Boot and Console

Boot and Console

Startup sequence

The UEFI loader validates and loads the kernel, then XAIOS initializes memory, interrupts, devices, storage, filesystems, security, networking, processes, runtime services, and telemetry in dependency order.

A normal boot displays XAI OS, with XAI in purple and OS in cyan, an in-place 0-100% progress bar, the component that completed, the component currently loading, and the remaining count. At completion it prints the configured IPv4 address and one of these outcomes:

• SSH server: up and running only after the listener is operational;
• a numeric startup error when networking, IPv4 reachability, entropy, credentials, crypto, or listener initialization fails.

SSH is not opened until networking is active and a bounded IPv4 TCP connection to 1.1.1.1:443 succeeds. This checks configured external reachability without making SSH startup depend on public DNS. Failure leaves the listener closed.

Local console policy

Default, key-only, and release images keep the local serial console locked. This avoids turning VM console access into an unauthenticated administrator shell. An explicitly password-enabled development image presents:

xaios login:

After successful authentication the prompt is:

admin@xaios:/$

The console supports independent working-directory state, line editing, Backspace, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-L, logout, filesystem commands, nano, less, htop, and pong. Password input is not echoed. Failed authentication does not create a shell session.

Verbose diagnostics

Normal boot avoids scrolling logs. For failure analysis:

XAIOS_BOOT_VERBOSE=1 make qemu

The explicit QEMU fixture image may also start diagnostic applications during boot to emit deterministic test markers:

make image-qemu-test

That profile is for validation only. Normal images start diagnostics on demand and reclaim them after exit.

See Networking and SSH, Security Model, and Applications.