feature request - add Alpine Linux cloud image to images.toml

[makergamer]

Please consider adding Alpine Linux to the images.toml considering how light, fast, and audited it is.

The challenge is which images to include in the images.toml :

• https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/ - has classic releases plus a mini-root fs for containers

• https://alpinelinux.org/cloud/ - listed the latest minor releases for every combination of:

  • x86_64 & aarch64
  • bios & uefi
  • tiny cloud & cloud-init
  • multiple storage: qcow2 (oci, nocloud), raw (gcp), vhd (aws, azure)

An interesting observation is at https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.20/releases/cloud/ from where the cloud files are served, there is a "generic" which is not listed on the Cloud Image webpage selectors or listing. The "generic" might be optimal as its x86_64 & aarch64, uefi, and cloud-init ONLY.

(BTW, beside "vm" there's also "metal" releases for all for those interested.)

[chrboe]

We have actually toyed around with alpine + virter before. A few notes:

1. You want the nocloud cloud image. For example: https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.20/releases/cloud/nocloud_alpine-3.20.3-x86_64-bios-cloudinit-r0.qcow2
2. Alpine only configures an alpine user, not root. So you need to tell virter that.

virter image pull alpine https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.20/releases/cloud/nocloud_alpine-3.20.3-x86_64-bios-cloudinit-r0.qcow2
virter vm run --id 100 --user alpine --wait-ssh alpine
virter vm ssh alpine-100

This works for me.

The issue with the alpine user is what is preventing us from adding alpine to the "official" registry. Without the --user argument, you would not be able to ssh to the machine, which would probably confuse users.