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Download the tools that build device packages

For guided installation, use the managed installer.

Get the tools that build the IRIS device packages. Run every command from your IRIS checkout, on the host where the Docker daemon builds packages. Skip this page on the Console host. The tested aria2c clients are committed to the repository, and the build scripts verify them against tools/aria2c.sha256.

Before you start

Supply what the devices you plan to onboard need.

What you will onboard Supply first
Server and Console only, no devices yet Nothing further.
Guest Shell on Catalyst 9000 series switches and Catalyst 8000 series routers the two roots
IOx app on Catalyst 9000 series switches and Catalyst 8000 series routers ioxclient, the two roots
IOx app on Industrial Ethernet switches with app hosting ARM64 emulation
IOS-XR appmgr on Cisco 8000 series and NCS routers the two roots, Docker and network access

On Catalyst 9000 series switches the agent runs in Guest Shell. On switches with app-hosting storage, the IOx app is the alternative.

The two roots are the public signing keys every device package embeds: see Create the two offline signing keys. For which models take which installer, see Supported devices.

1. Get ioxclient

IOx device types need Cisco's IOx packaging command line tool, on Linux amd64.

tools/get-ioxclient.sh

The tool installs at tools/bin/ioxclient, checked against tools/ioxclient.sha256. Set IOXCLIENT to use your own copy.

2. Check ARM64 emulation

An amd64 build host needs QEMU for the server's ARM64 verification helpers and the arm64 IOx package. The Ubuntu installer handles this dependency. For a manual source build, check the host:

grep -q '^enabled' /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/qemu-aarch64 && echo ready

ready means the handler is registered and turned on. If the command prints nothing, install your distribution's static QEMU package, qemu-user-static on Ubuntu and Debian, then check again. Do this before building the server or running a direct image build. The arm64 IOx staging helper can register the handler from the tonistiigi/binfmt image named by an audited digest in BINFMT_IMAGE_DIGEST.

3. Install skopeo and rpmbuild

The builders read the device image archive with skopeo, and the IOS-XR builder assembles its package with rpmbuild. Install both with your package manager. Debian and Ubuntu ship rpmbuild in the rpm package.

4. Prepare the IOS-XR appmgr builder

tools/build-xr-package.sh wraps the device image as an appmgr RPM package file. Its first run clones Cisco's ios-xr/xr-appmgr-build into ~/.cache/iris/xr-appmgr-build, so it needs Docker and network access. tools/start-compose-server.sh runs the builder for you, and IRIS_SKIP_XR=1 skips it where no IOS-XR device is in scope. Run it directly on a later rebuild:

tools/build-xr-package.sh --out artifacts/

Verify

Run the lines that match the device types in your scope, from the checkout:

file bin/aria2c deliverables/aria2c-aarch64
ls -l tools/bin/ioxclient
command -v skopeo rpmbuild
grep -q '^enabled' /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/qemu-aarch64 && echo ready

file reports x86-64 then ARM aarch64. The rest print the ioxclient path, the two tool paths, and ready.

Next steps