PVE ARM64/RISCV64 Builder

This repository builds Proxmox VE Debian packages for Debian trixie on arm64 and riscv64. The build container itself runs on amd64 and uses Debian cross-building toolchains.

Build The Container

Run this inside the repository directory.

docker build -t pve-arm64-builder:trixie .

Run the container in the background. The parent directory of this repository is mounted at /workspaces/pve, so the repository path inside the container is /workspaces/pve/pve-arm64-builder.

docker run -d --name pve-arm64-builder \
  -v "$(dirname "$PWD"):/workspaces/pve" \
  -w /workspaces/pve \
  pve-arm64-builder:trixie \
  sleep infinity

Enter the container when manual inspection is needed.

docker exec -it pve-arm64-builder bash

Build ARM64

Build all supported Proxmox VE packages for arm64.

docker exec pve-arm64-builder bash -lc \
  '/workspaces/pve/pve-arm64-builder/build_pve_arm64.sh'

Artifacts and logs:

../out/arm64/
../logs/pve-arm64/

Build RISCV64

Build all supported Proxmox VE packages for riscv64.

docker exec pve-arm64-builder bash -lc \
  '/workspaces/pve/pve-arm64-builder/build_pve_riscv64.sh'

Artifacts and logs:

../out/riscv64/
../logs/pve-riscv64/

Build Options

Rebuild only selected source packages. This is useful after changing a patch or fixing one package.

docker exec pve-arm64-builder bash -lc \
  'ONLY_SOURCES="qemu-server lxc-pve" MAX_PASSES=1 RESUME_BUILT=0 \
   /workspaces/pve/pve-arm64-builder/build_pve_riscv64.sh'

Common environment variables:

ONLY_SOURCES   Space or comma separated source package list.
MAX_PASSES     Build retry passes. Default: 4.
RESUME_BUILT   Reuse LOG_DIR/built.txt when set to 1. Default: 1.
OUT_DIR        Override output directory.
LOG_DIR        Override log directory.
PATCH_DIR      Override patch directory. Default: pve-arm64-builder/patches.

Local Patches

Patches are loaded recursively from patches/. A patch is applied when its filename matches one of these patterns:

<source>.patch
<source>-*.patch
<repo-name>.patch
<repo-name>-*.patch

The current patch set includes QEMU target extensions for riscv64 and loongarch64, plus fixes for non-x86 Proxmox VE runtime issues found during testing.

APT Repository

Each build refreshes a flat apt repository:

../out/arm64/Packages
../out/arm64/Packages.gz
../out/riscv64/Packages
../out/riscv64/Packages.gz

Use a local file source on the build host.

echo "deb [trusted=yes arch=arm64] file:$(dirname "$PWD")/out/arm64 ./" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-arm64-local.list

echo "deb [trusted=yes arch=riscv64] file:$(dirname "$PWD")/out/riscv64 ./" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-riscv64-local.list

sudo apt update

Serve the repository over HTTP for a target machine.

cd "$(dirname "$PWD")/out/riscv64"
python3 -m http.server 8080

Add the HTTP repository on the target machine. Replace the architecture and URL as needed.

echo 'deb [trusted=yes arch=riscv64] http://BUILD_HOST:8080 ./' \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-riscv64-local.list
sudo apt update

Install

The target system should be Debian trixie or based on Debian trixie. Networking should be managed by ifupdown2, not systemd-networkd, NetworkManager or netplan. The host name should resolve to a non-loopback address or to 127.0.1.1.

sudo apt install proxmox-ve

If a package was rebuilt with the same version, clear apt's cache before reinstalling.

sudo apt clean
sudo apt update
sudo apt install --reinstall qemu-server lxc-pve pve-manager

Notes

• proxmox-ve, pve-manager and libpve-storage-perl dependency metadata is relaxed for the no-kernel/no-ZFS/no-Ceph build.
• Ceph/RBD/CephFS paths are kept optional. Install the relevant Ceph packages if those features are required.
• pve-qemu-kvm for riscv64 includes the qemu-system-riscv64 target.
• lxc-pve must be built with AppArmor support; the scripts pin the cross libapparmor-dev dependency to match the native build architecture package.

Clean Rebuild

Remove outputs and logs before a clean rebuild.

rm -rf ../out/arm64 ../logs/pve-arm64
rm -rf ../out/riscv64 ../logs/pve-riscv64

Acknowledgements

Thanks to @YooLc for providing test hardware and helping promote the project.