While most Linux distributions provide pre-built cloud disk images (e.g., Debian, Rocky Linux) for server installations, pre-built disk images for desktop installation are lacking1. Various open-source tools exist to automatically generate (and customize, e.g., with pre-installed packages) such disk images:
- virt-install (example in this repository) (potentially combined with Ansible; see virssh on how to get the IP address of a VM running with virt-install)
- ubuntu-image (example in this repository)
- Packer 1.9.52
- mkosi
- virt-builder
- Image Builder
- debos
- oz-install
- openstack-debian-image
- arch-boxes (and build_in_archiso_vm.sh)
Use oras:
curl -L "https://github.com/$(curl -L https://github.com/oras-project/oras/releases/ | grep -Eom1 '/[^"]*/oras_[^"]+_linux_amd64.tar.gz')" | tar xz -C ~/.local/bin oras
oras pull ghcr.io/opensourcevdi/disk-images:main-virt-install
oras pull ghcr.io/opensourcevdi/disk-images:main-ubuntu-image
or the get-oci-blob-url from this repository to get a (time-limited) download URL:
./get-oci-blob-url ghcr.io/opensourcevdi/disk-images:main-virt-install
./get-oci-blob-url ghcr.io/opensourcevdi/disk-images:main-ubuntu-image
which you can, e.g., use with a web browser or combine with curl:
curl -Lo image.qcow2 "$(./get-oci-blob-url ghcr.io/opensourcevdi/disk-images:main-virt-install)"
curl -Lo image.qcow2 "$(./get-oci-blob-url ghcr.io/opensourcevdi/disk-images:main-ubuntu-image)"
An ideal storage for providing large public artifacts, e.g., disk images, produced by GitLab CI/CD or GitHub Actions would
- allow to host files with an unlimited file size
- for an indefinite time,
- provide the raw file/blob (as octet-stream),
- provide a digest (i.e., a cryptographic hash, e.g., SHA-256) of the file's content,
- be directly based on HTTP(S) (such that files can be linked and downloaded, e.g., via a web browser or
curl), - not require authentication for downloading (for uploading, it should be integrated into GitLab CI/CD or GitHub Actions),
- and allow for easy mirroring of the provided files to other locations.
The following public or self-hosted services fulfill these requirements to various degrees.
| Service | Maximum artifact size | Retention time | Container format | Provides digest of content | Access | Unauthenticated access | Mirroring easily possible | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitLab CI/CD job artifacts | 1000 MiB (on gitlab.com) | 90 days or latest for branch | .zip (custom URLs to download individual files available) | No | HTTP redirect | Yes | No | |
| GitHub Actions job artifacts | unlimited | 90 days | .zip | No | HTTP redirect or GitHub API | No, requires GitHub account both via web site and via GitHub API; workarounds exist but can be brittle | No | |
| ⭐ | GitLab generic package registry | unlimited (on gitlab.com or with correct settings) | indefinite | octet-stream | Yes, SHA-256 | HTTP redirect | Yes | Somewhat (custom API) |
| GitHub releases (associated with a Git tag) | 2 GiB | indefinite | octet-stream | No | HTTP redirect | Yes | No (custom API with rate limits) | |
| GitLab pages | 1000 MiB (on gitlab.com) | indefinite | octet-stream | No | HTTP(S) | Yes | No | |
| GitHub pages | 1 GB | indefinite | octet-stream | No | HTTP(S) | Yes | No | |
| GitLab Git repository | 100 MiB (on gitlab.com) | indefinite | octet-stream | Yes, SHA-1 (SHA-256 planned) | HTTP(S) | Yes | Yes | |
| GitHub Git repository | 100 MiB | indefinite | octet-stream | Yes, SHA-1 (SHA-256 planned) | HTTP(S) | Yes | Yes | |
| (⭐) | GitLab Git LFS | 10 GB (on gitlab.com) | indefinite | octet-stream | Yes, SHA-256 | HTTP(S) or Git LFS API | Yes | Yes |
| GitHub Git LFS | 2 GB | indefinite | octet-stream | Yes, SHA-256 | HTTP(S) or Git LFS API | Yes | Yes | |
| ⭐ | GitLab container registry | unlimited (on registry.gitlab.com) | indefinite (unless cleanup policy active) | octet-stream (or .tar.gz when not using ORAS) | Yes, SHA-256 | OCI distribution spec3 | Yes | Yes |
| ⭐ | GitHub container registry (ghcr.io) | unlimited | indefinite | octet-stream (or .tar.gz when not using ORAS) | Yes, SHA-256 | OCI distribution spec3 | Yes | Yes |
| (⭐) | Quay container registry (quay.io) | unlimited | indefinite | octet-stream (or .tar.gz when not using ORAS) | Yes, SHA-256 | OCI distribution spec3 | Yes | Yes |
| Docker Hub container registry (registry-1.docker.io) | unlimited | indefinite | octet-stream (or .tar.gz when not using ORAS) | Yes, SHA-256 | OCI distribution spec3 | Yes (with rate limits) | Yes | |
| (⭐) | External S3 (object/blob) storage | unlimited | indefinite | octet-stream | Yes but usually MD5-based (SHA-256 depending on provider) | HTTP(S) or S3 API | Yes | Yes |
For all listed providers, unlimited storage is provided for free for public projects. However, GitLab is planning to introduce a (total) storage limit of 5 GiB in future.
Footnotes
-
For Windows, Microsoft is providing a pre-built development image. ↩
-
Later Packer versions are licensed as proprietary "source-available software", which is worse than providing no source code at all because the source code's availability is used to threaten open-source projects with claims of copyright infringement. Using Packer's non-cost version to "compete" with paid versions is forbidden by the proprietary license. Using Packer in GitLab CI/CD or GitHub Actions to generate publicly available disk images could potentially be characterized as competing with Packer's paid cloud version. ↩
-
The get-oci-blob-url script provided in this repository can generate an (often time-limited) HTTP(S) URL to download a file/blob from an (OCI) container registry. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4