What's new with image builder for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.2 and 9.8

Image builder for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a powerful tool for creating custom RHEL images with pre-installed software and configurations. It helps organizations standardize deployments, bring consistency, and reduce manual effort, generating ready-to-deploy images for virtual machines (VM), cloud, and bare metal. Image builder for RHEL can be used as a hosted service on the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console or as an on-premise service from the RHEL command-line interface and the RHEL web console.

What's new for the image builder command-line interface in RHEL 10.2 and 9.8?

The image-builder command is available as an RPM in the AppStream repository and as a container image in the Red Hat container registry. A similar containerized tool called bootc-image-builder is deprecated.

Build bootable image mode for RHEL images

To deploy an image mode for RHEL system, you create a bootable image from a container image. Previously, this was only possible by using bootc-image-builder as a standalone container or as an extension for Podman Desktop. With RHEL 10.2 and 9.8, you can build a bootable image mode for RHEL image using the image-builder command.

For example, to create a bootable virtualization image (.qcow2) from the base image mode for RHEL container image, authenticate to registry.redhat.io and then run this command:

image-builder build qcow2 \
--bootc-ref=registry.redhat.io/rhel10/rhel-bootc:latest

It's likely that you'll need to customize this bootable image. For instance, you might add a user so you can log in to the deployed system. These customizations are provided by an image blueprint.

For example, to add an admin user called alice to your bootable image, first create an image blueprint in the .toml format:

[[customizations.user]]
name = "alice"
password = "******"
groups = ["wheel"]

Then include the image blueprint in your build command:

image-builder build qcow2 \
--bootc-ref=registry.redhat.io/rhel10/rhel-bootc:latest \
--blueprint=blueprint.toml

With the image-builder command, you can use a base image or a derived container image that you've customized and built from a Containerfile. As long as your build system can reach the container image in a registry, you can build it into a bootable artifact.

Build stateless or diskless (PXE) images

Preboot execution environment (PXE) boot images, which are sometimes referred to as "stateless" or "diskless" images, are minimal archives that include the kernel, intramfs, and root filesystem needed to boot a system over a network. These images are popular for Satellite provisioning and for high-performance compute nodes.

You can build PXE boot images for package mode and image mode for RHEL with the image-builder command.

Build network installer (boot ISO) images

Network installer images are analogous to the boot ISO images available from the Red Hat Customer Portal. They include just enough information to launch an installer for additional configuration and package installation. A network connection to package repositories is required for successful installation.

You can build network installer images for package mode RHEL with the image-builder command.

What's new for the image builder web console interface in RHEL 10.2?

The image builder interface in the web console differs significantly from RHEL 9 to RHEL 10. The new features below apply only to the RHEL 10 web console.

Build bootable image mode for RHEL images

To deploy an image mode for RHEL system, you create a bootable image from a container image. The RHEL web console provides a guided experience for getting started with bootable images. To get started, launch the Create image blueprint wizard, and then select Image mode as the Image type. After that, just follow the steps as prompted.

Note that you're required to pull down the latest bootc image for RHEL 9 or RHEL 10, and you must create at least one user so that you can log into any systems deployed from this bootable image.

Build and launch a virtual machine

If you use the RHEL web console on a physical machine or a VM that allows nested virtual machines, you can launch a new virtual machine directly from the image builder interface. On the list of built images, click the Create VM link in the Instance column for any Virtualization - Guest image (.qcow2) image to deploy a new virtual machine on your RHEL host.

Build security-hardened images

You can reduce the time for deployment by shifting the security hardening of an image to build time. When creating an image blueprint in the RHEL web console, you can select an OpenSCAP profile, which automatically configures the packages, file system configurations, kernel settings, and enabled services required to comply with that policy.

Try Red Hat image builder today

Try these new features on a running RHEL 10 host. If you don't have a running RHEL host, you can create and download an image from the image builder for RHEL in Hybrid Cloud Console, and deploy your image locally to try out your own local build node. For more information, check out the overview and list of latest blog posts at redhat.com/image-builder.