News¶

Distrobuilder 3.0 has been released¶

11th of November 2023

Introduction¶

The distrobuilder team is proud to announce the release of distrobuilder 3.0!

Outside of the usual updates to account for changes made by various distributions, the main highlights are:

• Incus is now used in place of LXD
• Distributions
• A lot of updates to handle newer distribution releases
• Added support for VyOS
• Added support for Slackware
• Added support for NixOS
• Several improvements to the systemd generator, which is also now shipped as a standalone file
• Pongo templates can now be used in actions
• Reworked documentation

The full list of commits is available below:

Detailed changelog

• main: the systemd generator doesn't do anything on VMs
• main: simplify NetworkManager and cloud-init handling
• main: do distro ID comparison (quick) before grepping (slower)
• main: add is_lxc_privileged_container function
• main: Stop doing terrible things to NetworkManager
• udev: Allow NetworkManager to manage veth interfaces
• main: export LC_ALL=C
• image/lxd: stop using qcow2 compat=0.10 (aka qcow2-v2)
• sources/almalinux: Format isoRunner script
• sources/almalinux: Drop hard-coded GPG key
• doc/examples: Fix typos in examples
• main: Reintroduce NetworkManager workaround
• shared/util: Use multiple threads when compressing
• main: Mask systemd-firstboot.service
• sources/centos: Disable fastestmirror plugin
• sources/centos: Use baseurl instead of metalink for repos
• sources/gentoo: Download portage tree
• managers/portage: Make refresh a no-op
• sources/opensuse: Change URL path to Leap images
• doc/generators: Fix link to LXD image format
• sources/opensuse: Validate found tarball links
• sources: Support Rocky Linux 9
• sources/rhel: Check directory before listing its entries
• sources/rocky: Fix gpg key and mirrorlist for v9
• doc: mention that Windows Server 2022 is supported
• Drop deprecated io/ioutil package
• Update gomod
• shared/archive: Fix call to RunCommandWithFds
• shared/definition: Add Pongo support for actions
• main,managers: Add Pongo support for actions
• sources/alpine: Always download latest point release
• source/alpine: Properly handle latest release when using edge
• shared/logger: Set log output to stdout
• shared/logger: Add padding to log level texts
• sources/oracle: Find updates through iteration
• sources/openwrt: Support OpenWrt 22.03
• Add output note to image.md
• Add rootfs-http to downloaders list
• manages/{dnf,yum}: Use --nobest on package updates
• managers/yum: Use --nobest only if available
• Revert "managers: Drop luet"
• sources: Support Springdale Linux 9
• gomod: Exclude buggy dependency
• Update gomod
• systemd: Mask systemd-binfmt.service
• source: add support for openeuler downloader
• change release style to 22.03-LTS-SPx and try to select latest version
• sources: Set user-agent for downloads
• image,shared: Allow specifying compression level
• image,shared: Allow use of lzo/lzop interchangeably
• utils: Add missing user-agent string
• sources: Increase TLS handshake timeout for downloads
• sources: Pass client to downloadChecksum
• main: Log error when main command fails
• sources: Update openEuler tests
• main: Ensure main error is logged
• funtoo-http: Add support to next release
• Update gomod
• .github: Switch Go versions
• doc: basic Sphinx setup
• doc: apply Diataxis
• doc: add GitHub action for automatic doc tests
• doc: fix typos, linting and broken links
• doc: add workflow to build documentation
• doc: add link to snap
• doc: remove version switcher (since we only have one version)
• doc: only include GitHub link in the footer for actual pages
• Fix broken link to use.md
• doc/github workflows: cancel concurrent runs
• doc: fix documentation warnings
• doc: Update actions regards to the hook post-files
• build(deps): bump github.com/opencontainers/runc from 1.1.4 to 1.1.5
• Update CI test distros
• Use LXD-style static analysis
• Satisfy static analysis
• build-dir: Add with-post-files flag
• doc: Update build-dir usage
• Fix remaining static analysis issues
• main: Don't create cache directory if only validating
• main: Check cmd in postRun function
• shared/osarch: Use armv7 for alpine linux
• main: Fix cache directory removal if it's a mountpoint
• windows: Detect Windows architecture from filename
• sources/rocky: Support Rocky Vault
