2026-02-02, 14:50–15:40, B.1.017
This talk will show you how to finally solve bootstrapping your infrastructure/laptop/coffee machine anywhere.
I will show you how I've solved packaging Ansible into a self-contained, offline-capable installer that can run anywhere, with zero dependencies - no docker or other OCI runtime, no python, just a minimal linux box.
Since I started using Ansible to manage my infrastructure 10 years ago, I had always grappled with the problem of bootstrapping - that is getting the first node in the environment ready. An ideal setup I always wanted would let me deploy to any Linux-based environment without having to wrangle dependencies or install anything extra such as docker on the first node.
As luck would have it, I recently got to work through a real-world case of handling such a deployment and the customer I did it for has open-sourced the solution! The example we'll be able to look at is a Linux-based container platform that we'll install with a single command, with no dependencies needed on the host whatsoever - and all powered by Ansible.
After this talk, you will:
- have an understanding of how you can leverage Linux internals to contain your dependencies without the extra work of installing a container runtime (no docker needed!)
- you'll see how a real-world platform integrates Ansible to bootstrap and expand a full k3s cluster
- you'll see a single command provision a full platform in 1-3 minutes
The day of the talk, the presentation slides will be made public here: https://github.com/danielpodwysocki/self-contained-ansible-demo
I tinker with infrastructure and development from the kernel to the browser, having spend past couple years trying to run towards the lower levels of the stack. I've worked across multiple different industries. Most of my professional time I spent across media and financial landscapes.
I largely credit Ansible with pushing me towards the more interesting problems - I discovered it 9 years ago, as a first year high school student trying to troublemake across all computers in the Linux classroom.
I was 16 at the time and it has been the "gateway drug" for anything from Linux itself, C++ and other learning choices. I could say it has saved me from a lifetime of JavaScript!
Last year, I've gotten a chance to work alongside Juno Innovations as a consultant and architect their deployment workflow - of course powered by Ansible. The bootstrapping approach is rather novel, so I thought it'd be great to share it with the community at large.