Azure Linux is being developed by the Linux Systems Group at Microsoft for its edge network services and as part of its cloud infrastructure.[5] The company uses it as the base Linux for containers in the Azure StackHCI implementation of Azure Kubernetes Service.[4] Microsoft also uses Azure Linux in Azure IoT Edge to run Linux workloads on Windows IoT, and as a backend distro to host the Weston compositor for WSLg.[7]
In a similar approach to Fedora CoreOS, Azure Linux only has the basic packages needed to support and run containers. Common Linux tools are used to add packages and manage security updates. Updates are offered either as RPMpackages or as complete disk images that can be deployed as needed. Using RPM allows adding custom packages to a base Azure Linux image to support additional features and services as needed. Notable features include an iptables-based firewall, support for signed updates, and a hardenedkernel.[5]
