kernel.org container images

kernel.org container images

[Guillaume Tucker]

Hello,

We discussed the topic of managing container images on kernel.org
again at Kernel Recipes last week with Konstantin and Arnd.  The
idea is to provide a set of reference images with kernel.org
toolchains which developers could use via the scripts/container
tool.  They would provide a common denominator to facilitate
development and reproducibility.  These images would of course not
be tied to any single tool and could provide a basis for CI bots
such as KernelCI or tuxmake.

The consensus so far is that it is a good initiative so we've
agreed to start setting things up with these new components:

* Repository on git.kernel.org e.g. utils/container-images with
  Containerfiles, build scripts and documentation

* Registry to host images e.g. registry.kernel.org with quotas and
  public pulls

The repository could be a replacement for the korg-containers[1]
project I started initially and I would be available to spend some
time maintaining it if needed.

One topic Konstantin brought up is that the registry would need to
have an allocated storage budget.  We could then decide which
images are the most important ones to host within it.  The current
ones based on Debian are about 1GB each, which could probably be
optimized.  I guess we might start with a 10GiB pilot, then 25GiB
should be the bare minimum for real-world usage and 100GiB would
give us some headroom.  The other topic is authentication for
publishing images, I'll let Konstantin chime in on this one as it's
entirely a kernel.org security issue.

I believe Nathan and Miguel were also onboard as per previous
discussions[2] so it seems like we have enough momentum now and a
clear path forward.

Best wishes,
Guillaume

[1] https://gitlab.com/gtucker/korg-containers
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/cc737636-2a43-4a97-975e-4725733f7ee4@gtucker.io/

Re: kernel.org container images

[SJ Park]

On Mon, 28 Sep 2026 14:30:48 +0200 Guillaume Tucker <gtucker@gtucker.io> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> We discussed the topic of managing container images on kernel.org
> again at Kernel Recipes last week with Konstantin and Arnd.  The
> idea is to provide a set of reference images with kernel.org
> toolchains which developers could use via the scripts/container
> tool.  They would provide a common denominator to facilitate
> development and reproducibility.  These images would of course not
> be tied to any single tool and could provide a basis for CI bots
> such as KernelCI or tuxmake.

I run a few humble and hacky build tests on my local machine.  I also want to
do the build test on more setups including rust enabled build, and on more
machines of different architectures.  But I'm short of time to learn how to do
cross build correctly.  The Rust for Linux training at LPC helped me doing rust
enabled kernel build for the first time, though.  Kudos to Rust for Linux team.

I am therefore considering options including use of the scripts/container tool.
I was unable to find a time to do that so far, though.  Having recommended
images in kernel.org will definitly help me prioritizing it.

I also find opportunities to use the images not only for build tests but more
use cases including benchmark runs.

I just wanted to say thank you for developing the tool and this kernel.org
registry initiative.  Looking forward to more progress, and I will also try to
find if there is something that I can help.


Thanks,
SJ

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