PROV-CRT: Provenance Support for Container Runtimes

Authors: 

Raza Ahmad, Yuta Nakamura, Naga Nithin Manne, and Tanu Malik, DePaul University

Abstract: 

A container runtime isolates computations and its associated data dependencies and is thus useful for porting applications on new machines. Current container runtimes, such as LXC and Docker, however, do not automatically track provenance, which is essential for verifying computations. We demonstrate PROV-CRT, a provenance module in a container runtime that tracks the provenance of computations during container creation and uses audited provenance to compare computations during container replay. We show how this module simplifies and improves the efficiency of complex container management tasks, such as classifying container contents and incrementally replaying containerized applications.

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BibTeX
@inproceedings {275804,
author = {Raza Ahmad and Yuta Nakamura and Naga Nithin Manne and Tanu Malik},
title = {{PROV-CRT}: Provenance Support for Container Runtimes},
booktitle = {12th International Workshop on Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP 2020)},
year = {2020},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/tapp2021/presentation/ahmad},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jun
}