• sources: Add VyOS
• *: Set fstype when mounting
• sources/openwrt: Fix URL paths for arm builds
• main: Allow masking units created by the lxc system-generator
• github: Add DCO and target check
• generators/lxd-agent: Use setup script for OpenRC
• doc: add missing content for the tutorial
• *: Drop support for upstart (no longer used)
• Makefile: Add missing .PHONY for update-gomod
• github: Align tests with LXD's tests
• github: Run all doc tests in a single job
• github: Move doc tests to the main tests.yml
• github: Align builds with LXD's builds
• github: Add dependency-review action to check for vulnerable deps
• github: inclusive naming should fail on error
• shared/util: Sort tar archives by name
• image/lxd: Don't make rootfs.squashfs exportable via NFS
• *: Update short description to mention VM images are supported
• lxd-generator: Fix masking units created by generator
• definition: Add Source.Components
• doc/reference: add components field
• source: Update openEuler test
• Update gomod
• Update imports to github.com/canonical/lxd
• doc: Update index.md
• sphinx: Update link to LXD docs
• generators/lxd-agent: Update documentation in service file
• Add CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
• main: Move VM check to global command
• *: Apply filters on start
• definition: Filter LXC targets
• definition: Filter environment variables
• Revert "definition: Filter environment variables"
• Revert "definition: Filter LXC targets"
• Revert "*: Apply filters on start"
• Revert "main: Move VM check to global command"
• main: Move VM check to global command
• *: Apply filters on start
• definition: Filter LXC targets
• definition: Filter environment variables
• Revert "definition: Filter environment variables"
• Revert "definition: Filter LXC targets"
• Revert "*: Apply filters on start"
• Revert back to last working state
• shared: Add filter to DefinitionTargetLXCConfig
• image/lxc: Filter LXC metadata
• Pass full definition to SetupChroot
• shared: Add filter to DefinitionEnvVars
• shared: Filter environment variables
• github: Update branch target
• windows: Mount Windows ISO as UDF instead of ISO9660
• Fix troubleshoot link
• Do not bring the networking down on container startup when using routed nic together with NetworkManager, as in this case networking is configured externally by lxd.
• systemd: Tweak generator to handle systemd 254
• systemd: Disable ImportCredentials when privileged on 254+
• udev: Trigger lxd-agent even on change events
• systemd: Make sure subshell returns success
• github: replace golang 1.19 with 1.21
• Add support for slackware - added http source (works with 15.0 and current) - added slackpkg manager (upgrade/clean fail if there are not any packages to upgrade/clean)
• global: Use incus repository
• Update gomod
• global: Rename files lxd -> incus
• main: Rename {build,pack}-lxd to {build,pack}-incus
• generators,image: Rename LXD to Incus
• definition: Rename targets.lxd to targets.incus
• global: Rename lxd import to incus
• sphinx: Change URL to Incus
• README: Update for Incus
• global: Rename output files
• Rename lxd-agent to incus-agent
• global: Rename build-lxd to build-incus
• global: Rename pack-lxd to pack-incus
• generators: Remove mentions of LXD
• distrobuilder: Remove mentions of LXD
• doc: Update for Incus
• sphinx: Add Incus
• sources: Fix slackware
• Update gomod
• dnf: Also use nobest for install
• incus-agent: Fix lxd-agent fallback logic
• Update gomod
• shared: Update for Incus packages
• Added rpmbootstrap source
• global: Update to current incus/shared
• Update openwrt-http.go for 23.05
• sources: Add NixOS
• Update openwrt-http.go for handling new 23.x release
• Bugfix in openwrt-http.go to handle 23.x ARM release
• Missing } in openwrt-http.go
• Update openwrt-http_test.go for new versions (untested)
• generator: Extract systemd generator from code
• Support dnf in rpmbootstrap
• main: Keep track of current subcommand
• main_validate: Set SinceErrors to true
• shared/osarch: Add x86_64 to Alpine architecture map
• Update gomod
• Update Vyos rolling update iso url

Downloads¶

• Main release tarball: distrobuilder-3.0.tar.gz
• GPG signature: distrobuilder-3.0.tar.gz.asc

Distrobuilder 2.1 has been released¶

27th of April 2022

Introduction¶

The distrobuilder team is proud to announce the release of distrobuilder 2.1!

