Use the QNX IPL to boot board

You can use the provided QNX IPL to load your QNX IFS image and Device Tree Binary.

You can use the QNX IPL (Initial Program Loader) to boot your board and load the QNX IFS and DTB to run QNX OS on the target. Depending on the host your use, you must use the steps to copy the IPL, IFS and DTB to your SD using the steps in Copy the IPL and IFS (Linux host) or Copy the IPL and IFS (Windows).

Copy the IPL and IFS (Linux host)

To copy the images to an SD, perform the following steps:

Insert the SD into your host system and mount it if necessary.
The SD should appear in the list of mounted devices. If it doesn't appear, remove and re-insert the card into your host system.
In a terminal on your host system, navigate to the $BSP_ROOT_DIR/images directory and copy the QNX IPL file to the SD using the dd command.
Note:
The number 1 at the end of the specified mountpoint must be removed, so for the mountpoint /dev/sda1, you would specify /dev/sda.

For example:
```
cd $BSP_ROOT_DIR/images
dd if=ipl-imx8mp-evk.imx of=/dev/sda bs=1k seek=32 skip=0
```
Copy the QNX IFS image to the SD as qnx-ifs. The filename must be qnx-ifs because the QNX IPL expects that name. To do this, you copy the file to the mountpoint for your SD. If necessary, run the mount command again to determine your mountpoint.
For example on the i.MX 8MP EVK board:
```
$ mount
...
/dev/sda1 on /media/074B-DAC7
...
$ cp qnx-ifs /media/074B-DAC7/qnx-ifs
```
Copy the DTB to the SD as IMX-DTB. The filename must be IMX-DTB because the QNX IPL expects that name. To do this, you copy the file to the mountpoint for your SD.
```
$ cp imx8mp-evk.dtb /media/074B-DAC7/IMX-DTB
```

The SD should now be ready to boot your i.MX 8MP EVK board.

Copy the QNX IPL and IFS (Windows)

The Windows host doesn't support the dd utility used on Linux host to convert files while copying them. However, if you don't have your own utility to convert files while copying them, NXP provides the CFImager (cfimager) utility, which you can download from the NXP website.

Go to www.nxp.com. If you are not already registered with NXP, register; then search for CFImager. You should find the Windows Tool for the creation of bootSDs for the i.MX platforms.

Download the CFImager utility and install it in a convenient location.
In a Command Prompt window (you should run this as an Administrator).
Go to the location where you installed the CFImager utility and run it to copy the IPL to an offset of 0x8000 for boards on the SD .
For example:
```
> cfimager.exe -raw -offset 0x8000 -skip 0x00 -f ipl-imx8mp-evk.imx -d G
```
In a Command Prompt window, run bash. You might need to run the qnxsdp-env.bat from your QNX SDP 8.0 installation to set up your environment to use bash.
```
 $ bash
```
Navigate to the $BSP_ROOT_DIR/images directory. Copy the QNX IFS file to the SD as qnx-ifs. The filename must be qnx-ifs because the QNX IPL expects that name. The SD_location_of_card is determined in step 3.
For example, on the i.MX 8MP EVK board, where G: is the location of the SD_location_of_card:
```
$ cd $BSP_ROOT_DIR/images
$ cp qnx-ifs  G:/qnx-ifs 
```
Navigate to the location of the DTB for the device and copy the DTB file to the SD as IMX-DTB. The filename must be IMX-DTB because the QNX IPL expects that name.
```
$ cp imx8mp-evk.dtb G:/IMX-DTB
```

The SD should now be ready to boot your i.MX 8MP EVK board.

Page updated: October 24, 2025