Deploy & Forget: Mastering Flatcar Container Linux

About Flatcar

Flatcar Container Linux is a lightweight, secure operating system purpose-built for running containerized workloads at scale. As a continuation of CoreOS Container Linux, Flatcar retains its core principles of simplicity, security, and automation. It is designed to be minimal, including only the necessary components to run containers efficiently, which helps reduce the attack surface and resource consumption.
Key features include:

• An immutable root file system (/usr)
• Automatic updates, and
• Built-in security tools such as SELinux and dm-verity, ensuring the OS remains secure and stable.

About the workshop - and what participants will learn 📚

• This workshop offers detailed, step-by-step guidance to help you get started with Flatcar.
• Along the way, you’ll explore the Gentoo ecosystem that Flatcar leverages, learn how to deploy it using Terraform, and configure it with Ignition, Flatcar’s declarative configuration system.
• If time permits, you’ll also automate operating system updates using Nebraska.

These tools and practices enable a “set it and forget it” operational model, allowing teams to focus on higher-level tasks while maintaining a secure, consistent, and reliable infrastructure.

• The workshop is of 3 hours duration.
• This is an in-person workshop.
• Only 35 seats are open for workshop participation.
• Recording of the workshop will be made available for Rootconf members.

Important prerequisites for participants attending the workshop 📝

Download:

1. Flatcar Container Linux QEMU Image - https://alpha.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu_image.img.bz2
2. Helper script which interfaces with QEMU image - https://alpha.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu.sh

Other requirements:

1. Linux VM with nested virtualization (or Linux host with KVM)
2. QEMU (Installing QEMU Guide)
3. Terraform (Installing Terraform Guide)
4. Butane (can be used from the Docker image or directly from the binary)
5. OpenStack credentials for the Hands-on 3

See https://www.flatcar.org/docs/latest/tutorial/ for more details.

Workshop outline 🗂️

Hands-on 1: Discovering
Hands-on 2: Provisioning
Hands-on 3: Deploying
Hands-on 4: Updating

About the instructor 👨 🏫

Sayan Chowdhury is software engineer at Microsoft, currently working with the team building Flatcar Container Linux.

Who should attend this workshop 👨 💻

This workshop is designed for:

• DevOps professionals
• Kernel enthusiasts
• Anyone interested in diving deeper into the Linux kernel

How to Register

This workshop is free to attend for Rootconf members or Rootconf ticket buyers.

This workshop is open to 35 participants only. Seats will be available on first-come-first-serve basis. RSVP to secure a seat. 🎟️

Contact information ☎️

For inquiries about the workshop, contact +91-7676332020 or write to info@hasgeek.com