Can `gcr.io/buildpacks/builder:v1` build `linux/arm64` images?

[gsquared94]

Currently gcr.io/buildpacks/builder:v1 supports building only linux/amd64 images. Is it possible to publish a manifest list for this builder image that supports linux/arm64 arch as well? This would be immediately useful to build and run container images on the new GKE ARM node clusters.

[spew]

Skaffold uses the buildpacks builder to build containers for amd64. Ask is to add support for arm64 to enable skaffold [1] to produce arm64 images in addition to amd64 images.

[1] https://github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold

[jama22]

Just thinking out loud here, I think there would be a lot of plumbing required to make this happen:

1. We'd need an entirely new set of builders that work on linux/arm64
2. Determine which languages are compatible with the arm ecosystem and what (if any) limitations there are

Open questions:

• Maybe we could do this for just a subset of languages to start? e.g. Node.JS and Go
• What base OS do we use...if any? We currently use Ubuntu 18 and 22 base images for the builder stacks. Not sure if they are equivalent in arm world
• Are there differences in how arm works serverside vs local (e.g. mac m1 weirdness?)

Resources I found while looking into this:

• CNB Build an ARM app
• paketo-arm64 project that attempts to build paketo buildpacks for arm

Overall I think it would be interesting to do this. However lots of details to work out to get this going for the project