Philosophy

Is predictable

• Is not altered during runtime
• Will run the same artifacts consistently on every boot

Is scalable

• Eliminates efforts in configuring individual instances during runtime
• Can be rolled out easily repeatedly with predictable outcome

Is reliable

• Automated recovery from faulty updates

Atomic Updates

Transactional Updates

Unique

By using btrfs with snapshots MicroOS uses a very space efficient way to store the file system’s history. All the configuration files in /etc are part of the snapshot and the rollback.

Flexible

• No new package format is needed, use standard openSUSE RPMs
• No size limitation, neither for partitions nor the operating system
• Easy to enhance

Rollback

MicroOS is an Immutable OS, rollback is simple

• Immutable: No changes on disk
• Rollback by rebooting to an old BTRFS snapshot

Secure Updates

• Get your updates via HTTPS
• Packages and repositories are signed by our build system
• Packages are verified
• No updates are done in case of dependency conflicts
• No waste of space: Filesystem snapshots get deleted in case of unsuccessful updates

Workloads

Applications are installed in containers rather than the root filesystem:

• Isolated from the core filesystem
• Reduced ability for malicious applications to compromise the system
• New installation without reboot
• Update in atomic way possible (create new, kill old)
• Easy rollback

Debugging

Debugging Toolbox Container

• Launches privileged container
• Root filesystem available below /media/root
• zypper to install the necessary tools, available without reboot
• Persistent between usages