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About OSConfig preview or "insiders" builds

  • Article

In certain circumstances, you might want to use preview (also known as "insiders") builds of OSConfig. For example:

  • You might be working with a test or proof-of-concept device, and previewing a new feature under development
  • You might have a small subset of your device fleet where you want early exposure to changes, prior to new releases being broadly deployed

Channels: prod and insiders-fast

The OSConfig team periodically publishes validated builds to what packages.microsoft.com calls the prod channel. Other keywords you might associate with these builds can include "stable" or "release." Using the latest stable/prod builds is recommended for most cases. When you connect your Linux package manager to packages.microsoft.com, you would typically connect to this "prod" channel, as shown in How and where to install the OSConfig agent for Linux.

The OSConfig team also frequently publishes builds representing the latest main branch code to what packages.microsoft.com calls the insiders-fast channel. Other keywords your might use here are "developer preview" or "nightly". These are meant for specific audiences who need to use or validate in-development work, as noted in the opening paragraph.

Instructions

When using any insiders-fast packages, you will generally want to connect your package manager to both the prod channel and the insiders-fast channel. This way you can draw from the broader set of stable releases on prod while pulling certain packages from insiders-fast.

The following example connects your package manager to both, starting with prod:

#!/bin/bash

## For Ubuntu and on Debian 10+

## Register packages.microsoft.com key and prod channel
sudo wget https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/packages-microsoft-com_key.asc
os_name=$(grep ^ID= /etc/os-release | tr -d "ID=")
os_version=$(grep ^VERSION_ID /etc/os-release | tr -d "VERSION_ID=")
sudo wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/"$os_name"/"$os_version"/prod.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/packages-microsoft-com_prod.list
sudo apt update

## OPTIONAL: Additionally add "insiders-fast" channel for developer preview builds
sudo wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/"$os_name"/"$os_version"/insiders-fast.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/packages-microsoft-com_insiders-fast.list
sudo apt update

Risks and breaking changes

As with any project, preview builds may be more likely to have bugs. Preview builds are also more likely to include breaking changes in design or behavior.

For more information on design changes which may impact users, see: List of notable breaking changes over time in OSConfig.

Next steps

For more information about setting up the OSConfig agent, see: How and where to install the OSConfig agent for Linux.

For broader information about OSConfig, see: What is OSConfig for IoT?