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Yocto Project Mega-Manual

Scott Rifenbark

Intel Corporation

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales as published by Creative Commons.

Manual Notes

Revision History
Revision 1.8April 2015
Released with the Yocto Project 1.8 Release.
Revision 2.0October 2015
Released with the Yocto Project 2.0 Release.
Revision 2.1April 2016
Released with the Yocto Project 2.1 Release.
Revision 2.2October 2016
Released with the Yocto Project 2.2 Release.
Revision 2.3May 2017
Released with the Yocto Project 2.3 Release.
Revision 2.3.1June 2017
Released with the Yocto Project 2.3.1 Release.
Revision 2.3.2September 2017
Released with the Yocto Project 2.3.2 Release.
Revision 2.3.3January 2018
Released with the Yocto Project 2.3.3 Release.

Abstract

The Yocto Project Mega-Manual is a concatenation of the published Yocto Project HTML manuals for the given release. The manual exists to help users efficiently search for strings across the entire Yocto Project documentation set.

Yocto Project Quick Start

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales as published by Creative Commons.

Manual Notes

Abstract


1. Welcome!

Welcome to the Yocto Project! The Yocto Project is an open-source collaboration project whose focus is developers of embedded Linux systems. Among other things, the Yocto Project uses a build host based on the OpenEmbedded (OE) project, which uses the BitBake tool, to construct complete Linux images. The BitBake and OE components are combined together to form a reference build host, historically known as Poky (Pah-key).

If you do not have a system that runs Linux and you want to give the Yocto Project a test run, you might consider using the Yocto Project Build Appliance. The Build Appliance allows you to build and boot a custom embedded Linux image with the Yocto Project using a non-Linux development system. See the Yocto Project Build Appliance for more information.

This quick start is written so that you can quickly get a build host set up to use the Yocto Project and then build some Linux images. Rather than go into great detail about the Yocto Project and its many capabilities, this quick start provides the minimal information you need to try out the Yocto Project using a supported Linux build host. Reading and using the quick start should result in you having a basic understanding of what the Yocto Project is and how to use some of its core components. You will also have worked through steps to produce two images: one that is suitable for emulation and one that boots on actual hardware. The examples highlight the ease with which you can use the Yocto Project to create images for multiple types of hardware.

For more detailed information on the Yocto Project, you can reference these resources:

  • Website: The Yocto Project Website provides the latest builds, breaking news, full development documentation, and access to a rich Yocto Project Development Community into which you can tap.

  • FAQs: Lists commonly asked Yocto Project questions and answers. You can find two FAQs: Yocto Project FAQ on a wiki, and the "FAQ" chapter in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

  • Developer Screencast: The Getting Started with the Yocto Project - New Developer Screencast Tutorial provides a 30-minute video created for users unfamiliar with the Yocto Project but familiar with Linux build hosts. While this screencast is somewhat dated, the introductory and fundamental concepts are useful for the beginner.

2. Introducing the Yocto Project Development Environment

The Yocto Project through the OpenEmbedded build system provides an open source development environment targeting the ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, and x86 architectures for a variety of platforms including x86-64 and emulated ones. You can use components from the Yocto Project to design, develop, build, debug, simulate, and test the complete software stack using Linux, the X Window System, GTK+ frameworks, and Qt frameworks.

Here are some highlights for the Yocto Project:

  • Provides a recent Linux kernel along with a set of system commands and libraries suitable for the embedded environment.

  • Makes available system components such as X11, GTK+, Qt, Clutter, and SDL (among others) so you can create a rich user experience on devices that have display hardware. For devices that do not have a display or where you wish to use alternative UI frameworks, these components need not be installed.

  • Creates a focused and stable core compatible with the OpenEmbedded project with which you can easily and reliably build and develop.

  • Fully supports a wide range of hardware and device emulation through the Quick EMUlator (QEMU).

  • Provides a layer mechanism that allows you to easily extend the system, make customizations, and keep them organized.

You can use the Yocto Project to generate images for many kinds of devices. As mentioned earlier, the Yocto Project supports creation of reference images that you can boot within and emulate using QEMU. The standard example machines target QEMU full-system emulation for 32-bit and 64-bit variants of x86, ARM, MIPS, and PowerPC architectures. Beyond emulation, you can use the layer mechanism to extend support to just about any platform that Linux can run on and that a toolchain can target.

Another Yocto Project feature is the Sato reference User Interface. This optional UI that is based on GTK+ is intended for devices with restricted screen sizes and is included as part of the OpenEmbedded Core layer so that developers can test parts of the software stack.

3. Setting Up to Use the Yocto Project

The following list shows what you need in order to use a Linux-based build host to use the Yocto Project to build images:

  • Build Host A build host with a minimum of 50 Gbytes of free disk space that is running a supported Linux distribution (i.e. recent releases of Fedora, openSUSE, CentOS, Debian, or Ubuntu).

  • Build Host Packages Appropriate packages installed on the build host.

  • The Yocto Project A release of the Yocto Project.

3.1. The Linux Distribution

The Yocto Project team verifies each release against recent versions of the most popular Linux distributions that provide stable releases. In general, if you have the current release minus one of the following distributions, you should have no problems.

  • Ubuntu

  • Fedora

  • openSUSE

  • CentOS

  • Debian

For a more detailed list of distributions that support the Yocto Project, see the "Supported Linux Distributions" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

The OpenEmbedded build system should be able to run on any modern distribution that has the following versions for Git, tar, and Python.

  • Git 1.8.3.1 or greater

  • tar 1.24 or greater

  • Python 3.4.0 or greater.

If your build host does not meet any of these three listed version requirements, you can take steps to prepare the system so that you can still use the Yocto Project. See the "Required Git, tar, and Python Versions" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for information.

3.2. The Build Host Packages

Required build host packages vary depending on your build machine and what you want to do with the Yocto Project. For example, if you want to build an image that can run on QEMU in graphical mode (a minimal, basic build requirement), then the build host package requirements are different than if you want to build an image on a headless system or build out the Yocto Project documentation set.

Collectively, the number of required packages is large if you want to be able to cover all cases.

Note

In general, you need to have root access and then install the required packages. Thus, the commands in the following section may or may not work depending on whether or not your Linux distribution has sudo installed.

The following list shows the required packages needed to build an image that runs on QEMU in graphical mode (e.g. essential plus graphics support). For lists of required packages for other scenarios, see the "Required Packages for the Host Development System" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

  • Ubuntu and Debian

         $ sudo apt-get install gawk wget git-core diffstat unzip texinfo gcc-multilib \
         build-essential chrpath socat cpio python python3 python3-pip python3-pexpect \
         xz-utils debianutils iputils-ping libsdl1.2-dev xterm
                            

  • Fedora

         $ sudo dnf install gawk make wget tar bzip2 gzip python3 unzip perl patch \
         diffutils diffstat git cpp gcc gcc-c++ glibc-devel texinfo chrpath \
         ccache perl-Data-Dumper perl-Text-ParseWords perl-Thread-Queue perl-bignum socat \
         python3-pexpect findutils which file cpio python python3-pip xz SDL-devel xterm
                            

  • OpenSUSE

         $ sudo zypper install python gcc gcc-c++ git chrpath make wget python-xml \
         diffstat makeinfo python-curses patch socat python3 python3-curses tar python3-pip \
         python3-pexpect xz which libSDL-devel xterm
                            

  • CentOS

         $ sudo yum install -y epel-release
         $ sudo yum makecache
         $ sudo yum install gawk make wget tar bzip2 gzip python unzip perl patch \
         diffutils diffstat git cpp gcc gcc-c++ glibc-devel texinfo chrpath socat \
         perl-Data-Dumper perl-Text-ParseWords perl-Thread-Queue python34-pip xz \
         which SDL-devel xterm
                            

    Notes

    • Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (i.e. epel-release) is a collection of packages from Fedora built on RHEL/CentOS for easy installation of packages not included in enterprise Linux by default. You need to install these packages separately.

    • The makecache command consumes additional Metadata from epel-release.

3.3. Yocto Project Release

The last requirement you need to meet before using the Yocto Project is getting a Yocto Project release. It is recommended that you get the latest Yocto Project release by setting up (cloning in Git terms) a local copy of the poky Git repository on your build host and then checking out the latest release. Doing so allows you to easily update to newer Yocto Project releases as well as contribute back to the Yocto Project.

Here is an example from an Ubuntu build host that clones the poky repository and then checks out the latest Yocto Project Release (i.e. 2.3.3):

     $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky
     Cloning into 'poky'...
     remote: Counting objects: 361782, done.
     remote: Compressing objects: 100% (87100/87100), done.
     remote: Total 361782 (delta 268619), reused 361439 (delta 268277)
     Receiving objects: 100% (361782/361782), 131.94 MiB | 6.88 MiB/s, done.
     Resolving deltas: 100% (268619/268619), done.
     Checking connectivity... done.
     $ git checkout pyro
                

You can also get the Yocto Project Files by downloading Yocto Project releases from the Yocto Project website.

For more information on getting set up with the Yocto Project release, see the "Yocto Project Release" item in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

4. Building Images

Now that you have your system requirements in order, you can give Yocto Project a try. You can try out Yocto Project using either the command-line interface or using Toaster, which uses a graphical user interface. If you want to try out the Yocto Project using a GUI, see the Toaster User Manual for information on how to install and set up Toaster.

To use the Yocto Project through the command-line interface, finish this quick start, which presents steps that let you do the following:

  • Build a qemux86 reference image and run it in the QEMU emulator.

  • Easily change configurations so that you can quickly create a second image that you can load onto bootable media and actually boot target hardware. This example uses the MinnowBoard MAX-compatible boards.

Note

The steps in the following two sections do not provide detail, but rather provide minimal, working commands and examples designed to just get you started. For more details, see the appropriate manuals in the Yocto Project manual set.

4.1. Building an Image for Emulation

Use the following commands to build your image. The OpenEmbedded build system creates an entire Linux distribution, including the toolchain, from source.

Note about Network Proxies

By default, the build process searches for source code using a pre-determined order through a set of locations. If you are working behind a firewall and your build host is not set up for proxies, you could encounter problems with the build process when fetching source code (e.g. fetcher failures or Git failures).

If you do not know your proxy settings, consult your local network infrastructure resources and get that information. A good starting point could also be to check your web browser settings. Finally, you can find more information on using the Yocto Project behind a firewall in the Yocto Project Reference Manual FAQ and on the "Working Behind a Network Proxy" wiki page.

  1. Be Sure Your Build Host is Set Up: The steps to build an image in this section depend on your build host being properly set up. Be sure you have worked through the requirements described in the "Setting Up to Use the Yocto Project" section.

  2. Check Out Your Branch: Be sure you are in the Source Directory (e.g. poky) and then check out the branch associated with the latest Yocto Project Release:

         $ cd ~/poky
         $ git checkout -b pyro origin/pyro
                            

    Git's checkout command checks out the current Yocto Project release into a local branch whose name matches the release (i.e. pyro). The local branch tracks the upstream branch of the same name. Creating your own branch based on the released branch ensures you are using the latest files for that release.

  3. Initialize the Build Environment: Run the oe-init-build-env environment setup script to define the OpenEmbedded build environment on your build host.

         $ source oe-init-build-env
                            

    Among other things, the script creates the Build Directory, which is build in this case and is located in the Source Directory. After the script runs, your current working directory is set to the Build Directory. Later, when the build completes, the Build Directory contains all the files created during the build.

    Note

    For information on running a memory-resident BitBake, see the oe-init-build-env-memres setup script.

  4. Examine Your Local Configuration File: When you set up the build environment, a local configuration file named local.conf becomes available in a conf subdirectory of the Build Directory. Before using BitBake to start the build, you can look at this file and be sure your general configurations are how you want them:

    • To help conserve disk space during builds, you can add the following statement to your project's configuration file, which for this example is poky/build/conf/local.conf. Adding this statement deletes the work directory used for building a recipe once the recipe is built.

           INHERIT += "rm_work"
                                      

    • By default, the target machine for the build is qemux86, which produces an image that can be used in the QEMU emulator and is targeted at an Intel® 32-bit based architecture. Further on in this example, this default is easily changed through the MACHINE variable so that you can quickly build an image for a different machine.

    • Another consideration before you build is the package manager used when creating the image. The default local.conf file selects the RPM package manager. You can control this configuration by using the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable.

      Selection of the package manager is separate from whether package management is used at runtime in the target image.

      For additional package manager selection information, see the "package.bbclass" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

  5. Start the Build: Continue with the following command to build an OS image for the target, which is core-image-sato in this example:

    Note

    Depending on the number of processors and cores, the amount of RAM, the speed of your Internet connection and other factors, the build process could take several hours the first time you run it. Subsequent builds run much faster since parts of the build are cached.

         $ bitbake core-image-sato
                            

    Note

    If you experience a build error due to resources temporarily being unavailable and it appears you should not be having this issue, it might be due to the combination of a 4.3+ Linux kernel and systemd version 228+ (i.e. see this link for information).

    To work around this issue, you can try either of the following:

    • Try the build again.

    • Modify the "DefaultTasksMax" systemd parameter by uncommenting it and setting it to "infinity". You can find this parameter in the system.conf file located in /etc/systemd on most systems.

    For information on using the bitbake command, see the "BitBake" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual, or see the "BitBake Command" section in the BitBake User Manual. For information on other targets, see the "Images" chapter in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

  6. Simulate Your Image Using QEMU: Once this particular image is built, you can start QEMU and run the image:

         $ runqemu qemux86
                            

    If you want to learn more about running QEMU, see the "Using the Quick EMUlator (QEMU)" chapter in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

  7. Exit QEMU: Exit QEMU by either clicking on the shutdown icon or by typing Ctrl-C in the QEMU transcript window from which you evoked QEMU.

4.2. Building an Image for Hardware

The following steps show how easy it is to set up to build an image for a new machine. These steps build an image for the MinnowBoard MAX, which is supported by the Yocto Project and the meta-intel intel-corei7-64 and intel-core2-32 Board Support Packages (BSPs).

Note

The MinnowBoard MAX ships with 64-bit firmware. If you want to use the board in 32-bit mode, you must download the 32-bit firmware.

