Install windows/amd64 binaries on windows/arm64

[CrystalMethod]

Feature Overview

Windows 11 on arm64 is able to run binaries natively compiled for amd64. So Aqua should install amd64 binaries on arm64 platform if no arm64 binary is available.

Why is the feature needed?

There are not so many tools that are compiled natively for windows/arm64. Supporting tools for windows/amd64 would significantly increase the visibility and usability of Aqua on windows/arm64. Same as Rosetta2.

EDIT:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/apps-on-arm-x86-emulation

[suzuki-shunsuke]

Thank you for your report.
I'm not familiar with Windows, so I didn't know Windows's x64 emulation.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/arm64ec

I don't have Windows arm64 machine so I can't verify aqua on that, but as you said maybe a feature like rosetta2 for Windows is useful.

windows_x64_emulation: true

[suzuki-shunsuke]

Oh, thank you.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/add-arm-support#emulation-on-arm-based-devices-for-x86-or-x64-windows-apps

Windows 11 extends that emulation to run unmodified x64 Windows apps on Arm-powered devices.

[suzuki-shunsuke]

Built v2.20.0-1. Could you try this?

• feat: add a field windows_arm_emulation for Windows ARM Emulation #2515
• https://github.com/aquaproj/aqua/releases/tag/v2.20.0-1

The field windows_arm_emulation was added.

e.g. https://github.com/aquaproj/aqua-registry/blob/dd1db2ede12b1147c9c97a2341500bd0dc0e4438/pkgs/FiloSottile/age/registry.yaml#L6

How to test

Checkout aquaproj/aqua-registry#17622 and test on windows/arm64.

$ gh pr checkout 17622
$ aqua g -i FiloSottile/age
$ aqua i -l
$ aqua which age
$ age --help

[CrystalMethod]

awesome, looks very neat and promising..

$ aqua i -l
INFO[0000] create a proxy file                           aqua_version=2.20.0-1 env=windows/arm64 program=aqua proxy_path="C:\\Users\\...\\AppData\\Local\\aquaproj-aqua\\bin\\age"
INFO[0000] create a proxy file                           aqua_version=2.20.0-1 env=windows/arm64 program=aqua proxy_path="C:\\Users\\...\\AppData\\Local\\aquaproj-aqua\\bat\\age.bat"
INFO[0000] create a proxy file                           aqua_version=2.20.0-1 env=windows/arm64 program=aqua proxy_path="C:\\Users\\...\\AppData\\Local\\aquaproj-aqua\\bin\\age-keygen"
INFO[0000] create a proxy file                           aqua_version=2.20.0-1 env=windows/arm64 program=aqua proxy_path="C:\\Users\\...\\AppData\\Local\\aquaproj-aqua\\bat\\age-keygen.bat"

$ aqua which age
C:\Users\...\AppData\Local\aquaproj-aqua\pkgs\github_release\github.com\FiloSottile\age\v1.1.1\age-v1.1.1-windows-amd64.zip\age\age.exe

$ age --help
INFO[0000] download and unarchive the package            aqua_version=2.20.0-1 env=windows/arm64 exe_name=age package_name=FiloSottile/age package_version=v1.1.1 program=aqua registry=standard
WARN[0000] remove a temporal file                        aqua_version=2.20.0-1 env=windows/arm64 error="remove C:\\Users\\..,\\scoop\\apps\\msys2\\2023-10-26\\tmp\\011551611: Der Prozess kann nicht auf die Datei zugreifen, da sie von einem anderen Prozess verwendet wird." exe_name=age package_name=FiloSottile/age package_version=v1.1.1 program=aqua registry=standard
Usage:
    age [--encrypt] (-r RECIPIENT | -R PATH)... [--armor] [-o OUTPUT] [INPUT]
    age [--encrypt] --passphrase [--armor] [-o OUTPUT] [INPUT]
    age --decrypt [-i PATH]... [-o OUTPUT] [INPUT]

Options:
    -e, --encrypt               Encrypt the input to the output. Default if omitted.
    -d, --decrypt               Decrypt the input to the output.
    -o, --output OUTPUT         Write the result to the file at path OUTPUT.
    -a, --armor                 Encrypt to a PEM encoded format.
    -p, --passphrase            Encrypt with a passphrase.
    -r, --recipient RECIPIENT   Encrypt to the specified RECIPIENT. Can be repeated.
    -R, --recipients-file PATH  Encrypt to recipients listed at PATH. Can be repeated.
    -i, --identity PATH         Use the identity file at PATH. Can be repeated.

INPUT defaults to standard input, and OUTPUT defaults to standard output.
If OUTPUT exists, it will be overwritten.

RECIPIENT can be an age public key generated by age-keygen ("age1...")
or an SSH public key ("ssh-ed25519 AAAA...", "ssh-rsa AAAA...").

Recipient files contain one or more recipients, one per line. Empty lines
and lines starting with "#" are ignored as comments. "-" may be used to
read recipients from standard input.

Identity files contain one or more secret keys ("AGE-SECRET-KEY-1..."),
one per line, or an SSH key. Empty lines and lines starting with "#" are
ignored as comments. Passphrase encrypted age files can be used as
identity files. Multiple key files can be provided, and any unused ones
will be ignored. "-" may be used to read identities from standard input.

When --encrypt is specified explicitly, -i can also be used to encrypt to an
identity file symmetrically, instead or in addition to normal recipients.

