diff --git a/docs/getting-started.md b/docs/getting-started.md
index 6e2d9f0d616..485d223a8ab 100644
--- a/docs/getting-started.md
+++ b/docs/getting-started.md
@@ -115,23 +115,29 @@ latest_ubuntu_key=$(curl "http://spec.ccfc.min.s3.amazonaws.com/?prefix=firecrac
     | sort -V | tail -1)
 ubuntu_version=$(basename $latest_ubuntu_key .squashfs | grep -oE '[0-9]+\.[0-9]+')
 
-# Download a rootfs
+# Download a rootfs from Firecracker CI
 wget -O ubuntu-$ubuntu_version.squashfs.upstream "https://s3.amazonaws.com/spec.ccfc.min/$latest_ubuntu_key"
 
-# Create an ssh key for the rootfs
+# The rootfs in our CI doesn't contain SSH keys to connect to the VM
+# For the purpose of this demo, let's create one and patch it in the rootfs
 unsquashfs ubuntu-$ubuntu_version.squashfs.upstream
 ssh-keygen -f id_rsa -N ""
 cp -v id_rsa.pub squashfs-root/root/.ssh/authorized_keys
 mv -v id_rsa ./ubuntu-$ubuntu_version.id_rsa
 # create ext4 filesystem image
 sudo chown -R root:root squashfs-root
-truncate -s 400M ubuntu-$ubuntu_version.ext4
+truncate -s 1G ubuntu-$ubuntu_version.ext4
 sudo mkfs.ext4 -d squashfs-root -F ubuntu-$ubuntu_version.ext4
 
 # Verify everything was correctly set up and print versions
-echo "Kernel: $(ls vmlinux-* | tail -1)"
-echo "Rootfs: $(ls *.ext4 | tail -1)"
-echo "SSH Key: $(ls *.id_rsa | tail -1)"
+echo
+echo "The following files were downloaded and set up:"
+KERNEL=$(ls vmlinux-* | tail -1)
+[ -f $KERNEL ] && echo "Kernel: $KERNEL" || echo "ERROR: Kernel $KERNEL does not exist"
+ROOTFS=$(ls *.ext4 | tail -1)
+e2fsck -fn $ROOTFS &>/dev/null && echo "Rootfs: $ROOTFS" || echo "ERROR: $ROOTFS is not a valid ext4 fs"
+KEY_NAME=$(ls *.id_rsa | tail -1)
+[ -f $KEY_NAME ] && echo "SSH Key: $KEY_NAME" || echo "ERROR: Key $KEY_NAME does not exist"
 ```
 
 ### Getting a Firecracker Binary