  1. Create a Local Copy of the meta-intel Repository: Building an image for the MinnowBoard MAX requires the meta-intel layer. Use the git clone command to create a local copy of the repository inside your Source Directory, which is poky in this example:

         $ cd $HOME/poky
         $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-intel
         Cloning into 'meta-intel'...
         remote: Counting objects: 14039, done.
         remote: Compressing objects: 100% (4471/4471), done.
         remote: Total 14039 (delta 8130), reused 13837 (delta 7947)
         Receiving objects: 100% (14039/14039), 4.27 MiB | 3.98 MiB/s, done.
         Resolving deltas: 100% (8130/8130), done.
         Checking connectivity... done.
                            

    By default when you clone a Git repository, the "master" branch is checked out. Before you build your image that uses the meta-intel layer, you must be sure that both repositories (meta-intel and poky) are using the same releases. Consequently, you need to checkout out the "pyro" release after cloning meta-intel:

         $ cd $HOME/poky/meta-intel
         $ git checkout pyro
         Branch pyro set up to track remote branch pyro from origin.
         Switched to a new branch 'pyro'
                            

  2. Configure the Build: To configure the build, you edit the bblayers.conf and local.conf files, both of which are located in the build/conf directory.

    Here is a quick way to make the edits. The first command uses the bitbake-layers add-layer command to add the meta-intel layer, which contains the intel-core* BSPs to the build. The second command selects the BSP by setting the MACHINE variable.

         $ cd $HOME/poky/build
         $ bitbake-layers add-layer "$HOME/poky/meta-intel"
         $ echo 'MACHINE = "intel-corei7-64"' >> conf/local.conf
                            

    Notes

    If you want a 64-bit build, use the following:

         $ echo 'MACHINE = "intel-corei7-64"' >> conf/local.conf
                                

    If you want 32-bit images, use the following:

         $ echo 'MACHINE = "intel-core2-32"' >> conf/local.conf
                                

  3. Build an Image for MinnowBoard MAX: The type of image you build depends on your goals. For example, the previous build created a core-image-sato image, which is an image with Sato support. It is possible to build many image types for the MinnowBoard MAX. Some possibilities are core-image-base, which is a console-only image. Another choice could be a core-image-full-cmdline, which is another console-only image but has more full-features Linux system functionality installed. For types of images you can build using the Yocto Project, see the "Images" chapter in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

    Because configuration changes are minimal to set up for this second build, the OpenEmbedded build system can re-use files from previous builds as much as possible. Re-using files means this second build will be much faster than an initial build. For this example, the core-image-base image is built:

         $ bitbake core-image-base
                            

    Note

    If you experience a build error due to resources temporarily being unavailable and it appears you should not be having this issue, it might be due to the combination of a 4.3+ Linux kernel and systemd version 228+ (i.e. see this link for information).

    To work around this issue, you can try either of the following:

    • Try the build again.

    • Modify the "DefaultTasksMax" systemd parameter by uncommenting it and setting it to "infinity". You can find this parameter in the system.conf file located in /etc/systemd on most systems.

    Once the build completes, the resulting console-only image is located in the Build Directory here:

         tmp/deploy/images/intel-corei7-64/core-image-base-intel-corei7-64.wic
                            

  4. Write the Image: You can write the image just built to a bootable media (e.g. a USB key, SATA drive, SD card, etc.) using the dd utility:

         $ sudo dd if=tmp/deploy/images/intel-corei7-64/core-image-base-intel-corei7-64.wic of=TARGET_DEVICE
                            

    In the previous command, the TARGET_DEVICE is the device node in the host machine (e.g. /dev/sdc, which is most likely a USB stick, or /dev/mmcblk0, which is most likely an SD card).

  5. Boot the Hardware: With the boot device provisioned, you can insert the media into the MinnowBoard MAX and boot the hardware. The board should automatically detect the media and boot to the bootloader and subsequently the operating system.

    If the board does not boot automatically, you can boot it manually from the EFI shell as follows:

         Shell> connect -r
         Shell> map -r
         Shell> fs0:
         Shell> bootx64
                            

    Note

    For a 32-bit image use the following:
         Shell> bootia32
                                

5. Next Steps

If you completed all the steps in the previous section then congratulations! What now?

Depending on what you primary interests are with the Yocto Project, you could consider any of the following:

Chapter 1. The Yocto Project Development Manual

1.1. Introduction

Welcome to the Yocto Project Development Manual! This manual provides information on how to use the Yocto Project to develop embedded Linux images and user-space applications that run on targeted devices. The manual provides an overview of image, kernel, and user-space application development using the Yocto Project. Because much of the information in this manual is general, it contains many references to other sources where you can find more detail. For example, you can find detailed information on Git, repositories, and open source in general in many places on the Internet. Another example specific to the Yocto Project is how to quickly set up your host development system and build an image, which you find in the Yocto Project Quick Start.

The Yocto Project Development Manual does, however, provide guidance and examples on how to change the kernel source code, reconfigure the kernel, and develop an application using devtool.

Note

By default, using the Yocto Project creates a Poky distribution. However, you can create your own distribution by providing key Metadata. A good example is Angstrom, which has had a distribution based on the Yocto Project since its inception. Other examples include commercial distributions like Wind River Linux, Mentor Embedded Linux, ENEA Linux and others. See the "Creating Your Own Distribution" section for more information.

1.2. What This Manual Provides

The following list describes what you can get from this manual:

  • Information that lets you get set up to develop using the Yocto Project.

  • Information to help developers who are new to the open source environment and to the distributed revision control system Git, which the Yocto Project uses.

  • An understanding of common end-to-end development models and tasks.

  • Information about common development tasks generally used during image development for embedded devices.

  • Information on using the Yocto Project integration of the QuickEMUlator (QEMU), which lets you simulate running on hardware an image you have built using the OpenEmbedded build system.

  • Many references to other sources of related information.

1.3. What this Manual Does Not Provide

This manual will not give you the following:

  • Step-by-step instructions when those instructions exist in other Yocto Project documentation: For example, the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide manual contains detailed instructions on how to install an SDK, which is used to develop applications for target hardware.

  • Reference material: This type of material resides in an appropriate reference manual. For example, system variables are documented in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

  • Detailed public information that is not specific to the Yocto Project: For example, exhaustive information on how to use Git is covered better through the Internet than in this manual.

1.4. Other Information

Because this manual presents overview information for many different topics, supplemental information is recommended for full comprehension. The following list presents other sources of information you might find helpful:

  • Yocto Project Website: The home page for the Yocto Project provides lots of information on the project as well as links to software and documentation.

  • Yocto Project Quick Start: This short document lets you get started with the Yocto Project and quickly begin building an image.

  • Yocto Project Reference Manual: This manual is a reference guide to the OpenEmbedded build system, which is based on BitBake. The build system is sometimes referred to as "Poky".

  • Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide: This guide provides information that lets you get going with the standard or extensible SDK. An SDK, with its cross-development toolchains, allows you to develop projects inside or outside of the Yocto Project environment.

  • Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide: This guide defines the structure for BSP components. Having a commonly understood structure encourages standardization.

  • Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual: This manual describes how to work with Linux Yocto kernels as well as provides a bit of conceptual information on the construction of the Yocto Linux kernel tree.

  • Yocto Project Profiling and Tracing Manual: This manual presents a set of common and generally useful tracing and profiling schemes along with their applications (as appropriate) to each tool.

  • Toaster User Manual: This manual introduces and describes how to set up and use Toaster, which is a web interface to the Yocto Project's OpenEmbedded Build System.

  • Eclipse IDE Yocto Plug-in: Instructions that demonstrate how an application developer uses the Eclipse Yocto Project Plug-in feature within the Eclipse IDE.

  • FAQ: A list of commonly asked questions and their answers.

  • Release Notes: Features, updates and known issues for the current release of the Yocto Project.

  • Toaster: An Application Programming Interface (API) and web-based interface to the OpenEmbedded build system, which uses BitBake, that reports build information.

  • Build Appliance: A virtual machine that enables you to build and boot a custom embedded Linux image with the Yocto Project using a non-Linux development system.

  • Bugzilla: The bug tracking application the Yocto Project uses. If you find problems with the Yocto Project, you should report them using this application.

  • Yocto Project Mailing Lists: To subscribe to the Yocto Project mailing lists, click on the following URLs and follow the instructions:

  • Internet Relay Chat (IRC): Two IRC channels on freenode are available for Yocto Project and Poky discussions: #yocto and #poky, respectively.

  • OpenEmbedded: The build system used by the Yocto Project. This project is the upstream, generic, embedded distribution from which the Yocto Project derives its build system (Poky) and to which it contributes.

  • BitBake: The tool used by the OpenEmbedded build system to process project metadata.

  • BitBake User Manual: A comprehensive guide to the BitBake tool. If you want information on BitBake, see this manual.

  • Quick EMUlator (QEMU): An open-source machine emulator and virtualizer.

Chapter 2. Getting Started with the Yocto Project

This chapter introduces the Yocto Project and gives you an idea of what you need to get started. You can find enough information to set up your development host and build or use images for hardware supported by the Yocto Project by reading the Yocto Project Quick Start.

The remainder of this chapter summarizes what is in the Yocto Project Quick Start and provides some higher-level concepts you might want to consider.

2.1. Introducing the Yocto Project

The Yocto Project is an open-source collaboration project focused on embedded Linux development. The project currently provides a build system that is referred to as the OpenEmbedded build system in the Yocto Project documentation. The Yocto Project provides various ancillary tools for the embedded developer and also features the Sato reference User Interface, which is optimized for stylus-driven, low-resolution screens.

You can use the OpenEmbedded build system, which uses BitBake, to develop complete Linux images and associated user-space applications for architectures based on ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, x86 and x86-64.

Note

By default, using the Yocto Project creates a Poky distribution. However, you can create your own distribution by providing key Metadata. See the "Creating Your Own Distribution" section for more information.

While the Yocto Project does not provide a strict testing framework, it does provide or generate for you artifacts that let you perform target-level and emulated testing and debugging. Additionally, if you are an Eclipse™ IDE user, you can install an Eclipse Yocto Plug-in to allow you to develop within that familiar environment.

2.2. Getting Set Up

Here is what you need to use the Yocto Project:

  • Host System: You should have a reasonably current Linux-based host system. You will have the best results with a recent release of Fedora, openSUSE, Debian, Ubuntu, or CentOS as these releases are frequently tested against the Yocto Project and officially supported. For a list of the distributions under validation and their status, see the "Supported Linux Distributions" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual and the wiki page at Distribution Support.

    You should also have about 50 Gbytes of free disk space for building images.

  • Packages: The OpenEmbedded build system requires that certain packages exist on your development system (e.g. Python 2.7). See "The Build Host Packages" section in the Yocto Project Quick Start and the "Required Packages for the Host Development System" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for the exact package requirements and the installation commands to install them for the supported distributions.

  • Yocto Project Release: You need a release of the Yocto Project locally installed on your development system. The documentation refers to this set of locally installed files as the Source Directory. You create your Source Directory by using Git to clone a local copy of the upstream poky repository, or by downloading and unpacking a tarball of an official Yocto Project release. The preferred method is to create a clone of the repository.

    Working from a copy of the upstream repository allows you to contribute back into the Yocto Project or simply work with the latest software on a development branch. Because Git maintains and creates an upstream repository with a complete history of changes and you are working with a local clone of that repository, you have access to all the Yocto Project development branches and tag names used in the upstream repository.

    Note

    You can view the Yocto Project Source Repositories at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi

    The following transcript shows how to clone the poky Git repository into the current working directory. The command creates the local repository in a directory named poky. For information on Git used within the Yocto Project, see the "Git" section.

         $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky
         Cloning into 'poky'...
         remote: Counting objects: 226790, done.
         remote: Compressing objects: 100% (57465/57465), done.
         remote: Total 226790 (delta 165212), reused 225887 (delta 164327)
         Receiving objects: 100% (226790/226790), 100.98 MiB | 263 KiB/s, done.
         Resolving deltas: 100% (165212/165212), done.
                    

    For another example of how to set up your own local Git repositories, see this wiki page, which describes how to create local Git repositories for both poky and meta-intel.

    You can also get the Yocto Project Files by downloading Yocto Project releases from the Yocto Project website. From the website, you just click "Downloads" in the navigation pane to the left to display all Yocto Project downloads. Current and archived releases are available for download. Nightly and developmental builds are also maintained at http://autobuilder.yoctoproject.org/pub/nightly/. One final site you can visit for information on Yocto Project releases is the Releases wiki.

  • Yocto Project Kernel: If you are going to be making modifications to a supported Yocto Project kernel, you need to establish local copies of the source. You can find Git repositories of supported Yocto Project kernels organized under "Yocto Linux Kernel" in the Yocto Project Source Repositories at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi.

    This setup can involve creating a bare clone of the Yocto Project kernel and then copying that cloned repository. You can create the bare clone and the copy of the bare clone anywhere you like. For simplicity, it is recommended that you create these structures outside of the Source Directory, which is usually named poky.

    As an example, the following transcript shows how to create the bare clone of the linux-yocto-3.19 kernel and then create a copy of that clone.

    Note

    When you have a local Yocto Project kernel Git repository, you can reference that repository rather than the upstream Git repository as part of the clone command. Doing so can speed up the process.

    In the following example, the bare clone is named linux-yocto-3.19.git, while the copy is named my-linux-yocto-3.19-work:

         $ git clone --bare git://git.yoctoproject.org/linux-yocto-3.19 linux-yocto-3.19.git
         Cloning into bare repository 'linux-yocto-3.19.git'...
         remote: Counting objects: 3983256, done.
         remote: Compressing objects: 100% (605006/605006), done.
         remote: Total 3983256 (delta 3352832), reused 3974503 (delta 3344079)
         Receiving objects: 100% (3983256/3983256), 843.66 MiB | 1.07 MiB/s, done.
         Resolving deltas: 100% (3352832/3352832), done.
         Checking connectivity... done.
                    

    Now create a clone of the bare clone just created:

         $ git clone linux-yocto-3.19.git my-linux-yocto-3.19-work
         Cloning into 'my-linux-yocto-3.19-work'...
         done.
         Checking out files: 100% (48440/48440), done.
                    
  • The meta-yocto-kernel-extras Git Repository: The meta-yocto-kernel-extras Git repository contains Metadata needed only if you are modifying and building the kernel image. In particular, it contains the kernel BitBake append (.bbappend) files that you edit to point to your locally modified kernel source files and to build the kernel image. Pointing to these local files is much more efficient than requiring a download of the kernel's source files from upstream each time you make changes to the kernel.

    You can find the meta-yocto-kernel-extras Git Repository in the "Yocto Metadata Layers" area of the Yocto Project Source Repositories at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi. It is good practice to create this Git repository inside the Source Directory.

