BootOCI

Pronounciation

It's pronounced boot-os-ee.

What does it do?

BootOCI aims to create bootable ISO images from Docker images.

This project exists because I wasn't satisfied with other solutions and I really like Docker.

1. live-build - way to complicated, hard to keep track of changes
2. mkosi - never actually got it to work properly

Installation

Currently supports Linux only.

Just run:

pip install bootoci

Usage

To create a bootable Debian 12 image you can just:

# Debian 12 ISO with Debian 13 kernel
bootoci -o ./bin --docker --ash --kernel-from-debian --tag debian:12

# Debian 12 ISO with upstream kernel
bootoci -o ./bin --docker --ash --kernel-from-source --tag debian:12

# Ubuntu 24.04 ISO with Debian 13 kernel (log to serial console)
bootoci -o ./bin --docker --ash --kernel-from-debian --tag ubuntu:24.04 --serial

Limitations

Currently, only initrd packing is supported. This essentially limits the image size supported. In the future, pivot root support will be added.