Use the QNX IPL to boot the board

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

Copy the IPL and IFS (Linux hosts)

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

Insert the SD card into your host system and mount it if necessary.
The SD card should appear in the list of mounted devices. If it doesn't appear, remove and reinsert the card into your host system.
In a terminal on your host system, navigate to the $BSP_ROOT_DIR/images/mek directory and copy the QNX IPL file to the SD card 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.
```
cd $BSP_ROOT_DIR/images/mek
dd if=ipl-imx8qm-cpu-mek_b0.imx of=/dev/sda bs=1k seek=32 skip=0
```
Copy the QNX IFS image to the SD card 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 card. If necessary, run the mount command again to determine your mountpoint.
```
$ mount
...
/dev/sda1 on /media/074B-DAC7
...
$ cp qnx-ifs-cpu-mek /media/074B-DAC7/qnx-ifs
```
Download and copy the NXP DTB file fsl-imx8qm-mek.dtb from NXP. Contact NXP for access to the file: https://www.nxp.com/document/guide/getting-started-with-the-i-mx-8quadmax-mek:GS-iMX-8QM-MEK
```
$ cp fsl-imx8qm-mek.dtb /media/074B-DAC7/imx-dtb
                                
```

The SD card should now be ready to boot your board.

Copy the QNX IPL and IFS (Windows)

The Windows host doesn't support the dd utility used on Linux hosts 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 boot SD cards for the i.MX platforms.

Download the CFImager utility and install it in a convenient location.
Open 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 on the SD card.
For example, where G is the location of your SD card for the i.MX8QM MEK with the B0 SoC:
```
> cfimager.exe -raw -offset 0x8000 -skip 0x00 -f ipl-imx8qm-cpu-mek_b0.imx -d G
```
In a Command Prompt window, run bash. You might need to run 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 card 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, G: is the location of the SD_location_of_card:
```
$ cd $BSP_ROOT_DIR/images
$ cp  qnx-ifs-cpu-mek G:/qnx-ifs 
$ cp fsl-imx8qm-mek.dtb G:/imx-dtb
```

The SD card should now be ready to boot your i.MX8QM MEK.

Page updated: October 24, 2025