OS Image Composer Now Available

[arodage]

Composing Custom Linux Images

The fragmentation of existing toolchains across RPM and Debian distributions hinders the creation of custom Linux images for diverse edge environments with stringent requirements. Gaining full control over image customization without a boot loader configuration and configuration sprawl promises to radically simplify the process of building and managing exactly the image you want for the workload at hand.

The release of the open-source OS Image Composer command-line tool from Intel establishes a standardized, extensible framework for rapidly creating and managing operating system images. The vision is to create Linux images for different architectures as a generic, portable composer with an isolated build pipeline.

📣 Get the latest on the tool in the release announcement.

The tool processes a user-defined YAML file with custom requirements and parameters to generate mutable or immutable yet securable operating systems from vendors' pre-built packages. With the tool, you can:

• Customize the configuration for the workload.
• Minimize the operating system by including only the packages needed for the workload.
• Optimize the operating system for performance, bandwidth, resource constraints, security, and environment, including edge AI.
• Generate operating systems with CVE verified packages and produce a software bill of materials (SBOM) so you know exactly what's in each image.
• Manage YAML image templates to rapidly reproduce custom, verified, and inventoried operating systems at scale.
• Produce images that support A/B atomic updates to eliminate configuration drift and to help drive consistency and robustness for image management and integrity.

Developed in the Go programming language, the OS Image Composer tool includes rich subcommand hierarchies, flag parsing, and autocompletion. There are customization options for the distribution, kernel, architecture, package selection, and output format.

The tool drives rapid templating by letting you create YAML input files that define how you want to customize a supported Linux distribution. The tool includes automatic support for package dependency resolution and support for adding multiple package repositories to an OS build, including proprietary packages or upstream packages pending integration.

Output formats support deployments on virtual machines and physical servers, including those running Intel® Core™ Ultra processors, Intel® Xeon® CPU Max Series processors, and Intel Atom® processors.

For more information about the capabilities of OS Image Composer, read this short white paper or check out the release announcement.

Give It a Spin

The initial release of the OS Image Composer has been tested and validated to work with Ubuntu 24.04. Here's how to give it a whirl:

• Download the tool by cloning and checking out the latest tagged release on GitHub. Alternatively, you can download the latest tagged release of the ZIP archive.

• Install version 1.22.12 or later of golang before building the tool; see the Go installation instructions for your Linux distribution.

Then build the tool:

go build -buildmode=pie -ldflags "-s -w" ./cmd/os-image-composer

Then, to see all the tool's commands and options, run ./os-image-composer --help.

Before you compose an operating system image, follow the instructions to install these prerequisites: ukify and mmdebstrap.

After that, you're ready to compose an image by running the following command:

sudo -E ./os-image-composer build image-templates/azl3-x86_64-edge-raw.yml

After the image finishes building, check your output directory. The exact name of the output directory varies by environment and image but should look something like this:

/os-image-composer/tmp/os-image-composer/azl3-x86_64-edge-raw/imagebuild/Minimal_Raw

This first version of OS Image Composer supports Ubuntu 24.04, Edge Microvisor Toolkit, Azure Linux, and Wind River eLxr.

📣 Get the latest on the tool in the release announcement or check out this demo on YouTube.

How can the tool help power up your own edge AI projects? Let us know in discussions.

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[biapalmeiro]

Now available: https://github.com/open-edge-platform/os-image-composer

[arodage]

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