Chapter 2. Installing and publishing a bootc image to a registry
MicroShift is built and published as image mode containers. When installing a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) bootable container image with MicroShift, use either a prebuilt bootable container image or build your own custom bootable container image.
2.1. The image mode for RHEL with MicroShift workflow Copy linkLink copied to clipboard!
Before you use image mode for RHEL, ensure that the following resources are available:
- A RHEL 9.6 host with an active Red Hat subscription for building MicroShift bootc images.
-
A remote registry for storing and accessing
rhel-bootc
images. - An AArch64 or x86_64 system architecture.
The workflow for using image mode for RHEL with MicroShift includes the following steps:
- Find and use a prebuilt MicroShift container image to install RHEL.
- If the prebuilt MicroShift container image requires customization, build a custom MicroShift container image.
- Run the container image.
The rpm-ostree
file system used by RHEL for Edge is not supported in image mode for RHEL. Do not use the rpm-ostree
file system to modify deployments that use image mode for RHEL.
2.2. Get or build your bootc image Copy linkLink copied to clipboard!
Either get an existing bootc image or create one, then you can publish that image to a remote registry for use.
2.2.1. Getting the published bootc image for MicroShift Copy linkLink copied to clipboard!
You can use the MicroShift container images to install image mode for RHEL.
Prerequisites
- You have an x86_64 or AArch64 platform.
-
You have access to the
registry.redhat.io
registry.
Procedure
- Navigate to the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog.
-
Search for the MicroShift container image by using the
microshift-bootc
keyword. - Open the container image page of the MicroShift container image.
-
See the
Overview
andTechnical Information
tabs to get more details about the image. -
Select the
Get this image
tab to view instructions for downloading the image. Get access to the latest image on x86_64 and AArch64 platforms by logging into the registry using the following command:
sudo podman login registry.redhat.io
$ sudo podman login registry.redhat.io
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Toggle word wrap Toggle overflow Download the bootc image by running the following command:
podman pull registry.redhat.io/openshift4/microshift-bootc-rhel9:v4.19
$ podman pull registry.redhat.io/openshift4/microshift-bootc-rhel9:v4.19
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2.2.2. Building the bootc image Copy linkLink copied to clipboard!
Build your Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that contains MicroShift as a bootable container image by using a Containerfile.
Prerequisites
- A RHEL 9.6 host with an active Red Hat subscription for building MicroShift bootc images and running containers.
-
You logged into the RHEL 9.6 host by using the user credentials that have
sudo
permissions. -
The
rhocp
andfast-datapath
repositories are accessible in the host subscription. The repositories do not necessarily need to be enabled on the host. - You have a remote registry such as {quay} for storing and accessing bootc images.
-
You used the
dnf install -y container-tools
command to install thecontainer-tools
meta-package on the host. The meta-package contains all container tools, such as Podman, Buildah, and Skopeo for additional support and troubleshooting. These tools are required for obtaining assistance from Red Hat Support when you are building and installing the image.
Procedure
Create a Containerfile that includes the following instructions:
Example Containerfile for RHEL image mode
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Toggle word wrap Toggle overflow
Podman uses the host subscription information and repositories inside the container when building the container image. If the rhocp
and fast-datapath
repositories are not available on the host, the build fails.
Set the
PULL_SECRET
environment variable:PULL_SECRET=~/.pull-secret.json
$ PULL_SECRET=~/.pull-secret.json
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Toggle word wrap Toggle overflow Configure the
USER_PASSWD
environment variable:USER_PASSWD=<redhat_user_password>
$ USER_PASSWD=<redhat_user_password>
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- Replace <redhat_user_password> with your password.
Configure the
IMAGE_NAME
environment variable:IMAGE_NAME=microshift-4.19-bootc
$ IMAGE_NAME=microshift-4.19-bootc
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Toggle word wrap Toggle overflow Create a local bootc image by running the following image build command:
sudo podman build --authfile "${PULL_SECRET}" -t "${IMAGE_NAME}" \ --build-arg USER_PASSWD="${USER_PASSWD}" \ -f Containerfile
$ sudo podman build --authfile "${PULL_SECRET}" -t "${IMAGE_NAME}" \ --build-arg USER_PASSWD="${USER_PASSWD}" \ -f Containerfile
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Toggle word wrap Toggle overflow ImportantHow secrets are used during the image build:
-
The podman
--authfile
argument is required to pull the baserhel-bootc:9.6
image from theregistry.redhat.io
registry. -
The build
USER_PASSWD
argument is used to set a password for theredhat
user.
-
The podman
Verification
Verify that the local MicroShift bootc image was created by running the following command:
sudo podman images "${IMAGE_NAME}"
$ sudo podman images "${IMAGE_NAME}"
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Toggle word wrap Toggle overflow Example output
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE localhost/microshift-4.19-bootc latest 193425283c00 2 minutes ago 2.31 GB
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE localhost/microshift-4.19-bootc latest 193425283c00 2 minutes ago 2.31 GB
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2.3. Publishing the bootc image to the remote registry Copy linkLink copied to clipboard!
Publish your bootc image to the remote registry so that the image can be used for running the container on another host, or for when you want to install a new operating system with the bootc image layer.
Prerequisites
-
You are logged in to the RHEL 9.6 host where the image was built using the user credentials that have
sudo
permissions. - You have a remote registry such as {quay} for storing and accessing bootc images.
- You created the Containerfile and built the image.
Procedure
Set the
REGISTRY_URL
variable for the image by running the following command:REGISTRY_URL=<quay.io>
$ REGISTRY_URL=<quay.io>
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- Replace <quay.io> with the URL for your image registry.
Log in to your remote registry by running the following command:
sudo podman login "${REGISTRY_URL}"
$ sudo podman login "${REGISTRY_URL}"
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Toggle word wrap Toggle overflow Set the
IMAGE_NAME
variable for the image by running the following command:IMAGE_NAME=<microshift-4.19-bootc>
$ IMAGE_NAME=<microshift-4.19-bootc>
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- Replace <microshift-4.19-bootc> with the name of the image you want to publish.
Set the
REGISTRY_IMG
variable for the image by running the following command:REGISTRY_IMG=<myorg/mypath>/"${IMAGE_NAME}"
$ REGISTRY_IMG=<myorg/mypath>/"${IMAGE_NAME}"
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- Replace <myorg/mypath> with your remote registry organization name and path.
Publish the image by running the following command:
sudo podman push localhost/"${IMAGE_NAME}" "${REGISTRY_URL}/${REGISTRY_IMG}"
$ sudo podman push localhost/"${IMAGE_NAME}" "${REGISTRY_URL}/${REGISTRY_IMG}"
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Verification
- Run the container using the image you pushed to your registry as described in the "Running the MicroShift bootc container" section.