Install Edera

At the end of this guide, Edera for Containers will be installed and running on your VM.

What Edera changes on your system

The installer performs the following:

1. Installs the Xen hypervisor and an Edera-built Linux kernel to /boot
2. Modifies GRUB to boot into Xen as the default entry
3. Generates a new initramfs for your system’s filesystems
4. Installs system services (protect-daemon, oxenstored, protect-network)
5. Reboots the machine into the new Xen + Edera kernel

After installation, your machine’s boot chain changes from GRUB → Linux kernel → workloads to GRUB → Xen → Edera kernel (dom0) → isolated zones.

Verify UEFI boot

Edera requires UEFI. Run:

[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo UEFI || echo BIOS

If the output is BIOS, Edera will not work on this machine.

Add your user to the docker group

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Start a new SSH session after running this command. The group change only takes effect in new sessions.

Run edera-check

Verify your system meets the requirements before installing:

docker run --pull always --pid host --privileged \
  ghcr.io/edera-dev/edera-check:stable preinstall

If any required checks fail, resolve them before proceeding. Optional checks indicate features that won’t be available but won’t block installation.

Authenticate to the Edera registry

Set your license key as an environment variable, then authenticate:

export EDERA_LICENSE_KEY=<YOUR_LICENSE_KEY>

docker login -u license -p $EDERA_LICENSE_KEY images.edera.dev

sudo podman login -u license -p $EDERA_LICENSE_KEY images.edera.dev

Pull the installer image

docker pull images.edera.dev/installer:on-preview

sudo podman pull images.edera.dev/installer:on-preview

Run the installer

docker run --rm --privileged --pid=host --net=host \
  --env 'TARGET_DIR=/host' \
  --env "EDERA_LICENSE_KEY=${EDERA_LICENSE_KEY}" \
  --volume '/:/host' \
  images.edera.dev/installer:on-preview

sudo podman run --rm --privileged --pid=host --net=host \
  --env 'TARGET_DIR=/host' \
  --env "EDERA_LICENSE_KEY=${EDERA_LICENSE_KEY}" \
  --volume '/:/host' \
  images.edera.dev/installer:on-preview

The machine will reboot when the installer completes.

Note: EDERA_LICENSE_KEY is automatically written to /var/lib/edera/protect/license.key during installation. You do not need to write the file yourself afterward.

Verify the installation

After reboot, SSH back in and verify:

# Check you're running the Edera kernel
uname -r
# Expected: 6.x.y-edera

# Check Xen is running
ls /proc/xen
# Expected: directory listing

# Check the daemon is running
sudo systemctl is-active protect-daemon
# Expected: active