    Following is an example that creates the meta-yocto-kernel-extras Git repository inside the Source Directory, which is named poky in this case:

         $ cd ~/poky
         $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-yocto-kernel-extras meta-yocto-kernel-extras
         Cloning into 'meta-yocto-kernel-extras'...
         remote: Counting objects: 727, done.
         remote: Compressing objects: 100% (452/452), done.
         remote: Total 727 (delta 260), reused 719 (delta 252)
         Receiving objects: 100% (727/727), 536.36 KiB | 240 KiB/s, done.
         Resolving deltas: 100% (260/260), done.
                   
  • Supported Board Support Packages (BSPs): The Yocto Project supports many BSPs, which are maintained in their own layers or in layers designed to contain several BSPs. To get an idea of machine support through BSP layers, you can look at the index of machines for the release.

    The Yocto Project uses the following BSP layer naming scheme:

         meta-bsp_name
                    

    where bsp_name is the recognized BSP name. Here is an example:

         meta-raspberrypi
                    

    See the "BSP Layers" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide for more information on BSP Layers.

    A useful Git repository released with the Yocto Project is meta-intel, which is a parent layer that contains many supported BSP Layers. You can locate the meta-intel Git repository in the "Yocto Metadata Layers" area of the Yocto Project Source Repositories at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi.

    Using Git to create a local clone of the upstream repository can be helpful if you are working with BSPs. Typically, you set up the meta-intel Git repository inside the Source Directory. For example, the following transcript shows the steps to clone meta-intel.

    Note

    Be sure to work in the meta-intel branch that matches your Source Directory (i.e. poky) branch. For example, if you have checked out the "master" branch of poky and you are going to use meta-intel, be sure to checkout the "master" branch of meta-intel.

         $ cd ~/poky
         $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-intel.git
         Cloning into 'meta-intel'...
         remote: Counting objects: 11917, done.
         remote: Compressing objects: 100% (3842/3842), done.
         remote: Total 11917 (delta 6840), reused 11699 (delta 6622)
         Receiving objects: 100% (11917/11917), 2.92 MiB | 2.88 MiB/s, done.
         Resolving deltas: 100% (6840/6840), done.
         Checking connectivity... done.
                    

    The same wiki page referenced earlier covers how to set up the meta-intel Git repository.

  • Eclipse Yocto Plug-in: If you are developing applications using the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE), you will need this plug-in. See the "Using Eclipse" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide for more information.

2.3. Building Images

The build process creates an entire Linux distribution, including the toolchain, from source. For more information on this topic, see the "Building Images" section in the Yocto Project Quick Start.

The build process is as follows:

  1. Make sure you have set up the Source Directory described in the previous section.

  2. Initialize the build environment by sourcing a build environment script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres).

  3. Optionally ensure the conf/local.conf configuration file, which is found in the Build Directory, is set up how you want it. This file defines many aspects of the build environment including the target machine architecture through the MACHINE variable, the packaging format used during the build (PACKAGE_CLASSES), and a centralized tarball download directory through the DL_DIR variable.

  4. Build the image using the bitbake command. If you want information on BitBake, see the BitBake User Manual.

  5. Run the image either on the actual hardware or using the QEMU emulator.

2.4. Flashing Images Using bmaptool

An easy way to flash an image to a bootable device is to use bmaptool, which is integrated into the OpenEmbedded build system.

Following, is an example that shows how to flash a Wic image.

Note

You can use bmaptool to flash any type of image.

Use these steps to flash an image using bmaptool:

Note

Unless you are able to install the bmap-tools package as mentioned in the note in the second bullet of step 3 further down, you will need to build bmaptool before using it. Build the tool using the following command:
     $ bitbake bmap-tools-native
            

  1. Add the following to your local.conf file:

         IMAGE_FSTYPES += "wic wic.bmap"
                    

  2. Either have your image ready (pre-built) or take the step build the image:

         $ bitbake image
                    

  3. Flash the image to the media by using bmaptool depending on your particular setup:

    • If you have write access to the media, use this command form:

           $ oe-run-native bmaptool copy ./tmp/deploy/images/qemux86-64/core-image-minimal-machine.wic /dev/sdX
                              

    • If you do not have write access to the media, use the following commands:

           $ sudo bash
           $ PATH=tmp/sysroots/x86_64-linux/usr/bin/ bmaptool copy ./tmp/deploy/images/qemux86-64/core-image-minimal-machine.wic /dev/sdX
                              

      Note

      If you are using Ubuntu or Debian distributions, you can install the bmap-tools package using the following command and then use the tool without specifying PATH even from the root account:
           $ sudo apt-get install bmap-tools
                                  

For help on the bmaptool command, use either of the following commands:

     $ bmaptool --help
     $ oe-run-native bmaptool --help
        

2.5. Using Pre-Built Binaries and QEMU

Another option you have to get started is to use pre-built binaries. The Yocto Project provides many types of binaries with each release. See the "Images" chapter in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for descriptions of the types of binaries that ship with a Yocto Project release.

Using a pre-built binary is ideal for developing software applications to run on your target hardware. To do this, you need to be able to access the appropriate cross-toolchain tarball for the architecture on which you are developing. If you are using an SDK type image, the image ships with the complete toolchain native to the architecture (i.e. a toolchain designed to run on the SDKMACHINE). If you are not using an SDK type image, you need to separately download and install the stand-alone Yocto Project cross-toolchain tarball. See the "Obtaining the SDK" appendix in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide for more information on locating and installing cross-toolchains.

Regardless of the type of image you are using, you need to download the pre-built kernel that you will boot in the QEMU emulator and then download and extract the target root filesystem for your target machine’s architecture. You can get architecture-specific binaries and file systems from machines. You can get installation scripts for stand-alone toolchains from toolchains. Once you have all your files, you set up the environment to emulate the hardware by sourcing an environment setup script. Finally, you start the QEMU emulator. You can find details on all these steps in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide. You can learn more about using QEMU with the Yocto Project in the "Using the Quick EMUlator (QEMU)" section.

Using QEMU to emulate your hardware can result in speed issues depending on the target and host architecture mix. For example, using the qemux86 image in the emulator on an Intel-based 32-bit (x86) host machine is fast because the target and host architectures match. On the other hand, using the qemuarm image on the same Intel-based host can be slower. But, you still achieve faithful emulation of ARM-specific issues.

To speed things up, the QEMU images support using distcc to call a cross-compiler outside the emulated system. If you used runqemu to start QEMU, and the distccd application is present on the host system, any BitBake cross-compiling toolchain available from the build system is automatically used from within QEMU simply by calling distcc. You can accomplish this by defining the cross-compiler variable (e.g. export CC="distcc"). Alternatively, if you are using a suitable SDK image or the appropriate stand-alone toolchain is present, the toolchain is also automatically used.

Note

Several mechanisms exist that let you connect to the system running on the QEMU emulator:
  • QEMU provides a framebuffer interface that makes standard consoles available.

  • Generally, headless embedded devices have a serial port. If so, you can configure the operating system of the running image to use that port to run a console. The connection uses standard IP networking.

  • SSH servers exist in some QEMU images. The core-image-sato QEMU image has a Dropbear secure shell (SSH) server that runs with the root password disabled. The core-image-full-cmdline and core-image-lsb QEMU images have OpenSSH instead of Dropbear. Including these SSH servers allow you to use standard ssh and scp commands. The core-image-minimal QEMU image, however, contains no SSH server.

  • You can use a provided, user-space NFS server to boot the QEMU session using a local copy of the root filesystem on the host. In order to make this connection, you must extract a root filesystem tarball by using the runqemu-extract-sdk command. After running the command, you must then point the runqemu script to the extracted directory instead of a root filesystem image file.

Chapter 3. The Yocto Project Open Source Development Environment

This chapter helps you understand the Yocto Project as an open source development project. In general, working in an open source environment is very different from working in a closed, proprietary environment. Additionally, the Yocto Project uses specific tools and constructs as part of its development environment. This chapter specifically addresses open source philosophy, using the Yocto Project in a team environment, source repositories, Yocto Project terms, licensing, the open source distributed version control system Git, workflows, bug tracking, and how to submit changes.

3.1. Open Source Philosophy

Open source philosophy is characterized by software development directed by peer production and collaboration through an active community of developers. Contrast this to the more standard centralized development models used by commercial software companies where a finite set of developers produces a product for sale using a defined set of procedures that ultimately result in an end product whose architecture and source material are closed to the public.

Open source projects conceptually have differing concurrent agendas, approaches, and production. These facets of the development process can come from anyone in the public (community) that has a stake in the software project. The open source environment contains new copyright, licensing, domain, and consumer issues that differ from the more traditional development environment. In an open source environment, the end product, source material, and documentation are all available to the public at no cost.

A benchmark example of an open source project is the Linux kernel, which was initially conceived and created by Finnish computer science student Linus Torvalds in 1991. Conversely, a good example of a non-open source project is the Windows® family of operating systems developed by Microsoft® Corporation.

Wikipedia has a good historical description of the Open Source Philosophy here. You can also find helpful information on how to participate in the Linux Community here.

3.2. Using the Yocto Project in a Team Environment

It might not be immediately clear how you can use the Yocto Project in a team environment, or scale it for a large team of developers. One of the strengths of the Yocto Project is that it is extremely flexible. Thus, you can adapt it to many different use cases and scenarios. However, these characteristics can cause a struggle if you are trying to create a working setup that scales across a large team.

To help with these types of situations, this section presents some of the project's most successful experiences, practices, solutions, and available technologies that work well. Keep in mind, the information here is a starting point. You can build off it and customize it to fit any particular working environment and set of practices.

3.2.1. System Configurations

Systems across a large team should meet the needs of two types of developers: those working on the contents of the operating system image itself and those developing applications. Regardless of the type of developer, their workstations must be both reasonably powerful and run Linux.

3.2.1.1. Application Development

For developers who mainly do application level work on top of an existing software stack, the following list shows practices that work best. For information on using a Software Development Kit (SDK), see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide:

  • Use a pre-built toolchain that contains the software stack itself. Then, develop the application code on top of the stack. This method works well for small numbers of relatively isolated applications.

  • When possible, use the Yocto Project plug-in for the Eclipse™ IDE and SDK development practices. For more information, see the "Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide".

  • Keep your cross-development toolchains updated. You can do this through provisioning either as new toolchain downloads or as updates through a package update mechanism using opkg to provide updates to an existing toolchain. The exact mechanics of how and when to do this are a question for local policy.

  • Use multiple toolchains installed locally into different locations to allow development across versions.

3.2.1.2. Core System Development

For core system development, it is often best to have the build system itself available on the developer workstations so developers can run their own builds and directly rebuild the software stack. You should keep the core system unchanged as much as possible and do your work in layers on top of the core system. Doing so gives you a greater level of portability when upgrading to new versions of the core system or Board Support Packages (BSPs). You can share layers amongst the developers of a particular project and contain the policy configuration that defines the project.

Aside from the previous best practices, there exists a number of tips and tricks that can help speed up core development projects:

  • Use a Shared State Cache (sstate) among groups of developers who are on a fast network. The best way to share sstate is through a Network File System (NFS) share. The first user to build a given component for the first time contributes that object to the sstate, while subsequent builds from other developers then reuse the object rather than rebuild it themselves.

    Although it is possible to use other protocols for the sstate such as HTTP and FTP, you should avoid these. Using HTTP limits the sstate to read-only and FTP provides poor performance.

  • Have autobuilders contribute to the sstate pool similarly to how the developer workstations contribute. For information, see the "Autobuilders" section.

  • Build stand-alone tarballs that contain "missing" system requirements if for some reason developer workstations do not meet minimum system requirements such as latest Python versions, chrpath, or other tools. You can install and relocate the tarball exactly as you would the usual cross-development toolchain so that all developers can meet minimum version requirements on most distributions.

  • Use a small number of shared, high performance systems for testing purposes (e.g. dual, six-core Xeons with 24 Gbytes of RAM and plenty of disk space). Developers can use these systems for wider, more extensive testing while they continue to develop locally using their primary development system.

  • Enable the PR Service when package feeds need to be incremental with continually increasing PR values. Typically, this situation occurs when you use or publish package feeds and use a shared state. You should enable the PR Service for all users who use the shared state pool. For more information on the PR Service, see the "Working With a PR Service".

3.2.2. Source Control Management (SCM)

Keeping your Metadata and any software you are developing under the control of an SCM system that is compatible with the OpenEmbedded build system is advisable. Of the SCMs BitBake supports, the Yocto Project team strongly recommends using Git. Git is a distributed system that is easy to backup, allows you to work remotely, and then connects back to the infrastructure.

Note

For information about BitBake, see the BitBake User Manual.

It is relatively easy to set up Git services and create infrastructure like http://git.yoctoproject.org, which is based on server software called gitolite with cgit being used to generate the web interface that lets you view the repositories. The gitolite software identifies users using SSH keys and allows branch-based access controls to repositories that you can control as little or as much as necessary.

Note

The setup of these services is beyond the scope of this manual. However, sites such as these exist that describe how to perform setup:

3.2.3. Autobuilders

Autobuilders are often the core of a development project. It is here that changes from individual developers are brought together and centrally tested and subsequent decisions about releases can be made. Autobuilders also allow for "continuous integration" style testing of software components and regression identification and tracking.

See "Yocto Project Autobuilder" for more information and links to buildbot. The Yocto Project team has found this implementation works well in this role. A public example of this is the Yocto Project Autobuilders, which we use to test the overall health of the project.

The features of this system are:

  • Highlights when commits break the build.

  • Populates an sstate cache from which developers can pull rather than requiring local builds.

  • Allows commit hook triggers, which trigger builds when commits are made.

  • Allows triggering of automated image booting and testing under the QuickEMUlator (QEMU).

  • Supports incremental build testing and from-scratch builds.

  • Shares output that allows developer testing and historical regression investigation.

  • Creates output that can be used for releases.

  • Allows scheduling of builds so that resources can be used efficiently.

3.2.4. Policies and Change Flow

The Yocto Project itself uses a hierarchical structure and a pull model. Scripts exist to create and send pull requests (i.e. create-pull-request and send-pull-request). This model is in line with other open source projects where maintainers are responsible for specific areas of the project and a single maintainer handles the final "top-of-tree" merges.

Note

You can also use a more collective push model. The gitolite software supports both the push and pull models quite easily.