Outside of the usual updates to account for changes made by various distributions, the main highlights are:

• Removal of Ubuntu Core support
• Validation of YAML configuration
• Support for local files in the rootfs source
• Support for native Windows 11 drivers when available
• Addition of virtiostor driver on Windows
• New --sources-dir and --keep-sources command line arguments
• Update to LXD's new cloud-init configuration keys
• Change of logging framework (logrus)

The full list of commits is available below:

Detailed changelog

• sources/oracle: Run yum with --skip-broken
• ubuntu.yaml: add releases hirsute, impish, jammy
• sources: Fix Oracle 7 for aarch64
• sources: Fix Oracle install script
• sources/rootfs: Support local files
• doc: Mention local image files for rootfs downloader
• main: Add --sources-dir and --keep-sources
• sources: Pass sourcesDir to downloaders
• shared,sources: Reorganize code
• sources: Drop arguments on VerifyFile
• sources: Drop arguments on GetSignedContent
• sources: Drop arguments on CreateGPGKeyring
• main: Change directory of virtioISOPath
• doc: Add --sources-dir and --keep-sources
• sources: Fix RHEL common build directories
• main: Fix timeout handler
• generators: Use new cloud-init config keys
• main: Handle interrupt and timeout with context
• *: Add context to RunCommand
• *: Add stdin and stdout to RunCommand
• : Replace lxd.RunCommand with shared.RunCommand
• sources: Add context to recvGPGKeys
• generators: Fix cloud-init network config
• generators: Add trailing newline to cloud-init files
• managers: Add missing context to struct
• Update gomod
• *: Allow cancelling downloads using context
• *: Clean up failed downloads
• .github/workflows: Drop Go 1.13
• sources: Fix downloads with multiple hashes
• sources: Drop Sabayon
• managers: Drop luet
• Update gomod
• *: Switch from zap to logrus
• sources/alt: Support armhf
• gomod: Update dependencies
• systemd: Use absolute path to udevadm
• generators/cloud-init: Fix network-config
• systemd-generator: Handle /bin/udevadm
• generators/cloud-init: Fix content override
• Add compatibility with CentOS 9 stream.
• systemd: Add override for ProcSubset
• Fixed typo
• lxd-agent: cleaner shutdown sequence
• windows: Use available w11 and 2k22 drivers
• sources: Switch to own Unpack function
• Update gomod
• Revert "lxd-agent: cleaner shutdown sequence"
• vm: Use discard mount option
• Update gomod
• github: Drop go 1.16.x and 1.17.x
• Makefile: Update for go 1.18
• vm: Optimise mount options for speed
• Satisfy staticcheck
• Update gomod
• Makefile: Switch to staticcheck
• main: Fix image targets for LXD
• lxd-agent: Sync with upstream LXD
• main: override systemd features only when security.nesting=false
• source: Return error correctly
• sources/ubuntu: Drop Ubuntu Core
• Remove data directory
• shared/definition: Add DefinitionFilterType
• main: Use UnmarshalStrict
• main: Add validate sub-command
• main: Use DefinitionFilterType
• shared/definition: Fix unmarshalling of DefinitionFilterType
• test: Add TestDefinitionFilterTypeUnmarshalYAML
• main: systemd's ReadWritePaths came with version 231
• windows: Add viostor driver

Downloads¶

• Main release tarball: distrobuilder-2.1.tar.gz
• GPG signature: distrobuilder-2.1.tar.gz.asc

Distrobuilder 2.0 has been released¶

18th of October 2021

Introduction¶

The distrobuilder team is proud to announce its initial release, distrobuilder 2.0!

