Cloud images

FreeSense releases can publish official UFS and ZFS variants in two architecture-scoped cloud-disk formats beside the amd64 ISO or ARM64 installer IMG:

• QCOW2 + xz for Proxmox, OpenStack, QEMU/KVM, and compatible importers.
• Raw GPT + xz for bhyve and platforms that import raw disks.

Select amd64 for supported x86-64 deployments. The arm64 images are experimental, UEFI-only, and intended for QEMU virt or standards-compliant ARM64 UEFI machines with virtio devices. They contain no board firmware, U-Boot, or DTBs.

The recommended UFS image is a sparse 16 GiB disk. The ZFS image is a sparse 32 GiB disk and adds boot environments for upgrade rollback. Both boot with BIOS or UEFI, grow when the virtual disk is enlarged, and include qemu-guest-agent. Verify the filesystem- and format-specific SHA-256 value shown on the download page before decompressing the image.

Choose the filesystem for the deployment

ZFS is the recommended filesystem for a conventional installation because it enables boot environments. In cloud deployments, UFS is the recommended default because it is smaller and needs less memory; choose ZFS when boot-environment rollback is worth the additional resources. Both filesystems are supported when listed for the selected release.

Support follows the release channel, not the disk format: Stable 1.0.x artifacts are supported for production, while Development 1.1 artifacts are experimental and unsupported. The guided download picker shows only combinations that are actually published.

Choose UFS or ZFS

Choose UFS for the smallest, simplest, and most broadly compatible cloud appliance. Choose ZFS when boot environments are worth the additional memory and disk headroom. The ZFS cloud image uses one non-redundant virtual disk; ZFS does not make that disk redundant. Use provider snapshots or backups, allocate at least 4 GiB of RAM, keep the virtual disk at 32 GiB or larger, and use provider-level disk encryption when required.

The ZFS pool is named FreeSense, starts at FreeSense/ROOT/default, and keeps configuration and the package database with each boot environment. A rollback therefore restores a coherent system state. Cloud instance identity remains idempotent and is reapplied if a rollback predates initial provisioning.

Network and management safety

Use two virtual NICs whenever possible. The adapter makes the metadata default-route interface WAN and the next interface LAN unless the freesense: extension assigns explicit roles. With two or more NICs, SSH and WebUI management remain on LAN; FreeSense never adds an automatic WAN rule.

One-NIC cloud instances

A one-NIC instance uses DHCP on WAN. FreeSense adds a persistent TCP/22 WAN rule only when metadata contains a valid SSH public key. Restrict that rule with freesense.management_cidrs and a provider security group. Without a key there is no WAN management access. The WebUI is never exposed on WAN automatically.

The image’s known default password is locked. SSH uses the existing admin account and rejects password authentication.

NoCloud example

Create meta-data:

instance-id: edge-001
local-hostname: edge-001.example.net

Create user-data:

#cloud-config
timezone: Europe/Copenhagen
ssh_authorized_keys:
  - ssh-ed25519 AAAA... operator@example
freesense:
  management_cidrs:
    - 203.0.113.10/32
  interfaces:
    - match: "52:54:00:12:34:56"
      role: wan
    - match: "52:54:00:12:34:57"
      role: lan

Create network-config:

version: 2
ethernets:
  uplink:
    match:
      macaddress: "52:54:00:12:34:56"
    dhcp4: true
    dhcp6: true
  inside:
    match:
      macaddress: "52:54:00:12:34:57"
    addresses: [10.20.0.1/24, "2001:db8:20::1/64"]
    nameservers:
      addresses: [1.1.1.1, "2606:4700:4700::1111"]

Then create and attach the seed:

cloud-localds --network-config=network-config cidata.iso user-data meta-data

NoCloud, ConfigDrive, and OpenStack datasources are supported. Hostname/FQDN, timezone, DHCP4, DHCP6/SLAAC, static IPv4/IPv6, gateways, MTU, DNS, SSH keys, roles, and management CIDRs are translated into native config.xml; cloud-init does not maintain a competing rc.conf network.

Import examples

Proxmox (replace ufs with zfs to import the ZFS variant):

unxz FreeSense-*-amd64-ufs.qcow2.xz
qm importdisk 120 FreeSense-*-amd64-ufs.qcow2 local-lvm

QEMU/KVM (replace ufs with zfs when desired):

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 4096 \
  -drive file=FreeSense-*-amd64-ufs.qcow2,if=virtio \
  -drive file=cidata.iso,if=virtio,readonly=on \
  -nic user,model=virtio -nic tap,model=virtio

bhyve (replace ufs with zfs when desired):

unxz FreeSense-*-amd64-ufs.raw.xz
bhyve -c 2 -m 4G -H -w -s 3,virtio-blk,FreeSense-*-amd64-ufs.raw freesense

For OpenStack, upload the QCOW2 as a qcow2 image and supply network data through the instance’s ConfigDrive or metadata service.

Reprovisioning

Provisioning is atomic and keyed by cloud instance ID. Rebooting the same instance does not duplicate interfaces, users, or firewall rules. Cloning with a new instance ID performs a new initialization and regenerates host identity and SSH host keys.