As with any development environment, it is important to document the policy used as well as any main project guidelines so they are understood by everyone. It is also a good idea to have well structured commit messages, which are usually a part of a project's guidelines. Good commit messages are essential when looking back in time and trying to understand why changes were made.

If you discover that changes are needed to the core layer of the project, it is worth sharing those with the community as soon as possible. Chances are if you have discovered the need for changes, someone else in the community needs them also.

3.2.5. Summary

This section summarizes the key recommendations described in the previous sections:

  • Use Git as the source control system.

  • Maintain your Metadata in layers that make sense for your situation. See the "Understanding and Creating Layers" section for more information on layers.

  • Separate the project's Metadata and code by using separate Git repositories. See the "Yocto Project Source Repositories" section for information on these repositories. See the "Getting Set Up" section for information on how to set up local Git repositories for related upstream Yocto Project Git repositories.

  • Set up the directory for the shared state cache (SSTATE_DIR) where it makes sense. For example, set up the sstate cache on a system used by developers in the same organization and share the same source directories on their machines.

  • Set up an Autobuilder and have it populate the sstate cache and source directories.

  • The Yocto Project community encourages you to send patches to the project to fix bugs or add features. If you do submit patches, follow the project commit guidelines for writing good commit messages. See the "How to Submit a Change" section.

  • Send changes to the core sooner than later as others are likely to run into the same issues. For some guidance on mailing lists to use, see the list in the "How to Submit a Change" section. For a description of the available mailing lists, see the "Mailing Lists" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

3.3. Yocto Project Source Repositories

The Yocto Project team maintains complete source repositories for all Yocto Project files at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi. This web-based source code browser is organized into categories by function such as IDE Plugins, Matchbox, Poky, Yocto Linux Kernel, and so forth. From the interface, you can click on any particular item in the "Name" column and see the URL at the bottom of the page that you need to clone a Git repository for that particular item. Having a local Git repository of the Source Directory, which is usually named "poky", allows you to make changes, contribute to the history, and ultimately enhance the Yocto Project's tools, Board Support Packages, and so forth.

For any supported release of Yocto Project, you can also go to the Yocto Project Website and select the "Downloads" tab and get a released tarball of the poky repository or any supported BSP tarballs. Unpacking these tarballs gives you a snapshot of the released files.

Notes

  • The recommended method for setting up the Yocto Project Source Directory and the files for supported BSPs (e.g., meta-intel) is to use Git to create a local copy of the upstream repositories.

  • Be sure to always work in matching branches for both the selected BSP repository and the Source Directory (i.e. poky) repository. For example, if you have checked out the "master" branch of poky and you are going to use meta-intel, be sure to checkout the "master" branch of meta-intel.

In summary, here is where you can get the project files needed for development:

  • Source Repositories: This area contains IDE Plugins, Matchbox, Poky, Poky Support, Tools, Yocto Linux Kernel, and Yocto Metadata Layers. You can create local copies of Git repositories for each of these areas.

  • Index of /releases: This is an index of releases such as the Eclipse™ Yocto Plug-in, miscellaneous support, Poky, Pseudo, installers for cross-development toolchains, and all released versions of Yocto Project in the form of images or tarballs. Downloading and extracting these files does not produce a local copy of the Git repository but rather a snapshot of a particular release or image.

  • "Downloads" page for the Yocto Project Website: Access this page by going to the website and then selecting the "Downloads" tab. This page allows you to download any Yocto Project release or Board Support Package (BSP) in tarball form. The tarballs are similar to those found in the Index of /releases: area.

3.4. Yocto Project Terms

Following is a list of terms and definitions users new to the Yocto Project development environment might find helpful. While some of these terms are universal, the list includes them just in case:

  • Append Files: Files that append build information to a recipe file. Append files are known as BitBake append files and .bbappend files. The OpenEmbedded build system expects every append file to have a corresponding recipe (.bb) file. Furthermore, the append file and corresponding recipe file must use the same root filename. The filenames can differ only in the file type suffix used (e.g. formfactor_0.0.bb and formfactor_0.0.bbappend).

    Information in append files extends or overrides the information in the similarly-named recipe file. For an example of an append file in use, see the "Using .bbappend Files" section.

    Note

    Append files can also use wildcard patterns in their version numbers so they can be applied to more than one version of the underlying recipe file.

  • BitBake: The task executor and scheduler used by the OpenEmbedded build system to build images. For more information on BitBake, see the BitBake User Manual.

  • Build Directory: This term refers to the area used by the OpenEmbedded build system for builds. The area is created when you source the setup environment script that is found in the Source Directory (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres). The TOPDIR variable points to the Build Directory.

    You have a lot of flexibility when creating the Build Directory. Following are some examples that show how to create the directory. The examples assume your Source Directory is named poky:

    • Create the Build Directory inside your Source Directory and let the name of the Build Directory default to build:

           $ cd $HOME/poky
           $ source oe-init-build-env
                                  
    • Create the Build Directory inside your home directory and specifically name it test-builds:

           $ cd $HOME
           $ source poky/oe-init-build-env test-builds
                                  
    • Provide a directory path and specifically name the Build Directory. Any intermediate folders in the pathname must exist. This next example creates a Build Directory named YP-18.0.3 in your home directory within the existing directory mybuilds:

           $cd $HOME
           $ source $HOME/poky/oe-init-build-env $HOME/mybuilds/YP-18.0.3
                                  

    Note

    By default, the Build Directory contains TMPDIR, which is a temporary directory the build system uses for its work. TMPDIR cannot be under NFS. Thus, by default, the Build Directory cannot be under NFS. However, if you need the Build Directory to be under NFS, you can set this up by setting TMPDIR in your local.conf file to use a local drive. Doing so effectively separates TMPDIR from TOPDIR, which is the Build Directory.

  • Classes: Files that provide for logic encapsulation and inheritance so that commonly used patterns can be defined once and then easily used in multiple recipes. For reference information on the Yocto Project classes, see the "Classes" chapter of the Yocto Project Reference Manual. Class files end with the .bbclass filename extension.

  • Configuration File: Configuration information in various .conf files provides global definitions of variables. The conf/local.conf configuration file in the Build Directory contains user-defined variables that affect every build. The meta-poky/conf/distro/poky.conf configuration file defines Yocto "distro" configuration variables used only when building with this policy. Machine configuration files, which are located throughout the Source Directory, define variables for specific hardware and are only used when building for that target (e.g. the machine/beaglebone.conf configuration file defines variables for the Texas Instruments ARM Cortex-A8 development board). Configuration files end with a .conf filename extension.

  • Cross-Development Toolchain: In general, a cross-development toolchain is a collection of software development tools and utilities that run on one architecture and allow you to develop software for a different, or targeted, architecture. These toolchains contain cross-compilers, linkers, and debuggers that are specific to the target architecture.

    The Yocto Project supports two different cross-development toolchains:

    • A toolchain only used by and within BitBake when building an image for a target architecture.

    • A relocatable toolchain used outside of BitBake by developers when developing applications that will run on a targeted device.

    Creation of these toolchains is simple and automated. For information on toolchain concepts as they apply to the Yocto Project, see the "Cross-Development Toolchain Generation" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual. You can also find more information on using the relocatable toolchain in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

  • Image: An image is an artifact of the BitBake build process given a collection of recipes and related Metadata. Images are the binary output that run on specific hardware or QEMU and are used for specific use-cases. For a list of the supported image types that the Yocto Project provides, see the "Images" chapter in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

  • Layer: A collection of recipes representing the core, a BSP, or an application stack. For a discussion specifically on BSP Layers, see the "BSP Layers" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Packages (BSP) Developer's Guide.

  • Metadata: The files that BitBake parses when building an image. In general, Metadata includes recipes, classes, and configuration files. In the context of the kernel ("kernel Metadata"), it refers to Metadata in the meta branches of the kernel source Git repositories.

  • OE-Core: A core set of Metadata originating with OpenEmbedded (OE) that is shared between OE and the Yocto Project. This Metadata is found in the meta directory of the Source Directory.

  • OpenEmbedded Build System: The build system specific to the Yocto Project. The OpenEmbedded build system is based on another project known as "Poky", which uses BitBake as the task executor. Throughout the Yocto Project documentation set, the OpenEmbedded build system is sometimes referred to simply as "the build system". If other build systems, such as a host or target build system are referenced, the documentation clearly states the difference.

    Note

    For some historical information about Poky, see the Poky term.

  • Package: In the context of the Yocto Project, this term refers to a recipe's packaged output produced by BitBake (i.e. a "baked recipe"). A package is generally the compiled binaries produced from the recipe's sources. You "bake" something by running it through BitBake.

    It is worth noting that the term "package" can, in general, have subtle meanings. For example, the packages referred to in the "The Build Host Packages" section are compiled binaries that, when installed, add functionality to your Linux distribution.

    Another point worth noting is that historically within the Yocto Project, recipes were referred to as packages - thus, the existence of several BitBake variables that are seemingly mis-named, (e.g. PR, PV, and PE).

  • Package Groups: Arbitrary groups of software Recipes. You use package groups to hold recipes that, when built, usually accomplish a single task. For example, a package group could contain the recipes for a company’s proprietary or value-add software. Or, the package group could contain the recipes that enable graphics. A package group is really just another recipe. Because package group files are recipes, they end with the .bb filename extension.

  • Poky: The term "poky" can mean several things. In its most general sense, it is an open-source project that was initially developed by OpenedHand. With OpenedHand, poky was developed off of the existing OpenEmbedded build system becoming a commercially supportable build system for embedded Linux. After Intel Corporation acquired OpenedHand, the project poky became the basis for the Yocto Project's build system.

    Within the Yocto Project source repositories, poky exists as a separate Git repository you can clone to yield a local copy on your host system. Thus, "poky" can refer to the local copy of the Source Directory used for development within the Yocto Project.

    Finally, "poky" can refer to the default DISTRO (i.e. distribution) created when you use the Yocto Project in conjunction with the poky repository to build an image.

  • Recipe: A set of instructions for building packages. A recipe describes where you get source code, which patches to apply, how to configure the source, how to compile it and so on. Recipes also describe dependencies for libraries or for other recipes. Recipes represent the logical unit of execution, the software to build, the images to build, and use the .bb file extension.

  • Source Directory: This term refers to the directory structure created as a result of creating a local copy of the poky Git repository git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky or expanding a released poky tarball.

    Note

    Creating a local copy of the poky Git repository is the recommended method for setting up your Source Directory.

    Sometimes you might hear the term "poky directory" used to refer to this directory structure.

    Note

    The OpenEmbedded build system does not support file or directory names that contain spaces. Be sure that the Source Directory you use does not contain these types of names.

    The Source Directory contains BitBake, Documentation, Metadata and other files that all support the Yocto Project. Consequently, you must have the Source Directory in place on your development system in order to do any development using the Yocto Project.

    When you create a local copy of the Git repository, you can name the repository anything you like. Throughout much of the documentation, "poky" is used as the name of the top-level folder of the local copy of the poky Git repository. So, for example, cloning the poky Git repository results in a local Git repository whose top-level folder is also named "poky".

    While it is not recommended that you use tarball expansion to set up the Source Directory, if you do, the top-level directory name of the Source Directory is derived from the Yocto Project release tarball. For example, downloading and unpacking poky-pyro-18.0.3.tar.bz2 results in a Source Directory whose root folder is named poky-pyro-18.0.3.

    It is important to understand the differences between the Source Directory created by unpacking a released tarball as compared to cloning git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky. When you unpack a tarball, you have an exact copy of the files based on the time of release - a fixed release point. Any changes you make to your local files in the Source Directory are on top of the release and will remain local only. On the other hand, when you clone the poky Git repository, you have an active development repository with access to the upstream repository's branches and tags. In this case, any local changes you make to the local Source Directory can be later applied to active development branches of the upstream poky Git repository.

    For more information on concepts related to Git repositories, branches, and tags, see the "Repositories, Tags, and Branches" section.

  • Task: A unit of execution for BitBake (e.g. do_compile, do_fetch, do_patch, and so forth).

  • Upstream: A reference to source code or repositories that are not local to the development system but located in a master area that is controlled by the maintainer of the source code. For example, in order for a developer to work on a particular piece of code, they need to first get a copy of it from an "upstream" source.

3.5. Licensing

Because open source projects are open to the public, they have different licensing structures in place. License evolution for both Open Source and Free Software has an interesting history. If you are interested in this history, you can find basic information here:

In general, the Yocto Project is broadly licensed under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) License. MIT licensing permits the reuse of software within proprietary software as long as the license is distributed with that software. MIT is also compatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL). Patches to the Yocto Project follow the upstream licensing scheme. You can find information on the MIT license here. You can find information on the GNU GPL here.

When you build an image using the Yocto Project, the build process uses a known list of licenses to ensure compliance. You can find this list in the Source Directory at meta/files/common-licenses. Once the build completes, the list of all licenses found and used during that build are kept in the Build Directory at tmp/deploy/licenses.

If a module requires a license that is not in the base list, the build process generates a warning during the build. These tools make it easier for a developer to be certain of the licenses with which their shipped products must comply. However, even with these tools it is still up to the developer to resolve potential licensing issues.

The base list of licenses used by the build process is a combination of the Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) list and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) projects. SPDX Group is a working group of the Linux Foundation that maintains a specification for a standard format for communicating the components, licenses, and copyrights associated with a software package. OSI is a corporation dedicated to the Open Source Definition and the effort for reviewing and approving licenses that conform to the Open Source Definition (OSD).

You can find a list of the combined SPDX and OSI licenses that the Yocto Project uses in the meta/files/common-licenses directory in your Source Directory.

For information that can help you maintain compliance with various open source licensing during the lifecycle of a product created using the Yocto Project, see the "Maintaining Open Source License Compliance During Your Product's Lifecycle" section.

3.6. Git

The Yocto Project makes extensive use of Git, which is a free, open source distributed version control system. Git supports distributed development, non-linear development, and can handle large projects. It is best that you have some fundamental understanding of how Git tracks projects and how to work with Git if you are going to use the Yocto Project for development. This section provides a quick overview of how Git works and provides you with a summary of some essential Git commands.

For more information on Git, see http://git-scm.com/documentation. If you need to download Git, go to http://git-scm.com/download.

3.6.1. Repositories, Tags, and Branches

As mentioned earlier in the section "Yocto Project Source Repositories", the Yocto Project maintains source repositories at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi. If you look at this web-interface of the repositories, each item is a separate Git repository.

