Use GitHub Actions for validated builds

GitHub Actions provide a very simple way for GitOps pipelines as you don’t need an additional CI/CD tool. You could simply create or use an existing GitHub actions and configure it to run whenever a specific branch is updated.

You can make sure, that every build (i. e. a container image) can be validated in the most secure way, Codenotary notarization is mandatory.

Let’s walk through the simple steps to integrate Codenotary:

Create GitHub secrets

You can start by adding GitHub secrets for Dockerhub and Codenotary in your repository.

If you have no free Codenotary account yet to setup the notarization process, start with that:

Codenotary Sign Up

Create your workflow

GitHub Actions are defined using workflows that can either be created as files in your repository under .github/workflows or using the UI and the Actions menu.

The workflow

The following workflow will be triggered whenever a new commit in the master branch is detected, builds a container image, notarizes the image and pushes it to Dockerhub.com.

Please make sure to replace the Container Image Path with your account repository.

# Define when the Actions should be triggered
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
    tags:
      - "**"
# Name of the Workflow
name: "Continuous Deployment"

# Different Jobs
jobs:
  build:
    name: "Build and deploy"
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest # Define the build docker image

    env:
      DOCKER_IMAGE: dzlabsch/build-notarize-docker-action # define Docker Repo

    steps:
# Checkout the Git repo
      - name: "Checkout"
        uses: actions/checkout@v1.0.0  

# Build the container image as latest
      - name: "Build Docker image"
        run: $(which docker) build --tag ${DOCKER_IMAGE}:latest .

# Download and verify Codenotary vcn
      - name: "Download vcn"
        run: |
             curl -L -o /tmp/vcn https://github.com/vchain-us/vcn/releases/download/v0.7.3/vcn-v0.7.3-linux-amd64-static
             CHECKSUM=$(sha256sum /tmp/vcn | cut -d " " -f 1)
             echo $CHECKSUM
             curl -s https://api.Codenotary.io/authenticate/$CHECKSUM?org=vchain.us | grep -q :0
             chmod +x /tmp/vcn

# Notarize the container image using your GitHub secrets
      - name: "Notarize Docker Image"
        run: |
             VCN_USER=$  VCN_PASSWORD=$ /tmp/vcn login
             VCN_NOTARIZATION_PASSWORD=$ /tmp/vcn n -p --attr GitHub="${GITHUB_SHA:0:7}" docker://${DOCKER_IMAGE}:latest 

# Log into Dockerhub or your container registry
      - name: "Docker Login"
        if: "'refs/heads/master' == github.ref || startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')"
        run: echo $ | $(which docker) login --password-stdin --username $

# Push the container image to the container repository
      - name: "Push Docker image (latest)"
        if: "'refs/heads/master' == github.ref || startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')"
        run: $(which docker) push ${DOCKER_IMAGE}:latest

# Logout Docker registry
      - name: "Docker Logout"
        if: "'refs/heads/master' == github.ref || startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')"
        run: $(which docker) logout

Check the Workflow

When you commit the next changes to the master branch the GitHub action workflow should automatically be triggered.

successful GitHub Action workflow

When you click the title of the workflow, you can also check the details of the different steps.

and you can open each job individual to check the details:

Authenticate the container image

Everyone downloading and using that notarized container image can check the authenticity of it using Codenotary vcn (vcn authenticate docker://image).

It could also be easily integrated in your deployment process as well.