The next item of business is a members business debate on motion 5941 in the name of Jenny Gilruth on leaving mouth rail link. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put, so I would ask members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons now. I call on Jenny Gilruth to open the debate. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I begin by welcoming to Holyrood this evening members from the leaving mouth rail link campaign group, colleagues from Fife Council and by thanking fellow members from across the political spectrum for their support on the re-establishment of the leaving mouth rail link. What is it that makes leaving different? Leaving mouth is the largest urban conurbation in Scotland, not directly served by rail. The track is a distance of five miles in length and it was still in use until 2001 as a freight line. Compare our line to the borders, 30 miles of new railway. In February 2013, the business case there showed a benefit cost ratio of just 0.5 to 1. The decision to build borders railway was branded exceedingly poor value for money by the Institute of Economic Affairs and yet, during its first month, 125,971 passengers travelled on the borders railway. Demand far outstripped expectation, with the line carrying 19.4 per cent of its predicted annual footfall in just one month. In Newton Grange, visitor numbers at the nearby national mining museum surged. The Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance, or STAG, as it is known, is the method used to prioritise transport schemes. We had one in 2008 and another in 2015. In July 2016, the network rail Scotland route study was published. It made no reference to the leaving mouth rail link. In December last year, Fife Council resubmitted the revised STAG report to Transport Scotland. Transport Scotland responded to Fife Council's technical review of the revised STAG on 18 July this year. I say to the transport minister that quite a sight from any rail link application this process is tiresome, it lacks transparency and I believe it is an antiquated approach to public engagement. Some of the issues raised by Transport Scotland included low passenger forecasts for leaving mouth to Edinburgh. I gently suggest to Transport Scotland that it is rather difficult to estimate footfall on a rail line, which has not existed since the 1960s. Bluntly, there is not a culture of travelling to the capital for work because there is no rail line. Compare leaving then to Dunbar, 3 per cent of the leaving mouth population working in Edinburgh compared with 22 per cent in Dunbar. The turns are a similar distance from Edinburgh. No pride is for guessing which has the rail link. Transport Scotland also raised concerns about the apparently limited personal and business responses to the public survey. That is quite a quantitative look at data, so I like to do my homework and hear some call to the feedback that I have gathered prior to today's debate. Donaldson Timber said that they are sure that rail connectivity to the central belt and further afield would help with employment opportunities. Flauder, the engineering firm, said that we are in support of the proposed rail link, it would give us access to a wider pool of employees and the option of bringing materials in by rail. Transport Scotland claimed that Diagio and their logistics provider, WH Malcolm, are the largest identified opportunity for rail freight. No evidence has been provided with regard to their current views and their likelihood to use such a facility. But WH Malcolm told my office today that they have a rail division. They say that they are not adverse to switching from road to rail. Similarly, Diagio said that they would give serious consideration to the option of transporting materials via freight train. The biggest employer in Leven would naturally consider using freight. That sounds like pretty compelling evidence to me. Much like the Borders, however, opening up the leaving rail link would not just be about driving investment and job creation. Murdo Fraser, I am very grateful to Jenny Gilruth for giving way. On the question of employment opportunities, would she recognise that, in the leaving area at present, there is a shortage of good quality employment opportunities for young people in particular, as a result of which too many have to leave the area? Would she agree with me that creating the rail link might help to redress that situation and encourage more young people to stay in the area? Jenny Gilruth, I thank Murdo Fraser for that intervention. I would absolutely agree with what he has to say. On that issue, I will come to that later in my speech. Much like the Borders, as I have just said, it is not just about opening up investment and job creation. It is about more than that. It is about tourism. When the rail link first opened in the 1960s, it helped Leven to become a tourist destination. My grandad, who was from Springburn, used to come on holiday to leave in with his family up from Glasgow. To the east of Leven sits London links, home of the oldest women's golf course in the world, and Murdo Fraser's boss comes from that area as well. Beyond it, Lower Largo, the birthplace of Alexander Selkirk and the real inspiration behind Robison Crusoe. Scotland's answer to Nelson Sir Andrew Wood came from Upper Largo, a Scottish sea captain who went on to become the Lord's High Admiral of Scotland. What now of Fife's proud history? What of our vital contribution to the coal industry? Transported from the metal docks not far from where the line would run. This unclean fuel helped to build the British Empire, but the hollow gap that the industry's implosion left continues to scar Levenmouth today. Since I was elected last May, we have lost jobs on the high street at the Royal Bank, Clyde Stale Bank and just last weekend at WH Smith. On Saturday, I took a wander down the high street. Nine shops closed, three charity shops, two bouquets and an arcade. One in three children in Levenmouth live in poverty. For children growing up in my constituency, their opportunities are geographically curtailed. Isolated from transport links, their aspirations can only take them so far. I am extremely proud that the Scottish Government backed the new Levenmouth academy with £25 million of investment. The school that opened last year is a state of the art building in partnership with Fife College. Here is what the head teacher Ronnie Ross had to say. I firmly believe, as do most of my staff and pupils, that the rail link is an essential ingredient to reviving the fortunes of Levenmouth and also for enabling people to travel in and out of the area for work purposes. As a constituency member for Leven, I was extremely disappointed that the Edinburgh city region deal made no provision for the Levenmouth rail link. That was an opportunity for all levels of government to grasp. Instead, the deal has focused on the capital, to the detriment of the region, as originally intended. As Edinburgh booms, Levenmouth is beginning to contract. However, there is an opportunity here. In his last correspondence to me on the matter with the Levenmouth rail link, the transport minister states that a new pipeline system is now being proposed for rail enhancement projects. Levenmouth is not like other rail links. We have a well-established campaign group. We have cross-party support. We have a length of track just sitting there, right for development. We have already been through two stag appraisals. If there is to be a new approach, I will now shamelessly steal an idea given to me by Ross Bennett from the campaign group. Let us trial it. That is my first ask to the transport minister. My second is that he commits network rail to a grip for study of the Levenmouth rail link. That is the governance for railway investment project. That is the only way that we can arrive at a definitive business case. It will also help to develop a single option for the line. My final ask, Presiding Officer, is that the transport minister comes to Leven to walk the line. I might even cook him his tea if he is lucky. At the top of Levenmouth high street, above what is today Leven's library, is the symbol of the co-operative movement, a beehive. The image for the movement suggests united co-operation. One bee cannot survive on its own, but with others it can. To quote the great Jimmy Reid, whoever takes the important economic decisions in society, ipso facto, determines the social priorities of that society. The Levenreal link has the potential to change lives in my constituency and beyond. It will bring jobs, it will bring investment, it will widen the horizons of the next generation. It just needs that green light from government. Can I take this opportunity to personally thank Eugene Clark, Alan Armstrong, Ken Hague, Ross Bennett, Mary Riley, Elizabeth Maguire and everyone who has been involved in the Levenmouth campaign group. Their resolute professional determination has kept the Levenmouth rail link alive to us politicians. I think that it is high time that we are awarded their tenacity and committed to getting Leven back on track. Thank you very much. I call Willie Rennie to be followed by Jamie Greene. I thank Jenny Gilruth for securing this member's debate this evening. I thank her in particular because it is important that we have forceful all-party support, but I also want to caution her. I do not think that Ruth