Running on QEMU

    These instructions will bring up a single Flatcar Container Linux instance under QEMU, the small Swiss Army knife of virtual machine and CPU emulators. If you need to do more such as configuring networks differently refer to the QEMU Wiki and User Documentation .

    You can direct questions to the IRC channel or mailing list .

    Install QEMU

    In addition to Linux it can be run on Windows and OS X but works best on Linux. It should be available on just about any distro.

    Debian or Ubuntu

    Documentation for Debian has more details but to get started all you need is:

    sudo apt-get install qemu-system-x86 qemu-utils
    

    Fedora or RedHat

    The Fedora wiki has a quick howto but the basic install is easy:

    sudo yum install qemu-system-x86 qemu-img
    

    Arch

    This is all you need to get started:

    sudo pacman -S qemu
    

    More details can be found on Arch’s QEMU wiki page .

    Gentoo

    As to be expected, Gentoo can be a little more complicated but all the required kernel options and USE flags are covered in the Gentoo Wiki . Usually this should be sufficient:

    echo app-emulation/qemu qemu_softmmu_targets_x86_64 virtfs xattr >> /etc/portage/package.use
    emerge -av app-emulation/qemu
    

    Startup Flatcar Container Linux

    Once QEMU is installed you can download and start the latest Flatcar Container Linux image.

    Choosing a channel

    Flatcar Container Linux is designed to be updated automatically with different schedules per channel. You can disable this feature , although we don’t recommend it. Read the release notes for specific features and bug fixes.

    The Stable channel should be used by production clusters. Versions of Flatcar Container Linux are battle-tested within the Beta and Alpha channels before being promoted. The current version is Flatcar Container Linux 3815.2.0.

    There are two files you need: the disk image (provided in qcow2 format) and the wrapper shell script to start QEMU.

    mkdir flatcar; cd flatcar
    wget https://stable.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu.sh
    wget https://stable.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu.sh.sig
    wget https://stable.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu_image.img
    wget https://stable.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu_image.img.sig
    gpg --verify flatcar_production_qemu.sh.sig
    gpg --verify flatcar_production_qemu_image.img.sig
    chmod +x flatcar_production_qemu.sh

    The Alpha channel closely tracks master and is released frequently. The newest versions of system libraries and utilities will be available for testing. The current version is Flatcar Container Linux 3874.0.0.

    There are two files you need: the disk image (provided in qcow2 format) and the wrapper shell script to start QEMU.

    mkdir flatcar; cd flatcar
    wget https://alpha.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu.sh
    wget https://alpha.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu.sh.sig
    wget https://alpha.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu_image.img
    wget https://alpha.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu_image.img.sig
    gpg --verify flatcar_production_qemu.sh.sig
    gpg --verify flatcar_production_qemu_image.img.sig
    chmod +x flatcar_production_qemu.sh

    The Beta channel consists of promoted Alpha releases. The current version is Flatcar Container Linux 3850.1.0.

    There are two files you need: the disk image (provided in qcow2 format) and the wrapper shell script to start QEMU.

    mkdir flatcar; cd flatcar
    wget https://beta.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu.sh
    wget https://beta.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu.sh.sig
    wget https://beta.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu_image.img
    wget https://beta.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/flatcar_production_qemu_image.img.sig
    gpg --verify flatcar_production_qemu.sh.sig
    gpg --verify flatcar_production_qemu_image.img.sig
    chmod +x flatcar_production_qemu.sh

    Starting is as simple as:

    ./flatcar_production_qemu.sh -nographic
    

    SSH keys

    In order to log in to the virtual machine you will need to use ssh keys. If you don’t already have a ssh key pair you can generate one simply by running the command ssh-keygen. The wrapper script will automatically look for public keys in ssh-agent if available and at the default locations ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub or ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub. If you need to provide an alternate location use the -a option:

    ./flatcar_production_qemu.sh -a ~/.ssh/authorized_keys -- -nographic
    

    Note: Options such as -a for the wrapper script must be specified before any options for QEMU. To make the separation between the two explicit you can use -- but that isn’t required. See ./flatcar_production_qemu.sh -h for details.

    Once the virtual machine has started you can log in via SSH:

    ssh -l core -p 2222 localhost
    

    SSH config

    To simplify this and avoid potential host key errors in the future add the following to ~/.ssh/config:

    Host flatcar
    HostName localhost
    Port 2222
    User core
    StrictHostKeyChecking no
    UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null
    

    Now you can log in to the virtual machine with:

    ssh flatcar
    

    Butane Configs

    Flatcar Container Linux allows you to configure machine parameters, configure networking, launch systemd units on startup, and more via Butane Configs. These configs are then transpiled into Ignition configs and given to booting machines. Head over to the docs to learn about the supported features . An Ignition config can be passed to the virtual machine using the QEMU Firmware Configuration Device. The wrapper script provides a method for doing so:

    ./flatcar_production_qemu.sh -i config.ign -- -nographic
    

    This will pass the contents of config.ign through to Ignition, which runs in the virtual machine.

    Using Flatcar Container Linux

    Now that you have a machine booted it is time to play around. Check out the Flatcar Container Linux Quickstart guide or dig into more specific topics .