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Version: Next 🚧

Nvidia AGX Thor

This page describes the AGX Thor-specific image flow. After you have a Kairos Thor image, installation and lifecycle operations are the same as standard Kairos.

Prefer a plain Ubuntu 24.04 base?

The Ubuntu tab below shows the shortest path — a bare kairos-init --model nvidia-jetson-thor build. The NVIDIA Jetson (build image) guide covers the same flow for all three Jetson models side by side; use it if you want to compare against AGX Orin / Orin NX.

Minimum versions
  • kairos-init with Thor support requires v0.9.0 or newer.
  • AuroraBootISO with Thor support requires v0.20.0 or newer.

Build the base image​

Build your Thor base image using the reference file at the Hadron repo

This dockerfile builds an image that includes:

  • A build-from-scratch Tegra-compatible kernel
  • Tegra out-of-tree modules (including graphics driver modules)
  • NVIDIA userspace runtime pieces required on Thor

For part of the NVIDIA userspace stack, source code is not available. For those components, we extract and use upstream NVIDIA packages directly. This provides firmware and userspace dependencies such as CUDA libraries, NVIDIA container libraries, and NVIDIA container binaries.

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kairos-io/hadron/refs/heads/main/examples/add-packages/Dockerfile.thor -o Dockerfile.Thor
docker build -f Dockerfile.Thor -t quay.io/myrepo/nvidia:v1.0.0 .

Kairosify the image​

Now pass it through kairos-init with the Thor model as mentioned in the Kairos factory docs. The key requirement is to specify --model nvidia-jetson-thor:

FROM quay.io/kairos/kairos-init:v0.9.0 AS kairos-init

FROM quay.io/myrepo/nvidia:v1.0.0
ARG VERSION=1.0.0
RUN --mount=type=bind,from=kairos-init,src=/kairos-init,dst=/kairos-init /kairos-init --version "${VERSION}" --model nvidia-jetson-thor

Build and boot ISO​

Build the ISO with AuroraBoot as usual, using your Thor kairosified image. For AuroraBoot usage, see AuroraBoot reference.

Boot from the ISO as in a normal Kairos workflow.

Install, upgrade, and reset​

From this point on, AGX Thor follows normal Kairos operations:

Deploy the GPU Operator​

Once the node is booted and joined to the cluster, wire up Kubernetes so pods can request nvidia.com/gpu — see GPU Operator on Jetson AGX Thor.