Davidson has ever been Murdo Fraser's boss. I also want to thank the Levenmouth railway campaigners for their energetic campaign to reinstate this very short line to Leven from Glenrothes with Thornton. I apologise to the chamber, to the minister and to the people in the gallery, because I am going to have to leave before the conclusion of this debate. I have a speech to make at six o'clock at the university, so I am going to have to leave early. I apologise for that. However, this project is so important to Fife and my constituency that I wanted to mark my support with a small contribution. We have heard all the arguments. The largest town without a railway, significant area of deprivation, area of post-industrial decline, big businesses with a lot of HDV traffic, narrow access roads with heavy traffic. The environmental, social and economic benefits are pretty obvious. The studies have been carried out, the local support has been secured, as we have heard from Jenny Gilruth, and local people in fact proactively raise it as an important priority. We do not have to encourage them to support the campaign, they are already there. Fife Council regards it as a priority and it has put its money behind that project, too. It still exists, it is a short line, none of it has been built on already. The cost is not insignificant, but in comparison with other major projects it is still quite small. The environmental, economic and social returns will be significant. However, there is frustration with the process that it takes too long, that the answer to any question is to commission a further report, a further study or a further investigation. It is almost as if the decision has been put off for convenience. What we need is a bit of speed in this process to try and deliver a project that everybody is behind. What I hope is that, through this debate, the minister gets a feeling, an understanding of the strength of feeling in the community and from all parties too. I appreciate that he has hard choices to make, but to govern is to choose. I hope that he chooses to confirm in the not too distant future that Levenmouth will happen and that trains will be running on that line within the next few years. Levenmouth would be a sound investment and it has my support. I hope that it has the ministers too. I appreciate that there is warm support in the gallery. I urge members to show their support at the very end of the debate, perhaps by applauding at the very end of the debate. Jamie Greene, to be followed by David Torrance. I will not be offended if you do not clap after my speech. I would like to thank and congratulate Jenny Garou for bringing this to the chamber floor this evening. I would also like to pay that tribute to the rail campaign for the work that they are doing to bring in this local issue to the forefront of debate in the Scottish Parliament. I am also aware and reliably told that my local five conservative group are in favour of the reinstatement of this line. As we look forward to considering how we improve Scotland's national railways, much of the discussion in this place is around the big ticket items and the connectivity between our main cities, it is very, very important that we consider the positive impact that small railway lines can have on local communities. Importantly, we should always remember at the heart of this debate that railways are not just modes of transport, they are key parts of local, regional and indeed national economic development. They enhance trade, they encourage investment, they create jobs and prosperity in the process as well. Better connectivity in Scotland will spur growth and help to facilitate a collaborative economic environment between our cities, regions and towns. That is why I do believe that there is a strong case for this. I will admit that, naturally, I approach calls for new railway lines and links quite cautiously. Those are substantially expensive infrastructure investments, and as we all know, all Governments are tightening their purses. Off in these campaigns, I am happy to. I am grateful for the member taking that intervention. Does he believe that there is the same restraint in calling for road building projects? Jamie Greene I think that any major infrastructure spend, whether it is a road, a railway line, an airport or a bridge, has to be looked at on the merits of the advantages that that investment will bring to the communities that it serves at both ends of it. A road is no different to a rail line in this instance. I think that there is a very obvious business case for this line that would merit the substantial investment that it clearly requires. I say substantial in the grand scheme of things, but we could argue that it is not. As I said, I do approach those things naturally quite cautiously. Those campaigns are often led by local people, and I am very taken by the energy that has come out of the local campaign. I am pleased to participate in the debate. I think that the estimated cost of around £80 million would connect leaving Buckhaven and methyl, as well as not just locally but also improving access to the wider area, such as Glen Rhoffers 5 and even into the capital itself. There are around 50,000 people living in that catchment area who would benefit from this line, and I think that it would also present significant transport and connectivity improvements to any new house build or business expansion in that area as well. For example, I have heard that access to key industrial sites with freight would be provided. Now, we are all keen to get as much freight off the road and onto rails as we can. That is a perfect opportunity to do so. I think that the STAG report, which was published last year, recommended the project. I would like to quote from it, because one thing struck me specifically. The scheme has the potential to provide a step change in the economic performance of a large population area, as well as helping to regenerate economic activity. That will provide a gateway to significantly boost tourism. I think that it is very important that we bear that in mind. It is not just about commuters, but about encouraging people from other parts of Scotland to Jenny Gourous's area. It also noted the potential to attract inwards investment and support increased business activity in the area, with the net cost-benefit ratio to be around 1.3. That sounds good to me from a business point of view. I am aware that it also has some environmental repercussions. That could go to reduce CO2 emissions in the Fife area, and reduce levels of road congestion, which is something that we all want to do. I think that there is a business case for reinstating the link, but to move things forward, we need to have an open conversation about the funding, who is going to pay for it, and how it is going to be paid for. With those types of projects, it is very important that the scope is set out properly from day 1. Those projects often have a tendency to go over budget due to poor scoping in the first place. Any cost analysis that we do on the total cost of the project should be quite succinct, so that the minister is able to make and take a view on that with all the facts at hand. I am intrigued to find out perhaps in his speech that he may give us some more rationale as to why it was not included in the adverse city deal. I think that there is general disappointment from across the chamber. It has also been noted in the local press as well. Any comments that he has on that would be welcome. I do wish Jenny Garouwf very well in her pursuit of this link. Those benches are happy to be a constructive part of that dialogue, and I look forward to seeing some results. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would also like to congratulate Jenny Garouwf in securing this debate in Parliament today, and one of the most pressing issues that affects both her constituencies. I would also like to welcome members of the Leave a Mouth rail campaign and local councillors to the Parliament this evening. Railways have been an imperative and influential means of transport for people and materials for decades. Transport links have served as a symbol of modernisation since the beginning of human civilisation. No other industry has promoted change on the scale and scope that is brought about by invention and adoption of railway. Transport has affected economic and social development from the beginning and continues to do so. That is why it is unacceptable that Leave a Mouth is the largest urban area in Scotland, not directly served by rail. It is our job as influential policy makers to raise awareness of the 37,600 residents of Leave a Mouth that continue to be disconnected from key areas in Scotland. The Leave a Mouth rail campaign has brought to our attention issues of economic, social and environmental inequality and is fundamentally a campaign based on the justice for the community. Based on the most recent statistics, Leave a Mouth is within the top 20 per cent of the most deprived communities in Scotland with several areas within the top 5 per cent. That area's transport links have been neglected for years, yet it continues to show extreme potential for regeneration through investment in business and tourist development. The last six years that I have been involved with the Leave a Mouth rail campaign, its members have to be congratulated for their enthusiasm and dedication for taking