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devopscritical PriorityID: tetragon-ebpf-process-namespace-enforcement

Cilium Tetragon eBPF In-Kernel Namespace Attestation and SIGKILL Enforcement

Enforces synchronous, in-kernel execution control using Cilium Tetragon TracingPolicies to prevent arbitrary code execution within container namespaces. Mandates the use of eBPF kprobes on sys_execve with kernel-level Sigkill actions to terminate unauthorized binaries before userspace syscall completion, eliminating post-exploitation race windows.

Prohibited Anti-Pattern: Post-execution audit logging without in-kernel synchronous Sigkill enforcement

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---
description: Cilium Tetragon eBPF In-Kernel Namespace Attestation and SIGKILL Enforcement - Enforces synchronous, in-kernel execution control using Cilium Tetragon TracingPolicies to prevent arbitrary code execution within container namespaces. Mandates the use of eBPF kprobes on sys_execve with kernel-level Sigkill actions to terminate unauthorized binaries before userspace syscall completion, eliminating post-exploitation race windows.
globs: deploy/**/*.yaml, k8s/**/*.yaml, helm/**/*.yaml, security/**/*.yaml, tetragon/**/*.yaml
alwaysApply: true
verified_by: "agentrules.org"
license: "CC-BY-4.0"
source: "https://agentrules.org/rules/tetragon-ebpf-process-namespace-enforcement"
---

# Cilium Tetragon eBPF In-Kernel Namespace Attestation and SIGKILL Enforcement

> **Severity**: CRITICAL | **Category**: devops
> **Anti-Pattern Warning**: Post-execution audit logging without in-kernel synchronous Sigkill enforcement

## System Constraints
You are a Principal Security Architect enforcing Cilium Tetragon eBPF in-kernel security guardrails. You must mandate strict TracingPolicy declarations that enforce synchronous kernel-level SIGKILL termination against unauthorized process invocations within container namespaces, preventing asynchronous user-space evasion.

## Strict Guidelines
- Engineers MUST ALWAYS configure Tetragon TracingPolicy or TracingPolicyNamespaced CRDs with explicit 'Sigkill' actions on unauthorized sys_execve invocations.
- Engineers MUST NOT rely exclusively on asynchronous audit logging or userspace daemons to terminate rogue workloads after syscall completion.
- Tracing policies MUST scope process execution rules to precise pod namespaces using 'podSelector' and 'matchNamespaces' to avoid cross-tenant policy pollution.
- Code SHOULD enforce strict binary path prefixes or exact arguments matches, explicitly forbidding shell spawning (e.g., /bin/sh, /bin/bash, /bin/dash) in non-interactive workloads.
- Services MUST ensure that Tetragon eBPF sensors attach to 'sys_execve' or 'sys_enter_execve' entry probes to preemptively intercept fork-exec sequences prior to binary execution.
- Components NEVER execute external utilities via subshells; container images must run as distroless or non-root with an immutable root filesystem.

## Bad vs Good Implementations
### Kubernetes TracingPolicy for eBPF Synchronous Process SIGKILL

#### Bad Antipattern (AI Common Hallucination)
> **Why it fails**: The policy only collects audit telemetry without inline enforcement. A rogue actor or exploit executing an unauthorized shell (/bin/sh) will successfully spawn and run commands before human or external automation response occurs.
```yaml
apiVersion: cilium.io/v1alpha1
kind: TracingPolicy
metadata:
  name: monitor-execve-audit-only
spec:
  kprobes:
    - call: "sys_execve"
      syscall: true
      args:
        - index: 0
          type: "string"
      # Flaw: No action specified, only telemetry/audit logged.
      # Attacker can execute interactive reverse shell before userspace alert triggers.
```

#### Production Standard (Correct)
> **Standard**: The policy attaches to sys_execve within the specified namespace and pod selector. When an unauthorized execution attempt occurs, Tetragon synchronously transmits SIGKILL from kernel space via eBPF before the syscall completes, preventing malicious process initiation.
```yaml
apiVersion: cilium.io/v1alpha1
kind: TracingPolicyNamespaced
metadata:
  name: enforce-strict-exec-sigkill
  namespace: production-workloads
spec:
  podSelector:
    matchLabels:
      app.kubernetes.io/name: payment-service
  kprobes:
    - call: "sys_execve"
      syscall: true
      args:
        - index: 0
          type: "string"
      selectors:
        - matchArgs:
            - index: 0
              operator: "Prefix"
              values:
                - "/bin/sh"
                - "/bin/bash"
                - "/usr/bin/python"
                - "/usr/bin/perl"
                - "/bin/busybox"
          matchActions:
            - action: Sigkill
```

Recommended MCP Servers (mcp-serverlist.com)

Equip agent with system tools to verify code for this stack.

Kubernetes MCP Server

Inspects live cluster CRDs, validating Tetragon TracingPolicy deployments and pod namespace statuses.

Recommended Agent Skills (askills.dev)

Ready-to-use executable skill functions tailored to this stack.

Tetragon CLI Integration

Validates and tests eBPF TracingPolicy definitions locally against live kernel events using tetra getevents.

