This repo contains a small build system for openvmm dependencies.

To use, first clone this repo:

git clone https://github.com/microsoft/openvmm-deps

If you are cross-compiling you will need qemu-user-static:

apt install qemu-user-static

Then build the Dockerfile to produce the results for the desired architecture:

docker build --platform x86_64 --output type=local,dest=out .
docker build --platform aarch64 --output type=local,dest=out .

The output directory is laid out so that each top-level subdirectory maps to one GitHub release artifact:

out/
  openvmm-deps/        sdk + dbgrd + shell + petritools sysroots
  initrd/              shared busybox-based test rootfs (cpio.gz)
  linux-6.1/           vmlinux, bzImage/Image, config (kernel only)

The release pipeline packs each of these into its own tarball:

Artifact	Contents
openvmm-deps.<arch>.<ver>.tar.gz	sdk + dbgrd + shell + petritools
openvmm-test-initrd.<arch>.<ver>.tar.gz	shared initrd (used with any kernel)
openvmm-test-linux-6.1.<arch>.<ver>.tar.gz	6.1 LTS kernel images + final config

The openvmm-deps tarball no longer contains a kernel; consumers that need a Linux-direct boot kernel (e.g. petri's Firmware::LinuxDirect) should fetch the matching openvmm-test-linux-<version> artifact for the kernel and openvmm-test-initrd for the userland (the same initrd is used with every kernel version). Additional LTS kernel lines may be added as separate openvmm-test-linux-<version> artifacts in future releases.

For local testing, you can:

• Copy out/openvmm-deps/sysroot.tar.gz to <openvmm src>/.packages/openvmm-deps/
• untar the file to overwrite the libs
• rebuild openvmm

To build only one target (e.g. just a kernel) use --target:

docker build --platform x86_64 --target result-linux-6.1 \
  --output type=local,dest=out/linux-6.1 .