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[shim] Keep shim task files out of the container - #4223

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[shim] Keep shim task files out of the container#4223
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pr_shim_split_task_runner_dirs

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@un-def un-def commented Aug 27, 2026

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~/.dstack/runners/<name> is mounted into the task container as /tmp/runner. It used to hold runner's files only, but shim now keeps its own files there as well -- the image pull log since #2903 and the task state file since #4220 -- sharing them with the runner and the user workload, which may corrupt or delete them. Nothing sensitive is stored there today, but the approach is unsafe: nothing stops a contributor from putting a secret into a file the container can read.

That dir is now the task dir, private to shim, and only its new runner subdir is mounted into the container:

~/.dstack/runners/<container-name>/  0700, shim only
  task.json
  pull.log
  runner/                           0755, mounted as /tmp/runner
  • runnerDir/runnersDir are renamed to taskDir/tasksDir throughout, including the DockerParameters methods, to signal that the dir is managed by shim rather than by runner. The runners path itself is kept: an upgraded shim must find the dirs of the tasks created by the previous version.
  • The dir of a restored task is no longer derived from the container mounts, which now point at the runner subdir, but from the task ID in its state file. The tasks dir is scanned once on start, and the result is shared by the restore and the orphan sweep, which used to scan the dir a second time.
  • A task started by a shim version that did not write state files cannot be found by its state file, so its dir, named after the container, is looked up by name and, as before, removed along with the task.

`~/.dstack/runners/<name>` is mounted into the task container as
`/tmp/runner`. It used to hold runner's files only, but shim now keeps
its own files there as well -- the image pull log since #2903 and the
task state file since #4220 -- sharing them with the runner and the user
workload, which may corrupt or delete them. Nothing sensitive is stored
there today, but the approach is unsafe: nothing stops a contributor
from putting a secret into a file the container can read.

That dir is now the task dir, private to shim, and only its new `runner`
subdir is mounted into the container:

    ~/.dstack/runners/<container-name>/  0700, shim only
      task.json
      pull.log
      runner/                           0755, mounted as /tmp/runner

* `runnerDir`/`runnersDir` are renamed to `taskDir`/`tasksDir`
  throughout, including the `DockerParameters` methods, to signal that
  the dir is managed by shim rather than by runner. The `runners` path
  itself is kept: an upgraded shim must find the dirs of the tasks
  created by the previous version.
* The dir of a restored task is no longer derived from the container
  mounts, which now point at the `runner` subdir, but from the task ID
  in its state file. The tasks dir is scanned once on start, and the
  result is shared by the restore and the orphan sweep, which used to
  scan the dir a second time.
* A task started by a shim version that did not write state files cannot
  be found by its state file, so its dir, named after the container, is
  looked up by name and, as before, removed along with the task.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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