RHEL 8 New Features for Experienced Linux Administrators
Objectives
After completing this section, students should be able to build multiple types of system images using the new image builder utility.
Image Builder
Image builder (project name Composer) is a new tool available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 as technology preview. It allows administrators to create customized system images of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Image builder has a graphical user interface in the web console. It can also be accessed from a terminal with the use of the composer-cli command.
Image Builder Output Formats
QEMU QCOW2 Image (
*.qcow2)Ext4 File System Image (
*.img)Raw Partitioned Disk Image (
*.img)Live Bootable ISO (
*.iso)TAR Archive (
*.tar)Amazon Machine Image Disk (
*.ami)Azure Disk Image (
*.vhd)VMware Virtual Machine Disk (
*.vmdk)
Image Builder Blueprints
Image builder creates system images based on blueprints. A blueprint defines the image by listing packages, users, SSH keys and other possible resources that will be part of the system. Blueprints are versioned and can be edited. When a new image is created from a blueprint using the web console, the image is associated with the blueprint.
Image Builder System Requirements
Dedicated virtual machine with SELinux in permissive mode
CPU with 2 cores
4 GB RAM
20 GiB disk space
Connectivity to Internet and to another server with repository mirrors.
References
For more information, refer to the Composing a customized RHEL system image chapter in the Installing and deploying RHEL at https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html-single/composing_a_customized_rhel_system_image
