Official Images

SWITCH provides preconfigured GNU/Linux and Windows images to users of SWITCHengines. They can be recognized by the affix (SWITCHengines) in their names. We will periodically update these images in order to keep them safe and fresh, according to our release/update policy.

In particular, you will find official images for the following 64-bit operating systems:

• Ubuntu
• Debian
• Rocky Linux
• CentOS Stream
• Flatcar
• Windows Server

The Linux images are customized so that:

1) They use the "cloud-init" mechanism to adapt to the environment. For example, the primary file system is automatically expanded to the size of the instance's primary volume.

2) Instances will automatically install security updates. However, after an update the instance is not rebooted automatically; this remains the repsonsibility of its users.

3) NTP or Chrony are enabled, and local Swiss NTP servers are used.

4) Software installation mechanisms (e.g: apt) will use Swiss mirrors for better performance.

Once you have started an instance from one of the images above, you can log in using the corresponding user, using SSH public-key authentication. Once logged in, use sudo to gain root privileges when necessary.

Windows Servers are accessible with the remote desktop application.