Talos Linux

Talos Linux is an operating system designed specifically for running Kubernetes. The project describes it as secure, immutable and minimal, and it is fully open source and supported by Sidero Labs. It aims to replace a general-purpose Linux distribution on cluster nodes with something smaller and more predictable.

All system management happens through an API, and there is no shell or interactive console on the machine. Access to the API is protected with mutual TLS authentication. The design is meant to shrink the attack surface, prevent configuration drift through immutable infrastructure practices, deliver atomic updates, and keep current stable Kubernetes and Linux versions available.

Talos is written in Go and released under the MPL-2.0 license, although some distributed components fall under GPL-family licenses and their source is available on request. Documentation covers deployment and management. The community meets in GitHub Discussions and Slack, holds monthly office hours, and runs a feedback survey.