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AuroraBoot
What it is
AuroraBoot is the official Kairos bootstrapper for building images, provisioning machines, and managing fleets. It creates ISO, UKI, raw disk, and system-extension images from Kairos flavors or container images, then provisions machines over PXE/netboot, Redfish, or USB. Its fleet server includes a browser dashboard for building artifacts, deploying them, and managing registered nodes. Node commands include upgrades, reboots, resets, cloud-config, and arbitrary shell commands with captured output. The guided Artifact Builder includes templates for Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, openSUSE, Alpine, Rocky, and Hadron. AuroraBoot also includes a SecureBoot key store for policy keys and a REST API with a Go client and Swagger UI. Documented architectures are amd64, arm64, and riscv64. The fleet server uses SQLite by default and supports PostgreSQL through configuration. This free, open-source software is licensed under Apache License 2.0 and is intended for self-hosting with Docker or a container engine. A security limitation to consider is that the netboot HTTP server has no authentication and serves kernel, initrd, squashfs, and cloud-config over plain HTTP to reachable clients.
For and against
For
- Builds four image formats from Kairos flavors or containers
- Provisioning supports PXE/netboot, Redfish, and USB
- Fleet dashboard manages artifacts and registered nodes
- REST API, Go client, and Swagger UI are available
- Free under Apache License 2.0
Against
- Netboot HTTP server is unauthenticated
- Netboot files are served over plain HTTP
- Requires Docker or a container engine
The verdict
AuroraBoot covers image building, machine provisioning, and fleet management in a free self-hosted package. Its unauthenticated plain-HTTP netboot server is an important security limitation to account for.
Who it suits
AuroraBoot suits teams building Kairos images, provisioning machines, and managing fleets. It is designed for self-hosted use with Docker or a container engine.
Plans and prices
Open-source (Apache License 2.0)
self-hosted · Docker or container engine required
Read 1 Oct 2026 · github.com
On the record
- API
- A REST API and Go client mirror the UI, with Swagger UI available at /api/docs.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Architectures
- The documented supported architectures are amd64, arm64 and riscv64.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Artifact templates
- The guided Artifact Builder includes templates for Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, openSUSE, Alpine, Rocky and Hadron.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Fleet dashboard
- The fleet server provides a browser dashboard for building artifacts, deploying them and managing nodes.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Image formats
- It builds ISO, UKI, raw disk and system-extension images from Kairos flavors or container images.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- AuroraBoot documents Redfish BMC deployment, Canonical MaaS image generation, Docker or OCI images and Pixiecore netboot serving.kairos.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Node management
- Registered nodes can receive upgrade, reboot, reset, cloud-config and arbitrary-shell commands with captured output.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Provisioning
- It provisions machines over PXE/netboot, Redfish or USB.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- AuroraBoot is the official Kairos bootstrapper for building images, provisioning machines and managing fleets.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Rate limiting
- Node registration, heartbeat and command-polling endpoints are rate-limited by default.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Secure Boot
- AuroraBoot includes a SecureBoot key store for PK, KEK, db and TPM PCR policy keys, with signed export and import.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Security limitation
- The netboot HTTP server is unauthenticated and serves kernel, initrd, squashfs and cloud-config over plain HTTP to reachable clients.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Storage backends
- The fleet server uses SQLite by default and supports PostgreSQL through a configurable database DSN.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Support
- Bug reports and feature requests are directed to the kairos-io/kairos issue tracker, and Kairos lists enterprise support contacts on its website.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
