On Thu, Mar 19, 2026 at 12:10:19PM +0100, Miguel Ojeda wrote: > > While many kernel developers may not use them (mostly because everyone > has their own setup already), if we had a set of "base" images that > are maintained by someone trusted (including publishing them in the > usual registries for easy use), then I think a bunch of us would > actually use them for CI and possibly other tasks; just like some of > us already use the kernel.org toolchains "manually" anyway etc.
I publish test appliance images suitable for use by kvm-xfstests and android-xfstests on www.kernel.org[1], and have for years. A description of how they are generated, and what I do in order to keep the GPL complaint can be described in this slide deck[2]. In particular, note how I am very careful to explicitly specify where the corresponding source can be found in a README file[3]. This is required by the GPL, so that someone can recreate the binary image using the exact sources that were used to generate them. I've noted that not all container / docker images seem to follow the letter of the law, and fortunately various groups such as the SFLC hasn't gone after people who publish these images.... but I think it's better to be careful about such things. [1] https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tytso/kvm-xfstests/ [2] https://thunk.org/gce-xfstests [3] https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tytso/kvm-xfstests/README My kvm-xfstests images are relatively small, and I don't update them all that often, so I haven't had any complaints from the folks who manage kernel.org about. So aside from the GPL compliance issues, if you think that you might be making a large number of images, which might be potentially large, you might want to check with them first. Cheers, - Ted
