Talos Linux

Talos Linux is Linux designed for Kubernetes – secure, immutable, and minimal.

Supports cloud platforms, bare metal, and virtualization platforms
All system management is done via an API. No SSH, shell or console
Production ready: supports some of the largest Kubernetes clusters in the world
Open source project from the team at Sidero Labs

It only takes 3 minutes to launch a Talos cluster on your laptop inside Docker.

Why Talos Linux?

Security
Talos reduces your attack surface. It’s minimal, hardened and immutable. All API access is secured with mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication.

Predictability
Talos eliminates configuration drift, reduces unknown factors by employing immutable infrastructure ideology, and delivers atomic updates.

Evolvability
Talos simplifies your architecture, increases your agility, and always delivers current stable Kubernetes and Linux versions.

Features

Minimal
Talos consists of only a handful of binaries and shared libraries: just enough to run containerd and a small set of system services.
This aligns with NIST’s recommendation in the Application Container Security Guide.

Hardened
Hardened by design:

Built with the Kernel Self Protection Project configuration recommendations.
All access to the API is secured with Mutual TLS.
Settings and configuration described in the CIS guidelines are applied by default.

Immutable
Talos improves security further by mounting the root filesystem as read-only and removing any host-level such as a shell and SSH.

Ephemeral
Talos runs in memory from a SquashFS, and persists nothing, leaving the primary disk entirely to Kubernetes.

Current
Delivers the latest stable versions of Kubernetes and Linux.