Git repositories use branching techniques that track content change (not files) within a project (e.g. a new feature or updated documentation). Creating a tree-like structure based on project divergence allows for excellent historical information over the life of a project. This methodology also allows for an environment from which you can do lots of local experimentation on projects as you develop changes or new features.

A Git repository represents all development efforts for a given project. For example, the Git repository poky contains all changes and developments for Poky over the course of its entire life. That means that all changes that make up all releases are captured. The repository maintains a complete history of changes.

You can create a local copy of any repository by "cloning" it with the Git clone command. When you clone a Git repository, you end up with an identical copy of the repository on your development system. Once you have a local copy of a repository, you can take steps to develop locally. For examples on how to clone Git repositories, see the "Getting Set Up" section.

It is important to understand that Git tracks content change and not files. Git uses "branches" to organize different development efforts. For example, the poky repository has several branches that include the current pyro branch, the master branch, and many branches for past Yocto Project releases. You can see all the branches by going to http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi/poky/ and clicking on the [...] link beneath the "Branch" heading.

Each of these branches represents a specific area of development. The master branch represents the current or most recent development. All other branches represent offshoots of the master branch.

When you create a local copy of a Git repository, the copy has the same set of branches as the original. This means you can use Git to create a local working area (also called a branch) that tracks a specific development branch from the source Git repository. in other words, you can define your local Git environment to work on any development branch in the repository. To help illustrate, here is a set of commands that creates a local copy of the poky Git repository and then creates and checks out a local Git branch that tracks the Yocto Project 2.3.3 Release (Pyro) development:

     $ cd ~
     $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky
     $ cd poky
     $ git checkout -b pyro origin/pyro
            

In this example, the name of the top-level directory of your local Source Directory is "poky" and the name of that local working area (local branch) you just created and checked out is "pyro". The files in your local repository now reflect the same files that are in the "pyro" development branch of the Yocto Project's "poky" upstream repository. It is important to understand that when you create and checkout a local working branch based on a branch name, your local environment matches the "tip" of that development branch at the time you created your local branch, which could be different from the files at the time of a similarly named release. In other words, creating and checking out a local branch based on the "pyro" branch name is not the same as cloning and checking out the "master" branch. Keep reading to see how you create a local snapshot of a Yocto Project Release.

Git uses "tags" to mark specific changes in a repository. Typically, a tag is used to mark a special point such as the final change before a project is released. You can see the tags used with the poky Git repository by going to http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi/poky/ and clicking on the [...] link beneath the "Tag" heading.

Some key tags are dizzy-12.0.0, fido-13.0.0, jethro-14.0.0, and pyro-18.0.3. These tags represent Yocto Project releases.

When you create a local copy of the Git repository, you also have access to all the tags. Similar to branches, you can create and checkout a local working Git branch based on a tag name. When you do this, you get a snapshot of the Git repository that reflects the state of the files when the change was made associated with that tag. The most common use is to checkout a working branch that matches a specific Yocto Project release. Here is an example:

     $ cd ~
     $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky
     $ cd poky
     $ git checkout -b my-pyro-18.0.3 pyro-18.0.3
            

In this example, the name of the top-level directory of your local Yocto Project Files Git repository is poky. And, the name of the local branch you have created and checked out is my-pyro-18.0.3. The files in your repository now exactly match the Yocto Project 2.3.3 Release tag (pyro-18.0.3). It is important to understand that when you create and checkout a local working branch based on a tag, your environment matches a specific point in time and not the entire development branch.

3.6.2. Basic Commands

Git has an extensive set of commands that lets you manage changes and perform collaboration over the life of a project. Conveniently though, you can manage with a small set of basic operations and workflows once you understand the basic philosophy behind Git. You do not have to be an expert in Git to be functional. A good place to look for instruction on a minimal set of Git commands is here. If you need to download Git, you can do so here, although any reasonably current Linux distribution should already have an installable package for Git.

If you do not know much about Git, you should educate yourself by visiting the links previously mentioned.

The following list briefly describes some basic Git operations as a way to get started. As with any set of commands, this list (in most cases) simply shows the base command and omits the many arguments they support. See the Git documentation for complete descriptions and strategies on how to use these commands:

  • git init: Initializes an empty Git repository. You cannot use Git commands unless you have a .git repository.

  • git clone: Creates a local clone of a Git repository. During collaboration, this command allows you to create a local Git repository that is on equal footing with a fellow developer’s Git repository.

  • git add: Stages updated file contents to the index that Git uses to track changes. You must stage all files that have changed before you can commit them.

  • git commit: Creates a "commit" that documents the changes you made. Commits are used for historical purposes, for determining if a maintainer of a project will allow the change, and for ultimately pushing the change from your local Git repository into the project’s upstream (or master) repository.

  • git status: Reports any modified files that possibly need to be staged and committed.

  • git checkout branch-name: Changes your working branch. This command is analogous to "cd".

  • git checkout –b working-branch: Creates a working branch on your local machine where you can isolate work. It is a good idea to use local branches when adding specific features or changes. This way if you do not like what you have done you can easily get rid of the work.

  • git branch: Reports existing local branches and tells you the branch in which you are currently working.

  • git branch -D branch-name: Deletes an existing local branch. You need to be in a local branch other than the one you are deleting in order to delete branch-name.

  • git pull: Retrieves information from an upstream Git repository and places it in your local Git repository. You use this command to make sure you are synchronized with the repository from which you are basing changes (.e.g. the master branch).

  • git push: Sends all your committed local changes to an upstream Git repository (e.g. a contribution repository). The maintainer of the project draws from these repositories when adding changes to the project’s master repository or other development branch.

  • git merge: Combines or adds changes from one local branch of your repository with another branch. When you create a local Git repository, the default branch is named "master". A typical workflow is to create a temporary branch for isolated work, make and commit your changes, switch to your local master branch, merge the changes from the temporary branch into the local master branch, and then delete the temporary branch.

  • git cherry-pick: Choose and apply specific commits from one branch into another branch. There are times when you might not be able to merge all the changes in one branch with another but need to pick out certain ones.

  • gitk: Provides a GUI view of the branches and changes in your local Git repository. This command is a good way to graphically see where things have diverged in your local repository.

  • git log: Reports a history of your changes to the repository.

  • git diff: Displays line-by-line differences between your local working files and the same files in the upstream Git repository that your branch currently tracks.

3.7. Workflows

This section provides some overview on workflows using Git. In particular, the information covers basic practices that describe roles and actions in a collaborative development environment. Again, if you are familiar with this type of development environment, you might want to just skip this section.

The Yocto Project files are maintained using Git in a "master" branch whose Git history tracks every change and whose structure provides branches for all diverging functionality. Although there is no need to use Git, many open source projects do so. For the Yocto Project, a key individual called the "maintainer" is responsible for the "master" branch of a given Git repository. The "master" branch is the “upstream” repository where the final builds of the project occur. The maintainer is responsible for accepting changes from other developers and for organizing the underlying branch structure to reflect release strategies and so forth.

Note

For information on finding out who is responsible for (maintains) a particular area of code, see the "How to Submit a Change" section.

The project also has an upstream contribution Git repository named poky-contrib. You can see all the branches in this repository using the web interface of the Source Repositories organized within the "Poky Support" area. These branches temporarily hold changes to the project that have been submitted or committed by the Yocto Project development team and by community members who contribute to the project. The maintainer determines if the changes are qualified to be moved from the "contrib" branches into the "master" branch of the Git repository.

Developers (including contributing community members) create and maintain cloned repositories of the upstream "master" branch. These repositories are local to their development platforms and are used to develop changes. When a developer is satisfied with a particular feature or change, they "push" the changes to the appropriate "contrib" repository.

Developers are responsible for keeping their local repository up-to-date with "master". They are also responsible for straightening out any conflicts that might arise within files that are being worked on simultaneously by more than one person. All this work is done locally on the developer’s machines before anything is pushed to a "contrib" area and examined at the maintainer’s level.

A somewhat formal method exists by which developers commit changes and push them into the "contrib" area and subsequently request that the maintainer include them into "master" This process is called “submitting a patch” or "submitting a change." For information on submitting patches and changes, see the "How to Submit a Change" section.

To summarize the environment: a single point of entry exists for changes into the project’s "master" branch of the Git repository, which is controlled by the project’s maintainer. And, a set of developers exist who independently develop, test, and submit changes to "contrib" areas for the maintainer to examine. The maintainer then chooses which changes are going to become a permanent part of the project.

While each development environment is unique, there are some best practices or methods that help development run smoothly. The following list describes some of these practices. For more information about Git workflows, see the workflow topics in the Git Community Book.

  • Make Small Changes: It is best to keep the changes you commit small as compared to bundling many disparate changes into a single commit. This practice not only keeps things manageable but also allows the maintainer to more easily include or refuse changes.

    It is also good practice to leave the repository in a state that allows you to still successfully build your project. In other words, do not commit half of a feature, then add the other half as a separate, later commit. Each commit should take you from one buildable project state to another buildable state.

  • Use Branches Liberally: It is very easy to create, use, and delete local branches in your working Git repository. You can name these branches anything you like. It is helpful to give them names associated with the particular feature or change on which you are working. Once you are done with a feature or change and have merged it into your local master branch, simply discard the temporary branch.

  • Merge Changes: The git merge command allows you to take the changes from one branch and fold them into another branch. This process is especially helpful when more than a single developer might be working on different parts of the same feature. Merging changes also automatically identifies any collisions or "conflicts" that might happen as a result of the same lines of code being altered by two different developers.

  • Manage Branches: Because branches are easy to use, you should use a system where branches indicate varying levels of code readiness. For example, you can have a "work" branch to develop in, a "test" branch where the code or change is tested, a "stage" branch where changes are ready to be committed, and so forth. As your project develops, you can merge code across the branches to reflect ever-increasing stable states of the development.

  • Use Push and Pull: The push-pull workflow is based on the concept of developers "pushing" local commits to a remote repository, which is usually a contribution repository. This workflow is also based on developers "pulling" known states of the project down into their local development repositories. The workflow easily allows you to pull changes submitted by other developers from the upstream repository into your work area ensuring that you have the most recent software on which to develop. The Yocto Project has two scripts named create-pull-request and send-pull-request that ship with the release to facilitate this workflow. You can find these scripts in the scripts folder of the Source Directory. For information on how to use these scripts, see the "Using Scripts to Push a Change Upstream and Request a Pull" section.

  • Patch Workflow: This workflow allows you to notify the maintainer through an email that you have a change (or patch) you would like considered for the "master" branch of the Git repository. To send this type of change, you format the patch and then send the email using the Git commands git format-patch and git send-email. For information on how to use these scripts, see the "How to Submit a Change" section.

3.8. Tracking Bugs

The Yocto Project uses its own implementation of Bugzilla to track bugs. Implementations of Bugzilla work well for group development because they track bugs and code changes, can be used to communicate changes and problems with developers, can be used to submit and review patches, and can be used to manage quality assurance. The home page for the Yocto Project implementation of Bugzilla is http://bugzilla.yoctoproject.org.

Sometimes it is helpful to submit, investigate, or track a bug against the Yocto Project itself such as when discovering an issue with some component of the build system that acts contrary to the documentation or your expectations. Following is the general procedure for submitting a new bug using the Yocto Project Bugzilla. You can find more information on defect management, bug tracking, and feature request processes all accomplished through the Yocto Project Bugzilla on the wiki page.

  1. Always use the Yocto Project implementation of Bugzilla to submit a bug.

  2. When submitting a new bug, be sure to choose the appropriate Classification, Product, and Component for which the issue was found. Defects for the Yocto Project fall into one of seven classifications: Yocto Project Components, Infrastructure, Build System & Metadata, Documentation, QA/Testing, Runtime and Hardware. Each of these Classifications break down into multiple Products and, in some cases, multiple Components.

  3. Use the bug form to choose the correct Hardware and Architecture for which the bug applies.

  4. Indicate the Yocto Project version you were using when the issue occurred.

  5. Be sure to indicate the Severity of the bug. Severity communicates how the bug impacted your work.

  6. Select the appropriate "Documentation change" item for the bug. Fixing a bug may or may not affect the Yocto Project documentation.

  7. Provide a brief summary of the issue. Try to limit your summary to just a line or two and be sure to capture the essence of the issue.

  8. Provide a detailed description of the issue. You should provide as much detail as you can about the context, behavior, output, and so forth that surrounds the issue. You can even attach supporting files for output from logs by using the "Add an attachment" button.

  9. Be sure to copy the appropriate people in the "CC List" for the bug. See the "How to Submit a Change" section for information about finding out who is responsible for code.

  10. Submit the bug by clicking the "Submit Bug" button.

3.9. How to Submit a Change

Contributions to the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded are very welcome. Because the system is extremely configurable and flexible, we recognize that developers will want to extend, configure or optimize it for their specific uses. You should send patches to the appropriate mailing list so that they can be reviewed and merged by the appropriate maintainer.

3.9.1. Overview

The Yocto Project uses a mailing list and patch-based workflow that is similar to the Linux kernel but contains important differences. In general, a mailing list exists through which you can submit patches. The specific mailing list you need to use depends on the location of the code you are changing. Each component (e.g. layer) should have a README file that indicates where to send the changes and which process to follow.

You can send the patch to the mailing list using whichever approach you feel comfortable with to generate the patch. Once sent, the patch is usually reviewed by the community at large. If somebody has concerns with the patch, they will usually voice their concern over the mailing list. If a patch does not receive any negative reviews, the maintainer of the affected layer typically takes the patch, tests it, and then based on successful testing, merges the patch.

Specific to OpenEmbedded-Core, two commonly used testing trees exist:

  • "ross/mut" branch: The "mut" (master-under-test) tree exists in the poky-contrib repository in the Yocto Project source repositories.

  • "master-next" branch: This branch is part of the main "poky" repository in the Yocto Project source repositories.

Maintainers use these branches to test submissions prior to merging patches. Thus, you can get an idea of the status of a patch based on whether the patch has been merged into one of these branches.

This system is imperfect and patches can sometimes get lost in the flow. Asking about the status of a patch is reasonable if the patch has been idle for a while with no feedback. The Yocto Project does have plans to use Patchwork to track the status of patches and also to automatically preview patches.

The following sections provide general instructions for both pushing changes upstream and for submitting changes as patches.

