Run the container as root so a bind-mounted /out works (issue #7) (#53)

The image dropped to a fixed non-root user (uid 10001) and pointed HOME at
/out. On native Linux Docker a bind-mounted /out is owned by whoever created
it on the host, so uid 10001 cannot write into it. Two things then failed:
kage's output and resume state under $HOME/data/kage hit "mkdir /out:
permission denied", and Chrome launched chrome_crashpad_handler with an empty
crash database path, which aborts the whole browser with
"chrome_crashpad_handler: --database is required" and fails every render.

The earlier attempt set HOME=/out, but that only helps when /out is writable,
which it is not for a non-root uid against a host-owned mount. The crash-reporter
flags in the launcher did not help either: they do not stop Chrome from spawning
the handler, so the abort stayed.

Run as root instead. Container root writes a host-owned bind mount whatever its
ownership, so both /out and HOME stay writable and the documented one-liner just
works. This does not loosen the sandbox: Chrome's sandbox is already off inside
any container (kage drops it on container detection), so root here changes
nothing that was holding.

Verified end to end in an Alpine + chromium container: the non-root image
reproduces both the crashpad abort and the permission-denied exactly as
reported, and the root image clones example.com cleanly, writing index.html and
resume state into a host-owned mounted volume.
This commit is contained in:
Tam Nguyen Duc
2026-06-23 15:20:31 +07:00
committed by GitHub
parent 8bc9c8bea1
commit 2dabb93a78
2 changed files with 20 additions and 15 deletions
+13 -9
View File
@@ -17,24 +17,28 @@ ARG TARGETPLATFORM
# chromium for rendering; ca-certificates for HTTPS; tzdata for sane timestamps;
# the font package so rendered pages have glyphs to lay out.
RUN apk add --no-cache chromium ca-certificates tzdata font-noto \
&& adduser -D -H -u 10001 kage \
&& mkdir -p /out \
&& chown kage:kage /out
&& mkdir -p /out
COPY $TARGETPLATFORM/kage /usr/bin/kage
USER kage
WORKDIR /out
# Point kage at the bundled Chromium and write mirrors under /out by default:
#
# docker run -v "$PWD/out:/out" ghcr.io/tamnd/kage clone example.com
#
# The kage user has no home directory of its own, so HOME points at the mounted
# /out volume. That keeps two things writable: kage's default output and resume
# state (it lands under $HOME/data/kage), and Chrome's profile and crash
# database. Without this both fail with a permission error in the container
# (issue #7), and the mounted volume captures nothing.
# The container runs as root, and that is deliberate (issue #7). A bind-mounted
# /out is owned by whoever created it on the host, so only root can reliably
# write into it; a fixed non-root uid cannot, and both kage's output and resume
# state (under $HOME/data/kage) then fail with "mkdir /out: permission denied".
# The same unwritable HOME also breaks Chrome: it launches chrome_crashpad_handler
# with an empty crash database path, which aborts the whole browser with
# "chrome_crashpad_handler: --database is required" and fails every render.
# Running as root keeps /out and HOME writable whatever the host owns, so the
# one-liner above just works. This costs nothing in the sandbox: Chrome's sandbox
# is already off inside any container (kage drops it on container detection), so
# root here does not loosen a boundary that was holding. HOME points at /out so
# the default output and Chrome's writable state both land in the mounted volume.
ENV KAGE_CHROME=/usr/bin/chromium-browser \
HOME=/out
+7 -6
View File
@@ -183,13 +183,14 @@ func (p *Pool) getBrowser() (*rod.Browser, error) {
// In a container, the default /dev/shm is only 64 MB, too small for
// Chrome's renderer on large pages, so steer it to a temp file instead.
// Outside a container /dev/shm is roomy and faster, so leave it alone.
// Chrome's crashpad handler also aborts with "--database is required" in a
// minimal container, which fails the whole launch (issue #7), so turn the
// crash reporter off there. kage never uploads Chrome crash dumps anyway.
//
// The "chrome_crashpad_handler: --database is required" abort seen in
// containers (issue #7) is not fixed here: the crash-reporter flags do not
// stop Chrome from spawning the handler. Its real cause is an unwritable
// HOME, which leaves the crash database path empty; the image keeps HOME
// writable instead (see the Dockerfile).
if inContainer() {
l = l.Set("disable-dev-shm-usage", "").
Set("disable-crash-reporter", "").
Set("disable-breakpad", "")
l = l.Set("disable-dev-shm-usage", "")
}
if bin := p.chromeBin(); bin != "" {