Butane Config Examples

    Here you can find a bunch of simple examples for using Butane configs, with some explanations about what they do. The examples here are in no way comprehensive, for a full list of all the available fields check out the Butane specification .

    Users and groups

    variant: flatcar
    version: 1.0.0
    passwd:
      users:
        - name: core
          password_hash: "$6$43y3tkl..."
          ssh_authorized_keys:
            - ssh-rsa ABCLKJASD...
    

    This example modifies the existing core user, giving it a known password hash (this will enable login via password), and setting its ssh key.

    variant: flatcar
    version: 1.0.0
    passwd:
      users:
        - name: user1
          password_hash: "$6$43y3tkl..."
          ssh_authorized_keys:
            - key1
            - key2
        - name: user2
          ssh_authorized_keys:
            - key3
    

    This example will create two users, user1 and user2. The first user has a password set and two ssh public keys authorized to log in as the user. The second user doesn’t have a password set (so log in via password will be disabled), but have one ssh key.

    variant: flatcar
    version: 1.0.0
    passwd:
      users:
        - name: user1
          password_hash: "$6$43y3tkl..."
          ssh_authorized_keys:
            - key1
          home_dir: /home/user1
          no_create_home: true
          groups:
            - wheel
            - plugdev
          shell: /bin/bash
    

    This example creates one user, user1, with the password hash $6$43y3tkl..., and sets up one ssh public key for the user. The user is also given the home directory /home/user1, but it’s not created, the user is added to the wheel and plugdev groups, and the user’s shell is set to /bin/bash.

    Generating a password hash

    If you choose to use a password instead of an SSH key, generating a safe hash is extremely important to the security of your system. Simplified hashes like md5crypt are trivial to crack on modern GPU hardware. Here are a few ways to generate secure hashes:

    # On Debian/Ubuntu (via the package "whois")
    mkpasswd --method=SHA-512 --rounds=4096
    
    # OpenSSL (note: this will only make md5crypt.  While better than plantext it should not be considered fully secure)
    openssl passwd -1
    
    # Python
    python -c "import crypt,random,string; print(crypt.crypt(input('clear-text password: '), '\$6\$' + ''.join([random.choice(string.ascii_letters + string.digits) for _ in range(16)])))"
    
    # Perl (change password and salt values)
    perl -e 'print crypt("password","\$6\$SALT\$") . "\n"'
    

    Using a higher number of rounds will help create more secure passwords, but given enough time, password hashes can be reversed. On most RPM based distributions there is a tool called mkpasswd available in the expect package, but this does not handle “rounds” nor advanced hashing algorithms.

    Storage and files

    Files

    variant: flatcar
    version: 1.0.0
    storage:
      files:
        - path: /opt/file
          contents:
            inline: Hello, world!
          mode: 0644
          user:
            id: 500
          group:
            id: 501
    

    This example creates a file at /opt/file with the contents Hello, world!, permissions 0644 (so readable and writable by the owner, and only readable by everyone else), and the file is owned by user uid 500 and gid 501.

    variant: flatcar
    version: 1.0.0
    storage:
      files:
        - path: /opt/file2
          contents:
              source: http://example.com/file2
              compression: gzip
              verification:
                hash: sha512-4ee6a9d20cc0e6c7ee187daffa6822bdef7f4cebe109eff44b235f97e45dc3d7a5bb932efc841192e46618f48a6f4f5bc0d15fd74b1038abf46bf4b4fd409f2e
          mode: 0644
    

    This example fetches a gzip-compressed file from http://example.com/file2, makes sure that it matches the provided sha512 hash, and writes it decompressed to /opt/file2.

    Filesystems

    variant: flatcar
    version: 1.0.0
    storage:
      filesystems:
        - device: /dev/disk/by-partlabel/ROOT
          format: btrfs
          wipe_filesystem: true
          label: ROOT
    

    This example formats the root filesystem to be btrfs.

    systemd units

    variant: flatcar
    version: 1.0.0
    systemd:
      units:
        - name: etcd-member.service
          dropins:
            - name: conf1.conf
              contents: |
                [Service]
                Environment="ETCD_NAME=infra0"            
    

    This example adds a drop-in for the etcd-member unit, setting the name for etcd to infra0 with an environment variable. More information on systemd dropins can be found in the docs .

    variant: flatcar
    version: 1.0.0
    systemd:
      units:
        - name: hello.service
          enabled: true
          contents: |
            [Unit]
            Description=A hello world unit!
    
            [Service]
            Type=oneshot
            ExecStart=/usr/bin/echo "Hello, World!"
    
            [Install]
            WantedBy=multi-user.target        
    

    This example creates a new systemd unit called hello.service, enables it so it will run on boot, and defines the contents to simply echo "Hello, World!".

    systemd user units

    variant: flatcar
    version: 1.0.0
    passwd:
      users:
        - name: flatcar
          groups:
            - systemd-journal
    storage:
      directories:
        - path: /etc/systemd/user/default.target.wants
          mode: 0755
      files:
        - path: /etc/systemd/user/hello.service
          mode: 0644
          contents:
            inline: |
              [Unit]
              Description=A hello world unit!
    
              [Service]
              Type=oneshot
              ExecStart=/usr/bin/echo "Hello, World!"
    
              [Install]
              WantedBy=default.target          
      links:
        - path: /etc/systemd/user/default.target.wants/hello.service
          target: /etc/systemd/user/hello.service
          hard: false
    

    This example creates a new systemd user unit called hello.service, enables it with an explicit symlink (workaround for Ignition) so it will run on boot, and defines the contents to simply echo "Hello, World!".

    Note: Adding a regular user like “flatcar” to the systemd-journal group can be useful if you want to access the journal logs with journalctl --user --unit hello.service. You can already access logs with journactl --user-unit hello.service from the default core user.

    networkd units

    variant: flatcar
    version: 1.0.0
    storage:
      files:
        - path: /etc/systemd/network/static.network
          contents:
            inline: |
              [Match]
              Name=enp2s0
    
              [Network]
              Address=192.168.0.15/24
              Gateway=192.168.0.1          
    

    This example creates a networkd unit to set the IP address on the enp2s0 interface to the static address 192.168.0.15/24, and sets an appropriate gateway. More information on networkd units in Flatcar Container Linux can be found in the docs .