There are many ways to get container runtimes and Kubernetes on a node, all with their benefits and drawbacks. This talk will present shipping Kubernetes as a system extension with systemd-sysext – a self-contained, immutable, verifiable, distribution independent disk image. We’ll also look into automated in-place updates, both from the OS as well as the Kubernetes side.

The talk includes multiple live demos, from a single node deployment to cover sysext basics to a full-blown Kubernetes cluster deployed with ClusterAPI which we’ll then update live. While all demos will use Flatcar Container Linux - an immutable special purpose OS optimised for container workloads – the mechanisms demonstrated are distro independent and cloud be used on any Linux distribution.