opa

What is OPA?

The OPA image packages Open Policy Agent, a general-purpose policy engine that decouples policy decisions from application code. Policies are written in Rego, a declarative language, and OPA evaluates them against JSON input to return allow or deny decisions — making it a common choice for Kubernetes admission control (including through Gatekeeper), microservice and API authorization, CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code policy checks, and data filtering. OPA is a CNCF graduated project. The image runs the opa binary, which can operate as a long-running server exposing a REST API, evaluate policies from the command line with opa eval and opa test, or run as a sidecar that loads policy and data bundles from a remote server. It is used by security and platform teams enforcing guardrails, by application teams externalizing authorization, and by operators who need a reproducible, version-pinned policy runtime.

What is Echo's OPA image?

Echo's OPA image is a hardened build of OPA on Echo's hardened base. Echo images are designed to be a drop-in replacement: swap the image reference in your Dockerfile or deployment manifest and CVEs go to zero without disrupting your Rego policies, bundle configuration, decision logging, and REST API integrations. Every image is tested across clouds, image use cases, and deployment targets. Echo ships every image in two variants:

• Distroless variant — optimized for runtime use, with the smallest possible attack surface
• Default variant — includes essential build tools, package managers, and shells for teams that need operational access

For production OPA deployments, the distroless variant keeps all runtime operations — policy evaluation, bundle loading, decision logging, and API serving — fully intact while minimizing exposure; the default variant suits security and platform teams that need shell access for testing policies with opa eval, inspecting loaded bundles, or debugging decision logs.

What is the difference between Echo's OPA image and the public OPA image?

Public OPA images ship on bases that include OS-level tooling convenient for development but which contribute CVEs that accumulate on a policy engine used in production. OPA images run inside CI pipelines and operational jobs with access to authorization policies, decision data, and the credentials used to pull bundles. OS-level CVEs in the base image — particularly in libraries such as openssl, libc, and ca-certificates — create exploitable paths in an environment that application-level controls never see. Because tooling images are pulled and executed constantly across pipelines, they are also a steady source of scanner noise — every package in the base becomes a finding your security team must triage, even when none of it is exercised by the job. Echo's build retains everything OPA needs for policy evaluation, bundle loading, decision logging, and API serving while removing the packages that don't belong in a production OPA policy engine. As we covered in our post on how to protect your company from software supply chain attacks, build and automation images that run with access to source code, credentials, and deployment targets are a high-value path into everything downstream. Echo commits to a 7-day SLA for critical and high severity vulnerabilities, and 10 days for medium, low, and unknown — with vulnerabilities triaged within 24 hours. Echo images are recognized by all major scanners and mirrored to all major registries, so they fit into existing pipelines without changing your registry, scanner, or runtime tooling.

FAQ

Can I replace my OPA image with Echo's OPA image?

Yes. Echo's OPA image is a drop-in replacement. Update the FROM line in your Dockerfile and your workloads keep running. Rego policies, bundle download configuration, decision logs, REST API calls, and Gatekeeper or sidecar deployments all continue to work without changes to your policies or integration code.

Is Echo's OPA image FIPS-validated?

Yes. Echo's FIPS-validated images use cryptographic modules with an active FIPS 140-3 CMVP certificate, making them fit for federal use — unlike FIPS-compliant images that haven't been validated. This matters for teams running OPA workloads inside FedRAMP boundaries, where a policy engine that makes allow or deny decisions for admission and authorization requests must meet cryptographic requirements across the full stack — including the OpenSSL and TLS libraries bundled with the OPA image.

What is Echo's vulnerability management SLA on the OPA image?

Echo commits to a 7-day SLA for critical and high severity vulnerabilities, and 10 days for medium, low, and unknown — with vulnerabilities triaged within 24 hours. Patches are mirrored automatically into your private registry so you're always running a clean version — critical for a tooling image that is pulled and run constantly across pipelines with access to authorization policies, decision data, and the credentials used to pull bundles.

Is Echo's OPA image distroless?

Echo ships every image in two variants: a distroless variant optimized for runtime use, and a default variant that includes essential build tools, package managers, and shells. For production OPA deployments, the distroless variant is the leaner, more secure choice; for security and platform teams that need shell access for testing policies with opa eval, inspecting loaded bundles, or debugging decision logs, the default variant is the right fit.

How does Echo achieve such a drastic CVE reduction in OPA?

Echo's OPA image is built from source with only the absolute essentials needed to run the OPA policy engine, which significantly shrinks the attack surface. Echo also patches aggressively over time, with backports available so you can stay on the OPA version your applications and their dependencies are certified against — avoiding a disruptive upgrade forced purely by OS-level vulnerabilities in the base image rather than by your own requirements.

Will Echo's OPA image help us achieve FedRAMP?

Yes. The hard parts of FedRAMP — managing vulnerabilities, applying fixes, and using FIPS-validated cryptography — are baked into Echo images, including STIG-hardened configuration and ConMon/POA&M-ready reporting. For security and platform teams running OPA under an ATO — whether that's Kubernetes admission control, service-to-service authorization, or infrastructure-as-code policy gates — Echo's hardened OPA image keeps the policy engine layer in-boundary and compliant without requiring custom hardening scripts or manual base image patching between compliance cycles.

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