Behold the Gopher!

u-root

u-root is an embeddable root file system intended to be placed in a flash device as part of the firmware image, along with a Linux kernel. Unlike most embedded root file systems, which consist of large binaries, u-root only has five: an init program and four Go compiler binaries.

Setup

On an Ubuntu system, install prerequisites and ensure Go is at least version 1.11:

sudo apt-get install git golang build-essential
go version

Set your GOPATH:

export GOPATH="$HOME/go"

Clone u-root:

go get github.com/u-root/u-root

Generate an initramfs containing u-root Go tools:

u-root -format=cpio -o initramfs.cpio

You can use this initramfs with your favorite Linux kernel in QEMU to try it out.

More instructions can be found in the repo's README.md.

Submitting Changes

We use GitHub Pull Requests for code review. Pull requests must receive one approval and pass CI before being merged.

For convenience, it is recommended to use this pre-commit hook:

ln -s -f ../../scripts/pre-commit .git/hooks/pre-commit

FAQs

So, why "u-root"?

It's to reflect a universal root, you can mount on every local and get a userland portable (it's a goal).

Any publications?

USENIX 2015 ATC Paper
USENIX 2015 ATC Talk
Related: Embedded Linux Conference 2017 LinuxBoot Talk (YouTube video, slides)