anchore / anchore/syft

Support SBOM creation for container image indexes

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enhancement
Dominant language
Go
Stars
9.6k
Forks
962
Avg merge
23h 27m
Merged PRs (30d)
48

Description

What would you like to be added:
Create an SBOM when given a container reference that points to a container image index that includes the dependencies of all the image manifests the index points to.

Why is this needed:
Multi-architecture and multi-platform container images are becoming more common.

Additional context:
Syft supports creating an SBOM from a container reference. When given a reference, Syft will pull the reference to download the container image. When the reference points to a container image index, Syft will download one of the underlaying images depending on that platform the tool is run on, and generate an SBOM from that image. That means that the dependencies of the alternate images are not cataloged and documented in the SBOM, creating a visibility gap.

Syft should optionally download each underlaying image and document the dependencies in all of them. Ideally Syft would model the image index and image manifests as packages in the SBOM with appropriate relationships, so that the dependency graph information is recorded.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing Syft’s handling of container references and image indexes, then inspect how SBOM packages and relationships are represented. Done means an index reference can optionally cover every underlying manifest and the resulting SBOM records the index, manifests, and dependency relationships; the issue names no files or tests to run.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
docker, go
Domain
cli, devtools, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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