every opportunity to highlight the issue. There has not been a summerfet or gala in the area that they have not attended. In addition to the many street stalls that have been held, which have resulted in the 12,500 residents from the area signing a petition that supports the reopening of the rail link from Forenton to Leven, which was recently presented to Transport Minister, Minister Yw Ysaf, by Jenny Garouff and myself. It is evident that communities accommodate themselves to transport connections typically prosper. Transport investment links factors of production to give a web of relationships between producers and consumers to promote efficiency and to provide the means to expand economies of scale and scope. As the Fife Cancer report on the Leave a Mouth's study of transport has proven, reducing the cost and time of passengers and freight movement is a great contributor to economic growth. As one of the highest concentrations of deprivation in Fife, it is crucial to revive the rail link to enhance employment opportunities for its struggling workforce as alternative transport modes are costly and inefficient. Alongside the economic benefits, the environmental benefits compared to cars are in line with Scotland's leading environmental role in modern railways. We have managed strategically other significant environment and land use benefits, as they are usually more energy efficient than road transport and generally have lower emissions per traffic unit than any other mode. It is obvious that there is significant support to reinstate a Leave a Mouth rail link. It is one of the few issues during my long time in politics that I have received cross-party support. It is one of the issues in which the two main political parties of Fife Council have both fully supported to make it their number one transport priority. Therefore, I find Willie Rennie's comments in the local papers in the past few days attacking both SNP and Labour administrations in Fife Council both extremely disappointing and unhelpful. It is just cheap political points going and has nothing positive to highlight advance or advance a case for a reinstatement that will leave a Mouth rail link. Did the member not find it rather odd that I received a letter from the minister which directly contradicted what the leader of the council had said about the city region deal and that, rather than arguing amongst themselves, it would be better to come together to take this project forward? Did he not find that rather confusing and therefore it needed some clarity and some unity? I think that if Willie Rennie attended many of the meetings that I have attended over the last six years, he would find whether it is MPs, whether it is MSPs, local councillors and leaders of the council, we have all come together to support the lead Mouth rail campaign. His comments in the paper just weren't helpful at all for our case. I believe that our next step is to develop a detailed reform programme and the lead Mouth sustainable transport study has done an excellent job in beginning this process. If we disregard this campaign, we also disregard our progress in economic activity, our progress as a leading country in reducing carbon emissions and we disregard our dedication to serving the most deprived communities of Scotland. Leave Mouth and its wider communities are suffering the consequences and we need to raise awareness to help individuals and communities in the leave mouth that have been denied access to public space. In conclusion, restatement of the lead Mouth rail link will help to address the poor transport links in the area and will bring with it economic benefits. It also has a potential to make a significant impact on reducing the carbon footprint of businesses in the area. I would like to thank everyone who is involved with the lead Mouth rail campaign for all their hard work because without them, we would not be here to debate in this motion. I look forward to working with them in the future so that one day we can all travel on train to leaving. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is a pleasure to speak in this evening's debate on the leave and rail link. I congratulate Jenny Gilruth for securing the debate and giving us the opportunity to put the case before the minister. It is nine years since I first spoke in a member's debate on the leave and to thought and rail link, and looking back on it, I am the only MSP who spoke in that open debate, who is still here in the chamber tonight, to further support the campaign. I recognise the tenacity of the leave and mouth rail campaign group, who are promoting their cause with a degree of rigor, good nature and energy that deserves recognition. They have held conferences, gathered signatures and produced sound evidence to support the campaign, and I will highlight some of their arguments tonight. Nine years ago, there was unanimous support around the chamber for the project, but there was a fairly mild response from the then minister. I hope that the minister this evening can give a stronger, more positive response to the debate. That is a campaign with political support in Fife. Since I have been elected to the Scottish Parliament, we have had an SNP-led council administration, a Labour administration and now a coalition between the two, and they have been consistent in their support for the project. The timeline provided by Fife council to MSPs demonstrates the work that they have undertaken to promote the reopening. Reopening of the line was in the Scottish Labour and the Scottish Green Party manifestos for the 2016 election, and I recognise the commitment from Fife MSPs of all other parties, but it is not within the powers or the finances of the local authority or Fife MSPs to deliver the project. The economic, environmental and social benefits that the rail link can deliver are clear. It would expand employment, educational and economic opportunities for an area that would benefit so much from this investment. Reopening the line also offers opportunities for freight, adding further benefit to the proposal. I know the Leaving Mouth area well, and we have seen investment along with the Fife Energy Park, the Hydrogen Office and the New Leaving Mouth academy, along with the commitment that was there from Fife College. There are many dedicated support organisations, and the area still has the community spirit that is fostered in its history as a mining community. However, it is still an area that lives with high deprivation areas, levels with higher than average unemployment, with health challenges and a low-car ownership figure. The positive signal of intent that the reopening of the line would give to the area is difficult to underestimate. It is a fairly straightforward proposal. I accept that there is a process to go through and that there must be clear evidence of benefits, affordability and a robust business case. However, as others have said, there is a frustration around this process. We have had two stag reports with the most recent being commissioned by Fife Council in 2015. I know Transport Scotland have a job to do, but there is a growing concern that they are not making the stag process smooth or being clear in their expectations. There is now the need for a grip 4 study, which is recognised as a complex and relatively expensive study. Is it proportionate for Fife Council to pay for this? We know the pressure that local authorities are under and, while they have invested in the stag process and have budgeted for expenditure, they are now being expected to fund a grip study with no indication that the project is likely to be considered favourably or that it is a worthwhile undertaking. Political commitment from the Scottish Government is crucial in making the project a reality. The success of the boarder's rail line should inspire confidence in future projects, where passenger numbers are considerably higher than predicted. There will always be an element of risk with these infrastructure projects, and we can never be fully guaranteed of the outcome. However, I would argue that the Leave Mouth rail project is as good a project as the Scottish Government could wish for, to deliver economic, social and environmental benefits to an area that needs it. Today, the minister must demonstrate commitment to the project and he could start by committing to real support towards the grip study, which is the crucial next stage in making the campaign a reality. Mark Ruskell, to be followed by Alexander Stewart. I thank Jenny Gilruth for bringing forward the motion tonight. It is very welcome and it has attracted a lot of cross-party support. I am delighted to be able to speak in the debate. I highlighted the case to reopen the Leave Mouth rail link through a member's debate that I moved back in 2007. It was Tavish Scott who responded for the Government. It has been satisfying to see how the argument for reopening the line has evolved into a compelling case over the last decade. The quality of that case is reflected in Jenny Gilruth's motion, supported by old parties. The Leave Mouth rail campaign deserves our thanks and congratulations for their professional and passionate work, which, in recent years, has been supported by Fife Council. When the site of the metal power station is disappearing from the skyline and the site of the big demonstration wind turbine is going up, it has painted a picture of a strong