Requirements

Eclipse Atesor™ runs on a Linux host and builds each package in a riscv64 Docker container under QEMU emulation. Make sure that your host has the items on this page before you install Atesor.

What does the host need?

Item	Requirement	Needed for
Operating system	Linux on an x86-64 or ARM computer	Every run
Docker	A running Docker daemon that your user can reach	Sandbox setup, and each port that is not a cache hit
riscv64 emulation	qemu-riscv64 registered in binfmt_misc	Every sandbox start
Python	3.10 or newer	Every run
LLM API key	One key for Gemini, OpenAI, OpenRouter or Anthropic	Each port that is not a cache hit
git	Installed on the host	A source install. The .deb recommends it.

Which operating system do I need?

Use a Linux host. Before Atesor starts a container, it reads /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/qemu-riscv64 on the host. If the riscv64 handler is not there and Atesor cannot register it, Atesor stops.

The host can be x86-64 or ARM. The release workflow builds the .deb package on Ubuntu 22.04 for amd64. On an ARM host, build the package yourself: build_deb.sh takes the architecture from its build container, so an arm64 host gives an arm64 package.

How do I prepare Docker?

1. Install a Docker engine and start the daemon.

2. Add your user to the docker group:

   sudo usermod -aG docker "$USER"

3. Log out and log in again, so that the new group applies.

Atesor connects to Docker through the Docker SDK for Python. If it cannot connect, it prints ERROR: Docker is not running or not accessible and stops.

How do I register riscv64 emulation?

On an x86 or ARM host, register the QEMU handlers one time:

docker run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt --install all

Atesor also checks the riscv64 handler before each sandbox start. If the handler is not registered, Atesor runs this command one time:

docker run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt --install riscv64

If that command fails, Atesor prints it as the fix and stops. Without the handler, every riscv64 container exits with exec format error.

The .deb package installs qemu-user-static and binfmt-support as dependencies. To check the registration, run:

ls /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/ | grep -i riscv

Which Python version do I need?

• Source install. Use Python 3.10 or newer, as requirements.txt states.
• .deb package. The package brings its own virtual environment, built in an ubuntu:22.04 container for python3.10. The package depends on python3 (>= 3.10). For another distribution or another Python version, build the package again with a matching base image, for example packaging/deb/build_deb.sh debian:12.

Which API key do I need?

You need one key, for the provider that LLM_PROVIDER selects:

LLM_PROVIDER	Key variable
gemini (default)	GOOGLE_API_KEY
openai	OPENAI_API_KEY
openrouter	OPENROUTER_API_KEY
anthropic	ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

Atesor checks the key only before a port. --setup-only, --probe and a recipe cache hit need no key. Configure the LLM provider tells where to put the key.

What network access does Atesor need?

• Image build. Docker pulls the base image, and the image build downloads distribution packages and the Go and Rust toolchains.
• Ports. Atesor clones each repository inside the container, and the build installs distribution packages. The container uses the DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.
• LLM calls. Each call goes to the provider over HTTPS.

How much disk space and memory do I need?

The code and the project docs state no minimum disk space for a QEMU host. The workspace holds the cloned repositories, the outputs, the logs and the zip files. --clean-workspace shows the size of each workspace folder and asks which ones to empty. It does not offer the packages/ folder, which holds the zip files.

Atesor starts the QEMU container with a memory limit of 8 GB.

The only stated disk figure is for a native machine. It needs 10 GB free for podman storage and 10 GB free in the work directory, or 20 GB when one filesystem holds both.

What does the native target need?

The native target needs a riscv64 Linux machine on real hardware, with SSH key login, podman 4.0 or newer, rootless user IDs and rsync. See Native RISC-V machine.

Performance mode (--optimize) measures speed only on the native target. See Performance mode.

Next step

Install Atesor.