As usual, this release fixes a variety of issues as Linux distributions evolve and change the way they're built. Additionally, it also improves the Windows ISO repack feature quite a bit and introduces support for directly importing an image into LXD

The main highlights are:

• windows: Support for Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 ISO images
• windows: Addition of virtio GPU driver
• gentoo: Support for custom variants
• New --import-into-lxd command line option

The full list of commits is available below:

Detailed changelog

• Makefile: Tweak generation of dist tarball
• sources/plamolinux: Support new pkgtools8
• main: Check systemd-sysctl path
• systemd: Properly check for instance type
• windows: Add Windows 11 support
• sources/plamolinux: Fix a process related to pkgtools8
• sources/plamolinux: more fix related to pkgtools8
• Update gomod
• main: Skip overlay on zfs
• *: Replace Wrap with WithMessage
• windows: Fix pongo variable name in balloon driver
• *: Replace RunCommand with RsyncLocal
• utils: Fix error handling in RsyncLocal
• windows: Add driver viogpudo
• Update mkdocs.yml
• main: Add support for Windows Server 2022
• *: Switch to errors without stack traces
• Update go modules
• sources/openwrt: Drop lxd-openwrt repo and SDK
• main: Log image creation
• sources/gentoo: Allow custom source variants
• *: Record created filenames
• main: Add --import-into-lxd flag
• Update go mod
• doc: Update packages.md
• doc: Update building.md
• main: Fix post-files actions for lxc
• main: Check for snap when importing LXD image
• shared/definition: s/-/_/
• generators: Add definition to generator init
• generators: Drop template rendering in cloud-init and dump
• doc: Update renamend key values
• doc/generators: Add missing source field
• doc: Mention general pongo support
• shared/util: Add Retry function
• shared/net: Use Retry for downloads
• sources: Use Retry for networking
• Update go.mod
• sources/debootstrap: Handle merged /usr
• systemd: drop unused variable
• systemd: double quote to prevent globbing and word splitting
• systemd: generate zzz-lxc-service.conf in one go
• main: remove NoNewPrivileges=no from systemd-generator
• Revert "main: remove NoNewPrivileges=no from systemd-generator"
• github: Bump Go versions
• sources/oracle: Fix rpm/yum issue
• Update gomod

Downloads¶

• Main release tarball: distrobuilder-2.0.tar.gz
• GPG signature: distrobuilder-2.0.tar.gz.asc

Distrobuilder 1.3 has been released¶

9th of August 2021

Introduction¶

The distrobuilder team is proud to announce its initial release, distrobuilder 1.3!

The main highlights are:
- New systemd generator to dynamically apply needed tweaks in containers
- Support for AlmaLinux, SpringdaleLinux and RockyLinux (using shared CentOS logic)
- Support for busybox images

The full list of commits is available below:

