How BlueBuild works

Caution

This page is a draft, so contents are unfinished or nonexistent.

BlueBuild is a CICD integration tool for building custom bootc images that integrates with major CI providers (Gitlab CI, Github Actions). The purpose is to allow the user to focus more on setting up their image with recipes that conatin easy-to-use modules for installing software, adding files, and configuring the system. This page will detail how BlueBuild works to translate recipes into bootc images.

Determining Build Strategy

Since BlueBuild integrates with CI providers and build tools, it needs to determine:

• What CI environment it’s operating in
• What build tools are available
• What boot management drivers are available (used for the switch subcommand)

The Driver::init() function in the blue_build_process_management crate takes in user-defined options to override the various drivers that are used. If there aren’t any overrides, the program will pick the most optimal based on the environment. The drivers that are currently available are:

• CI Drivers
  • Github
  • Gitlab
  • Local
• Build Drivers
  • Docker
  • Podman
  • Buildah
• Run Drivers
  • Docker
  • Podman
• Boot Drivers
  • RPM-OSTree
  • Bootc

CI Drivers

The CI Driver is used to generate the appropriate tags, generate the image name (if an override isn’t provided), and determine if it’s building on the default branch of the repo.

Github

The Github CI driver will be selected automatically when the GITHUB_ACTIONS environment variable is present.

Gitlab

The Gitlab CI driver will be selected automatically when the GITLAB_CI environment variable is present.

Local

The local CI driver will be used if other’s aren’t detected.

Build Drivers

These drivers are responsible for actually building the bootc image. These drivers need to be able to read a Containerfile and build it. They are also responsible for tagging and pushing the image.

Run Drivers

These drivers are used for chunking the image or generating an ISO.

Boot Drivers

These drivers are used for rebasing/switching to a locally built bootc image.

File Validation

We host our recipe schema at https://schema.blue-build.org/ which we use to validate the recipes before trying to template the Containerfile. If the image is being pushed and signed, it will also check for the public and private key and make sure they match.

Containerfile Generation

• recipe transformed into containerfile with cli
  • link to recipe reference
• containerfile built
• pulls in modules
  • what are modules
  • you could make your own (why?)
    • link to making your own modules and to modules reference
• pushed to registry