Command line arguments are process differently for HostProcess containers and Windows Server containers

[marosset]

Command line arguments are processed differently for HostProcess containers and Windows Server containers.
This makes it difficult to develop / test /deploy workingloads in HostProcess containers on Windows.

I wrote a small program that dumps the command line arguments pass to the program

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"os"
)

func main() {
	fmt.Printf("Raw command line: %v", os.Args)
	fmt.Println()
}

When I deployed the follow pod to a Kubernetes cluster

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: print-cmd-args
spec:
  containers:
  - name: container
    image: mrosse3/print-cmd-args
    imagePullPolicy: Always
    command:
      - "print-cmd-args.exe"
      - "arg"
      - "arg with spaces"
      - 'arg with single quotes'
      - --cobra-style-command=foobar
      - --another-cobra-command="foobar"
      - --cobra-with-space="hello world"
  restartPolicy: Never
  nodeSelector:
    "kubernetes.io/os": windows

I see the following output

kubectl logs print-cmd-args
Raw command line: [print-cmd-args.exe arg arg with spaces 
arg with single quotes --cobra-style-command=foobar 
--another-cobra-command="foobar" --cobra-with-space="hello world"]

I then tried to deploy the same container as a HostProcess container

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: print-cmd-args-host-process
spec:
  securityContext:
    windowsOptions:
      hostProcess: true
      runAsUserName: "NT AUTHORITY\\SYSTEM"
  hostNetwork: true
  containers:
  - name: container
    image: mrosse3/print-cmd-args
    imagePullPolicy: Always
    command:
      - "print-cmd-args.exe"
      - "arg"
      - "arg with spaces"
      - 'arg with single quotes'
      - \"espaced quotes\"
      - --cobra-style-command=foobar
      - --another-cobra-command="foobar"
      - --cobra-with-space="hello world"
  restartPolicy: Never
  nodeSelector:
    "kubernetes.io/os": windows

and see this different output

kubectl logs print-cmd-args-host-process
Raw command line: [print-cmd-args.exe arg "arg with spaces" 
"arg with single quotes" --cobra-style-command=foobar 
--another-cobra-command=\ "foobar\" "--cobra-with-space=\" hello world\ ""]

Additionally - many workloads in the Kubernetes/CNCF ecosystem use https://github.com/spf13/cobra to parse command lines.
Adding quotes around the string (like how --cobra-with-space="hello world" goes to "--cobra-with-space=\" hello world\ "" for HostProcess containers breaks the processing logic for these workloads.

[marosset]

/cc @dcantah @jsturtevant

[dcantah]

Looking