OSTREE(1)

NAME
ostree - Manage multiple bootable versioned filesystem trees

SYNOPSIS

ostree {COMMAND} [OPTIONS...]

DESCRIPTION

OSTree is a tool for managing multiple bootable versioned filesystem trees, or just "tree" for short. In the OSTree model, operating systems no longer live in the physical "/" root directory. Instead, they parallel install to the new toplevel /ostree directory. Each installed system gets its own /ostree/deploy/osname directory.

Unlike rpm or dpkg, OSTree is only aware of complete filesystem trees. It has no built-in knowledge of what components went into creating the filesystem tree.

It is possible to use OSTree in several modes; the most basic form is to replicate pre-built trees from a build server. Usually, these pre-built trees are derived from packages. You might also be using OSTree underneath a higher level tool which computes filesystem trees locally.

It must be emphasized that OSTree only supports read-only trees. To change to a different tree (upgrade, downgrade, install software), a new tree is checked out, and a 3-way merge of configuration is performed. The currently running tree is not ever modified; the new tree will become active on a system reboot.

To see the man page for a command run man ostree COMMAND or man ostree-admin COMMAND

OPTIONS

The following options are understood:

--repo
    For most commands, when run as non-root, repository is required. If ostree is run as root, it is assumed operations will be performed on the /sysroot/ostree/repo repository.

-v, --verbose
    Produce debug level output.

COMMANDS

System administrators will primarily interact with OSTree via the subcommand ostree admin.

ostree-admin-cleanup(1)
    Delete untagged deployments and repository objects.

ostree-admin-config-diff(1)
    See changes to /etc as compared to the current default (from /usr/etc).

ostree-admin-deploy(1)
    Takes a particular commit or revision, and sets it up for the next boot.

ostree-admin-init-fs(1)
    Initialize a root filesystem in a specified path.

ostree-admin-instutil(1)
    Utility functions intended primarily for operating system installation programs

ostree-admin-os-init(1)
    Initialize the deployment location for an operating system with a specified name.

ostree-admin-status(1)
    Show and list the deployments.

ostree-admin-switch(1)
    Choose a different ref to track from the same remote as the current tree.

ostree-admin-undeploy(1)
    Remove the previously INDEX deployed tree from the bootloader configuration.

ostree-admin-upgrade(1)
    Download the latest version for the current ref, and deploy it.

Both administrators and operating system builders may interact with OSTree via the regular filesystem manipulation commands.

ostree-cat(1)
    Concatenate contents of files

ostree-checkout(1)
    Check out a commit into a filesystem tree.

ostree-checksum(1)
    Gives checksum of any file.

ostree-commit(1)
    Given one or more trees, create a new commit using those contents.

ostree-config(1)
    Change settings.

ostree-diff(1)
    Concisely list differences between the given refs.

ostree-fsck(1)
    Check a repository for consistency.

ostree-init(1)
    Initialize a new repository.

ostree-log(1)
    Show revision log.

ostree-ls(1)
    List the contents of a given commit.

ostree-prune(1)
    Search for unreachable objects.

ostree-pull-local(1)
    Copy data from source-repo.

ostree-pull(1)
    Download data from remote repo. If you have libsoup.

ostree-refs(1)
    List refs.

ostree-remote(1)
    Manipulate remote archive configuration.

ostree-reset(1)
    Reset a ref to a previous commit.

ostree-rev-parse(1)
    Show the SHA256 corresponding to a given rev.

ostree-show(1)
    Given an OSTree SHA256 checksum, display its contents.

ostree-static-delta(1)
    Manage static delta files.

ostree-summary(1)
    Regenerate the repository summary metadata.

ostree-trivial-httpd(1)
    Simple webserver.

EXAMPLES

For specific examples, please see the man page regarding the specific ostree command. For example:

man ostree init or man ostree-admin status

GPG VERIFICATION

OSTree supports signing commits with GPG. Operations on the system repository by default use keyring files in /usr/share/ostree/trusted.gpg.d. Any public key in a keyring file in that directory will be trusted by the client. No private keys should be present in this directory.

In addition to the system repository, OSTree supports two other paths. First, there is a gpgkeypath option for remotes, which must point to the filename of an ASCII-armored key.

Second, there is support for a per-remote remotename.trustedkeys.gpg file stored in the toplevel of the repository (alongside objects/ and such). This is particularly useful when downloading content that may not be fully trusted (e.g. you want to inspect it but not deploy it as an OS), or use it for containers. This file is written via ostree remote add --gpg-import.

SEE ALSO

ostree.repo(5)