/etc/os-release but for images

[Davide Bettio <davide.bettio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I would like to figure out if anyone has proposed any kind of standard for storing metadata about a system image.

We need to track metadata about an image that has been flashed to a device. /etc/os-release is really good for tracking information about the operating system, but it doesn't allow us to distinguish between 2 images of the same operating system having a different set of packages and configurations.

Our idea was to ship a /etc/base-image file that contains something like:

```
NAME=my-rpi-image
VERSION=1.0.9
BUILD_ID=20220425-180033-ad3498f8
FINGERPRINT=08da53cd-81b4-4d32-a72d-9aa04885e8d3
```

We would use the fingerprint to know which specific system image has been flashed, while the other entries are valuable information for debugging, etc...

Is anyone aware of anything similar to this (including WIP specs)? Is this of interest?

Regards,

Davide Bettio.