economic future for Leave Mouth communities, building on the skills of the past to deliver the kind of world that we need for the future. However, what has been missing from that picture all along has been a rail link that connects Leave Mouth to the rest of Scotland. The line has languished under weeds for decades and yet it is vital for the regeneration of the area. We have heard contributions already from members about the particular challenges that are faced by young people and the kind of grinding exclusion. We have all heard stories from constituents about how difficult it has been to access a job market, how difficult it is to access educational opportunities and even in some cases healthcare as well. However, I want to focus on what time I have left, Presiding Officer, on the way forward and the process now for getting this line reopened. Firstly, it is important to remember that this line already exists. It may lie moth-balled, but there is a commitment that falls on network rail already to maintain the line. If there was a request made from Diagio's freight operator for it to be used again, the network rail would have to open it within 12 months. That would obviously make a significant contribution to the full upgrading that is required for passenger services. The Scottish Government needs to be backing dialogue with Diagio and Malcolm Logistics on the freight question. Secondly, the stag appraisal that was completed did not count up the wider economic benefits that would flow from reopening the line. If it had, then the cost-benefit ratio would have come in well ahead of the border's rail line. However, the regeneration potential of the project is real and needs to be understood and factored into what will be a political decision for the Scottish Government on the passenger services rather than a decision for network rail on that particular question. Thirdly, I would add that the new pipeline approach to bringing forward rail projects and the move away from the five-year control periods will clearly bring some flexibility for the Government to back-winning projects, but I do remain concerned about blockages in that pipeline. If leaving mouth is to move from the business case stage of the stag process to the technical feasibility stage under the grip process, that will require investment minister, including, for example, physical clearance work on the line itself to carry out that technical assessment. Other members have reflected on where investment will come from if it is not written into the Edinburgh city region deal, if it is not within the capacity of Fife Council's budgets to deliver it on its own. There must be a role for the Scottish Government to marshal the resources that are needed and to help to move the project down the pipe. Lastly, there is a need for co-ordination between proposals to reopen rail lines and stations and the wider needs of the rail network. I appreciate that. Leaving mouth is not the only reopening that Fife needs. The completion of the Queensfree crossing should now absolutely signal increased investment in public transport in Fife rather than less investment. There are questions around the timescale of proposed projects in Fife, but there is also the opportunity for synergy between them and a much-needed rail renaissance in Fife and across Scotland if the Government can prioritise capital budgets for infrastructure. The prize for communities, the economy and the environment is great, but it needs the political will and vision to turn that into a reality. We look to you, minister, to provide that. I am delighted to have the opportunity this evening to participate in this debate and pay tribute to Jenny Gilruth for bringing this debate this evening to the chamber. This area, as has already been mentioned, is currently the largest urban area of Scotland, which is not directly served by the rail, despite the presence of the mothball original line between Thornton and the east coast mainline and the historic stations of Cameron bridge and Leven, a distance of only five miles as far as the accro fly. As we know, there is currently a very strong campaign that is seeking to raise awareness and apply pressure from the local community. I pay tribute to that local community for its strength of feeling, commitment, dedication and enthusiasm to ensure that that has been further moved up the agenda. I have only been a member in here since last May, but I am well aware of the campaign that has taken place prior to me coming to this chamber. As I said, I pay tribute to them. The commercial requirements, the logistical common sense and the ultimate justice for the reconnection of this neglected community is paramount. It will help the economy, it will help investment, it will secure jobs and it will give youngsters the opportunity to move freely around the area. The area desperately needs a robust reinforcement to ensure that the society and the opportunities that are there are given that, because they do have poor connections and people have to suffer on a day-to-day basis with those poor connections. Better freight links and rail will certainly aid motorists and the relocation of the heavy traffic that takes place at present, and giving passengers an opportunity. It is like looking back and turning back the clock. 170 years ago, there was a similar situation in the area. In 1847, the Edinburgh and Northern Railway opened part of its main line, a station at Markinsh. In 1848, the station at Thornton opened, with immediate emphasise to the people of Leven, the magnitude of the railway connections that are taking place within that community. We find ourselves today looking at where the acknowledgement of the poor road connections that we have and the HDV movement that is going back and forward from Diagell and others within that location. If that was taken off the road, what connections that would make, what opportunities that would give to ensure that we have a much better logistical connections within the area. It is time for the Scottish Government to sit up and listen to the locals. They cannot just ignore the depth of feeling. As I say, I am sincerely impressed by the reports that have come forward and the events that I have attended over the past year and a bit to see the commitment from this community. The strong commercial case, the common sense for the determination of the locals to campaign as well as a clear business sense prevails to ensure that the Levenmouth rail link succeeds. They deserve to succeed because they have put their effort into it. If I believe that the connections are poor but the Government has to put its money where its mouse is in supporting the business community and supporting the local residents, that is vitally important. I have heard this evening that we have been years at this campaign, that we have taken a lot of effort, we have seen lots of reports coming forward but not much progress. That has not been because MSPs have not participated, because I can see from the past that they have. It just has not materialised. I therefore ask the Government to support this proposal, which will unlock the potential and give real opportunities to communities across the Fife area. I am happy to fight the corner and stand shoulder to shoulder with MSPs across the chamber to fight to ensure that the people of Levenmouth are given the opportunities that they deserve. They have fought long and hard and I am, as I say, immensely impressed, but it is up to Network Rail, Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government to stand together as well to ensure that the community is respected and given the opportunities that they rightfully deserve. I wish the campaign well and I hope that, in the tenure of my time here, we can work together to ensure that this dream becomes a reality for the people and the communities that deserve it. I commend Jenny Gilruth for bringing and securing this debate to the Parliamentary Chamber. I thank the members for their contributions. I will try to address some of the issues and concerns that have been raised in their contributions. However, if I miss anything out, I welcome the interventions that they may want to make. I also thank, as many members have done, the Levenmouth rail campaigners, many of them who are in the public gallery, not all 12,500, who signed the petition, I suspect, but a fair number of those who have driven the campaign, who I have met on a number of occasions most recently when I did collect that petition from Jenny Gilruth, David Torrance and a number of other MSPs who were there as well. As I say, more than 12,500 signatures have been collected on many different issues. All of us, I am sure, 12,500, is a mightily impressive figure particularly when I think of the figures of the population of the Levenmouth area. You are talking about one-third of the entire population of that area, so it is very impressive indeed. I thank and congratulate and commend Levenmouth rail campaigners. I also say for personal experience that whoever does their Twitter account, they are persistent and I salute their individuality in that regard. Somehow, anything that I tweet about manages to always come back to the Levenmouth rail campaign. I can advise Jenny Gilruth and others who have passionately articulated the case in today's debate that today's debate has been really helpful and informative and has been the opportunity for me