Open Container Image Format

Forget about needing Docker’s buildx or Redhat’s buildah for this OCI container image deep dive. I will explain the OCI container image model and demonstrate building a new container image with a little JSON and a few SHA256 hash sums. You will understand that container images aren’t a file you download, but instead a graph of nodes and how the nodes are addressed after reading this article. ...

February 23, 2026 · 1362 words

Docker Socket Myths

There’s a popular myth in the Docker community. The myth is that it’s possible to mount /var/run/docker.sock with read only options. Even large container projects like Traefik get this wrong. Bind mounting the Docker socket with read only options doesn’t work the way one thinks it would. This post will explain how using the ":ro" option when mounting the Docker socket is little more than security theater and to discuss alternatives. Please read this post if you’re adding /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro to Docker compose files. ...

January 5, 2026 · 1275 words

Tips for working with qemu images

QEMU uses files to emulate storage devices, and the features available depend on how those files are created. While QEMU can emulate disks from Parallels and VirtualBox, I’m going to focus on the formats most commonly used in automation and scripting, raw and qcow2. The default format is raw and raw offers the fewest features. It’s just plain storage. The other format qcow2 supports compression, snapshots, and copy-on-write in addition to storage. ...

April 6, 2025 · 1358 words