feat: custom kernel build + boot fixes for working container runtime
Build a custom Tiny Core 17.0 kernel (6.18.2) with missing configs
that the stock kernel lacks for container workloads:
- CONFIG_CGROUP_BPF=y (cgroup v2 device control via BPF)
- CONFIG_DEVTMPFS=y (auto-create /dev device nodes)
- CONFIG_DEVTMPFS_MOUNT=y (auto-mount devtmpfs)
- CONFIG_MEMCG=y (memory cgroup controller for memory.max)
- CONFIG_CFS_BANDWIDTH=y (CPU bandwidth throttling for cpu.max)
Also strips unnecessary subsystems (sound, GPU, wireless, Bluetooth,
KVM, etc.) for minimal footprint on a headless K8s edge appliance.
Init system fixes for successful boot-to-running-pods:
- Add switch_root in init.sh to escape initramfs (runc pivot_root)
- Add mountpoint guards in 00-early-mount.sh (skip if already mounted)
- Create essential device nodes after switch_root (kmsg, console, etc.)
- Enable cgroup v2 controller delegation with init process isolation
- Mount BPF filesystem for cgroup v2 device control
- Add mknod fallback from sysfs in 20-persistent-mount.sh for /dev/vda
- Move KubeSolo binary to /usr/bin (avoid /usr/local bind mount hiding)
- Generate /etc/machine-id in 60-hostname.sh (kubelet requires it)
- Pre-initialize iptables tables before kube-proxy starts
- Add nft_reject, nft_fib, xt_nfacct to kernel modules list
Build system changes:
- New build-kernel.sh script for custom kernel compilation
- Dockerfile.builder adds kernel build deps (flex, bison, libelf, etc.)
- Selective kernel module install (only modules.list + transitive deps)
- Install iptables-nft (xtables-nft-multi) + shared libs in rootfs
Tested: ISO boots in QEMU, node reaches Ready in ~35s, CoreDNS and
local-path-provisioner pods start and run successfully.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Adolfo Delorenzo
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