to hear and reflect on the issues, the observations and concerns that have been raised. With due reflection, I intend to perhaps flow a proposition on how we might address some of the needs of the community at Levenmouth. Perhaps before I do, let me just try to set out some of the assessments of the issue. The first thing is that nobody, be it the Government, be it Transport Scotland, I think that I can speak even perhaps for Network Rail on this position that nobody has ever doubted the passion, the commitment, the desire and the depth of feeling, as Alexander Stewart described it, of those who live in Levenmouth. Indeed, the surrounding area for the desire to have this rail link up and running, that simply has never been in doubt whatsoever. My members were right to say that there has been a number of studies, so I can understand the frustration. I can also understand in some respects the frustration around the stag process. Jenny Gilruth and others are not the only ones to have raised this with me. I am speaking to my officials at Transport Scotland to look at the stag process in general, not just for rail projects but indeed a number of our infrastructure projects. That being said, within the guidelines, they will know from the study, which I have a copy of, that there are two potential transport options emerging, the bus option emerging and the rail link option, which is obviously favoured by the majority. It also goes to say to provide context, which I know is really important, and Jamie Greene I thought reflected from this very well in his contribution. Of course, the Government rightly will be held to account for every single penny of taxpayers' money that we spend. Therefore, it has to be an absolute robust business case, robust rationale that has to be scrutinised to the nth degree. Find that balance between not frustrating the process and yet going through the due diligence is sometimes a difficult one. I am not saying that we get it right every time, but most certainly I can hear what members are saying very much on that. When it comes to the cost-benefit ratio, which I think that Jamie Greene mentioned, if we looked at the cost-benefit ratio as purely value for just the pound that is invested, there is still some work for the study to do in that regard in terms of railing. However, on the flipside of that, I think that it is a point that all members and Jenny Gilruth were very strong on that point in her remarks. Was it if you just looked at that from a business case point of view, you were perhaps ignoring the regeneration impact, the socio-economic impact and so on and so forth. I think that those points are very well made by all those who contributed to the debate, but it is also a point that is made very well in the recent booklet that was produced by Leaving Mouth Rail campaign that I read yesterday and again just this afternoon before coming to the debate. It is a really helpful contribution. If members have not seen it, they should see the latest booklet. I am sure that they all have the latest booklet from the Leaving Mouth rail campaign. It illustrates how improved connectivity can make a real difference to the lives and the opportunities of people in Leaving Mouth. The booklet also raises points that need to be explored further, relating to the level of costs and the identification of the achievements of benefits. It is for all those reasons that Claire Baker touched on. I think that one or two other members touched on the grip process, perhaps the financial burden, as it was described on the local authority. I am minded that I will instruct my officials at Transport Scotland to effectively take on responsibility for the study in close collaboration with the council, but, as opposed to the council leading, perhaps I can make a proposition that Transport Scotland will lead on that. The evidential base is absolutely important and imperative when we go to spend a penny of taxpayers' money. I am not going to prejudge what the outcome will be of Transport Scotland's deliberations. I have told them that they must look above and beyond just the basic cost benefit to wider socioeconomic impacts and regeneration impacts. Some of the qualitative information that Jenny Gerruth has articulated would also be helpful and useful if she can present me with that. I should say that that being said, I still expect Transport Scotland to be absolutely robust in the scrutiny of the project. With that in mind, I will re-engage with the members who have taken an interest. I will re-engage with the Leave and Mouth rail campaign, but I will also re-engage with Fife Council. I think that one or two members asked about the city deal issue as well. As they will know, it would be for local authorities to come forward and to think that their priorities are in terms of city deal projects. There is an opportunity, as Mark Ruskell touched upon, with the pipeline approach for control period 6 to 2019 to 2024. There is an opportunity, subject to funding from the UK Government—we still have not got that confirmed yet—that is a to and fro that is happening with the chief secretary of the treasury. However, notwithstanding that, taking on the points that Mark Ruskell has said about that possible blockage in a pipeline, I hope that the whole point of the pipeline is to remain flexible to allow projects that have robust business cases and social economic advantages to make their way through that pipeline. The tagline for the Leave and Mouth rail campaign is more than just a transport project. That is a great tagline, I have to say, incidentally for any transport investment. We seek to make investments that strive to deliver economically vibrant, well-connected and inclusive societies across Scotland. On that note, I thank Jenny Gilruth for initiating the debate. I thank the Leave and Mouth rail campaigners, I thank all members for their contributions. I think that we have potentially a way forward on that. I hear what they are saying very clearly and I promise to keep them updated on any further developments. I thank the minister and all members for their contributions. That concludes our debate. I thank our visitors in the gallery too. I now close this meeting.


Our main works here involve earthworks, concreting works, form work, still fixing. I think complacency is a big issue in our industry and a lot of the work can be repetitive. Just simple things. You know, sometimes we'll walk on a site and you'll see guys not wearing hard hats.  Each one of our employees that works on site needs to have a general induction done that's carried out online and you've got to do that every 12 months. And then we have a site-specific induction that's carried out so no one's allowed on the site as a worker unless they have carried out the site-specific induction. Once we have commenced on site, generally we carry out daily toolbox talks. We mainly just discussing the tasks at hand for the day and any risks that may be involved with that task that's being carried out on the day. When I get on site, just simple things. I like to see the simple things done right. And once the simple things are done right, then the guys tend to think about the more important stuff.  Guys wearing ear protection when they're grinding, eye protection when they're grinding. You do have the guys that just think it's a waste of time until something happens. And then when something happens, then they realise, oh, that's why we do what we do on site these days. You know, it's got to be on the forefront of their mind that safety is first. And then, you know, the job is carried out properly. And then we learn from that, so then we have to price another job. We know that that's the way that we've got to do it. That's the way it's got to be done properly. And that we don't cut corners, especially in regards to safety. October is National Safe Work Month. Check the website to find out how you can get involved. Safety is everyone's business and your knowledge and experience are worth sharing.