Detailed changelog

• sources/centos: Support patch releases
• sources/centos: Fix CentOS 8-Stream
• sources/centos: Only print error on patch releases
• sources/centos: Fix CentOS 8 Stream
• sources/centos: Fix centos-stream-repos package on 8-Stream
• sources: Support OpenWrt on ARM
• main: Fix systemd capabilities
• sources/funtoo: Handle missing releases
• sources/funtoo: Improve error handling
• managers/zypper: Add --replacefiles flag to install
• main: Consider the case of boot.wim and install.wim
• systemd: Also disable ProtectKernelTunables=no
• Adding AlmaLinux to build code
• Adds almalinux-http to valid downloaders list
• sources/funtoo: Add missing break
• main: Skip overlay on xfs
• main: Run systemd fix before post-files actions
• main: Add --disable-overlay flag
• main: Add systemd generator
• sources: Add generic HTTP downloader
• shared/definition: Support rootfs-http
• sources: Add Rocky Linux
• shared/definition: Support rockylinux-http downloader
• sources: Add Springdale Linux
• shared/definition: Support springdalelinux-http downloader
• main: Support source.URL template
• systemd: Refactor generator
• systemd-generator: Some small fixes
• main: Fix typos in systemd-generator
• main: Refactor networkd/resolved fixes
• main: Simplify sed call
• main: s/which/type/ in systemd generator
• main: Make sure to return 0
• main: Add settings for privileged containers
• main: Fix cloud-init and NetworkManager detection
• main: Add more distros to NetworkManager fix
• main: Fix calls to fix_ro_paths
• main: Restrict networkd/resolved fix to unprivileged containers
• main: Fix path of ip command
• main: Add /lib/systemd to searchable paths
• systemd: Make sure override runs last
• systemd: Fix Oracle networking
• systemd: Make network-connection-activate work on Oracle
• systemd: Always apply NM fix on centos
• almalinux: clean up downloader code and add beta/rc support
• main: Fix typo in systemd generator
• main: Add fix for systemd-udev-trigger.service
• systemd: Mask more units
• main: Add fix for systemd-sysctl
• sources/opensuse: Fix path to non-x86_64 tarballs
• sources/opensuse: Fix URL to tarballs
• main: Replace Sanity Checks with Quick Checks
• sources: Rework downloader
• sources: s/docker/docker-http/
• systemd: Mask systemd-pstore.service
• sources/centos: Support CentOS 8 on armhf
• sources/oracle: Fix ISO paths and support aarch64
• main: Mask ua-messaging.service
• sources: Remove duplicate code
• sources/almalinux: Update errors
• sources/alpine: Update errors
• sources/alt: Update errors
• sources/apertis: Update errors
• sources/archlinux: Update errors
• sources/centos: Update errors
• sources/debootstrap: Update errors
• sources/docker: Update errors
• sources/fedora: Update errors
• sources/funtoo: Update errors
• sources/gentoo: Update errors
• sources/opensuse: Update errors
• sources/openwrt: Update errors
• source/oraclelinux: Update errors
• sources/plamolinux: Update errors
• sources/rhel-common: Update errors
• sources/rocky: Update errors
• sources/rootfs: Update errors
• sources/sabayon: Update errors
• sources/springdalelinux: Update errors
• sources/ubuntu: Update errors
• sources/voidlinux: Update errors
• sources/centos: Add more GPG keys
• sources/oracle: Run yum with --skip-broken
• managers: Refactor
• main: Use refactored managers
• Drop apt-transport-https (transitional since 18.04)
• Revert "sources/oracle: Run yum with --skip-broken"
• sources/oracle: Fix iso script
• Avoid systemd generator to break systemd-networkd connections
• sources/oracle: Fix OL7 base URL
• sources/centos: Add GPG keys early
• sources/centos: Fix CentOS repo names
• sources/centos: Check repo before disabling it
• sources/centos: Include more gpg keys
• openwrt: Add ability to make 21.02 RC images
• systemd: Mask hwdb-update
• Drop Ubuntu 14.04 (EOL)
• Drop Ubuntu 16.04 (EOL)
• sources/gentoo: Support arm64
• sources/gentoo: Support source variant
• systemd: Fix typo in unit name
• generators: Drop upstart-tty
• generators: Refactor generators
• main: Use refactored generators
• main: Check filter before loading generator
• main: Clean up properly on timeout/interrupt
• main: Write to stderr if GetLogger fails
• main: Extend logging
• Wrap errors
• sources: Fix gentoo regexes
• main: Add NoNewPrivileges=no to systemd-generator
• sources: Fix gentoo source variant check
• Update go modules
• sources: Pass cache directory
• sources: Replace TempDir with cacheDir
• sources: Fix unmount for rhel based distros
• sources: Add busybox
• systemd: Add systemd-sysusers workaround
• archlinux: Switch test to official mirror
• sources/centos: Fix error message
• sources/centos: Unmount raw file
• sources/openwrt: Fix directory name
• vm: Check existance of loop device before detaching it
• vm: Fix error message
• sources/busybox: Fix mkdir call
• sources/busybox: Fix build
• sources/busybox: Remove test logging message
• sources/busybox: Rename directories to make more sense
• Update gomod
• doc: Update build instructions
• doc: Update usage
• main: Add logging
• sources: Add logging
• main: Wrap overlay errors
• doc/index: Drop internal command
• Hide completion sub-command
• Makefile: Set GO111MODULE
• image: Fix LXD compression
• image: Add compression flag for lxc images
• image: Update tests
• shared: Add zstd compression
• main: Add type and compression to help message
• sources/alt: Update tarball url (add arch subdir)
• sources/alt: Update checksum and gpg file paths
• main: Remove duplicate defer statement
• main: Disable overlay on FUSE filesystems
• image: Fix unified LXD tarballs
• sources/openwrt: Remove verification
• main: Support ISO generation with mkisofs