Architectural Specification & Invariant Rationale

Architectural Invariant Design: Cilium Tetragon eBPF In-Kernel Namespace Attestation and SIGKILL Enforcement

Cilium Tetragon eBPF In-Kernel Namespace Attestation and SIGKILL Enforcement defines an industrial-grade behavioral standard for devops engineering. Enforces synchronous, in-kernel execution control using Cilium Tetragon TracingPolicies to prevent arbitrary code execution within container namespaces. Mandates the use of eBPF kprobes on sys_execve with kernel-level Sigkill actions to terminate unauthorized binaries before userspace syscall completion, eliminating post-exploitation race windows. Modern software architectures require strict adherence to deterministic patterns to guarantee high availability, maintainability, and zero security vulnerabilities.

Framework Paradigm Shift & Drift MechanicsLLMs are trained on millions of open-source repositories containing outdated code, legacy idioms, and unpatched antipatterns. When coding assistants generate implementations for this stack, they default to common statistical tokens: Post-execution audit logging without in-kernel synchronous Sigkill enforcement Without an explicit system instruction file, developers spend hours debugging silent failures.

Failure Modes & Production Blast Radius

Hazard Analysis: What Breaks Without This Rule

The following failure modes have been cataloged from hundreds of hours of production code reviews where AI assistants produced non-compliant implementations:

Failure Mode	AI Symptom (The Anti-Pattern)	Severity	Production Impact & Remedy
AI Hallucination & Deprecation Drift	Post-execution audit logging without in-kernel synchronous Sigkill enforcement	Critical	Violating this industrial standard introduces regression bugs, security risks, and unexpected runtime failures in production. Enforce explicit behavioral system directives across all AI coding assistants in your repository.
Silent Architecture Inconsistency	AI assistants produce mixed paradigms across files, creating fragmented codebase conventions.	Medium	Increases cognitive load during code reviews and leads to maintenance debt across engineering teams. Pin project conventions in .cursor/rules, CLAUDE.md, and AGENTS.md so all team agents follow identical guardrails.

Architectural Directives in Detail

Step-by-Step Production Directives

Each rule constraint below is injected into the AI agent's system prompt to establish deterministic boundaries:

1

Engineers MUST ALWAYS configure Tetragon TracingPolicy or TracingPolicyNamespaced CRDs with explicit 'Sigkill' actions on unauthorized sys_execve invocations.

Engineers MUST ALWAYS configure Tetragon TracingPolicy or TracingPolicyNamespaced CRDs with explicit 'Sigkill' actions on unauthorized sys_execve invocations.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.

Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.

2

Engineers MUST NOT rely exclusively on asynchronous audit logging or userspace daemons to terminate rogue workloads after syscall completion.

Engineers MUST NOT rely exclusively on asynchronous audit logging or userspace daemons to terminate rogue workloads after syscall completion.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.

Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.

3

Tracing policies MUST scope process execution rules to precise pod namespaces using 'podSelector' and 'matchNamespaces' to avoid cross-tenant policy pollution.

Tracing policies MUST scope process execution rules to precise pod namespaces using 'podSelector' and 'matchNamespaces' to avoid cross-tenant policy pollution.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.

Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.

4

Code SHOULD enforce strict binary path prefixes or exact arguments matches, explicitly forbidding shell spawning (e.g., /bin/sh, /bin/bash, /bin/dash) in non-interactive workloads.

Code SHOULD enforce strict binary path prefixes or exact arguments matches, explicitly forbidding shell spawning (e.g., /bin/sh, /bin/bash, /bin/dash) in non-interactive workloads.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.

Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.

5

Services MUST ensure that Tetragon eBPF sensors attach to 'sys_execve' or 'sys_enter_execve' entry probes to preemptively intercept fork-exec sequences prior to binary execution.

Services MUST ensure that Tetragon eBPF sensors attach to 'sys_execve' or 'sys_enter_execve' entry probes to preemptively intercept fork-exec sequences prior to binary execution.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.

Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.

6

Components NEVER execute external utilities via subshells

Components NEVER execute external utilities via subshells; container images must run as distroless or non-root with an immutable root filesystem.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.

Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.

Technical Questions & Answers

Frequently Asked Technical Questions

Common questions developers face when configuring AI coding assistants for this stack:

Q:Why is Cilium Tetragon eBPF In-Kernel Namespace Attestation and SIGKILL Enforcement critical for AI coding assistants?

Enforces synchronous, in-kernel execution control using Cilium Tetragon TracingPolicies to prevent arbitrary code execution within container namespaces. Mandates the use of eBPF kprobes on sys_execve with kernel-level Sigkill actions to terminate unauthorized binaries before userspace syscall completion, eliminating post-exploitation race windows. Without explicit behavioral boundaries, AI coding assistants (Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, Codex) rely on training data averages, which frequently produce deprecated, inefficient, or vulnerable code patterns.

Q:How does adopting this rule prevent AI hallucinations?

This rule explicitly declares what the AI must avoid (Post-execution audit logging without in-kernel synchronous Sigkill enforcement) and prescribes verified positive examples. Grounding the LLM with negative and positive pairs eliminates guesswork.

Q:Which AI coding environments are supported?

This specification is multi-platform compatible: Cursor (.cursor/rules/*.mdc & .cursorrules), Anthropic Claude Code (CLAUDE.md), Windsurf (.windsurfrules), Codex / Cline (AGENTS.md), and GitHub Copilot (.github/copilot-instructions.md).

Q:Can I combine this rule with other technology stacks?

Yes. Use the Interactive Stack Builder or download an Agent Pack to merge this rule with other frontend, backend, database, security, and DevOps rules without syntax collision.

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