It's going to be a happy day. Since I'm doing my whole, I'm using ASCII art for the whole presentation. Sadly, I'm not doing any ASCII art. I should have done it next time. So I'll let the room fill a little bit more. How many of you were here for the last meeting? Very few. OK, good. Just fine. Google was just presenting hybrid control planes. And in some ways, that's the peanut butter to this chocolate. But we can get into that in Q&A if we have time.   Sorry, Grant. So I apologize for that in advance. For those of you who have switched religions today. And we have a whole bunch to do. How many people have used kube ADM, kube admin? OK, good. I'm going to try and whip through things. And I need to know how much explanation I need to do as we go. And I will start. Hello, my name is Rob Hirschfeld. I am CEO and co-founder of a company called Rack N. I've been involved in the Kubernetes community since the very, very early days, the Oskan announcement. And today we're going to talk about some really exciting new stuff. Rack N focuses on operations, specifically on premises, physical, metal operations. That's our area. We do a lot of other things too. But that's really our focus area. Today we want to talk about something that we think is really exciting, which is immutable bootstrapping. And then we're going to talk about some other places where operations and Kubernetes meet in interesting ways, which is noted mission and dynamic kubelet configuration. If you haven't heard of those things, we'll get there. If you're interested in community side, I'm involved in cluster ops sig. So we like to try and round up operators. Please get involved in that. And then a lot of what I'm going to show you, we're going to start with something called digital rebar, which is an open source project that Rack N maintains for doing physical provisioning. So the bare metal underlay side of this whole equation. And before I get into the immutable boot, it's worth doing a hat tip to kubespray. We've done a lot of work building kubespray deployments since version 1.2 when it was kubespray the first time, and then cargo, and then back to kubespray. And it's a really solid Ansible playbook. It has great features like HA and plugins and things like that. So we're not trying to endorse one installer over another. We actually think if you like Ansible, kubespray is a really good job. But this presentation has a lot of these pregnant butts in it. We think we can do better than what kubespray does in certain circumstances, especially for turning over nodes and reprovisioning immutably. Because we think that we can bring up Kubernetes without central orchestration, so without an external system telling all the nodes what to do without having to build the inventory in advance. We want the nodes just to come up, boot, and be discovered. That would be really nice.  Actually, I'll define it, I think, in the next slide. Immutable infrastructure. And then we just think it should be much faster. Kubespray is really cool, but it takes 20 minutes or so to run. We'd like to get that down in the sub-5 minutes range. Fast enough for me to demo in a presentation window. So what is immutable infrastructure? How many people know what immutable infrastructure? That term means something to them. How many people think they agree with my definition of immutability? That's about, I know you don't. That's a lie. So immutability has different meanings for different people. To me, the fundamental architectural piece of it is this create, destroy, repeat pattern. So if you're doing cloud deployments, you create a cloud and image. Some people would say AMI, but you create a golden image for a system. You deploy that image, usually bake in a whole bunch of great stuff into that so that by the time the image comes up, you don't have to do much configuration or very limited configuration.  So we're switching from a configuration pattern, which is really what Ansible drives, to an immutable pattern where the image is pre-created with everything in it. You do much less. And then you never patch or fix. You always destroy and replace. We work on doing that on physical infrastructure. So we're literally turning over nodes very quickly. I'll show you two ways that we do that. And the reason we want to do this pattern is it's one, two. The three is faster. But it's a very repeatable and predictable pattern. So that means I can say, this is the thing I want to deploy, and you deploy it. Configuration management tools are really good, but they can be finicky. Especially over time, configuration drift happens and it's very hard to maintain nodes. And that makes everything simpler. And so in operations, if we can increase simplicity and speed, that's a big win. And that's why we think immutability is a very big deal. There's a side effect in here that we think is really important, which is people know how to do it in the cloud. So if your automation works in the cloud and we can bring it back on premises, then that's a big win. Because then you've reduced your tool chains and you've reduced your test differences and you've increased the fidelity within your operational environments. So here's what we want to show. This is the zero configuration. What we want to be able to do is do a three-step cluster initialization. This is normal Kube Admin. If you haven't done it, we just don't want to have to touch anything to make this happen. So we want to initialize the master. We need to retrieve that token from the initialization. And then we need to join nodes with that token. So this is normal. If you've done it, you log into one node, you do things, you log into the other nodes with information. We want to eliminate that step because that still requires some coordination and synchronization manually. If we get rid of that, then clusters are going to come up automatically. If you were in the last demo, if somebody is hosting your control plane already, then you can do basically the skip the initialization step and use a remote control plane. But first, you can't just go in and Kube Admin out of nothing. You have to have some preparation done. So you have to have an operating system installed. You have to attach the disks to the system, so you have some persistent storage. Potentially, we could do everything in memory, but it makes sense to have some persistence for the Docker volumes to go somewhere instead of RAM. And then you have to have Docker installed. All of these, these are your prerequisites, pretty simple, but they need to get done. And then to make the actual bootstrap and go, you need to have some control mechanism. So it's Ansible, or Cloud in it, or Terraform, or what we've been able to do is eliminate those pieces and just use the boot provision infrastructure we build with Digital Rebar. And it looks like this. So we have four nodes in the system. We have to prep them. So we have to install an operating system and install Docker, pretty straightforward. And then we need to let the Admin node, the master node, come up. So it has to be a Kubernetes and create a cluster token. So that token then is going to be used to join the other system. So once that token's available, all the other systems are going to come in and join it. And then at that point, we can just apply rinse, repeat. We can grow the cluster. We could drain and remove nodes from the cluster. Things become pretty straightforward at that point. So this is the basic bootstrapping process. What we want to be able to do, what we want to be able to do is synchronize that process. So we want the nodes to come up just out of as a group. The first one up should be able to grab being master, create the token, and then let the other nodes go. And that's what we'll show you in the demo. And that'll be able to bootstrap the cluster completely by itself. But before I demo, I do want to give a PSA. This is not a new installer. We believe very strongly that we don't want distro wars. We don't want installer wars in the Kubernetes community. So this is using Kube Admin. Using Kube Admin primitives. And it's using Kube Admin commands. There's no magic custom proprietary widget in this stuff. It's just using the tools the way they are. Just like when we use Kube Spray, we just use Kube Spray. And that's our goal, is to be able to use the community tools the way the community tools are designed to be used. All right, so the demo. All right, so this is a Kube Admin rebar, which is digital rebar, and immutable bootstrapping for the demo. I'll show you what these things look like. This is the overview system. So this is a digital rebar console. It's where we're going to start. And in this system, I have put eight nodes because we're going to do two different deployments that are completely independent. And my job here is not to show you digital rebar if you want to do that. Go to the community site, and you can duplicate all these steps there. What I want to do is focus on the actual bring up. And so for that, what we've done, can people see this in the back? That's why I ask. There we go. What I've done here is we've created two clusters in advance for the demo. One is a RAM cluster, and one is a Kubernetes install cluster. And so in this cluster, it basically just tells you that it is a Kubernetes cluster, or CRIB. My naming. Not everybody in my team loves that, but it works for me. And I've created another cluster install that will actually do it. One of them is going to use our in-memory fast booting infrastructure. The other one is actually going to do a full regular CentOS install in this deployment. And then what we have to do is we have to assign these profiles. So in this case, my first four nodes I've already put into this RAM-based cluster deployment. So they're already booted. They're waiting. They're available for me. And what I need to do is go ahead and just tell it to start the install process. Oh, wait. One thing to show you first. And then somebody can start a clock on the demo. In this deployment, we have a workflow. So we've already discovered and put them in the wait state. We call that image sledgehammer. And then what we're going to do after this is we're going to mount the disks. Step one, we're going to install Docker. Step two, and we're going to do the CRIB install. Step three. And while that works, I'll show you a little bit about the actual scripts that are going on behind the scenes. And then we're done. We're just going to wait. And then I'll run Kubernetes for you. So to launch that script, I just have to start the workflow to the Mount Local Disks phase, which I can do for those four nodes pretty easily, four nodes. And I just need to go to Mount Local Disks. So this is the beginning of that workflow. So I've applied that workflow. You can see the stages are mounted here. Going to get