Integration of support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Base Container Images (SLE BCI) into SUSE Rancher 2.6

SUSE’s 28-year legacy in open source Linux operating systems has helped enterprises around the world power their mission-critical applications and systems. In December 2020, SUSE expanded its open source solution stack with the acquisition of Rancher Labs and its leading Kubernetes management platform Rancher*.

Earlier this year, the SUSE Container team was excited to announce the availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise Base Container Image (SLE BCI). A container solution built for innovative developers that provides them with truly open, flexible, and secure container images and application development tools to use without any lock-in. The latest release of SUSE Rancher 2.6 and its integration with SLE BCI is another milestone for the SUSE Container team and a testament to the recent acquisition’s success. By integrating with SUSE Rancher, SUSE now provides the open source community with a stable, open, and free solution stack to start building their modern containerized applications.

Released as part of  SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3, SLE BCI is a container image focused on improving the developer experience. Designed for containerized workloads, it provides developers with access to a subset of containerized application and developer-orientated packages without the requirement for registration, enabling developers to build automated CI systems. SLE BCI’s self-contained environment also targets a specific version of any given programming language ecosystem to help facilitate software development, testing and deployment.

SLE BCI also keeps the suseconnect-container integration alive, providing enterprise users a stable and easy pathway to inherit a secure and fully supported SLE subscription within their container build process.

SLE BCI provides cloud-native IT operators and architects with the option to use a completely free, open and secure container image to start building their infrastructure strategy. By utilizing SLE BCI and SUSE Rancher, cloud-native operators can truly ‘Choose Open’ with access to a full stack of enterprise-ready open source tools, helping them build their Kubernetes ecosystems with better technology choices and create innovative environments for developers to build within.

You can learn more about SUSE Linux Enterprise base container images here.

Start using SLE BCI as the base of your containerized applications. You can start using it in your Dockerfile with the following command:

FROM registry.suse.com/suse/sle15:latest

Then to install dependencies:

RUN zypper --non-interactive install <package names>

Let us know what you think of SLE BCI in our SUSE Community group.

*All of Rancher’s solutions remain open source after the acquisition, with support from a vibrant, active community. SUSE offers an enterprise support subscription for some solutions, and those are differentiated by prefixing them with “SUSE,” such as in “SUSE Rancher.”