Downloading the assets#

Caution

Run these steps in the public environment, which has Internet access.

The assets download operation fetches container images, Git repositories, and other artifacts needed to run Nokia EDA and its applications, and stores them on the local machine's disk.

Downloading the Nokia EDA Assets Bundles#

Nokia EDA asset bundles contain the resources needed to run Nokia EDA and its applications. These resources include container images, repositories, tools, and more.

The user is free to choose which bundles to download based on the needs of the air-gapped environment, with the default bundle list being the only mandatory one. The procedure for downloading the bundles is as follows:

Ensure you have changed into the directory of the cloned edaadm repository.
changing into edaadm repository directory
```
cd path/to/edaadm
```
Select Nokia EDA version.

Set the EDA_CORE_VERSION and EDA_APPS_VERSION environment variables in your shell to the target Nokia EDA release version. Otherwise, the latest version is assumed. This ensures that the assets are downloaded for the correct version of Nokia EDA.
```
export EDA_CORE_VERSION=26.4.1
export EDA_APPS_VERSION=26.4.1
```
Download the default assets bundle list.

The default assets bundle list contains the core components and applications for Nokia EDA and must be available in the air-gapped environment.
```
make -C bundles/ save-default-bundles
```
The command will download the bundles from the default bundle list and store the downloaded assets in the eda-cargo folder.
Download optional asset bundles.

In case additional application or simulator bundles are needed, they can be downloaded with respective make targets:
```
make -C bundles/ save-<bundle-list-or-bundle>
```
Replace <bundle-list-or-bundle> with one of the following:
- any of the available bundle lists
- individual bundle names from the make -C bundles/ ls-all-bundles output.
- user bundles from the make -C bundles/ ls-user-bundles output.
Note the bundle names.

The bundle names will be used in the upload step to upload the assets to the Assets Host or individual services capable of serving the downloaded assets in the air-gapped environment. Therefore, make sure to note the bundle names you used in the download step.

Downloading the Base Talos VM images#

If Nokia EDA is deployed on its own Talos Kubernetes cluster, download the base Talos OS boot media. The command below fetches images for KVM (nocloud), VMware vSphere, and bare metal.

Ensure you are in the edaadm repository.

In case you have changed directories, ensure that you are in the edaadm repository.
changing into edaadm repository directory
```
cd path/to/edaadm
```

Download the base Talos images.

The following command downloads boot media for KVM (nocloud), VMware vSphere, and bare metal.

make -C bundles/ download-talos-stock-boot-media

The output should look similar to the following:

--> INFO: List of goals: download-talos-stock-boot-media
--> Downloading boot media for vmware
    From: https://factory.talos.dev/image/903b2da78f99adef03cbbd4df6714563823f63218508800751560d3bc3557e40/v1.9.2/vmware-amd64.iso
    To: /path/to/edaadm-repository/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-stock-boot-media/vmware-amd64.iso
############################################################################################################################### 100.0%
    From: https://factory.talos.dev/image/903b2da78f99adef03cbbd4df6714563823f63218508800751560d3bc3557e40/v1.9.2/vmware-amd64.ova
    To: /path/to/edaadm-repository/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-stock-boot-media/vmware-amd64.ova
############################################################################################################################### 100.0%
--> Downloading boot media for nocloud
    From: https://factory.talos.dev/image/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba/v1.9.2/nocloud-amd64.iso
    To: /path/to/edaadm-repository/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-stock-boot-media/nocloud-amd64.iso
############################################################################################################################### 100.0%
    From: https://factory.talos.dev/image/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba/v1.9.2/nocloud-amd64.raw.xz
    To: /path/to/edaadm-repository/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-stock-boot-media/nocloud-amd64.raw.xz
############################################################################################################################### 100.0%
--> Downloading boot media for metal
    From: https://factory.talos.dev/image/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba/v1.9.2/metal-amd64.iso
    To: /path/to/edaadm-repository/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-stock-boot-media/metal-amd64.iso
############################################################################################################################### 100.0%
    From: https://factory.talos.dev/image/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba/v1.9.2/metal-amd64.raw.zst
    To: /path/to/edaadm-repository/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-stock-boot-media/metal-amd64.raw.zst
############################################################################################################################### 100.0%
    From: https://factory.talos.dev/image/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba/v1.9.2/metal-amd64.qcow2
    To: /path/to/edaadm-repository/bundles/eda-cargo/talos-stock-boot-media/metal-amd64.qcow2
############################################################################################################################### 100.0%

The downloaded images are stored in ./bundles/eda-cargo/talos-stock-boot-media/ and provide the base Talos boot media for the Nokia EDA Kubernetes cluster nodes.

Downloading the EDA Assets VM components#

If you choose to use the EDA Assets VM for all or some of the hosting services required to host the downloaded assets in the air-gapped environment, you need to download the EDA Assets VM components.

Read more on different assets hosting models available.

Ensure you are in the edaadm repository.

In case you have changed directories, ensure that you are in the edaadm repository.
changing into edaadm repository directory
```
cd path/to/edaadm
```

Download the EDA Assets VM cache.

make -C bundles/ create-assets-host-bootstrap-image-cache

Create the EDA Assets VM boot media.

Based on the target hypervisor, run the appropriate command to create the EDA Assets VM boot media:
KVMVMware vSphere
make -C bundles/ create-asset-vm-nocloud-boot-iso
The ISO disk image will be saved at the relative path ./bundles/eda-cargo/talos-asset-vm-boot-imgs/asset-vm-nocloud-amd64.iso.
This command requires Linux kernel version 6 or higher¹
make -C bundles/ create-asset-vm-vmware-boot-ova
The OVA disk image will be saved at the relative path ./bundles/eda-cargo/talos-asset-vm-boot-imgs/asset-vm-vmware-amd64.ova.

Transferring the assets to the air-gapped environment#

The following components need to be transferred to the air-gapped environment:

The playground repository cloned during the "Preparing for installation" step with the downloaded tools.
The edaadm repository, which includes the downloaded assets.

The assets can be transferred to the air-gapped environment in several ways:

By archiving the downloaded assets and transferring the archive to the air-gapped environment using the USB drive, network transfer, cloud storage service, etc.
By moving the Installer host with the downloaded assets to the air-gapped environment.
By cloning the Installer host disk image and creating a new VM from the cloned image in the air-gapped environment.

If you transfer the assets using archives, each archive must contain the complete repository, not only the downloaded asset files.

Archiving the edaadm repository

The edaadm repository archive can be created using the tar command executed from the root of the edaadm repository:
```
tar -cf ../edaadm.tar -C .. edaadm
```
This creates an archive file named edaadm.tar in the parent directory of the edaadm repository. Transfer the archive to the air-gapped environment using your chosen method.
Archiving the playground repository

The playground repository archive can be created using the tar command executed from the root of the playground repository:
```
tar -cf ../playground.tar -C .. playground
```
This creates an archive file named playground.tar in the parent directory of the playground repository. Transfer the archive to the air-gapped environment using your chosen method.

In the air-gapped environment, extract the archive using the tar command:

extracting the archive in the air-gapped environment

tar -xf edaadm.tar

Downloading the assets only stores them on the local machine's disk. Once the assets are downloaded, the next step is to choose the hosting model for the assets in the air-gapped environment.

Hosting the assets

See https://github.com/siderolabs/talos/issues/9264#issuecomment-2426756838 ↩