3.9.2. Submissions to Poky

The "poky" repository, which is the Yocto Project's reference build environment, is a hybrid repository that contains several individual pieces (e.g. BitBake, OpenEmbedded-Core, meta-yocto, documentation, and so forth) built using the combo-layer tool. The upstream location used for submitting changes varies by component:

  • Core Metadata: Send your patch to the openembedded-core mailing list. For example, a change to anything under the meta or scripts directories should be sent to this mailing list.

  • BitBake: For changes to BitBake (i.e. anything under the bitbake directory), send your patch to the bitbake-devel mailing list.

  • "meta-yocto-bsp" and "meta-poky" trees: These trees are part of the "meta-yocto" repository in the Yocto Project source repositories. Use the poky mailing list.

3.9.3. Submissions to Other Layers

For changes to other layers hosted in the Yocto Project source repositories (i.e. yoctoproject.org), tools, and the Yocto Project documentation, use the Yocto Project general mailing list.

Note

Sometimes a layer's documentation specifies to use a particular mailing list. If so, use that list.

For additional recipes that do not fit into the core Metadata, you should determine which layer the recipe should go into and submit the change in the manner recommended by the documentation (e.g. the README file) supplied with the layer. If in doubt, please ask on the Yocto general mailing list or on the openembedded-devel mailing list.

3.9.4. Patch Submission Details

When submitting any change, you can check who you should be notifying. Use either of these methods to find out:

  • Maintenance File: Examine the maintainers.inc file, which is located in the Source Directory at meta-poky/conf/distro/include, to see who is responsible for code.

  • Search by File: Using Git, you can enter the following command to bring up a short list of all commits against a specific file:

         git shortlog -- filename
                        

    Just provide the name of the file for which you are interested. The information returned is not ordered by history but does include a list of all committers grouped by name. From the list, you can see who is responsible for the bulk of the changes against the file.

For a list of the Yocto Project and related mailing lists, see the "Mailing lists" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

When you send a patch, be sure to include a "Signed-off-by:" line in the same style as required by the Linux kernel. Adding this line signifies that you, the submitter, have agreed to the Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1 as follows:

     Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1

     By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

     (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
         have the right to submit it under the open source license
         indicated in the file; or

     (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
         of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
         license and I have the right under that license to submit that
         work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
         by me, under the same open source license (unless I am
         permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated
         in the file; or

     (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
         person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified
         it.

     (d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
         are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
         personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
         maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with
         this project or the open source license(s) involved.
            

In a collaborative environment, it is necessary to have some sort of standard or method through which you submit changes. Otherwise, things could get quite chaotic. One general practice to follow is to make small, controlled changes. Keeping changes small and isolated aids review, makes merging/rebasing easier and keeps the change history clean should anyone need to refer to it in future.

When you make a commit, you must follow certain standards established by the OpenEmbedded and Yocto Project development teams. For each commit, you must provide a single-line summary of the change and you should almost always provide a more detailed description of what you did (i.e. the body of the commit message). The only exceptions for not providing a detailed description would be if your change is a simple, self-explanatory change that needs no further description beyond the summary. Here are the guidelines for composing a commit message:

  • Provide a single-line, short summary of the change. This summary is typically viewable in the "shortlist" of changes. Thus, providing something short and descriptive that gives the reader a summary of the change is useful when viewing a list of many commits. You should prefix this short description with the recipe name (if changing a recipe), or else with the short form path to the file being changed.

  • For the body of the commit message, provide detailed information that describes what you changed, why you made the change, and the approach you used. It might also be helpful if you mention how you tested the change. Provide as much detail as you can in the body of the commit message.

  • If the change addresses a specific bug or issue that is associated with a bug-tracking ID, include a reference to that ID in your detailed description. For example, the Yocto Project uses a specific convention for bug references - any commit that addresses a specific bug should use the following form for the detailed description. Be sure to use the actual bug-tracking ID from Bugzilla for bug-id:

         Fixes [YOCTO #bug-id]
    
         detailed description of change
                        

You can find more guidance on creating well-formed commit messages at this OpenEmbedded wiki page: http://www.openembedded.org/wiki/Commit_Patch_Message_Guidelines.

3.9.5. Using Scripts to Push a Change Upstream and Request a Pull

The basic flow for pushing a change to an upstream "contrib" Git repository is as follows:

  • Make your changes in your local Git repository.

  • Stage your changes by using the git add command on each file you changed.

  • Commit the change by using the git commit command. Be sure to provide a commit message that follows the project’s commit message standards as described earlier.

  • Push the change to the upstream "contrib" repository by using the git push command.

  • Notify the maintainer that you have pushed a change by making a pull request. The Yocto Project provides two scripts that conveniently let you generate and send pull requests to the Yocto Project. These scripts are create-pull-request and send-pull-request. You can find these scripts in the scripts directory within the Source Directory.

    Using these scripts correctly formats the requests without introducing any whitespace or HTML formatting. The maintainer that receives your patches needs to be able to save and apply them directly from your emails. Using these scripts is the preferred method for sending patches.

    For help on using these scripts, simply provide the -h argument as follows:

         $ poky/scripts/create-pull-request -h
         $ poky/scripts/send-pull-request -h
                        

You can find general Git information on how to push a change upstream in the Git Community Book.

3.9.6. Using Email to Submit a Patch

You can submit patches without using the create-pull-request and send-pull-request scripts described in the previous section. However, keep in mind, the preferred method is to use the scripts.

Depending on the components changed, you need to submit the email to a specific mailing list. For some guidance on which mailing list to use, see the list in the "How to Submit a Change" section. For a description of the available mailing lists, see the "Mailing Lists" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

Here is the general procedure on how to submit a patch through email without using the scripts:

  • Make your changes in your local Git repository.

  • Stage your changes by using the git add command on each file you changed.

  • Commit the change by using the git commit --signoff command. Using the --signoff option identifies you as the person making the change and also satisfies the Developer's Certificate of Origin (DCO) shown earlier.

    When you form a commit, you must follow certain standards established by the Yocto Project development team. See the earlier section "How to Submit a Change" for Yocto Project commit message standards.

  • Format the commit into an email message. To format commits, use the git format-patch command. When you provide the command, you must include a revision list or a number of patches as part of the command. For example, either of these two commands takes your most recent single commit and formats it as an email message in the current directory:

         $ git format-patch -1
                        

    or

         $ git format-patch HEAD~
                        

    After the command is run, the current directory contains a numbered .patch file for the commit.

    If you provide several commits as part of the command, the git format-patch command produces a series of numbered files in the current directory – one for each commit. If you have more than one patch, you should also use the --cover option with the command, which generates a cover letter as the first "patch" in the series. You can then edit the cover letter to provide a description for the series of patches. For information on the git format-patch command, see GIT_FORMAT_PATCH(1) displayed using the man git-format-patch command.

    Note

    If you are or will be a frequent contributor to the Yocto Project or to OpenEmbedded, you might consider requesting a contrib area and the necessary associated rights.
  • Import the files into your mail client by using the git send-email command.

    Note

    In order to use git send-email, you must have the the proper Git packages installed. For Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora the package is git-email.

    The git send-email command sends email by using a local or remote Mail Transport Agent (MTA) such as msmtp, sendmail, or through a direct smtp configuration in your Git config file. If you are submitting patches through email only, it is very important that you submit them without any whitespace or HTML formatting that either you or your mailer introduces. The maintainer that receives your patches needs to be able to save and apply them directly from your emails. A good way to verify that what you are sending will be applicable by the maintainer is to do a dry run and send them to yourself and then save and apply them as the maintainer would.

    The git send-email command is the preferred method for sending your patches since there is no risk of compromising whitespace in the body of the message, which can occur when you use your own mail client. The command also has several options that let you specify recipients and perform further editing of the email message. For information on how to use the git send-email command, see GIT-SEND-EMAIL(1) displayed using the man git-send-email command.

Chapter 4. Common Development Models

Many development models exist for which you can use the Yocto Project. This chapter overviews simple methods that use tools provided by the Yocto Project:

  • System Development: System Development covers Board Support Package (BSP) development and kernel modification or configuration. For an example on how to create a BSP, see the "Creating a New BSP Layer Using the yocto-bsp Script" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide. For more complete information on how to work with the kernel, see the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual.

  • User Application Development: User Application Development covers development of applications that you intend to run on target hardware. For information on how to set up your host development system for user-space application development, see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide. For a simple example of user-space application development using the Eclipse™ IDE, see the "Developing Applications Using Eclipse" section.

  • Temporary Source Code Modification: Direct modification of temporary source code is a convenient development model to quickly iterate and develop towards a solution. Once you implement the solution, you should of course take steps to get the changes upstream and applied in the affected recipes.

  • Image Development using Toaster: You can use Toaster to build custom operating system images within the build environment. Toaster provides an efficient interface to the OpenEmbedded build that allows you to start builds and examine build statistics.

  • Using a Development Shell: You can use a devshell to efficiently debug commands or simply edit packages. Working inside a development shell is a quick way to set up the OpenEmbedded build environment to work on parts of a project.

4.1. System Development Workflow

System development involves modification or creation of an image that you want to run on a specific hardware target. Usually, when you want to create an image that runs on embedded hardware, the image does not require the same number of features that a full-fledged Linux distribution provides. Thus, you can create a much smaller image that is designed to use only the features for your particular hardware.

To help you understand how system development works in the Yocto Project, this section covers two types of image development: BSP creation and kernel modification or configuration.

4.1.1. Developing a Board Support Package (BSP)

A BSP is a collection of recipes that, when applied during a build, results in an image that you can run on a particular board. Thus, the package when compiled into the new image, supports the operation of the board.

Note

For a brief list of terms used when describing the development process in the Yocto Project, see the "Yocto Project Terms" section.

The remainder of this section presents the basic steps used to create a BSP using the Yocto Project's BSP Tools. Although not required for BSP creation, the meta-intel repository, which contains many BSPs supported by the Yocto Project, is part of the example.

For an example that shows how to create a new layer using the tools, see the "Creating a New BSP Layer Using the yocto-bsp Script" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide.

The following illustration and list summarize the BSP creation general workflow.

  1. Set up your host development system to support development using the Yocto Project: See the "The Linux Distribution" and the "The Build Host Packages" sections both in the Yocto Project Quick Start for requirements.

  2. Establish a local copy of the project files on your system: You need this Source Directory available on your host system. Having these files on your system gives you access to the build process and to the tools you need. For information on how to set up the Source Directory, see the "Getting Set Up" section.

  3. Establish the meta-intel repository on your system: Having local copies of these supported BSP layers on your system gives you access to layers you might be able to build on or modify to create your BSP. For information on how to get these files, see the "Getting Set Up" section.

  4. Create your own BSP layer using the yocto-bsp script: Layers are ideal for isolating and storing work for a given piece of hardware. A layer is really just a location or area in which you place the recipes and configurations for your BSP. In fact, a BSP is, in itself, a special type of layer. The simplest way to create a new BSP layer that is compliant with the Yocto Project is to use the yocto-bsp script. For information about that script, see the "Creating a New BSP Layer Using the yocto-bsp Script" section in the Yocto Project Board Support (BSP) Developer's Guide.

    Another example that illustrates a layer is an application. Suppose you are creating an application that has library or other dependencies in order for it to compile and run. The layer, in this case, would be where all the recipes that define those dependencies are kept. The key point for a layer is that it is an isolated area that contains all the relevant information for the project that the OpenEmbedded build system knows about. For more information on layers, see the "Understanding and Creating Layers" section. For more information on BSP layers, see the "BSP Layers" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide.

    Note

    Five BSPs exist that are part of the Yocto Project release: beaglebone (ARM), mpc8315e (PowerPC), and edgerouter (MIPS). The recipes and configurations for these five BSPs are located and dispersed within the Source Directory.

    Three core Intel BSPs exist as part of the Yocto Project release in the meta-intel layer:

    • intel-core2-32, which is a BSP optimized for the Core2 family of CPUs as well as all CPUs prior to the Silvermont core.

    • intel-corei7-64, which is a BSP optimized for Nehalem and later Core and Xeon CPUs as well as Silvermont and later Atom CPUs, such as the Baytrail SoCs.

    • intel-quark, which is a BSP optimized for the Intel Galileo gen1 & gen2 development boards.

    When you set up a layer for a new BSP, you should follow a standard layout. This layout is described in the "Example Filesystem Layout" section of the Board Support Package (BSP) Development Guide. In the standard layout, you will notice a suggested structure for recipes and configuration information. You can see the standard layout for a BSP by examining any supported BSP found in the meta-intel layer inside the Source Directory.

  5. Make configuration changes to your new BSP layer: The standard BSP layer structure organizes the files you need to edit in conf and several recipes-* directories within the BSP layer. Configuration changes identify where your new layer is on the local system and identify which kernel you are going to use. When you run the yocto-bsp script, you are able to interactively configure many things for the BSP (e.g. keyboard, touchscreen, and so forth).

  6. Make recipe changes to your new BSP layer: Recipe changes include altering recipes (.bb files), removing recipes you do not use, and adding new recipes or append files (.bbappend) that you need to support your hardware.

  7. Prepare for the build: Once you have made all the changes to your BSP layer, there remains a few things you need to do for the OpenEmbedded build system in order for it to create your image. You need to get the build environment ready by sourcing an environment setup script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres) and you need to be sure two key configuration files are configured appropriately: the conf/local.conf and the conf/bblayers.conf file. You must make the OpenEmbedded build system aware of your new layer. See the "Enabling Your Layer" section for information on how to let the build system know about your new layer.

    The entire process for building an image is overviewed in the section "Building Images" section of the Yocto Project Quick Start. You might want to reference this information.

  8. Build the image: The OpenEmbedded build system uses the BitBake tool to build images based on the type of image you want to create. You can find more information about BitBake in the BitBake User Manual.

    The build process supports several types of images to satisfy different needs. See the "Images" chapter in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for information on supported images.

You can view a video presentation on "Building Custom Embedded Images with Yocto" at Free Electrons. After going to the page, just search for "Embedded". You can also find supplemental information in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide. Finally, there is helpful material and links on this wiki page. Although a bit dated, you might find the information on the wiki helpful.

4.1.2. Modifying the Kernel

Kernel modification involves changing the Yocto Project kernel, which could involve changing configuration options as well as adding new kernel recipes. Configuration changes can be added in the form of configuration fragments, while recipe modification comes through the kernel's recipes-kernel area in a kernel layer you create.

The remainder of this section presents a high-level overview of the Yocto Project kernel architecture and the steps to modify the kernel. You can reference the "Patching the Kernel" section for an example that changes the source code of the kernel. For information on how to configure the kernel, see the "Configuring the Kernel" section. For more information on the kernel and on modifying the kernel, see the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual.

