moby / moby/moby

Docker Daemon needs to be able to reload its own certificates without a restart

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#50,205 0 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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area/daemon kind/feature status/0-triage
Dominant language
Go
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
1d 18h
Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Description

Description:

https://github.com/moby/moby/issues/39869 clone but for the tlsverify side of the certificates

We are using mutual-TLS with short lived certificates

{
// other infos
  "tls": true,
  "tlscert": "/etc/ssl/certs/docker-daemon.crt",
  "tlskey": "/etc/ssl/private/docker-daemon.key",
  "tlsverify": true
}

If the cerificate gets reloaded you get

Docker event stream error: error during connect: Get "endpoint:2376/v1.50/events?filters=%7B%22type%22%3A%7B%22container%22%3Atrue%2C%22network%22%3Atrue%7D%7D": tls: failed to verify certificate: x509: certificate has expired or is not yet valid: current time 2025-06-16T13:10:03Z is after 2025-06-14T07:01:54Z

systemctl reload docker doesn't do anything

With the CA/B forum having voted to reduce the maximum recognized certificate validity time to 47 days from 2029 (https://groups.google.com/a/groups.cabforum.org/g/servercert-wg/c/9768xgUUfhQ?pli=1, yes it is for the browsers but I expect it to carry over outside of the browsers) it will start to become harder to maintain a mTLS-enabled Docker instance without ability to hot-reload the daemon.

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 with the daemon reload behavior represented by systemctl reload docker and the TLS certificate and key paths shown in the issue. Determine how mutual-TLS certificates are reloaded without restarting the daemon, then verify that renewed certificates are accepted for tlsverify connections and event streams.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
docker, go
Domain
backend, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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