Flatcar Container Linux

Flatcar Container Linux is a minimal, immutable, container-optimized Linux operating system and the active successor to CoreOS Container Linux. It is designed to run container workloads consistently across cloud providers, virtualization platforms, and bare-metal environments.

Flatcar uses automated provisioning, read-only system images, and atomic updates to reduce drift and simplify operations. If you’re new to Flatcar, start with Getting Started .

Documentation sections

Section Description
Getting Started Quickstart material and the learning series.
First Boot & Provisioning First-boot configuration and provisioning tools.
OS Configuration Host, network, storage, and systemd configuration.
System Extensions Extending the base OS with systemd-sysext.
Deployments Cloud, virtualization, and bare-metal deployment guidance.
Orchestration & Container Runtimes Kubernetes, cluster patterns, and container runtime topics.
Diagnostics and Fixing Issues Troubleshooting tools, logs, and rollback guidance.
Nebraska Update Manager & Releases Nebraska, release channels, and update management.
Security Hardening, authentication, encryption, and supply-chain topics.
CoreOS Migration Migration guidance for CoreOS Container Linux users.
Developer Guides SDK and image-building documentation for developers.
How to Contribute Community and contribution information.

Community


Getting Started with Flatcar Container Linux

First Boot & Provisioning

Several different tools can be used to automate the provisioning of Flatcar Container Linux images. These guides can help you understand what each of the tools do, as well as provide plenty of examples of how to use them.

OS Configuration

Configure host settings, networking, storage, and systemd on Flatcar Container Linux. Manage machine parameters, create users, inject SSH keys, and more with Butane configs.

System Extensions

Extending the base OS with systemd-sysext images

Deployments

Deploy Flatcar Container Linux to cloud providers, virtualization platforms, and bare metal.

Orchestration & Container Runtimes

Manage clusters, Kubernetes, and container runtimes on Flatcar Container Linux.

Diagnostics and Fixing Issues

Useful tools and techniques to understand what’s going on inside a Flatcar instance when things don’t work as expected.

Nebraska Update Manager & Releases

Security

Security hardening, encryption, and authentication for Flatcar Container Linux.

Migration from CoreOS Container Linux

Developer Guides

How to Contribute