Installation

This section covers installing Mesh Hypervisor by preparing and booting the central orchestration node from a flash drive image. Mesh Hypervisor uses a prebuilt Alpine Linux image that includes the orchestration software and a package mirror for remote nodes. Remote nodes connect via PXE once the central node is running. Confirm you’ve met the Prerequisites before proceeding.

Step 1: Download the Image

The Mesh Hypervisor image is available as a single file: fragmentation.latest.img.

  • Download it from: https://fragmentation.dev/fragmentation.latest.img.
  • Size: Approximately 7 GB (includes a prebuilt package mirror for MVP simplicity).

No checksum is provided currently—verify the download completes without errors.

Step 2: Write the Image to a Flash Drive

Use a USB flash drive with at least 8 GB capacity. This process overwrites all data on the device.

On a Linux system:

  1. Identify the flash drive’s device path (e.g., /dev/sdb): 
    lsblk
    Look for the USB device by size; avoid writing to your system disk (e.g., /dev/sda).
  2. Write the image: 
    sudo dd if=fragmentation.latest.img of=/dev/sdb bs=4M status=progress
    Replace /dev/sdb with your device path.
  3. Sync the write operation: 
    sync
  4. Safely eject the drive: 
    sudo eject /dev/sdb

For Windows or macOS, use tools like Rufus or Etcher—refer to their documentation.

Step 3: Boot the Orchestration Node

  1. Plug the flash drive into the system designated as the central orchestration node.
  2. Access the BIOS/UEFI (e.g., press F2, Del, or similar during boot).
  3. Set the USB drive as the first boot device.
  4. Save and reboot.

The system boots Alpine Linux and starts Mesh Hypervisor services automatically—no input needed.

Step 4: Verify the Node is Running

After booting, log in at the console:

  • Username: root
  • Password: toor

Run this command to check status:

mesh system logview

This opens logs in lnav. If you see DHCP and PXE activity, the node is up and serving remote nodes.

Next Steps

The orchestration node is now active. Connect remote nodes and deploy workloads in Quick Start.