Linux

For several years now, I’ve been running all my AWS instances with a recent long-term support edition of Ubuntu server, ZFS as the root file system. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS was released today, so I’ve updated my Packer templates - the original inspiration for the amazon-ebssurrogate builder - to support it!

Ubuntu 20.04 has some nice new features, including:

• ZFS on Linux version 0.8.3,
• Linux Kernel version 5.4, including io_uring and built-in support for WireGuard,
• Up-to-date compiler and runtime packages for a variety of platforms.

Since I last updated these templates, HashiCorp have also added a feature to Packer to allow templates to be authored in HashiCorp Configuration Language v2 instead of JSON.

Last year, I posted about how to build Ubuntu 16.04 AMIs using HashiCorp Packer’s ebs-surrogate builder. Since then Ubuntu 18.04 has been released, and the process has changed a little.

At HashiDays Amsterdam 2018, I gave a talk entitled “systemd: The Good Parts”, in which I tried to focus on how to use systemd, aimed at practitioners who are committed to a Linux distribution which uses the controversial init system.

The talk was recorded, so I’m posting both the video and the slide deck here.

Video

Slides

As ever, thanks to the HashiCorp team for putting together a fantastic event at a great venue in Amsterdam, and for posting a transcription of the talk!