Installing

Installing cOS or a derivative locally

cOS (or any cOS derivative built with cos-toolkit) can be installed with elemental install:

elemental install [options] <device>

Option	Description
–cloud-init string	Cloud-init config file
–cosign	Enable cosign verification (requires images with signatures)
–cosign-key string	Sets the URL of the public key to be used by cosign validation
–directory string	Use directory as source to install from
–docker-image string	Install a specified container image
–force	Force install
–force-efi	Forces an EFI installation
–force-gpt	Forces a GPT partition table
–help	help for install
–iso string	Performs an installation from the ISO url
–no-format	Don’t format disks. It is implied that COS_STATE, COS_RECOVERY, COS_PERSISTENT, COS_OEM are already existing
–no-verify	Disable mtree checksum verification (requires images manifests generated with mtree separately)
–partition-layout string	Partitioning layout file
–poweroff	Shutdown the system after install
–reboot	Reboot the system after install
–strict	Enable strict check of hooks (They need to exit with 0)
–tty	Add named tty to grub

Custom OEM configuration

During installation it can be specified a cloud-init config file, that will be installed and persist in the system after installation:

elemental install --cloud-init [url|path] <device>

Custom partitioning layout

When installing with GPT or EFI it’s possible to specify a custom partitioning layout via specific config file, e.g.:

stages:
   partitioning:
     - name: "Repart disk"
       layout:
         device:
           path: /dev/sda
         add_partitions:
           - fsLabel: COS_STATE
             size: 8192
             pLabel: state
           - fsLabel: COS_OEM
             size: 10
             pLabel: oem
           - fsLabel: COS_RECOVERY
             # default filesystem is ext2 if omitted
             filesystem: ext4
             size: 40000
             pLabel: recovery
           - fsLabel: COS_PERSISTENT
             pLabel: persistent
             # default filesystem is ext2 if omitted
             filesystem: ext4
             size: 40000

Refer to the cloud-init config file reference about the layout section.

It can be also used to create additional partitions, or either create partitions into a different device, etc..

Run the installer with


elemental install --partition-layout <file> <device>

Note

While specifying a custom layout it is necessary to at least create 4 partitions: COS_OEM, COS_STATE, COS_RECOVERY, COS_PERSISTENT. Keep in mind the following while adjusting the partition sizes manually:

COS_OEM typically is used to store cloud-init files, so it can be also small.
COS_STATE is used to store all the system images, which by default are set to 3GB. This value is customizable in our configuration file. A system may contain 2 images (Active/Passive), plus additional space for a third transitioning image which will be created during upgrades.
COS_RECOVERY contains the recovery image, and additional space for a transition image during upgrades
COS_PERSISTENT is the persistent partition that is mounted over /usr/local. Typically is set to take all the free space left.

Installation from 3rd party LiveCD or rescue mediums

The installer can be used to perform installations also from outside the cOS or standard derivative ISOs.

For instance, it is possible to install cOS (or any derivative) with the installer from another bootable medium, or a rescue mode which is booting from RAM, given there is enough free RAM available.

With Docker

If in the rescue system, or LiveCD you have docker available, it can be used to perform an installation

docker run --privileged -v /dev/:/dev/ -ti quay.io/costoolkit/elemental:latest install --docker-image $IMAGE $DEVICE

Where $IMAGE is the container image that we want to install (e.g. quay.io/costoolkit/releases-green:cos-system-0.8.7 ), and $DEVICE is the device where to perform the installation to (e.g. /dev/sda).

Note, we used the quay.io/costoolkit/elemental:latest image which contains the latest stable installer and the dependencies. You can see all the versions at quay.

By using manually the Elemental installer

Similarly, the same mechanism can be used without docker. Download elemental from github releases and run the follow as root:

elemental install --docker-image $IMAGE $DEVICE

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Last modified May 6, 2022 : Skip generating docs (d29a239)