Download#

Images and packages are at releases.rhymelikedi.me. /latest/ follows the newest tag; a specific version lives at /v0.5.1/ and so on.

Open the latest release

What is in a release directory#

The last four arrive from the release after 0.5.1 onwards. In 0.5.1 and earlier there is no CHANGELOG.md on the host, no signature, and SHA256SUMS covers only the packages and tarballs — which is why the ISO's own .sha256 sidecar is what the commands below check.

Verify it#

Substitute the version you actually downloaded; the file names carry it.

curl -fLO https://releases.rhymelikedi.me/latest/wheelhouse-0.5.1-amd64.iso
curl -fLO https://releases.rhymelikedi.me/latest/wheelhouse-0.5.1-amd64.iso.sha256
sha256sum -c wheelhouse-0.5.1-amd64.iso.sha256
# wheelhouse-0.5.1-amd64.iso: OK

On macOS, shasum -a 256 -c. Where a release carries a directory-wide SHA256SUMS:

curl -fLO https://releases.rhymelikedi.me/latest/SHA256SUMS
sha256sum --ignore-missing -c SHA256SUMS

--ignore-missing is there because you will normally have downloaded one file out of several. Read the output: it must name the file you downloaded and say OK. With nothing downloaded, --ignore-missing also exits zero, which is the failure mode to watch for.

Do not skip this. An image that arrived wrong fails in ways that look like broken hardware.

What a checksum proves, and what it does not#

It detects a corrupt download. It does not detect a hostile one.

The checksum is served from the same host as the image, so anyone who could replace one could replace the other. The signature is the part that would prove who built it.

Write the medium and boot#

The image is a hybrid ISO: write it to a stick byte for byte, and it also boots from a virtual CD drive on a hypervisor.

lsblk -d -o NAME,SIZE,MODEL
sudo dd if=wheelhouse-0.5.1-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

On macOS, diskutil list, then unmount (do not eject) and write to /dev/rdiskN. On Windows, Rufus in DD image mode rather than ISO mode.

What will and will not boot it#

• amd64 only. That is the only image the build produces. The arm64 .deb is for running the agent off-router against an arm64 VyOS box; it will not give you a Wheelhouse router.
• UEFI and legacy BIOS are both built in. The image carries grub-efi-amd64 and grub-pc.
• Secure Boot is untested. Assume you have to turn it off. Nothing in the build signs the kernel with a key your firmware trusts, and nobody has reported booting a Wheelhouse image on a Secure Boot machine either way.
• There is no VM image. No qcow2, raw, OVA or VHD. A VM install is the same install: attach the ISO, give the machine two NICs and a disk, and answer the questions.

Watching for a new version#

Each channel is a small JSON document at the root of the download host, rewritten whenever a tag publishes:

https://releases.rhymelikedi.me/stable.json
https://releases.rhymelikedi.me/beta.json

version is the comparison key, base plus an artefact name forms the download URL, sha256 is what to check, and signed says whether signature is real. Fields are stable and consumers must ignore unknown ones. A plain vX.Y.Z tag is stable; a pre-release suffix is beta. Neither channel is ever moved backwards.

Before you install#

Read Hardware for sizing and what has actually been run, and Getting onto it for what the installer asks. If you are coming from OPNsense, the importer turns a config.xml into commands plus a report before you touch the new box.

Install in a VM first. That is the path with the evidence behind it.

Read on#

• The wiki: download and verify and verifying what you downloaded.