Pack a Pro-compliant artifact

Follow this guide to pack an artifact that contains extended security patches or meets regulatory compliance needs.

Prerequisites

Enable guest attachment

Craft Application makes use of Ubuntu Pro’s own support for LXD instances, but this support needs to be explicitly enabled and configured. On a terminal, run:

user@host:~$
sudo pro config set lxd_guest_attach=available

This command lets Craft Application attach its LXD instances to the system’s Pro subscription, and only needs to be executed once.

Next, restart LXD so that the new configuration takes effect:

user@host:~$
sudo snap restart lxd

Identify the required Pro services

Next, determine which Pro services fit your needs. Craft Application supports the following services:

  • esm-apps or esm-infra: If your goal is to pack an artifact for an application and include the latest security patches for a base that is no longer under Standard Security Maintenance.

  • fips, fips-updates or fips-preview: If you need to deploy an artifact in a highly regulated environment that processes sensitive data.

The desired Pro services don’t need to be enabled on your system, but they do need to be available. Run pro status and check the ENTITLED column to check whether a service is available. The Ubuntu Pro Client documentation has further information on each service.

Pack the artifact

Now you can pack the artifact with the desired services. Provide them to the --pro option:

<craft-app> pack --pro=<service>

To use multiple services, pass them to the option as comma-separated values. For example, to pack an artifact with the esm-apps and esm-infra services call:

<craft-app> pack --pro=esm-apps,esm-infra

Craft Application will automatically attach the Pro subscription and enable the requested services on the LXD instance while packing the artifact.