4.1.2.1. Kernel Overview

Traditionally, when one thinks of a patched kernel, they think of a base kernel source tree and a fixed structure that contains kernel patches. The Yocto Project, however, employs mechanisms that, in a sense, result in a kernel source generator. By the end of this section, this analogy will become clearer.

You can find a web interface to the Yocto Project kernel source repositories at http://git.yoctoproject.org. If you look at the interface, you will see to the left a grouping of Git repositories titled "Yocto Linux Kernel." Within this group, you will find several kernels supported by the Yocto Project:

  • linux-yocto-3.14 - The stable Yocto Project kernel to use with the Yocto Project Releases 1.6 and 1.7. This kernel is based on the Linux 3.14 released kernel.

  • linux-yocto-3.17 - An additional, unsupported Yocto Project kernel used with the Yocto Project Release 1.7. This kernel is based on the Linux 3.17 released kernel.

  • linux-yocto-3.19 - The stable Yocto Project kernel to use with the Yocto Project Release 1.8. This kernel is based on the Linux 3.19 released kernel.

  • linux-yocto-4.1 - The stable Yocto Project kernel to use with the Yocto Project Release 2.0. This kernel is based on the Linux 4.1 released kernel.

  • linux-yocto-4.4 - The stable Yocto Project kernel to use with the Yocto Project Release 2.1. This kernel is based on the Linux 4.4 released kernel.

  • linux-yocto-dev - A development kernel based on the latest upstream release candidate available.

Note

Long Term Support Initiative (LTSI) for Yocto Project kernels is as follows:
  • For Yocto Project releases 1.7, 1.8, and 2.0, the LTSI kernel is linux-yocto-3.14.

  • For Yocto Project release 2.1, the LTSI kernel is linux-yocto-4.1.

The kernels are maintained using the Git revision control system that structures them using the familiar "tree", "branch", and "leaf" scheme. Branches represent diversions from general code to more specific code, while leaves represent the end-points for a complete and unique kernel whose source files, when gathered from the root of the tree to the leaf, accumulate to create the files necessary for a specific piece of hardware and its features. The following figure displays this concept:

Within the figure, the "Kernel.org Branch Point" represents the point in the tree where a supported base kernel is modified from the Linux kernel. For example, this could be the branch point for the linux-yocto-3.19 kernel. Thus, everything further to the right in the structure is based on the linux-yocto-3.19 kernel. Branch points to the right in the figure represent where the linux-yocto-3.19 kernel is modified for specific hardware or types of kernels, such as real-time kernels. Each leaf thus represents the end-point for a kernel designed to run on a specific targeted device.

The overall result is a Git-maintained repository from which all the supported kernel types can be derived for all the supported devices. A big advantage to this scheme is the sharing of common features by keeping them in "larger" branches within the tree. This practice eliminates redundant storage of similar features shared among kernels.

Note

Keep in mind the figure does not take into account all the supported Yocto Project kernel types, but rather shows a single generic kernel just for conceptual purposes. Also keep in mind that this structure represents the Yocto Project source repositories that are either pulled from during the build or established on the host development system prior to the build by either cloning a particular kernel's Git repository or by downloading and unpacking a tarball.

Upstream storage of all the available kernel source code is one thing, while representing and using the code on your host development system is another. Conceptually, you can think of the kernel source repositories as all the source files necessary for all the supported kernels. As a developer, you are just interested in the source files for the kernel on which you are working. And, furthermore, you need them available on your host system.

Kernel source code is available on your host system a couple of different ways. If you are working in the kernel all the time, you probably would want to set up your own local Git repository of the kernel tree. If you just need to make some patches to the kernel, you can access temporary kernel source files that were extracted and used during a build. We will just talk about working with the temporary source code. For more information on how to get kernel source code onto your host system, see the "Yocto Project Kernel" bulleted item earlier in the manual.

What happens during the build? When you build the kernel on your development system, all files needed for the build are taken from the source repositories pointed to by the SRC_URI variable and gathered in a temporary work area where they are subsequently used to create the unique kernel. Thus, in a sense, the process constructs a local source tree specific to your kernel to generate the new kernel image - a source generator if you will.

The following figure shows the temporary file structure created on your host system when the build occurs. This Build Directory contains all the source files used during the build.

Again, for additional information on the Yocto Project kernel's architecture and its branching strategy, see the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual. You can also reference the "Patching the Kernel" section for a detailed example that modifies the kernel.

4.1.2.2. Kernel Modification Workflow

This illustration and the following list summarizes the kernel modification general workflow.

  1. Set up your host development system to support development using the Yocto Project: See "The Linux Distribution" and "The Build Host Packages" sections both in the Yocto Project Quick Start for requirements.

  2. Establish a local copy of project files on your system: Having the Source Directory on your system gives you access to the build process and tools you need. For information on how to get these files, see the bulleted item "Yocto Project Release" earlier in this manual.

  3. Establish the temporary kernel source files: Temporary kernel source files are kept in the Build Directory created by the OpenEmbedded build system when you run BitBake. If you have never built the kernel in which you are interested, you need to run an initial build to establish local kernel source files.

    If you are building an image for the first time, you need to get the build environment ready by sourcing an environment setup script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres). You also need to be sure two key configuration files (local.conf and bblayers.conf) are configured appropriately.

    The entire process for building an image is overviewed in the "Building Images" section of the Yocto Project Quick Start. You might want to reference this information. You can find more information on BitBake in the BitBake User Manual.

    The build process supports several types of images to satisfy different needs. See the "Images" chapter in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for information on supported images.

  4. Make changes to the kernel source code if applicable: Modifying the kernel does not always mean directly changing source files. However, if you have to do this, you make the changes to the files in the Build Directory.

  5. Make kernel configuration changes if applicable: If your situation calls for changing the kernel's configuration, you can use menuconfig, which allows you to interactively develop and test the configuration changes you are making to the kernel. Saving changes you make with menuconfig updates the kernel's .config file.

    Warning

    Try to resist the temptation to directly edit an existing .config file, which is found in the Build Directory at tmp/sysroots/machine-name/kernel. Doing so, can produce unexpected results when the OpenEmbedded build system regenerates the configuration file.

    Once you are satisfied with the configuration changes made using menuconfig and you have saved them, you can directly compare the resulting .config file against an existing original and gather those changes into a configuration fragment file to be referenced from within the kernel's .bbappend file.

    Additionally, if you are working in a BSP layer and need to modify the BSP's kernel's configuration, you can use the yocto-kernel script as well as menuconfig. The yocto-kernel script lets you interactively set up kernel configurations.

  6. Rebuild the kernel image with your changes: Rebuilding the kernel image applies your changes.

4.2. Application Development Workflow Using an SDK

Standard and extensible Software Development Kits (SDK) make it easy to develop applications inside or outside of the Yocto Project development environment. Tools exist to help the application developer during any phase of development. For information on how to install and use an SDK, see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

4.3. Modifying Source Code

A common development workflow consists of modifying project source files that are external to the Yocto Project and then integrating that project's build output into an image built using the OpenEmbedded build system. Given this scenario, development engineers typically want to stick to their familiar project development tools and methods, which allows them to just focus on the project.

Several workflows exist that allow you to develop, build, and test code that is going to be integrated into an image built using the OpenEmbedded build system. This section describes two:

  • devtool: A set of tools to aid in working on the source code built by the OpenEmbedded build system. Section "Using devtool in Your Workflow" describes this workflow. If you want more information that showcases the workflow, click here for a presentation by Trevor Woerner that, while somewhat dated, provides detailed background information and a complete working tutorial.

  • Quilt: A powerful tool that allows you to capture source code changes without having a clean source tree. While Quilt is not the preferred workflow of the two, this section includes it for users that are committed to using the tool. See the "Using Quilt in Your Workflow" section for more information.

4.3.1. Using devtool in Your Workflow

As mentioned earlier, devtool helps you easily develop projects whose build output must be part of an image built using the OpenEmbedded build system.

Three entry points exist that allow you to develop using devtool:

  • devtool add

  • devtool modify

  • devtool upgrade

The remainder of this section presents these workflows. See the "devtool Quick Reference" in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for a devtool quick reference.

4.3.1.1. Use devtool add to Add an Application

The devtool add command generates a new recipe based on existing source code. This command takes advantage of the workspace layer that many devtool commands use. The command is flexible enough to allow you to extract source code into both the workspace or a separate local Git repository and to use existing code that does not need to be extracted.

Depending on your particular scenario, the arguments and options you use with devtool add form different combinations. The following diagram shows common development flows you would use with the devtool add command:

  1. Generating the New Recipe: The top part of the flow shows three scenarios by which you could use devtool add to generate a recipe based on existing source code.

    In a shared development environment, it is typical where other developers are responsible for various areas of source code. As a developer, you are probably interested in using that source code as part of your development using the Yocto Project. All you need is access to the code, a recipe, and a controlled area in which to do your work.

    Within the diagram, three possible scenarios feed into the devtool add workflow:

    • Left: The left scenario represents a common situation where the source code does not exist locally and needs to be extracted. In this situation, you just let it get extracted to the default workspace - you do not want it in some specific location outside of the workspace. Thus, everything you need will be located in the workspace:

           $ devtool add recipe fetchuri
                                      

      With this command, devtool creates a recipe and an append file in the workspace as well as extracts the upstream source files into a local Git repository also within the sources folder.

    • Middle: The middle scenario also represents a situation where the source code does not exist locally. In this case, the code is again upstream and needs to be extracted to some local area - this time outside of the default workspace. If required, devtool always creates a Git repository locally during the extraction. Furthermore, the first positional argument srctree in this case identifies where the devtool add command will locate the extracted code outside of the workspace:

           $ devtool add recipe srctree fetchuri
                                      

      In summary, the source code is pulled from fetchuri and extracted into the location defined by srctree as a local Git repository.

      Within workspace, devtool creates both the recipe and an append file for the recipe.

    • Right: The right scenario represents a situation where the source tree (srctree) has been previously prepared outside of the devtool workspace.

      The following command names the recipe and identifies where the existing source tree is located:

           $ devtool add recipe srctree
                                      

      The command examines the source code and creates a recipe for it placing the recipe into the workspace.

      Because the extracted source code already exists, devtool does not try to relocate it into the workspace - just the new the recipe is placed in the workspace.

      Aside from a recipe folder, the command also creates an append folder and places an initial *.bbappend within.

  2. Edit the Recipe: At this point, you can use devtool edit-recipe to open up the editor as defined by the $EDITOR environment variable and modify the file:

         $ devtool edit-recipe recipe
                            

    From within the editor, you can make modifications to the recipe that take affect when you build it later.

  3. Build the Recipe or Rebuild the Image: At this point in the flow, the next step you take depends on what you are going to do with the new code.

    If you need to take the build output and eventually move it to the target hardware, you would use devtool build:

         $ devtool build recipe
                            

    On the other hand, if you want an image to contain the recipe's packages for immediate deployment onto a device (e.g. for testing purposes), you can use the devtool build-image command:

         $ devtool build-image image
                            

  4. Deploy the Build Output: When you use the devtool build command to build out your recipe, you probably want to see if the resulting build output works as expected on target hardware.

    Note

    This step assumes you have a previously built image that is already either running in QEMU or running on actual hardware. Also, it is assumed that for deployment of the image to the target, SSH is installed in the image and if the image is running on real hardware that you have network access to and from your development machine.

    You can deploy your build output to that target hardware by using the devtool deploy-target command:

         $ devtool deploy-target recipe target
                            

    The target is a live target machine running as an SSH server.

    You can, of course, also deploy the image you build using the devtool build-image command to actual hardware. However, devtool does not provide a specific command that allows you to do this.

  5. Finish Your Work With the Recipe: The devtool finish command creates any patches corresponding to commits in the local Git repository, moves the new recipe to a more permanent layer, and then resets the recipe so that the recipe is built normally rather than from the workspace.

         $ devtool finish recipe layer
                            

    Note

    Any changes you want to turn into patches must be committed to the Git repository in the source tree.

    As mentioned, the devtool finish command moves the final recipe to its permanent layer.

    As a final process of the devtool finish command, the state of the standard layers and the upstream source is restored so that you can build the recipe from those areas rather than the workspace.

    Note

    You can use the devtool reset command to put things back should you decide you do not want to proceed with your work. If you do use this command, realize that the source tree is preserved.

4.3.1.2. Use devtool modify to Modify the Source of an Existing Component

The devtool modify command prepares the way to work on existing code that already has a recipe in place. The command is flexible enough to allow you to extract code, specify the existing recipe, and keep track of and gather any patch files from other developers that are associated with the code.

Depending on your particular scenario, the arguments and options you use with devtool modify form different combinations. The following diagram shows common development flows you would use with the devtool modify command:

  1. Preparing to Modify the Code: The top part of the flow shows three scenarios by which you could use devtool modify to prepare to work on source files. Each scenario assumes the following:

    • The recipe exists in some layer external to the devtool workspace.

    • The source files exist upstream in an un-extracted state or locally in a previously extracted state.

    The typical situation is where another developer has created some layer for use with the Yocto Project and their recipe already resides in that layer. Furthermore, their source code is readily available either upstream or locally.

    • Left: The left scenario represents a common situation where the source code does not exist locally and needs to be extracted. In this situation, the source is extracted into the default workspace location. The recipe, in this scenario, is in its own layer outside the workspace (i.e. meta-layername).

      The following command identifies the recipe and by default extracts the source files:

           $ devtool modify recipe
                                      

      Once devtoollocates the recipe, it uses the SRC_URI variable to locate the source code and any local patch files from other developers are located.

      Note

      You cannot provide an URL for srctree when using the devtool modify command.

      With this scenario, however, since no srctree argument exists, the devtool modify command by default extracts the source files to a Git structure. Furthermore, the location for the extracted source is the default area within the workspace. The result is that the command sets up both the source code and an append file within the workspace with the recipe remaining in its original location.

    • Middle: The middle scenario represents a situation where the source code also does not exist locally. In this case, the code is again upstream and needs to be extracted to some local area as a Git repository. The recipe, in this scenario, is again in its own layer outside the workspace.

      The following command tells devtool what recipe with which to work and, in this case, identifies a local area for the extracted source files that is outside of the default workspace:

           $ devtool modify recipe srctree
                                      

      As with all extractions, the command uses the recipe's SRC_URI to locate the source files. Once the files are located, the command by default extracts them. Providing the srctree argument instructs devtool where place the extracted source.

