Generating bootable artifacts

1. Install build tools

Install ‘mkosi’ and ‘debootstrap’ from the repository — for Debian it was

sudo apt install mkosi debootstrap

2. Build IPXE image

Run

cd $NICo_ROOT_DIR/pxe && cargo make build-boot-artifacts-x86_64

Because you cannot build aarch64 artifacts on an x86_64 host, we only create the necessary directories to satisfy the docker-compose workflow:

cd $NICo_ROOT_DIR/pxe && cargo make mkdir-static-aarch64

NOTE: Running NICo using docker-compose and QEMU clients only works with x86_64 binaries. CI/CD is used for testing on aarch64 systems such as a BlueField

or

download pre-built artifacts - ideal if the ipxe-x86_64 gives you errors. Extract the latest boot artifacts (available from your NICo distribution package) into $NICo_ROOT_DIR/pxe/static/blobs/internal/x86_64/ (you’ll need to create the hierarchy).

build-boot-artifacts-x86_64 will also rebuild binaries we package as part of the boot artifacts (like nico-scout), while the latter command will only package already existing artifacts. Therefore prefer the former if you change applications.

Note: the last step will exit uncleanly because it wants to compress for CI/CD and upload, but it’s not necessary locally. It’s fine as long as the contents of this directory look similar to:

$ exa -alh pxe/static/blobs/internal/x86_64/
Permissions Size User      Date Modified Name
.rw-rw-r--    44 $USER     18 Aug 15:35  .gitignore
drwxr-xr-x     - $USER     24 Aug 09:59  .mkosi-t40tggmu
.rw-r--r--   55M $USER     24 Aug 10:01  nico.efi
.rw-r--r--   26k $USER     24 Aug 10:01  nico.manifest
.rw-r--r--  298M $USER     24 Aug 10:01  NICo.root
.rw-rw-r--  1.1M $USER     24 Aug 10:05  ipxe.efi
.rw-rw-r--  402k $USER     24 Aug 10:03  ipxe.kpxe

Note: you’ll also need to chown the directory recursively back to your user because mkosi will only run as root; otherwise, your next docker-compose build won’t have the permissions it needs:

sudo chown -R `whoami` pxe/static/*