A Linux Appliance Construction Set

Open source UNIX-like operating systems offer unique opportunities for administrators to create appliance style operating system and application packages that meet their own specific needs. This paper provides examples of several commonly useful appliance configurations based on the Linux operating system and documents the motivations, principles, and techniques behind the development of a basic 'Linux Appliance Construction Set' known as LxA which was used to produce them. Experience with LxA so far suggests that its use may help system administrators significantly reduce the amount of time spent deploying, maintaining, upgrading, and documenting certain types of hosts under their control.