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fix(telemetry): improve vm/container detection #10944

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Merged
lidel merged 5 commits into from
Sep 8, 2025
Merged

fix(telemetry): improve vm/container detection #10944

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b8fc0ae
telemetry: use systemd-detect-virt for container/vm detection
hsanjuan Aug 28, 2025
ad9326a
Update plugin/plugins/telemetry/telemetry.go
hsanjuan Aug 29, 2025
12ad47e
Update plugin/plugins/telemetry/telemetry.go
hsanjuan Aug 29, 2025
d77f130
telemetry: improve vm/container detection with pure go
lidel Aug 29, 2025
77c33ce
refactor(telemetry): use strings.Lines for efficient line iteration
lidel Sep 8, 2025
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138 changes: 119 additions & 19 deletions plugin/plugins/telemetry/telemetry.go
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -9,7 +9,9 @@ import (
"os"
"path"
"runtime"
"slices"
"strings"
"sync"
"time"

"github.com/google/uuid"
Expand All @@ -27,6 +29,14 @@ import (

var log = logging.Logger("telemetry")

// Caching for virtualization detection - these values never change during process lifetime
var (
containerDetectionOnce sync.Once
vmDetectionOnce sync.Once
isContainerCached bool
isVMCached bool
)

const (
modeEnvVar = "IPFS_TELEMETRY"
uuidFilename = "telemetry_uuid"
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -476,45 +486,135 @@ func (p *telemetryPlugin) collectPlatformInfo() {
}

func isRunningInContainer() bool {
// Check for Docker container
containerDetectionOnce.Do(func() {
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@gammazero gammazero Aug 29, 2025

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Do we want to cache the result here (if does not hurt to do so), or do we want to cache at a higher level remembering that isRunningInContainer and isRunningInVM have already been called?

Previously, I had assumed that container/VM checks would be cached at a higher level, but caching the result within in the check here says that was a wrong assumption. It seems like telemetry should know which questions it only needs to ask once.

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@lidel lidel Sep 8, 2025

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i guess this is an extra precaution for now. we will likely refine metrics over time, and have more clear split between dynamic and one-time ones, but thats out of scope here (merging as is)

isContainerCached = detectContainer()
})
return isContainerCached
}

func detectContainer() bool {
// Docker creates /.dockerenv inside containers
if _, err := os.Stat("/.dockerenv"); err == nil {
return true
}

// Check cgroup for container
content, err := os.ReadFile("/proc/self/cgroup")
if err == nil {
if strings.Contains(string(content), "docker") || strings.Contains(string(content), "lxc") || strings.Contains(string(content), "/kubepods") {
return true
}
// Kubernetes mounts service account tokens inside pods
if _, err := os.Stat("/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io"); err == nil {
return true
}

content, err = os.ReadFile("/proc/self/mountinfo")
if err == nil {
// systemd-nspawn creates this file inside containers
if _, err := os.Stat("/run/systemd/container"); err == nil {
return true
}

// Check if our process is running inside a container cgroup
// Look for container-specific patterns in the cgroup path after "::/"
if content, err := os.ReadFile("/proc/self/cgroup"); err == nil {
for line := range strings.Lines(string(content)) {
if strings.Contains(line, "overlay") && strings.Contains(line, "/var/lib/containers/storage/overlay") {
// cgroup lines format: "ID:subsystem:/path"
// We want to check the path part after the last ":"
parts := strings.SplitN(line, ":", 3)
if len(parts) == 3 {
cgroupPath := parts[2]
// Check for container-specific paths
containerIndicators := []string{
"/docker/", // Docker containers
"/containerd/", // containerd runtime
"/cri-o/", // CRI-O runtime
"/lxc/", // LXC containers
"/podman/", // Podman containers
"/kubepods/", // Kubernetes pods
}
for _, indicator := range containerIndicators {
if strings.Contains(cgroupPath, indicator) {
return true
}
}
}
}
}

// WSL is technically a container-like environment
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@aschmahmann aschmahmann Aug 29, 2025

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True, but does this help us to bundle with other virtualization tools? Maybe yes from the perspective of "networking is harder / easier to mess up", but not really if we're using as a proxy for say users who tend to control their environments programmatically.

