linuxkit/docs/platform-scaleway.md

Using LinuxKit on Scaleway

This is a quick guide to run LinuxKit on Scaleway (only VPS x86_64 for now)

Setup

Before you proceed it's recommanded that you set up the Scaleway CLI and perform an scw login. This will create a $HOME/.scwrc file containing the required API token.

You can also use the SCW_TOKEN environment variable to set a Scaleway token. The -token flag of the linuxkit push scaleway and linuxkit run scaleway can also be used.

The environment variable SCW_TARGET_REGION is used to set the region (there is also the -region flag)

Build an image

Scaleway requires a iso-efi image. To create one:

$ linuxkit build -format iso-efi examples/scaleway.yml

Changes needed in the yaml

• You have to set root=/dev/vda in the cmdline to have the right device set on boot
• The metadata package is not only used to set the metadata, but also to signal Scaleway that the instance has booted. So it is encouraged to use it (dhcpcd must be set before)

Push image

You have to do linuxkit push scaleway scaleway.iso to upload it to your Scaleway images. By default the image name is the name of the ISO file without the extension. It can be overidden with the -img-name flag or the SCW_IMAGE_NAME environment variable.

Note 1: If an image (and snapshot) of the same name exists, it will be replaced.

Note 2: The image is region specific: if you create an image in par1 you can't use is in ams1.

Push process

Building a Scaleway image have a special process. Basically:

• Create an image-builder instance with an additional volume, based on Ubuntu Xenial (only x86_64 for now)
• Copy the ISO image on this instance
• Use dd to write the image on the additional volume (/dev/vdb by default)
• Terminate the instance, create a snapshot, and create an image from the snapshot

Note 1: An image is linked to a snapshot, so you can't delete a snapshot before the image.

Note 2: You can specify an already running instance to act as the image builder with the -instance-id flag. But if you don't specify the -no-clean flag it will be destroyed upon completion.

Create an instance and connect to it

With the image created, we can now create an instance.

linuxkit run scaleway scaleway

By default, the instance name is linuxkit. It can be overidden with the -instance-name flag. If you don't set the -no-attach flag, you will be connected to the serial port.

You can edit the Scaleway example to allow you to SSH to your instance in order to use it.