

GoReleaser is a famous tool to build and create releases for projects on Github or else. We'll use it to build and archive the binaries at each release.

At the root of your repo, create a .goreleaser.yaml file with the following content:

builds:
  - env:
      - GODEBUG=cgocheck=0
    main: ./plugin
    binary: lib{PLUGIN_NAME}.so
    goos:
      - linux
    goarch:
      - amd64
    flags: -buildmode=c-shared
checksum:
  name_template: "checksums.txt"

With PLUGIN_NAME as the name of your plugin.

Makefile

Makefiles are a convenient way to script actions. We'll use it to pass all the required flags to create the final .so library files used by the Falco plugin framework:

SHELL=/bin/bash -o pipefail
GO ?= go

NAME := {PLUGIN_NAME}
OUTPUT := lib$(NAME).so

ifeq ($(DEBUG), 1)
    GODEBUGFLAGS= GODEBUG=cgocheck=2
else
    GODEBUGFLAGS= GODEBUG=cgocheck=0
endif

all: build

clean:
	@rm -f lib$(NAME).so

build: clean
	@$(GODEBUGFLAGS) $(GO) build -buildmode=c-shared -buildvcs=false -o $(OUTPUT) ./plugin

With PLUGIN_NAME as the name of your plugin.

You can test it by running make build and see the lib{PLUGIN_NAME}.so appearing at the root of your folder.

Github Actions Workflow

The first step is to create the .github/workflows folder and the release.yaml file describing our workflow.

Headers

Each workflow starts with, at least, a name and a on:

name: Release Plugins

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - '[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'

env:
  OCI_REGISTRY: ghcr.io
  PLUGIN_NAME: {PLUGIN_NAME}

permissions:
  contents: write
  packages: write

The workflow will be triggered each time a tag following semantic versioning (major.minor.patch) is created.

Once again PLUGIN_NAME is the name of your plugin, it will be set as env var to be reused all over the file. It's the only thing to adapt to your context. We also set the registry (Github Packages) URL with OCI_REGISTRY.

The permissions are required to allow Github Actions to read the content of your repo, create the release and push the artifacts into Github Packages.

The jobs

Once we have set the "headers" of the workflow file, it's time to set the actions that will be run. We'll split them into 2:

Publish the OCI artifacts
Create the release

Publish the OCI artifacts

To publish the artifacts, we'll use falcoctl, the official CLI to manage Falco artifacts.

The steps to publishing the artifacts will be, in this order:

Get the falcoctl sources
Prepare the Go env
Build falcoctl (guarantees the latest version)
Get the plugin sources
Build the plugin (.so file)
Get the repo name in lower case
Push the artifacts with all their tags:
- push the plugin
- push the rules with a dependency to the plugin

jobs:
  publish-oci-artifacts:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout Falcoctl Repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          repository: falcosecurity/falcoctl
          ref: 0.5.0 # adapt to the latest version
          path: tools/falcoctl
      - name: Setup Golang
        uses: actions/setup-go@v4
        with:
          go-version: '^1.20'
          cache-dependency-path: tools/falcoctl/go.sum
      - name: Build falcoctl
        run: make
        working-directory: tools/falcoctl
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          path: plugin
      - name: Build the plugin
        run: make build
        working-directory: plugin
      - id: StringRepoName
        uses: ASzc/change-string-case-action@v5
        with:
          string: ${{ github.repository }}
      - name: Upload OCI artifacts to GitHub packages
        run: |
              MAJOR=$(echo ${{ github.ref_name }} | cut -f1 -d".")
              MINOR=$(echo ${{ github.ref_name }} | cut -f1,2 -d".")
              DIR=$(pwd)

              cd plugin/
              $DIR/tools/falcoctl/falcoctl registry push \
              ${{ env.OCI_REGISTRY }}/${{ steps.StringRepoName.outputs.lowercase }}/plugin/${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}:${{ github.ref_name }} \
              --config /dev/null \
              --type plugin \
              --version "${{ github.ref_name }}" \
              --tag latest --tag $MAJOR --tag $MINOR \
              --platform linux/amd64 \
              --requires plugin_api_version:2.0.0 \
              --depends-on ${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}-rules:${{ github.ref_name }} \
              --name ${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }} \
              lib${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}.so

              cd rules/
              $DIR/tools/falcoctl/falcoctl registry push \
              ${{ env.OCI_REGISTRY }}/${{ steps.StringRepoName.outputs.lowercase }}/ruleset/${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}:${{ github.ref_name }} \
              --config /dev/null \
              --type rulesfile \
              --version "${{ github.ref_name }}" \
              --tag latest --tag $MAJOR --tag $MINOR \
              --depends-on ${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}:${{ github.ref_name }} \
              --name ${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}-rules \
              ${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}_rules.yaml              
        env:
          FALCOCTL_REGISTRY_AUTH_BASIC: ${{ env.OCI_REGISTRY }},${{ github.repository_owner }},${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Create the release