some live events back as the system goes through that process. And that'll let us see what's going on with these nodes. So the first thing that's going to happen for these nodes is that they're going to start going through the process of building the actual infrastructure. I'm looking at. They're going to go through the actual infrastructure phase and start running the install process for the disks. And then we should be able to start moving things all the way through. So while we wait for that to kick off, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the other four nodes that I have going. And I'm going to add them into the other cluster that I have ready to go. And for them, what we want to do is I need to put them in this Kates install cluster. So this is my second cluster. You can see they're in that one. And then I need to go ahead and set them back at the beginning. Sorry, I want to set them to install Centos. And then I want to let them reboot. And so you'll actually see I can expand this a little bit. We're getting the updates in the machines are going through their cycle. And it looks like, did I hit the wrong ones going through the wrong ways? OK. My CTS sitting in my front row, giving me glares or hints as I need it. And so basically what's going to happen in this case is the system's going to go through and build the workflows and identify the cluster with what's going on. So if I check in on, and what we're waiting to happen is in this profile that we've built, we're going to come back and as part of these, oh, I'll take you through what the scripts look like. That'll help explain how we're using Kube Admin for this. What will happen is that as the cluster comes up, the first node that's elected is going to identify itself as the master and will inject I am the master into this profile, and that'll become a shared resource for all the other clusters. So that's how we coordinate this operation of a single node, all the nodes boot simultaneously. One becomes self-elected as the cluster. We don't pre-define that. It's basically a race, one node wins. And then once that node wins, the Kube Admin initialization step will pull back the required token, and it's going to then pull back join information for all the other nodes to participate in. So let me show you what that looks like. So inside of this stage, the crib install stage here, there's a single task in it. And this is something relatively new for us. A lot of what we typically do is we would start to decompose this single task into multiple tasks, and then those tasks become alerts and information that get passed into the system. So you could actually track the install progress of an individual node and then notify other systems of what was going on. So in this case, what we have is a template. And the template is just the bash that you would use to install this node in the infrastructure. So it's going to go in, and then if I dig through in here, I have to install kubelet.  From there, we're going to grab the results of kubadmin init. All the other workers are going to back off, and then they're going to keep going through the infrastructure from that side. So let me see where we stand with the nodes. And so at this point, I have this node in the Docker install stage. And so literally, this node is now installing Docker. And so I can actually see it from here. All of these nodes are in the Docker install step. One of these four I still don't know which yet. When it advances to the next phase in this workflow, we'll become the master node. And it just takes a little bit of time to install Docker. One of the things that we're doing in the background here is this demo. Obviously, I don't have a stack of servers here doing the demo. We're using something called packet.net. If you haven't tried them, we actually have a coupon code, rackn, capital letters 100. You can get, I think, a $30 credit on packet to try out these same types of things. They're a bare metal hosting company. So if you're practicing, you don't have a lab. Or even if you do have a lab, if you need spare metal servers, we're big fans of what packet's been doing. And we have a lot of integrations with their workflow. So in this case, we're just waiting for the Docker install to finish. And then we'll get Kubernetes install happening right after that in just a minute. And then part of what we're able to do in the background is actually see the job progress. So this is our Docker install actually running, and then giving me results of the Docker bring up process. So task Docker finished. And then we should be able to start the Kubernetes. Let me see. Yeah, so now we're actually doing the Kubernetes install process in this case. And then one of them should win the leader election. Let's see where we go. So in this case, node 56 won the leader election. And so that node is now doing the work of doing the Kube admin init. So if you've installed Kube admin init, that's the first step that you're going to do. And then the information that gets initialized in that cluster will show up in this profile dynamically when we get a little bit further in the stage. So I'm right on the edge. I'm tempted to jump back to the slides, but we're right on the edge of doing it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to flip back to my slides for a minute. And then I'll show you, that way we'll preserve a little bit of time, and I'll be able to show you the cluster actually being built. So in this case, I just applied a profile to nodes. They're all coming up in a Kubernetes cluster. I'm actually building two Kubernetes cluster, one of them in RAM, basically in a RAM boot system. And then the other one is going through a full CentOS install, and then it'll lay down Kube admin using exactly the same scripts. But there's a little bit more to do with this. Adding nodes requires a token. With Kube admin, we could create a long-lived token, but that's not as cool as it would be to actually inject the token and bring it back. Our KubeLit still requires configuration. So if we want to make things sort of different or interesting, or you have site variation, we're going to end up having to inject configuration into the KubeLit. And then it would be really nice to be able to orchestrate this upgrade and run it using some cluster API. So there's plenty more bootstrapping things to do beyond where this goes. The fact that I can bootstrap without having any external things about the system is really handy. So I can just bring up an admin cluster and let it go. So let me see where we are with the Kubernetes install at this point. So in this case, what you'll see is, and this has been really good because I've been able to show you sort of the intermediate steps, we started with just the cluster, and now we actually have the join commands here. Those join commands are then being passed in automatically to the rest of the nodes in the cluster. And then what we also have here is we actually have the full admin conf file that we need to run the cluster. And this is where the demo gets really fun to me. So what we've been able to do, because I now have the admin conf file, I'm just scrolling up instead of typing. There it is. What I'm able to do is using the rebar CLI, I can pull that file out of the configuration values. So in this case, I'm specifying the cluster that I want to talk to. So this is the Kubernetes cluster that's running in RAM. And then I'm just pulling out the admin conf file. So at this point, that same parameter that I showed you is now in my local system, which means I can start running. This is on my local system. The cluster is running in a data center in New York. I can actually go in and use that Kubernetes control admin file to get the nodes that I just deployed. So in the course of this little demo, I've actually managed to bring up a full Kubernetes cluster. I'm actually bringing up two of them in parallel. And then what gets really fun from there. So Kubernetes is up. What we actually want to be able to do, and even more importantly, I didn't have to figure out what my credentials were. I didn't have to figure out my login. I actually was able to create a unique credential set within this infrastructure, boot up the nodes, and then without knowing anything about that cluster, log into it and start getting access to it from my local desktop. But I want to do a little bit better, and KubeCuttle lets me do that. So with these credentials, I can actually set up the proxy. And so when I set up the proxy, now I have access through that proxy into that cluster that I'm using with these credentials. And so if I come back, this is letting me into my Kube admin dashboard. So five minutes, KubeCuttle, no typing, no logging into the machines, no SSH required. I have a cluster that I can log into and start using. It's a pretty big deal. I think it's a big deal. I'm excited. All right, so that makes sense. That's the bootstrapping demo. If you're trying to deploy this type of thing on site, or if you're trying to extend on-premises infrastructure from what Google was showing you with a hybrid cloud, you could eject the parameters, boot the nodes, and it would be done. Even faster, you wouldn't have to do the initialization phase. All right, so back to slides. So there's two other things that we said we were going to talk about that we've been hearing a lot of interesting things for, can we make this faster? Can we make this more secure? One of them is noted mission. Noted mission is a pattern. And in the presentation, if you're in schedule, you can get a link back to these docs and the URLs. Ideally, what we would get with noted mission is that when we booted nodes, we wouldn't need a token. The node would boot. We'd say, hey, I like this node, let it in, and then configure it. That's what we want to be able to do. So we don't have to drive any configuration infrastructure. Should make auto-scaling easier. So noted mission, node comes up. Something says, yes, I have a picture I'll show you. And that should make it faster. We should be able to use Kubernetes to do everything. Sort of a Kubernetes conquers the world paradigm. And it would look like this, using this admission service. So a node would come in. Kublet comes in. It tries to create itself, tries to create the node. That create node action, using the admission protocols, says, I can't create the node until I check in with external service, whatever, webhook. That webhook says, yes, I trust what you're creating a node that you're allowed to do. You could do this with any object in Kubernetes. It validates that the node is a valid node, and says, yes.  