diff --git a/src/cmd-buildextend-metal b/src/cmd-buildextend-metal
index fa425973b4..9609b15374 100755
--- a/src/cmd-buildextend-metal
+++ b/src/cmd-buildextend-metal
@@ -166,6 +166,27 @@ else
     rootfs_size="${rootfs_size}M"
 fi
 
+disk_args=()
+
+set -x
+# Extract the target kernel config, which may inform how we build disks.
+target_moduledir=$(ostree --repo="${tmprepo}" ls "${commit}" /usr/lib/modules | grep -o '/usr/lib/modules/.*')
+ostree --repo="${tmprepo}" cat "${commit}" "${target_moduledir}/config" > tmp/target-kernel.config
+# Part of: https://github.com/ostreedev/ostree/pull/1959
+# We need to support kernels that don't have this enabled yet, including RHEL8
+# and current Fedora 31.
+# https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1765933
+# We unconditonally enable fs-verity for /boot if we have it,
+# because...integrity there is useful a bit and it will help
+# us prove this out even if we're not using it for the rootfs.
+if grep -Eq '^CONFIG_FS_VERITY=y' tmp/target-kernel.config; then
+    disk_args+=("--boot-verity")
+else
+    echo 'NOTE: Missing CONFIG_FS_VERITY from target kernel config'
+    sleep 1
+fi
+rm tmp/target-kernel.config
+
 kargs="$(python3 -c 'import sys, yaml; args = yaml.safe_load(sys.stdin).get("extra-kargs", []); print(" ".join(args))' < "$configdir/image.yaml")"
 tty="console=tty0 console=${DEFAULT_TERMINAL},115200n8"
 # On each s390x hypervisor, a tty would be automatically detected by the kernel
@@ -178,7 +199,11 @@ kargs="$kargs $tty ignition.platform.id=$ignition_platform_id"
 
 ostree_remote="$(python3 -c 'import sys, yaml; print(yaml.safe_load(sys.stdin).get("ostree-remote", "NONE"))' < "$configdir/image.yaml")"
 save_var_subdirs="$(python3 -c 'import sys, yaml; print(yaml.safe_load(sys.stdin).get("save-var-subdirs-for-selabel-workaround", "NONE"))' < "$configdir/image.yaml")"
-luks_flag="$(python3 -c 'import sys, yaml; lf=yaml.safe_load(sys.stdin).get("luks_rootfs", ""); print("--luks-rootfs" if lf.lower() in ("yes", "true") else "")' < "$configdir/image.yaml")"
+# First parse the old luks_rootfs flag
+rootfs_type="$(python3 -c 'import sys, yaml; lf=yaml.safe_load(sys.stdin).get("luks_rootfs", ""); print("luks" if lf.lower() in ("yes", "true") else "")' < "$configdir/image.yaml")"
+if [ -z "${rootfs_type}" ]; then
+    rootfs_type="$(python3 -c 'import sys, yaml; print(yaml.safe_load(sys.stdin).get("rootfs", "xfs"))' < "$configdir/image.yaml")"
+fi
 
 qemu-img create -f ${image_format} "${path}.tmp" "${image_size}"
 # We support deploying a commit directly instead of a ref
@@ -205,7 +230,8 @@ runvm "${target_drive[@]}" -- \
             --ostree-repo "${ostree_repo}" \
             --save-var-subdirs "${save_var_subdirs}" \
             --rootfs-size "${rootfs_size}" \
-            "${luks_flag}"
+            --rootfs "${rootfs_type}" \
+            "${disk_args[@]}"
 /usr/lib/coreos-assembler/finalize-artifact "${path}.tmp" "${path}"
 echo "{}" > tmp/vm-iso-checksum.json
 
diff --git a/src/create_disk.sh b/src/create_disk.sh
index b83ef094a1..9a0da68799 100755
--- a/src/create_disk.sh
+++ b/src/create_disk.sh
@@ -28,7 +28,8 @@ Options:
     --ostree-repo: location of the ostree repo
     --save-var-subdirs: "yes" to workaround selabel issue for RHCOS
     --rootfs-size: Create the root filesystem with specified size
-    --luks-rootfs: place rootfs in a LUKS container
+    --boot-verity: Provide this to enable ext4 fs-verity for /boot
+    --rootfs: xfs|ext4verity|luks
 
