How to create aarch/armhf appimage on x86_64 platform

[welees]

Hi all,
I've made the x86_64 appimage. And my app for all platforms(x86/x86_64/armhf/aarch64) were built on Ubuntu16/x86_64. So I want to know how to make a cross-platform appimage on x86_64?
I've gotten some information from AI.
It shows:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y qemu-user-static binfmt-support
sudo systemctl restart systemd-binfmt
ARCH=aarch64|aarch|arm_aarch64 appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage --runtime-file=/usr/bin/qemu-aarch64-static MyApp.AppDir

But the new appimage is ELF/x86_64.
So any one can help me?
Thanks

[probonopd]

Use the aarch/armhf appimagetool AppImage, not appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage.

[welees]

Hi, the appimage-aarch64.AppImage is running on arm64, I need tool run on x86_64 and make armhf/aarch64 appimage T_T

[probonopd]

Run it using qemu-$ARCH-static

[welees]

I've tried:

root@visual-lvm-builder:/proj/vlvm# ARCH=aarch64 /mnt/hgfs/work/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage --runtime-file=qemu-aarch64-static arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage/
appimagetool, continuous build (git version cb01153), build 250 built on 2025-04-21 20:48:28 UTC
Using architecture aarch64
/proj/vlvm/arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage should be packaged as Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage
WARNING: AppStream upstream metadata is missing, please consider creating it
in usr/share/metainfo/visual-lvm-remote.appdata.xml
Please see https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/chap-Quickstart.html#sect-Quickstart-DesktopApps
for more information or use the generator at
https://docs.appimage.org/packaging-guide/optional/appstream.html#using-the-appstream-generator
Generating squashfs...
Unable to load provided runtime file

And

root@visual-lvm-builder:/proj/vlvm# ARCH=aarch /mnt/hgfs/work/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage --runtime-file=qemu-aarch64-static arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage/
appimagetool, continuous build (git version cb01153), build 250 built on 2025-04-21 20:48:28 UTC
Using architecture aarch64
/proj/vlvm/arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage should be packaged as Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage
WARNING: AppStream upstream metadata is missing, please consider creating it
in usr/share/metainfo/visual-lvm-remote.appdata.xml
Please see https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/chap-Quickstart.html#sect-Quickstart-DesktopApps
for more information or use the generator at
https://docs.appimage.org/packaging-guide/optional/appstream.html#using-the-appstream-generator
Generating squashfs...
Unable to load provided runtime file

But I'm sure the qemu files were installed. Because

root@visual-lvm-builder:/proj/vlvm# ARCH=aarch64 /mnt/hgfs/work/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage --runtime-file=/usr/bin/qemu-aarch64-static arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage/;file Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage
appimagetool, continuous build (git version cb01153), build 250 built on 2025-04-21 20:48:28 UTC
Using architecture aarch64
/proj/vlvm/arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage should be packaged as Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage
WARNING: AppStream upstream metadata is missing, please consider creating it
in usr/share/metainfo/visual-lvm-remote.appdata.xml
Please see https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/chap-Quickstart.html#sect-Quickstart-DesktopApps
for more information or use the generator at
https://docs.appimage.org/packaging-guide/optional/appstream.html#using-the-appstream-generator
Generating squashfs...
Parallel mksquashfs: Using 1 processor
Creating 4.0 filesystem on Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage, block size 131072.
[=======================================================================================================================================================-] 134/134 100%

Exportable Squashfs 4.0 filesystem, zstd compressed, data block size 131072
compressed data, compressed metadata, compressed fragments,
compressed xattrs, compressed ids
duplicates are removed
Filesystem size 5453.10 Kbytes (5.33 Mbytes)
33.71% of uncompressed filesystem size (16176.65 Kbytes)
Inode table size 578 bytes (0.56 Kbytes)
54.17% of uncompressed inode table size (1067 bytes)
Directory table size 290 bytes (0.28 Kbytes)
75.72% of uncompressed directory table size (383 bytes)
Number of duplicate files found 0
Number of inodes 17
Number of files 11
Number of fragments 3
Number of symbolic links 1
Number of device nodes 0
Number of fifo nodes 0
Number of socket nodes 0
Number of directories 5
Number of hard-links 0
Number of ids (unique uids + gids) 1
Number of uids 1
root (0)
Number of gids 1
root (0)
Embedding ELF...
Marking the AppImage as executable...
Embedding MD5 digest
Could not find section .digest_md5 in runtime
Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (GNU/Linux), statically linked, for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=ea45e0cf845ca5a3b1c78fb559f1e716375003fd, stripped