Not strictly advocating one way or the other here, but would be helpful to know (and document in case we need to revisit down the line) what the idea is.

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@lidel lidel Aug 29, 2025

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I also don't have strong feeling here, but I think if something fails in WSL is would be because of container-like nature.

I'm thinking this way: if we see networking issues in WSL, they should correlate with "Window+container" cohort, rather regular Windows users who run IPFS Desktop, no?

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@aschmahmann aschmahmann Aug 29, 2025

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Yeah probably. Although IIUC the comparison is not to windows users but to traditional Linux users using CLI or desktop, since the only information being tracked is that it's Linux and a container (vs just Linux)

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@gammazero gammazero Aug 29, 2025

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This is fine as it is, but we may want to consider adding some string to our telemetry data to indicate just what was detected: "linux+wsl"

if runtime.GOOS == "linux" {
if content, err := os.ReadFile("/proc/sys/kernel/osrelease"); err == nil {
osrelease := strings.ToLower(string(content))
if strings.Contains(osrelease, "microsoft") || strings.Contains(osrelease, "wsl") {
return true
}
}
}

// Also check for systemd-nspawn
if _, err := os.Stat("/run/systemd/container"); err == nil {
return true
// LXC sets container environment variable
if content, err := os.ReadFile("/proc/1/environ"); err == nil {
if strings.Contains(string(content), "container=lxc") {
return true
}
}

// Additional check: In containers, PID 1 is often not systemd/init
if content, err := os.ReadFile("/proc/1/comm"); err == nil {
pid1 := strings.TrimSpace(string(content))
// Common container init processes
containerInits := []string{"tini", "dumb-init", "s6-svscan", "runit"}
if slices.Contains(containerInits, pid1) {
return true
}
}

return false
}

func isRunningInVM() bool {
// Check for VM
if _, err := os.Stat("/sys/hypervisor/uuid"); err == nil {
return true
vmDetectionOnce.Do(func() {
isVMCached = detectVM()
})
return isVMCached
}

func detectVM() bool {
// Check for VM-specific files and drivers that only exist inside VMs
vmIndicators := []string{
"/proc/xen", // Xen hypervisor guest
"/sys/hypervisor/uuid", // KVM/Xen hypervisor guest
"/dev/vboxguest", // VirtualBox guest additions
"/sys/module/vmw_balloon", // VMware balloon driver (guest only)
"/sys/module/hv_vmbus", // Hyper-V VM bus driver (guest only)
}

// Check for other VM indicators
if _, err := os.Stat("/dev/virt-0"); err == nil {
return true
for _, path := range vmIndicators {
if _, err := os.Stat(path); err == nil {
return true
}
}

// Check DMI for VM vendors - these strings only appear inside VMs
// DMI (Desktop Management Interface) is populated by the hypervisor
dmiFiles := map[string][]string{
"/sys/class/dmi/id/sys_vendor": {
"qemu", "kvm", "vmware", "virtualbox", "xen",
"parallels", // Parallels Desktop
// Note: Removed "microsoft corporation" as it can match Surface devices
},
"/sys/class/dmi/id/product_name": {
"virtualbox", "vmware", "kvm", "qemu",
"hvm domu", // Xen HVM guest
// Note: Removed generic "virtual machine" to avoid false positives
},
"/sys/class/dmi/id/chassis_vendor": {
"qemu", "oracle", // Oracle for VirtualBox
},
}

for path, signatures := range dmiFiles {
if content, err := os.ReadFile(path); err == nil {
contentStr := strings.ToLower(strings.TrimSpace(string(content)))
for _, sig := range signatures {
if strings.Contains(contentStr, sig) {
return true
}
}
}
}

return false
Expand Down
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