GoReleaser can automatically generate a Changelog at the same time we publish the new artifacts. This step isn't imperative to generate the OCI artifacts but it's a good practice among Go developers. To achieve that, make sure to have a correct .goreleaser.yml file as explained here.

  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - name: Setup Golang
        uses: actions/setup-go@v3
        with:
          go-version: '1.19'
      - name: Run GoReleaser
        uses: goreleaser/goreleaser-action@v4
        with:
          version: latest
          args: release --clean --timeout 120m
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          LDFLAGS: "-buildmode=c-shared"
          GOPATH: /home/runner/go

Final result

name: Release Plugins

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - '[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'

env:
  OCI_REGISTRY: ghcr.io
  PLUGIN_NAME: {PLUGIN_NAME}

permissions:
  contents: write
  packages: write

jobs:
  publish-oci-artifacts:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout Falcoctl Repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          repository: falcosecurity/falcoctl
          ref: 0.5.0 # adapt to the latest version
          path: tools/falcoctl
      - name: Setup Golang
        uses: actions/setup-go@v4
        with:
          go-version: '^1.20'
          cache-dependency-path: tools/falcoctl/go.sum
      - name: Build falcoctl
        run: make
        working-directory: tools/falcoctl
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          path: plugin
      - name: Build the plugin
        run: make build
        working-directory: plugin
      - id: StringRepoName
        uses: ASzc/change-string-case-action@v5
        with:
          string: ${{ github.repository }}
      - name: Upload OCI artifacts to GitHub packages
        run: |
              MAJOR=$(echo ${{ github.ref_name }} | cut -f1 -d".")
              MINOR=$(echo ${{ github.ref_name }} | cut -f1,2 -d".")
              DIR=$(pwd)

              cd plugin/
              $DIR/tools/falcoctl/falcoctl registry push \
              ${{ env.OCI_REGISTRY }}/${{ steps.StringRepoName.outputs.lowercase }}/plugin/${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}:${{ github.ref_name }} \
              --config /dev/null \
              --type plugin \
              --version "${{ github.ref_name }}" \
              --tag latest --tag $MAJOR --tag $MINOR \
              --platform linux/amd64 \
              --requires plugin_api_version:2.0.0 \
              --depends-on ${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}-rules:${{ github.ref_name }} \
              --name ${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }} \
              lib${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}.so

              cd rules/
              $DIR/tools/falcoctl/falcoctl registry push \
              ${{ env.OCI_REGISTRY }}/${{ steps.StringRepoName.outputs.lowercase }}/ruleset/${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}:${{ github.ref_name }} \
              --config /dev/null \
              --type rulesfile \
              --version "${{ github.ref_name }}" \
              --tag latest --tag $MAJOR --tag $MINOR \
              --depends-on ${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}:${{ github.ref_name }} \
              --name ${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}-rules \
              ${{ env.PLUGIN_NAME }}_rules.yaml              
        env:
          FALCOCTL_REGISTRY_AUTH_BASIC: ${{ env.OCI_REGISTRY }},${{ github.repository_owner }},${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - name: Setup Golang
        uses: actions/setup-go@v3
        with:
          go-version: '1.19'
      - name: Run GoReleaser
        uses: goreleaser/goreleaser-action@v4
        with:
          version: latest
          args: release --clean --timeout 120m
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          LDFLAGS: "-buildmode=c-shared"
          GOPATH: /home/runner/go

Replace PLUGIN_NAME with the name of your plugin.

The index.yaml file for falcoctl

This file is used by falcoctl to know where to download your plugin and rules. Please read this blog post to understand better how it works.

