bootc

Transactional, in-place operating system updates using OCI/Docker container images.

Motivation

The original Docker container model of using "layers" to model applications has been extremely successful. This project aims to apply the same technique for bootable host systems - using standard OCI/Docker containers as a transport and delivery format for base operating system updates.

The container image includes a Linux kernel (in e.g. /usr/lib/modules), which is used to boot. At runtime on a target system, the base userspace is not itself running in a "container" by default. For example, assuming systemd is in use, systemd acts as pid1 as usual - there's no "outer" process. More about this in the docs; see below.

Status

The CLI and API are considered stable. We will ensure that every existing system can be upgraded in place seamlessly across any future changes.

Documentation

See the project documentation.

Adopters (base and end-user images)

The bootc CLI is just a client system; it is not tied to any particular operating system or Linux distribution. You very likely want to actually start by looking at ADOPTERS.md.

Community discussion

The Github discussion forum is enabled.

This project is also tightly related to the previously mentioned Fedora/CentOS bootc project, and many developers monitor the relevant discussion forums there. In particular there's a Matrix channel and a weekly video call meeting for example: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/bootc/community/.

Developing bootc

Are you interested in working on bootc? Great! See our CONTRIBUTING.md guide. There is also a list of MAINTAINERS.md.