Downloads¶

• Main release tarball: distrobuilder-1.3.tar.gz
• GPG signature: distrobuilder-1.3.tar.gz.asc

Distrobuilder 1.2 has been released¶

23rd of March 2021

Introduction¶

The distrobuilder team is proud to announce its initial release, distrobuilder 1.2!

This release's highlight is the introduction of Windows image repacking.

LXD is able to run Windows VMs; for that it needs a Windows ISO and a bunch of specific drivers from a separate ISO which need to be loaded during the Windows installation.

To make things easier, distrobuilder has added the repack-windows command which takes both a Windows ISO and an ISO containing the specific drivers, and bundles them together. With the resulting ISO, Windows can be installed easily.

With this release also come support for Go modules, and basic context logging. For a more detailed log output, the --debug flag can be used.

The full list of commits is available below:

Detailed changelog

• sources: Fix Plamo 7.x
• Cosmetic update to the README.me (index.md)
• Updated instructions
• sources: Fix CentOS 8-Stream rootfs
• luet: Fix gofmt
• Remove out-of-place statement
• generators: Add virtio-fs to lxd-agent init scripts
• generators: Add copy generator
• generators: update doc
• Added missing definitions in generators hosts, hostname
• generators: Fix lxd-agent openRC scripts
• sources/openwrt: Use fallback image if necessary
• sources/docker: Permit to use private docker registry with credentials
• distrobuilder: Add repack-windows command
• distrobuilder: Call Sync() before unmounting overlay
• windows: Add balloon driver
• windows: Add netkvm driver
• windows: Add vioinput driver
• windows: Add viorng driver
• windows: Add vioscsi driver
• windows: Add vioserial driver
• windows: Add viofs driver
• Add Github Actions
• Remove Travis integration
• README: Point build status to GitHub Actions
• github: Align workflow with LXD
• generators: Refresh lxd-agent systemd units
• repack-windows: Check for genisoimage
• generators/lxd-agent: Fix systemd path
• generators/lxd-agent: Fix path in unit file
• windows: Add support for Windows Server 2016
• windows: Determine correct Windows paths
• support changing interpreter with shebang
• sources/voidlinux: Fix checksum file names
• Fix bad calls to RunScript
• oracle: Symlink /bin to /usr/bin if missing
• sources/plamo: Don't override PATH in scripts
• windows: Optimize registry editing
• shared/logger: Add logger
• main: Add --debug flag
• main: Add basic logging
• Support go modules
• Makefile: Move go get to update-gomod target
• .github/workflows: Remove go dependency section
• .github/workflows: Update Go modules before testing
• main: Always unmount WIM file
• main: Cleanup on unsuccessful mount
• main: Fix NPE
• windows: Change flag s/version/windows-version/
• doc: Add Windows section
• doc/building: Mention --vm flag
• doc/packages: Clarify url key in packages
• doc: Add filtering
• Update gomod

Downloads¶

• Main release tarball: distrobuilder-1.2.tar.gz
• GPG signature: distrobuilder-1.2.tar.gz.asc

Older news¶

• 20th of August 2020
• 21st of October 2019