Preparing the Assets VM#

The Assets VM will run as a single Virtual Machine inside the Air-Gapped environment. This VM will hold all of the assets and can be used across multiple deployments and EDA versions, containing the assets for multiple versions.

These steps help create the Assets VM from a base Talos VM image and populate it with the local cache needed to deploy the Assets VM in the Air-Gapped environment.

Caution

These steps are meant to be executed in the public environment with Internet access.

Creating Assets VM Image Cache#

Before creating the Assets VM Image for a specific environment, an image cache must be created that will contain the necessary bootstrap images used by the Assets VM.

Change into the cloned edaadm repository root directory.

cd path/to/edaadm

And run the following command to create the image cache:

make -C bundles/ create-assets-host-bootstrap-image-cache

Creating the KVM Assets VM Image#

Note

This is only needed if you plan to deploy the Assets VM on KVM.

Follow these steps to create the Assets VM Image for KVM. This will generate an ISO file based on the Talos VM base image containing a local cache. This image is different from the base Talos image ISO file that you will use for the EDA Kubernetes VMs, but is based on it.

Change into the edaadm repository.

In case you have changed directories, ensure that you are in the edaadm repository.
changing into edaadm repository directory
```
cd path/to/edaadm
```

Generate the Assets VM ISO for KVM.

Execute the following command to generate the KVM Talos ISO for the Assets VM.

make -C bundles/ create-asset-vm-nocloud-boot-iso

Output example

The output should look similar to:

--> INFO: List of goals: create-asset-vm-nocloud-boot-iso
docker pull ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.2
v1.9.2: Pulling from siderolabs/imager
Digest: sha256:b99d29d04df9eea89d50cb0d13d57e1e035e54cbd9970a26af99b18154e443a9
Status: Image is up to date for ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.2
ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.2
skipped pulling overlay (no overlay)
profile ready:
arch: amd64
platform: nocloud
secureboot: false
version: v1.9.2
input:
  kernel:
    path: /usr/install/amd64/vmlinuz
  initramfs:
    path: /usr/install/amd64/initramfs.xz
  baseInstaller:
    imageRef: ghcr.io/siderolabs/installer:v1.9.2
  imageCache:
    imageRef: ""
    ociPath: /image-cache.oci
output:
  kind: iso
  imageOptions:
    diskSize: 2147483648
  outFormat: raw
skipped initramfs rebuild (no system extensions)
kernel command line: talos.platform=nocloud console=tty1 console=ttyS0 net.ifnames=0 talos.halt_if_installed=1 init_on_alloc=1 slab_nomerge pti=on consoleblank=0 nvme_core.io_timeout=4294967295 printk.devkmsg=on ima_template=ima-ng ima_appraise=fix ima_hash=sha512
ISO ready
output asset path: /out/nocloud-amd64.iso
renamed '/home/user/ws/edaadm/public/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-asset-vm-boot-imgs/nocloud-amd64.iso' -> '/home/user/ws/edaadm/public/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-asset-vm-boot-imgs/asset-vm-nocloud-amd64.iso'
--> INFO: Created /home/user/ws/edaadm/public/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-asset-vm-boot-imgs/asset-vm-nocloud-amd64.iso

The ISO disk image will be saved at the relative path ./bundles/eda-cargo/talos-asset-vm-boot-imgs/asset-vm-nocloud-amd64.iso.

Creating the VMware Assets VM Image#

Note

This is only needed if you plan to deploy the Assets VM on VMware vSphere.

This command requires Linux kernel version 6 or higher¹

Follow these steps to create the Assets VM Image for VMware vSphere. This will generate an ISO file based on the Talos VM base image containing a local cache. This image is different from the base Talos image ISO file that you will use for the EDA Kubernetes VMs, but is based on it.

Change into the edaadm repository.

In case you have changed directories, ensure that you are in the edaadm repository.
changing into edaadm repository directory
```
cd path/to/edaadm
```

Generate the Assets VM OVA for VMware vSphere.

Execute the following command to generate the VMware vSphere Talos OVA for the Assets VM.

make -C bundles/ create-asset-vm-vmware-boot-ova

Output example

The output should look similar to:

--> INFO: List of goals: create-asset-vm-vmware-boot-ova
docker pull ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.2
v1.9.2: Pulling from siderolabs/imager
Digest: sha256:b99d29d04df9eea89d50cb0d13d57e1e035e54cbd9970a26af99b18154e443a9
Status: Image is up to date for ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.2
ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.2
skipped pulling overlay (no overlay)
profile ready:
arch: amd64
platform: vmware
secureboot: false
version: v1.9.2
input:
  kernel:
    path: /usr/install/amd64/vmlinuz
  initramfs:
    path: /usr/install/amd64/initramfs.xz
  baseInstaller:
    imageRef: ghcr.io/siderolabs/installer:v1.9.2
  imageCache:
    imageRef: ""
    ociPath: /image-cache.oci
output:
  kind: image
  imageOptions:
    diskSize: 2147483648
    diskFormat: ova
  outFormat: raw
skipped initramfs rebuild (no system extensions)
kernel command line: talos.platform=vmware talos.config=guestinfo console=tty0 console=ttyS0 earlyprintk=ttyS0,115200 net.ifnames=0 init_on_alloc=1 slab_nomerge pti=on consoleblank=0 nvme_core.io_timeout=4294967295 printk.devkmsg=on ima_template=ima-ng ima_appraise=fix ima_hash=sha512
disk image ready
output asset path: /out/vmware-amd64.ova
renamed '/home/user/ws/edaadm/public/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-asset-vm-boot-imgs/vmware-amd64.ova' -> '/home/user/ws/edaadm/public/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-asset-vm-boot-imgs/asset-vm-vmware-amd64.ova'
--> INFO: Created /home/user/ws/edaadm/public/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-asset-vm-boot-imgs/asset-vm-vmware-amd64.ova

The OVA disk image will be saved at the relative path ./bundles/eda-cargo/talos-asset-vm-boot-imgs/asset-vm-vmware-amd64.ova.

See https://github.com/siderolabs/talos/issues/9264#issuecomment-2426756838 ↩