Software Containers

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Containerization.SoftwareContainers is a unified pattern module used for identifying container runtime, executing appropriate commands, and modeling the SoftwareInstance, SoftwareContainer, and ContainerImage node kinds.

With the introduction of Containerization.SoftwareContainers in TKU June 2025, the following container-related patterns were deprecated (however, the corresponding containerd SoftwareInstances are still modeled):

For more information about the containers discovery approach, see theofficial BMC Helix Discovery documentation.

Components

The pattern module consists of the following major components:

Runtime functions

The following pattern local functions are used to obtain the containers and image details:

common
containerd
crictl
crio
crun
ctr
docker
nerdctl
podman
runc

Common functions

The following pattern local common functions are used to build container context tables, extract various data builds, and destroy nodes:

buildContext
createManagementRelationships
createNodes
dirname
extractCRIAnnotations
extractTagValues
finalizeContainerData
finalizeImageData
getDiscoveryUID
getProductVersion
initContainerData
initImageData
removeOldNodes
splitRepoDigest
splitRepoTag
updateContainerImageIds
updateFromRepoValues
validateOutput

Patterns

LinuxHost—The LinuxHost pattern is triggered by the Host node where the platform is Linux and detects software containers.

Platforms supported by the pattern

The pattern currently supports only Linux hosts.

Commands executed by the pattern

The following table gives details about commands that are executed by the Containerization.SoftwareContainers pattern module:

Runtime	Command	Goal
crun	id -u	Obtain the BMC Helix Discovery user ID.
	crun list --format json 2>/dev/null	List the running containers.
	PRIV_RUNCMD crun list --format json 2>/dev/null	List the running containers with privilege elevation.
	PRIV_RUNCMD runuser -l $(id -un %uid%) -c crun list --format json 2>/dev/null	List the running containers under a different user.
Docker	docker inspect $(docker ps -q 2>/dev/null) 2>/dev/null	List the running containers.
	PRIV_RUNCMD docker inspect $(PRIV_RUNCMD docker ps -q 2>/dev/null) 2>/dev/null	List the running containers with privilege elevation.
	docker image inspect $(docker images -q 2>/dev/null) 2>/dev/null	List the images.
	PRIV_RUNCMD docker image inspect $(PRIV_RUNCMD docker images -q 2>/dev/null) 2>/dev/null	List the images with privilege elevation.
	docker node ls --format '{{.ID}} : {{.Hostname}} : {{.ManagerStatus}}	Detect a Swarm and obtain node details.
	docker node ls \| awk '{if (NR!=1) {if ($2 == "*") {printf("%s : %s : %s\n", $1, $3, $NF);} else {printf("%s : %s : %s\n", $1, $2, $NF);}}}'	Detect a Swarm and obtain node details when the Docker node ls doesn't support --format.
	docker version	Obtain the version and verify the runtime.
	<binary_path>/dockerd --version	Obtain the version and verify the runtime.
Podman	id -u	Obtain the BMC Helix Discovery user ID.
	podman ps --no-trunc --format json 2>/dev/null	List the running containers.
	PRIV_RUNCMD podman ps --no-trunc --format json 2>/dev/null	List the running containers with privilege elevation.
	PRIV_RUNCMD runuser -l $(id -un %uid%) -c podman ps --no-trunc --format json 2>/dev/null	List the running containers under a different user.
	podman ps --no-trunc --format json 2>/dev/null	List the images.
	PRIV_RUNCMD podman ps --no-trunc --format json 2>/dev/null	List the images with privileges.
	PRIV_RUNCMD runuser -l $(id -un %uid%) -c podman ps --no-trunc --format json 2>/dev/null	List the images under a different user.
	podman info	Obtain the configuration.
nerdctl	nerdctl --namespace %namespace% ps --no-trunc -q 2>/dev/null	List the running containers.
	PRIV_RUNCMD nerdctl --namespace %namespace% ps --no-trunc -q 2>/dev/null	List the running containers with privilege elevation.
	nerdctl inspect %container_id% 2>/dev/null	Obtain the details of each container.
	PRIV_RUNCMD nerdctl inspect %container_id% 2>/dev/null	List the running containers with privilege elevation.
	nerdctl image inspect $(nerdctl --namespace %namespace% images -q 2>/dev/null \| sort -u) 2>/dev/null	List the images.
	nerdctl version	Obtain the version and verify the runtime.
	PRIV_RUNCMD nerdctl version	Obtain the version and verify the runtime (with privileged execution).
crictl	crictl ps --output json 2>/dev/null	List the running containers.
	PRIV_RUNCMD crictl ps --output json 2>/dev/null	List the running containers with privilege elevation.
	crictl images --digests --no-trunc --output json 2>/dev/null	List the images.
	PRIV_RUNCMD crictl images --digests --no-trunc --output json 2>/dev/null	List the images with privilege elevation.
	crictl version	Obtain the version and verify the runtime.
	PRIV_RUNCMD crictl version	Obtain the version and check the runtime with privilege elevation.
CRI-O	cri-o --version	Obtain the version.
CRI-O	cri-o config	Obtain the configuration.
ctr	ctr --namespace <namespace> task list 2>/dev/null	List the running containers.
	PRIV_RUNCMD ctr --namespace <namespace> task list 2>/dev/null	List the running containers with privilege elevation.
	ctr --namespace %namespace% container info %container_id% 2>/dev/null	Obtain the container details of each container_id.
	PRIV_RUNCMD ctr --namespace %namespace% container info %container_id% 2>/dev/null	Obtain the container details of each container_id (with privileged execution).
	ctr --namespace %namespace% image list 2>/dev/null	List the images.
	PRIV_RUNCMD ctr --namespace %namespace% image list 2>/dev/null	List the images with privilege elevation.
	ctr version	Obtain the version and check the runtime.
	PRIV_RUNCMD ctr version	Obtain the version and verify the runtime with privilege elevation.
runc	runc --root <root> list --format json 2>/dev/null	List the running containers.
runc	PRIV_RUNCMD runc --root <root> list --format json 2>/dev/null	List the running containers with privilege elevation.

Nodes modeled by the pattern

The Containerization.SoftwareContainers pattern module models the following nodes:

Software Instance

The Containerization.SoftwareContainers pattern models the Software Instance node kinds of the following types:

Runtime	containerd	CRI-O	Docker	Podman
Attributes	key='containerd/%host.key% name short_name type = containerd version product_version	key='CRI-O/%host.key% name short_name type=CRI-O version product_version config_path control_socket_path listening_ports default_runtime	key='Docker/%host.key% name short_name type=Docker version product_version	key='Podman/%host.key% name short_name type=Podman version product_version config_path