bootc-base-images/docs/install.md

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Trying out development builds

Using fedora-bootc-cloud via KVM

This repository defines a cloud-agnostic base image. However, many people who just want to "try things out" will find it easiest to start with the cloud image.

Operating system state (users, ssh keys)

It's absolutely crucial to understand that the container image is the operating system content. Notably the default tier-1 image does not include cloud-init or Ignition or any default recommended mechanism for provisioning user accountson its own.

Commonly then you will want to build your own container image derived from e.g. quay.io/centos-bootc/fedora-bootc:eln that adds a login mechanism. For example, you could add cloud-init.

However, it's also possible to embed SSH login configuration in the image, or configure any login mechanism you desire in general! For example, you could set up a VPN configuration in your operating system and ensure logins are only possible over the VPN, etc.

Installation using Anaconda

Tools like Anaconda support injecting configuration at image installation time, such as SSH keys and passwords. This means that in contrast to what was said just before, it's possible to directly install (and update from) an "unconfigured base image" provided by this project.

This hinges on the ostreecontainer kickstart verb, which is new in Fedora 38; for example, there is a netinst.iso which can be scripted with kickstart. Because a current development target for this project is Fedora ELN, it's also supported to use the ISO generated by that project.

See example.ks for an example Kickstart file. The virt-install --initrd-inject helps inject kickstart for installation to virtual machines.

Using bootc install-to-filesystem --replace=alongside with a cloud image

A toplevel goal of this project is that the "source of truth" for Linux operating system management is a container image registry - as opposed to e.g. a set of qcow2 OpenStack images or AMIs, etc. You should not need to maintain infrastructure to e.g. manage garbage collection or versioning of cloud (IaaS) VM images.

The latest releases of bootc have support for bootc install-to-filesystem --replace=alongside. More about this core mechanic in the bootc install docs.

Here's an example set of steps to execute; this could be done via e.g. cloud-init configuration.

dnf -y install podman skopeo
podman run --rm --privileged --pid=host -v /:/target --security-opt label=type:unconfined_t <yourimage> bootc install-to-filesystem --target-no-signature-verification --karg=console=ttyS0,115200n8 --replace=alongside /target
reboot

Rebasing from Fedora CoreOS

Fedora CoreOS supports many different platforms, and can be used as a starting point to "rebase" to a custom derived image from CentOS boot.

systemctl mask --now zincati && rm -vf /run/ostree/staged-deployment-locked
echo "# dummy change" >> "/etc/sudoers.d/coreos-sudo-group"
rpm-ostree rebase ostree-unverified-registry:quay.io/centos-bootc/fedora-bootc:eln
systemctl reboot

TODO: Use osbuild

Document the ongoing work to materialize a disk image from a container.