Example:
    $ age-keygen -o key.txt
    Public key: age1ql3z7hjy54pw3hyww5ayyfg7zqgvc7w3j2elw8zmrj2kg5sfn9aqmcac8p
    $ tar cvz ~/data | age -r age1ql3z7hjy54pw3hyww5ayyfg7zqgvc7w3j2elw8zmrj2kg5sfn9aqmcac8p > data.tar.gz.age
    $ age --decrypt -i key.txt -o data.tar.gz data.tar.gz.age

$ which age
/c/Users/.../AppData/Local/aquaproj-aqua/bin/age

$ file "$(aqua which age)"
C:\Users\...\AppData\Local\aquaproj-aqua\pkgs\github_release\github.com\FiloSottile\age\v1.1.1\age-v1.1.1-windows-amd64.zip\age\age.exe: PE32+ executable (console) x86-64 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows, 13 sections```

[suzuki-shunsuke]

aqua v2.20.0 is out 🎉

https://github.com/aquaproj/aqua/releases/tag/v2.20.0

A field windows_arm_emulation was added.

[CrystalMethod]

There is just one really strange behavior: I would say if someone uses the aqua-installer, then everything would be fine - even on arm64 - with < 2.20.0, except that aqua will only install amd64 binaries. This is because aqua-installer doesn't recognize the arm64 arch but amd64 because uname -m reports x86_64 because the core msys2 installation ist still x86_64.

$ aqua info # installed using aqua-installer
{
  "version": "2.20.0",
  "commit_hash": "61aaaa971b1fc06ff782b458e4ff85886fb61f39",
  "os": "windows",
  "arch": "amd64",
  "pwd": "C:\\Users\\...\\.local\\share\\chezmoi",
  "root_dir": "C:/Users/.../AppData/Local/aquaproj-aqua/",
  "env": {
    "AQUA_GLOBAL_CONFIG": "C:/Users/.../.config/aqua/aqua.yaml",
    "AQUA_POLICY_CONFIG": "C:/Users/.../.config/aqua/aqua-policy.yaml",
    "AQUA_ROOT_DIR": "C:/Users/.../AppData/Local/aquaproj-aqua/"
  },
  "config_files": []
}

While the manually downloaded pre-release correctly reports arm64

$ aqua info # manually download aqua for arm64
{
  "version": "2.20.0-1",
  "commit_hash": "1a20f34a0560d5e07147745376c251b2257cfed4",
  "os": "windows",
  "arch": "arm64",
  "pwd": "C:\\Users\\...\\.local\\share\\chezmoi",
  "root_dir": "C:/Users/.../AppData/Local/aquaproj-aqua/",
  "env": {
    "AQUA_GLOBAL_CONFIG": "C:/Users/.../.config/aqua/aqua.yaml",
    "AQUA_POLICY_CONFIG": "C:/Users/.../.config/aqua/aqua-policy.yaml",
    "AQUA_ROOT_DIR": "C:/Users/.../AppData/Local/aquaproj-aqua/"
  },
  "config_files": []
}

I can also ask scoop to install a package for a specific architecture.

$ scoop install aqua --arch <32bit|64bit|arm64>

But AFAIK scoop uses Powershell ps1 to detect os and arch. So

$ scoop install aqua

will install the arm64 binary even if started from msys2.

Could it be a solution to modify aqua-installer to give the arch to the installer script and only fallback to uname if no arch is given?

$ curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aquaproj/aqua-installer/v2.2.0/aqua-installer | bash -s -- -v v2.20.0 -a arm64

[suzuki-shunsuke]

It looks weird.

https://github.com/aquaproj/aqua-installer/blob/736b7654e5031514207dac12b8d8e977f5fa3777/aqua-installer

aqua-installer v2.2.0 does the fowlloing things.

1. Download aqua v2.16.4 (aqua v2.16.4 is used for bootstrapping)
2. Execute aqua update-aqua with aqua v2.16.4 to install aqua

This means aqua-installer installs the latest version with aqua v2.16.4, so the change of aqua v2.20.0 is unrelated and aqua-installer should install aqua windows/arm64 on windows/arm64 correctly. 🤔

I don't have the machine windows/arm64, so I can't verify unfortunately.

[suzuki-shunsuke]

$ aqua info # installed using aqua-installer
{
  "version": "2.20.0",
  "commit_hash": "61aaaa971b1fc06ff782b458e4ff85886fb61f39",
  "os": "windows",
  "arch": "amd64",

Oh? According to the result of aqua info, arch is not arm64 but amd64.

This value has nothing to do with the architecture of aqua.
aqua gets the value with runtime.GOARCH.

aqua/pkg/controller/info/info.go

Line 73 in 61aaaa9

Arch: runtime.GOARCH,

[suzuki-shunsuke]

uname -m reports x86_64 because the core msys2 installation ist still x86_64.

Hmm. I'm not familiar with msys2, but this is an issue of msys2, right?

Maybe setting the environment variable AQUA_GOARCH=arm64 is helpful.

$ export AQUA_GOARCH=arm64

[suzuki-shunsuke]

Or if you can execute x64 binaries on windows/arm64, maybe you don't have to be worried about this issue.

[CrystalMethod]

Here is an open issue regarding uname on arm64: msys2/msys2-runtime#171

Yes, with

export AQUA_GOARCH=arm64

I get aqua/arm64@2.20.0 installed by aqua-installer and now aqua i -a installs all binaries available for arm64. But this is max the half of the tools given in AQUA_GLOBAL_CONFIG. So next I need to have the new registry and attribute windows_arm_emulation to get the rest of tools installed as amd64 binaries. And so I can benefit from the arm architecture if available but fallback to amd.

[suzuki-shunsuke]

Thank you for sharing the issue of msys2.
Yeah, we need to fix the standard Registry (aqua-registry) using windows_arm_emulation. I'll write scripts for it when I have time.