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Automotive Image Builder tool

Automotive image builder is a tool used to create operating system (OS) images. It relies on the capabilities of OSBuild underneath it. Because OSBuild uses files called manifests as input to define how to build the image, that terminology extends to the input files used by automotive-image-builder as well.

The automotive image builder manifests are YAML files that define the content and configuration of the OS image. A manifest file can be as simple as the following minimal manifest example:

Minimal AIB manifest
name: minimal

content:
  rpms: []


# Set a password so that you can log in to the system. Setting a
# password is not necessary to build the minimal image, but you
# cannot log in without configuring a password.
auth:
  # "password"
  root_password: $6$xoLqEUz0cGGJRx01$H3H/bFm0myJPULNMtbSsOFd/2BnHqHkMD92Sfxd.EKM9hXTWSmELG8cf205l6dktomuTcgKGGtGDgtvHVXSWU.

To review available manifest options and configurations, see: Automotive Image Builder manifest format

Options and mechanics

The OS image that you deploy on the target hardware consists of AutoSD packages that you assemble into an OS image by using the AutoSD image build tool, automotive-image-builder.

The Automotive SIG stores source files in public Git repositories, including all of the CentOS Stream or AutoSD source code, SPEC files, and patches used to build AutoSD. The RPM Package Manager references this repository to compile AutoSD RPM packages.

Red Hat engineering teams build those RPM packages into an OS image by using automotive-image-builder, which composes a build configuration specification, called a manifest. The compose operation takes a YAML-based automotive image manifest and a set of options that affect the compose and resolves the manifest into an OSBuild JSON file. The JSON file is a precise build instruction for how to build an image with OSBuild with the very specific software, such as selected packages and container images, listed in the compose.

When you build an image with automotive-image-builder, you must specify some options in the build command:

$ sudo automotive-image-builder build --mode <package-or-image> --target <target> \
--export <export-format> <path-to-manifest>.mpp.yml <my-image>.qcow2

Architecture

--arch
The hardware architecture to build for (x86_64 or aarch64). If unspecified, the native architecture is used.

Note

You can compose an image for any architecture, but you can only build for the native architecture.

Distributions

--distro
Define the package repositories for the distribution you intend to use. The default is “cs9”. View available distributions with the automotive-image-builder list-dist command. Available distributions include:
  • autosd or autosd9
  • cs9
  • eln
  • f40

To extend the list-dist with custom distributions, add an ipp.yml in a directory called /some/dir/distro and pass --include /some/dir to the argument list.

Modes

--mode
Set the value to package or image. The default value is image.
  • Use package to build a package-based OS image, which is useful for development and testing.
  • Use image to build an OSTree image for use in production.

Targets

--target
The physical or virtual deployment target for your image. The default value is qemu. View the available targets with the automotive-image-builder list-targets command. Available targets include:
  • QEMU with aboot or grub
  • KVM
  • TI AM62, AM69, BeaglePlay, J784S4 EVM, and TDA4
  • AWS
  • Qualcomm QDrive3 and RideSX4
  • ccimx93
  • Windows PC
  • Renesas R-Car
  • Raspberry Pi 4
  • NXP S32G2-VNP-RDB3

Export formats

--export
The image file type that you want to build. View the available export formats with the automotive-image-builder list-exports command. Export formats available as of October 2024 include:
  • image: A raw disk image with partitions
  • qcow2: A qcow2 format disk image with partitions
  • ext4: An ext4 filesystem containing just the rootfs partition (i.e., no boot partitions)
  • aboot: An android boot system partition image and a boot partition
  • container: A container image you can run with podman or docker
  • tar: A tar file containing the basic rootfs files
  • ostree-commit: An ostree repo with the commit built from the image
  • ostree-oci-image: An oci image wrapping the ostree commit from ostree-commit
  • rpmlist: A json file listing all the RPMs used in the image

Additional resources

Next steps

For more information about using the automotive-image-builder tool with build options and manifests to provision your hardware, see the flashing guide specific to your target hardware:

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