[welees]

I've tried:

root@visual-lvm-builder:/proj/vlvm# ARCH=aarch64 /mnt/hgfs/work/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage --runtime-file=qemu-aarch64-static arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage/
appimagetool, continuous build (git version cb01153), build 250 built on 2025-04-21 20:48:28 UTC
Using architecture aarch64
/proj/vlvm/arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage should be packaged as Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage
WARNING: AppStream upstream metadata is missing, please consider creating it
in usr/share/metainfo/visual-lvm-remote.appdata.xml
Please see https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/chap-Quickstart.html#sect-Quickstart-DesktopApps
for more information or use the generator at
https://docs.appimage.org/packaging-guide/optional/appstream.html#using-the-appstream-generator
Generating squashfs...
Unable to load provided runtime file

And

root@visual-lvm-builder:/proj/vlvm# ARCH=aarch /mnt/hgfs/work/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage --runtime-file=qemu-aarch64-static arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage/
appimagetool, continuous build (git version cb01153), build 250 built on 2025-04-21 20:48:28 UTC
Using architecture aarch64
/proj/vlvm/arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage should be packaged as Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage
WARNING: AppStream upstream metadata is missing, please consider creating it
in usr/share/metainfo/visual-lvm-remote.appdata.xml
Please see https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/chap-Quickstart.html#sect-Quickstart-DesktopApps
for more information or use the generator at
https://docs.appimage.org/packaging-guide/optional/appstream.html#using-the-appstream-generator
Generating squashfs...
Unable to load provided runtime file

But I'm sure the qemu files were installed. Because

root@visual-lvm-builder:/proj/vlvm# ARCH=aarch64 /mnt/hgfs/work/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage --runtime-file=/usr/bin/qemu-aarch64-static arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage/;file Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage
appimagetool, continuous build (git version cb01153), build 250 built on 2025-04-21 20:48:28 UTC
Using architecture aarch64
/proj/vlvm/arm64/visual-lvm-remote/appimage should be packaged as Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage
WARNING: AppStream upstream metadata is missing, please consider creating it
in usr/share/metainfo/visual-lvm-remote.appdata.xml
Please see https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/chap-Quickstart.html#sect-Quickstart-DesktopApps
for more information or use the generator at
https://docs.appimage.org/packaging-guide/optional/appstream.html#using-the-appstream-generator
Generating squashfs...
Parallel mksquashfs: Using 1 processor
Creating 4.0 filesystem on Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage, block size 131072.
[=======================================================================================================================================================-] 134/134 100%

Exportable Squashfs 4.0 filesystem, zstd compressed, data block size 131072
compressed data, compressed metadata, compressed fragments,
compressed xattrs, compressed ids
duplicates are removed
Filesystem size 5453.10 Kbytes (5.33 Mbytes)
33.71% of uncompressed filesystem size (16176.65 Kbytes)
Inode table size 578 bytes (0.56 Kbytes)
54.17% of uncompressed inode table size (1067 bytes)
Directory table size 290 bytes (0.28 Kbytes)
75.72% of uncompressed directory table size (383 bytes)
Number of duplicate files found 0
Number of inodes 17
Number of files 11
Number of fragments 3
Number of symbolic links 1
Number of device nodes 0
Number of fifo nodes 0
Number of socket nodes 0
Number of directories 5
Number of hard-links 0
Number of ids (unique uids + gids) 1
Number of uids 1
root (0)
Number of gids 1
root (0)
Embedding ELF...
Marking the AppImage as executable...
Embedding MD5 digest
Could not find section .digest_md5 in runtime
Visual_LVM-aarch64.AppImage: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (GNU/Linux), statically linked, for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=ea45e0cf845ca5a3b1c78fb559f1e716375003fd, stripped

[welees]

I resolved it.
ARCH=aarch64|armhf|i686|x86_64 /mnt/hgfs/work/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage --runtime-file=/mnt/hgfs/work/runtime-$ARCH appimage/
to build appimage for platforms

[probonopd]

That should also work, yes. But then you need to have a separately downloaded runtime file.