I trust this node. It sends back the, it creates the object, and now Kublet's in the system. That's object admission, node admission protocol. And this is a little bit scary. So this is the pattern that somebody described to me, and they started to get very excited about. HSM means a hardware signing module. So you could cryptographically sign the information that you put in that node, and you could start the node with a token from a trusted third party, sign that node by the hardware signing module on that node. So it's unique to that node. And then the encrypted token is what gets passed up. This is tricky to follow. It gets the encrypted token, not the clear token, gets passed up to the API server. The API server forwards it as part of the node admission request. The external party goes back to the PKI to decrypt that token using the public key, and that that system says, wow, this matches the key that I gave you. Nobody else knew about it except me, and everybody's happy in this process. And it sounds really cool. The challenge is that in bringing up the node this way, you already have to inject information that is cryptographically relevant or unique per node. The level of extra effort to do this really doesn't guarantee you that the node is any more secure. So while it's a really interesting pattern, we at Rackin think that this really doesn't provide any additional security from a node authorization, node guarantee space. So we think it's interesting, but you've already got to be pretty sure you're bringing up a node and validating what the node is by putting a secure token on it, an admission token. So marginal benefits for a lot of complexity. The other pattern that looks like it should be super interesting for zero touch configuration is to use Kubelet dynamic configuration. So you want to be able to say, hey, Kubelet, here's a new node. I trust it. We already went through this process. And I don't know anything about it. You tell me everything I know to do that configuration. And that seems really cool, because Kubernetes already has to interact with the node. Why not let it configure the node, too? And there's a line of thinking along these lines, which I call the bootstrap fallacy, which is, if I have a tool, I should have the tool, bootstrap the tool. We've made this mistake before. It's sort of tricky. I'm hinting at where I'm going with this. But you'll see, it should look like this. We centrally configure the system. We install Kubelet. We allow Kubelet to register, and Kubernetes configures the Kubelet. But it looks like this in practice. And I hope we're going to continue to see investment. This is still an early feature, so it might get more like slide one, but right now it's like slide two. You install the Kubelet. You configure the Kubelet. It registers to the API server. You inject your configuration into the API server. And then you reconfigure the Kubelet to use dynamic configuration, so it gets configuration from the server. So you literally have to configure, configure, reconfigure, configure, which isn't really that productive considering you still have to configure. This is the bootstrapping problem. So if I'm injecting configuration into the system, I might as well just inject all the configuration into the system and do it once. And so from our perspective, since we already have to inject configuration and we already have an external system that's managing that configuration, or at least aware of that configuration, we're not really saving anything by taking 50% or 75% of a configuration template and putting it somewhere else. Matter of fact, we might actually be making things harder, and we start having multiple sources of truth and things like that. So it's interesting, but we really don't see that we've accomplished as much because we haven't eliminated the configuration stages for the node. So it's something to keep on your radar from that perspective. But overall, we're really making great progress. The fact that we're able to use kube-admin to bootstrap a cluster this easily, to be able to just let this sort of three-step process automatically configure a cluster is really big deal usability infrastructure. And it's the right direction. So I have to improve, but this is a real step forward in how we're going to build and manage clusters. So thank you for your time and attention. I appreciate that. I have time for questions. The profiles are available. So everything I'm showing you is available. The crib stuff literally, we finished it with lots of time to spare, meaning Monday instead of Wednesday. But so it is available in the registry. So in the digital rebar UX pieces, I will show you this, and I tried to not talk about rebar too much, basically there's a content package for crib, and the content package is available in the catalog for digital rebar. So I don't know which repo we ended up putting it in. But you can repeat this whole infrastructure. We're doing a longer demo of this with a longer discussion on Thursday as a webinar, so you're happy to participate. But this is the type of thing we really do want to see this extended, decomposed. There's a lot of places to go with this. It's just content from our perspective. Another question. Great question. So the question is, what was the state of the sledgehammer machines before? They were pixie booted into an in-memory image, which is based on centos. So we have an optimized in-memory boot environment. And so yeah, so it's literally the default process, the default workflows here, workflow. So in this workflow, discover is a pixie boot, and then it literally just pixie. It adds SSH keys and inventories, and then it waits. So that's the minimal state. It's an optimized boot process for that perspective. So very easy to replicate. Two questions. Go on the right first. So the question is, what do we think of Linux Kit? We did a demo with Linux Kit a while ago. It was pretty nice. We were able to inject some images and makes Linux Kit go. And it's still flooding around in the community, I think, somewhere. We're just not seeing a lot of uptake on it. And so in the community, it's one of those things we'd be happy to see more people trying to use it. Same as true with CoreOS, what we're doing is generic. So you could easily be running CoreOS through some of these processes. Although CoreOS is a little bit different. Some of what we do relies on our post-provisioning agent, which is dissolvable. So it doesn't stay in the system. But our post-provisioning agent will pull down work out of the system. So it's a question of how you inject that post-provisioning step into those immutable images. That's the balance. So Ignition is actually built into the components. I'm looking at Greg's. So we're actually adding Ignition into the Sledgehammer post-config. So you could actually run Ignition scripts in this in-memory boot state and then drive directly to the disk. We're really excited about all those things. We think it's the right pattern. And you had a question. So the question is, can you accelerate this by baking more things into the image?  What we did, and this was a very deliberate decision, Sledgehammer, which is our sort of quick start boot discovery thing, is really optimized. So we didn't want to add this into Sledgehammer. But you could create, and this was a subject of some debate before I was just told no. That's the way things work. But we almost made a case Sledgehammer or a Kledgehammer or whatever, Google Hammer or something that would have had these things in it. But the reality is it's so fast to pull these images, it's really not that much overhead. For Docker and Cube, but if you had a whole bunch of other pieces, then I would totally do that. Makes sense. More questions, just about out of time. We're happy to take more questions up here. Rackin does have a booth down on the floor by where the swag stand is. So please come by, talk to the engineers who build this stuff, not the guy who has to do the demos. So we're all here. And they're easily identifiable by their choice of clothing today, kilts. They're teams in kilts today. Excellent. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate the time.