lkiesow ⋄ weblog

Random notes from a security-aware software engineer, open-source advocate and occasional lecturer.

Build Multiarch Golang Binaries on GitHub Actions

By default, GitHub actions only provides x64_64 runner for non-enterprise organizations. You can still easily cross-build Go binaries for different architectures.

Using github.com/elastic/golang-crossbuild makes cross-compiling really simple. Instead of running go build, you just run the docker command like this:

docker run
  -v .:/go/src/github.com/<organization>/<repository>
  -w /go/src/github.com/<organization>/<repository>
  docker.elastic.co/beats-dev/golang-crossbuild:1.23.6-arm
  --build-cmd "go build"
  -p linux/arm64

The result will be an arm64 binary instead of an x84_64 binary.

In a GitHub Actions workflow, this could look look like this:

name: Build ARM binaries

on:
  push:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Build arm64
        env:
          CONTAINER: 1.23.6-arm
          ARCH: arm64
        run: >
          docker run
          -v .:/go/src/github.com/virtuos/opencast-ca-display
          -w /go/src/github.com/virtuos/opencast-ca-display
          docker.elastic.co/beats-dev/golang-crossbuild:${CONTAINER}
          --build-cmd "go build"
          -p linux/${ARCH}

      - run: file opencast-ca-display

For a full example of how to create a GitHub release and include binaries statically build for multiple architectures, take a look at github.com/virtUOS/opencast-ca-display.

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