Equinix has announced that Tinkerbell, an all-in-one open source bare metal provisioning platform, has added new features since joining the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Sandbox program.

The latest release of Tinkerbell includes a new component: Hook is a next-generation in-memory operating system installation environment that builds on extensive experience. Hook was developed with community participation and is based on popular projects including Docker’s LinuxKit.

Using the CNCF Artifact Hub, Tinkerbell users can now share and reuse common workflow actions just as they would with container images on Docker Hub.

By supporting Cluster API, Tinkerbell is adopting the leading community provider for provisioning Kubernetes clusters, increasing interoperability and decreasing the learning curve for those already familiar with Cluster API.

Tinkerbell’s support for major operating systems such as VMware ESXi, RedHat Enterprise Linux, Windows Server, Flatcar Linux, Ubuntu, CentOS 8, Debian and NixOS has been tested by the community.

The latest Tinkerbell release also includes an updated sandbox that allows users to get up and running with a validated version of the Tinkerbell stack, binaries for both x86 and Arm processors, and introduces a new capability allowing users to swap in and out components. The Tinkerbell sandbox is available through a local development environment on HashiCorp Vagrant Cloud.

As a CNCF project sponsored by Equinix, Tinkerbell has also gained ecosystem adoption among cloud native digital leaders for its ability to empower developers to deploy and manage infrastructure across private, hybrid and edge environments.

With Tinkerbell, infrastructure operators and developers can normalize any heterogenous hardware (including x86 and Arm); create powerful workflows to configure and secure private, hybrid or edge infrastructure; deploy their choice of operating system or virtualization software; and manage the lifecycle of hardware programmatically.