 You probably don't want to run this script by hand. This script is
 run as part of 'coreos-assembler build'.
@@ -36,7 +37,8 @@ EOC
 }
 
 rootfs_size="0"
-luks_rootfs=""
+boot_verity=0
+rootfs="xfs"
 extrakargs=""
 
 while [ $# -gt 0 ];
@@ -55,7 +57,8 @@ do
         --ostree-repo)      ostree="${1}"; shift;;
         --save-var-subdirs) save_var_subdirs="${1}"; shift;;
         --rootfs-size)      rootfs_size="${1}"; shift;;
-        --luks-rootfs)      luks_rootfs=1;;
+        --boot-verity)      boot_verity=1;;
+        --rootfs)           rootfs="${1}" shift;;
          *) echo "${flag} is not understood."; usage; exit 10;;
          --) break;
      esac;
@@ -78,6 +81,11 @@ grub_script="${grub_script:?--grub-script must be defined}"
 os_name="${os_name:?--os_name must be defined}"
 save_var_subdirs="${save_var_subdirs:?--save_var_subdirs must be defined}"
 
+case "${rootfs}" in
+    xfs|ext4verity|luks) ;;
+    *) echo "Invalid rootfs type: ${rootfs}" 1>&2; exit 1;;
+esac
+
 set -x
 
 # Partition and create fs's. The 0...4...a...1 uuid is a sentinal used by coreos-gpt-setup
@@ -133,7 +141,7 @@ esac
 udevtrig
 
 root_dev="${disk}${ROOTPN}"
-if [ -n "${luks_rootfs}"  ]; then
+if [ "${rootfs}" = "luks" ]; then
     root_dev=/dev/mapper/crypt_root
     sgdisk -c ${ROOTPN}:luks_root "${disk}"
 
@@ -176,13 +184,32 @@ if [ -n "${luks_rootfs}"  ]; then
     extrakargs="${extrakargs} rd.luks.options=discard"
 fi
 
-mkfs.ext4 "${disk}${BOOTPN}" -L boot
+bootargs=
+if [ "${boot_verity}" = 1 ]; then
+    # Need 4k blocks to match host page size; TODO
+    # really mkfs.ext4 should know this.  This is arch-dependent probably.
+    bootargs="-b 4096 -O verity"
+fi
+mkfs.ext4 ${bootargs} "${disk}${BOOTPN}" -L boot
 if [ ${EFIPN:+x} ]; then
        mkfs.fat "${disk}${EFIPN}" -n EFI-SYSTEM
        # partition $BIOPN has no FS, its for bios grub
        # partition $PREPPN has no FS, its for PowerPC PReP Boot
 fi
-mkfs.xfs "${root_dev}" -L root -m reflink=1
+if [ "${rootfs}" = "ext4verity" ]; then
+    # As of today, xfs doesn't support verity, so we have a choice of fs-verity or reflinks.
+    # Now, fs-verity doesn't in practice gain us a huge amount of security because
+    # there are other "persistence vectors".  See
+    # https://blog.verbum.org/2017/06/12/on-dm-verity-and-operating-systems/
+    # https://github.com/coreos/rpm-ostree/issues/702
+    # And reflinks are *very* useful for the container stack with overlayfs (and in general).
+    # So basically, we're choosing performance over half-implemented security.
+    # Eventually, we'd like both - once XFS gains verity (probably not too hard),
+    # we could unconditionally enable it there.
+    mkfs.ext4 -O verity -L root "${root_dev}"
+else
+    mkfs.xfs "${root_dev}" -L root -m reflink=1
+fi
 
 rootfs=$PWD/tmp/rootfs
 
@@ -211,6 +238,9 @@ mkdir -p $rootfs/ostree
 chcon $(matchpathcon -n /ostree) $rootfs/ostree
 mkdir -p $rootfs/ostree/{repo,deploy}
 ostree --repo=$rootfs/ostree/repo init --mode=bare
+if [ "${rootfs}" = "ext4verity" ]; then
+    ostree config --repo=$rootfs/ostree/repo set fsverity.required 'true'
+fi
 remote_arg=
 deploy_ref="${ref}"
 if [ "${remote_name}" != NONE ]; then