We'll create our own file to allow like the following:

- name: {PLUGIN_NAME}
  type: plugin
  registry: ghcr.io
  repository: {OWNER_NAME}/{REPO_NAME}/plugin/{PLUGIN_NAME}
  description: {DESCRIPTION}
  home: https://github.com/{OWNER_NAME}/{PLUGIN_NAME}
  keywords:
    - {PLUGIN_NAME}
  license: Apache-2.0
  maintainers:
    - email: {OWNER_EMAIL}
      name: {OWNER_REAL_NAME}
  sources:
    - https://github.com/{OWNER_NAME}/{PLUGIN_NAME}
- name: {PLUGIN_NAME}-rules
  type: rulesfile
  registry: ghcr.io
  repository: {OWNER_NAME}/{REPO_NAME}/ruleset/docker
  description: Rules for the {PLUGIN_NAME} plugin
  home: https://github.com/{OWNER_NAME}/{REPO_NAME}/tree/main/rules
  keywords:
    - {PLUGIN_NAME}
  license: Apache-2.0
  maintainers:
    - email: {OWNER_EMAIL}
      name: {OWNER_REAL_NAME}
  sources:
    - https://github.com/{OWNER_NAME}/{REPO_NAME}/tree/main/rules/{PLUGIN_NAME}_rules.yaml

With:

PLUGIN_NAME: the name of you plugin
OWNER_NAME: your nickname on Github
REPO_NAME: the name of your repo for your plugin on Github
OWNER_EMAIL: an email for contact
OWNER_REAL_NAME: your real name or not
DESCRIPTION: description of your plugin

falcoctl uses the keywords field to perform a search among your plugins. Leverage this functionality by adding relevant terms to your plugin.

The repository structure should look like the following:

├── .github
│   └── workflows
│       └── release.yaml
├── .gitignore
├── go.mod
├── .goreleaser.yml
├── go.sum
├── index.yaml
├── LICENSE
├── Makefile
├── README.md
├── pkg
│   └── {PLUGIN_NAME}.go
├── plugin
│   └── main.go
└── rules
    └── {PLUGIN_NAME}_rules.yaml

There are 2 ways to expose the index.yaml file:

exposing the raw file: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/{OWNER_NAME}/{REPO_NAME}/main/index.yaml
exposing the file through Github Page: https://{OWNER_NAME}.github.io/{REPO_NAME}/index.yaml (make sure to enable the Pages)

Create our first version

Everything is now ready to publish a first version of our plugin.

In the main branch, run:

git tag 0.1.0 -m "0.1.0" && git push origin 0.1.0

Few seconds after, your workflow should be started and you will have your first published version with associated artifacts.

Installation of your plugin and rules

The process is now the same as the one described here, except we'll use your specific index.yaml to register a new index:

sudo falcoctl index add {PLUGIN_NAME} https://{OWNER_NAME}.github.io/{REPO_NAME}/index.yaml
sudo falcoctl artifact install {PLUGIN_NAME}
sudo falcoctl artifact install {PLUGIN_NAME}-rules

For the docker plugin, for example:

❯ sudo falcoctl index add docker  http://issif.github.io/docker-plugin/index.yaml

❯ sudo falcoctl artifact search docker
INDEX 	ARTIFACT    	TYPE     	REGISTRY	REPOSITORY                   
docker	docker      	plugin   	ghcr.io 	issif/docker-plugin/plugin/docker
docker	docker-rules	rulesfile	ghcr.io 	issif/docker-plugin/ruleset/docker

❯ sudo falcoctl artifact install docker-rules
 INFO  Reading all configured index files from "/root/.config/falcoctl/indexes.yaml"
 INFO  Resolving dependencies ...
 INFO  Installing the following artifacts: [docker:0.3.3 ghcr.io/issif/docker-plugin/ruleset/docker:latest]
 INFO  Preparing to pull "ghcr.io/issif/docker-plugin/plugin/docker:0.3.3"
 INFO  Pulling 9145239be00e: ############################################# 100%
 INFO  Pulling 2073e106ba07: ############################################# 100%
 INFO  Pulling 01ecf22a3821: ############################################# 100%
 INFO  Artifact successfully installed in "/usr/share/falco/plugins"                                                                                                                                          
 INFO  Preparing to pull "ghcr.io/issif/docker-plugin/ruleset/docker:latest"
 INFO  Pulling 3482c7ca931f: ############################################# 100%
 INFO  Pulling 433ad24cb056: ############################################# 100%
 INFO  Pulling e449b880035d: ############################################# 100%
 INFO  Artifact successfully installed in "/etc/falco"

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