      Within workspace, devtool creates an append file for the recipe. The recipe remains in its original location but the source files are extracted to the location you provided with srctree.

    • Right: The right scenario represents a situation where the source tree (srctree) exists as a previously extracted Git structure outside of the devtool workspace. In this example, the recipe also exists elsewhere in its own layer.

      The following command tells devtool the recipe with which to work, uses the "-n" option to indicate source does not need to be extracted, and uses srctree to point to the previously extracted source files:

           $ devtool modify -n recipe srctree
                                      

      Once the command finishes, it creates only an append file for the recipe in the workspace. The recipe and the source code remain in their original locations.

  2. Edit the Source: Once you have used the devtool modify command, you are free to make changes to the source files. You can use any editor you like to make and save your source code modifications.

  3. Build the Recipe: Once you have updated the source files, you can build the recipe.

  4. Deploy the Build Output: When you use the devtool build command to build out your recipe, you probably want to see if the resulting build output works as expected on target hardware.

    Note

    This step assumes you have a previously built image that is already either running in QEMU or running on actual hardware. Also, it is assumed that for deployment of the image to the target, SSH is installed in the image and if the image is running on real hardware that you have network access to and from your development machine.

    You can deploy your build output to that target hardware by using the devtool deploy-target command:

         $ devtool deploy-target recipe target
                            

    The target is a live target machine running as an SSH server.

    You can, of course, also deploy the image you build using the devtool build-image command to actual hardware. However, devtool does not provide a specific command that allows you to do this.

  5. Finish Your Work With the Recipe: The devtool finish command creates any patches corresponding to commits in the local Git repository, updates the recipe to point to them (or creates a .bbappend file to do so, depending on the specified destination layer), and then resets the recipe so that the recipe is built normally rather than from the workspace.

         $ devtool finish recipe layer
                            

    Note

    Any changes you want to turn into patches must be committed to the Git repository in the source tree.

    Because there is no need to move the recipe, devtool finish either updates the original recipe in the original layer or the command creates a .bbappend in a different layer as provided by layer.

    As a final process of the devtool finish command, the state of the standard layers and the upstream source is restored so that you can build the recipe from those areas rather than the workspace.

    Note

    You can use the devtool reset command to put things back should you decide you do not want to proceed with your work. If you do use this command, realize that the source tree is preserved.

4.3.1.3. Use devtool upgrade to Create a Version of the Recipe that Supports a Newer Version of the Software

The devtool upgrade command updates an existing recipe so that you can build it for an updated set of source files. The command is flexible enough to allow you to specify source code revision and versioning schemes, extract code into or out of the devtool workspace, and work with any source file forms that the fetchers support.

Depending on your particular scenario, the arguments and options you use with devtool upgrade form different combinations. The following diagram shows a common development flow you would use with the devtool modify command:

  1. Initiate the Upgrade: The top part of the flow shows a typical scenario by which you could use devtool upgrade. The following conditions exist:

    • The recipe exists in some layer external to the devtool workspace.

    • The source files for the new release exist adjacent to the same location pointed to by SRC_URI in the recipe (e.g. a tarball with the new version number in the name, or as a different revision in the upstream Git repository).

    A common situation is where third-party software has undergone a revision so that it has been upgraded. The recipe you have access to is likely in your own layer. Thus, you need to upgrade the recipe to use the newer version of the software:

         $ devtool upgrade -V version recipe
                            

    By default, the devtool upgrade command extracts source code into the sources directory in the workspace. If you want the code extracted to any other location, you need to provide the srctree positional argument with the command as follows:

         $ devtool upgrade -V version recipe srctree
                            

    Also, in this example, the "-V" option is used to specify the new version. If the source files pointed to by the SRC_URI statement in the recipe are in a Git repository, you must provide the "-S" option and specify a revision for the software.

    Once devtool locates the recipe, it uses the SRC_URI variable to locate the source code and any local patch files from other developers are located. The result is that the command sets up the source code, the new version of the recipe, and an append file all within the workspace.

  2. Resolve any Conflicts created by the Upgrade: At this point, there could be some conflicts due to the software being upgraded to a new version. This would occur if your recipe specifies some patch files in SRC_URI that conflict with changes made in the new version of the software. If this is the case, you need to resolve the conflicts by editing the source and following the normal git rebase conflict resolution process.

    Before moving onto the next step, be sure to resolve any such conflicts created through use of a newer or different version of the software.

  3. Build the Recipe: Once you have your recipe in order, you can build it. You can either use devtool build or bitbake. Either method produces build output that is stored in TMPDIR.

  4. Deploy the Build Output: When you use the devtool build command or bitbake to build out your recipe, you probably want to see if the resulting build output works as expected on target hardware.

    Note

    This step assumes you have a previously built image that is already either running in QEMU or running on actual hardware. Also, it is assumed that for deployment of the image to the target, SSH is installed in the image and if the image is running on real hardware that you have network access to and from your development machine.

    You can deploy your build output to that target hardware by using the devtool deploy-target command:

         $ devtool deploy-target recipe target
                            

    The target is a live target machine running as an SSH server.

    You can, of course, also deploy the image you build using the devtool build-image command to actual hardware. However, devtool does not provide a specific command that allows you to do this.

  5. Finish Your Work With the Recipe: The devtool finish command creates any patches corresponding to commits in the local Git repository, moves the new recipe to a more permanent layer, and then resets the recipe so that the recipe is built normally rather than from the workspace. If you specify a destination layer that is the same as the original source, then the old version of the recipe and associated files will be removed prior to adding the new version.

         $ devtool finish recipe layer
                            

    Note

    Any changes you want to turn into patches must be committed to the Git repository in the source tree.

    As a final process of the devtool finish command, the state of the standard layers and the upstream source is restored so that you can build the recipe from those areas rather than the workspace.

    Note

    You can use the devtool reset command to put things back should you decide you do not want to proceed with your work. If you do use this command, realize that the source tree is preserved.

4.3.2. Using Quilt in Your Workflow

Quilt is a powerful tool that allows you to capture source code changes without having a clean source tree. This section outlines the typical workflow you can use to modify source code, test changes, and then preserve the changes in the form of a patch all using Quilt.

Tip

With regard to preserving changes to source files if you clean a recipe or have rm_work enabled, the workflow described in the "Using devtool in Your Workflow" section is a safer development flow than than the flow that uses Quilt.

Follow these general steps:

  1. Find the Source Code: Temporary source code used by the OpenEmbedded build system is kept in the Build Directory. See the "Finding Temporary Source Code" section to learn how to locate the directory that has the temporary source code for a particular package.

  2. Change Your Working Directory: You need to be in the directory that has the temporary source code. That directory is defined by the S variable.

  3. Create a New Patch: Before modifying source code, you need to create a new patch. To create a new patch file, use quilt new as below:

         $ quilt new my_changes.patch
                        
  4. Notify Quilt and Add Files: After creating the patch, you need to notify Quilt about the files you plan to edit. You notify Quilt by adding the files to the patch you just created:

         $ quilt add file1.c file2.c file3.c
                        

  5. Edit the Files: Make your changes in the source code to the files you added to the patch.

  6. Test Your Changes: Once you have modified the source code, the easiest way to your changes is by calling the do_compile task as shown in the following example:

         $ bitbake -c compile -f package
                        

    The -f or --force option forces the specified task to execute. If you find problems with your code, you can just keep editing and re-testing iteratively until things work as expected.

    Note

    All the modifications you make to the temporary source code disappear once you run the do_clean or do_cleanall tasks using BitBake (i.e. bitbake -c clean package and bitbake -c cleanall package). Modifications will also disappear if you use the rm_work feature as described in the "Building Images" section of the Yocto Project Quick Start.
  7. Generate the Patch: Once your changes work as expected, you need to use Quilt to generate the final patch that contains all your modifications.

         $ quilt refresh
                        

    At this point, the my_changes.patch file has all your edits made to the file1.c, file2.c, and file3.c files.

    You can find the resulting patch file in the patches/ subdirectory of the source (S) directory.

  8. Copy the Patch File: For simplicity, copy the patch file into a directory named files, which you can create in the same directory that holds the recipe (.bb) file or the append (.bbappend) file. Placing the patch here guarantees that the OpenEmbedded build system will find the patch. Next, add the patch into the SRC_URI of the recipe. Here is an example:

         SRC_URI += "file://my_changes.patch"
                        

4.3.3. Finding Temporary Source Code

You might find it helpful during development to modify the temporary source code used by recipes to build packages. For example, suppose you are developing a patch and you need to experiment a bit to figure out your solution. After you have initially built the package, you can iteratively tweak the source code, which is located in the Build Directory, and then you can force a re-compile and quickly test your altered code. Once you settle on a solution, you can then preserve your changes in the form of patches. If you are using Quilt for development, see the "Using Quilt in Your Workflow" section for more information.

During a build, the unpacked temporary source code used by recipes to build packages is available in the Build Directory as defined by the S variable. Below is the default value for the S variable as defined in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf configuration file in the Source Directory:

     S = "${WORKDIR}/${BP}"
            

You should be aware that many recipes override the S variable. For example, recipes that fetch their source from Git usually set S to ${WORKDIR}/git.

Note

The BP represents the base recipe name, which consists of the name and version:
     BP = "${BPN}-${PV}"
                

The path to the work directory for the recipe (WORKDIR) is defined as follows:

     ${TMPDIR}/work/${MULTIMACH_TARGET_SYS}/${PN}/${EXTENDPE}${PV}-${PR}
            

The actual directory depends on several things:

  • TMPDIR: The top-level build output directory
  • MULTIMACH_TARGET_SYS: The target system identifier
  • PN: The recipe name
  • EXTENDPE: The epoch - (if PE is not specified, which is usually the case for most recipes, then EXTENDPE is blank)
  • PV: The recipe version
  • PR: The recipe revision

As an example, assume a Source Directory top-level folder named poky, a default Build Directory at poky/build, and a qemux86-poky-linux machine target system. Furthermore, suppose your recipe is named foo_1.3.0.bb. In this case, the work directory the build system uses to build the package would be as follows:

     poky/build/tmp/work/qemux86-poky-linux/foo/1.3.0-r0
            

Now that you know where to locate the directory that has the temporary source code, you can use a Quilt as described in section "Using Quilt in Your Workflow" to make your edits, test the changes, and preserve the changes in the form of patches.

4.4. Image Development Using Toaster

Toaster is a web interface to the Yocto Project's OpenEmbedded build system. You can initiate builds using Toaster as well as examine the results and statistics of builds. See the Toaster User Manual for information on how to set up and use Toaster to build images.

4.5. Using a Development Shell

When debugging certain commands or even when just editing packages, devshell can be a useful tool. When you invoke devshell, all tasks up to and including do_patch are run for the specified target. Then, a new terminal is opened and you are placed in ${S}, the source directory. In the new terminal, all the OpenEmbedded build-related environment variables are still defined so you can use commands such as configure and make. The commands execute just as if the OpenEmbedded build system were executing them. Consequently, working this way can be helpful when debugging a build or preparing software to be used with the OpenEmbedded build system.

Following is an example that uses devshell on a target named matchbox-desktop:

     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop -c devshell
        

This command spawns a terminal with a shell prompt within the OpenEmbedded build environment. The OE_TERMINAL variable controls what type of shell is opened.

For spawned terminals, the following occurs:

  • The PATH variable includes the cross-toolchain.

  • The pkgconfig variables find the correct .pc files.

  • The configure command finds the Yocto Project site files as well as any other necessary files.

Within this environment, you can run configure or compile commands as if they were being run by the OpenEmbedded build system itself. As noted earlier, the working directory also automatically changes to the Source Directory (S).

To manually run a specific task using devshell, run the corresponding run.* script in the ${WORKDIR}/temp directory (e.g., run.do_configure.pid). If a task's script does not exist, which would be the case if the task was skipped by way of the sstate cache, you can create the task by first running it outside of the devshell:

     $ bitbake -c task
        

Notes

  • Execution of a task's run.* script and BitBake's execution of a task are identical. In other words, running the script re-runs the task just as it would be run using the bitbake -c command.

  • Any run.* file that does not have a .pid extension is a symbolic link (symlink) to the most recent version of that file.

Remember, that the devshell is a mechanism that allows you to get into the BitBake task execution environment. And as such, all commands must be called just as BitBake would call them. That means you need to provide the appropriate options for cross-compilation and so forth as applicable.

When you are finished using devshell, exit the shell or close the terminal window.

Notes

  • It is worth remembering that when using devshell you need to use the full compiler name such as arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-gcc instead of just using gcc. The same applies to other applications such as binutils, libtool and so forth. BitBake sets up environment variables such as CC to assist applications, such as make to find the correct tools.

  • It is also worth noting that devshell still works over X11 forwarding and similar situations.

4.6. Using a Development Python Shell

Similar to working within a development shell as described in the previous section, you can also spawn and work within an interactive Python development shell. When debugging certain commands or even when just editing packages, devpyshell can be a useful tool. When you invoke devpyshell, all tasks up to and including do_patch are run for the specified target. Then a new terminal is opened. Additionally, key Python objects and code are available in the same way they are to BitBake tasks, in particular, the data store 'd'. So, commands such as the following are useful when exploring the data store and running functions:

     pydevshell> d.getVar("STAGING_DIR", True)
     '/media/build1/poky/build/tmp/sysroots'
     pydevshell> d.getVar("STAGING_DIR", False)
     '${TMPDIR}/sysroots'
     pydevshell> d.setVar("FOO", "bar")
     pydevshell> d.getVar("FOO", True)
     'bar'
     pydevshell> d.delVar("FOO")
     pydevshell> d.getVar("FOO", True)
     pydevshell> bb.build.exec_func("do_unpack", d)
     pydevshell>
        

The commands execute just as if the OpenEmbedded build system were executing them. Consequently, working this way can be helpful when debugging a build or preparing software to be used with the OpenEmbedded build system.

Following is an example that uses devpyshell on a target named matchbox-desktop:

     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop -c devpyshell
        

This command spawns a terminal and places you in an interactive Python interpreter within the OpenEmbedded build environment. The OE_TERMINAL variable controls what type of shell is opened.

When you are finished using devpyshell, you can exit the shell either by using Ctrl+d or closing the terminal window.

Chapter 5. Common Tasks

5.1. Understanding and Creating Layers
5.1.1. Layers
5.1.2. Creating Your Own Layer
5.1.3. Best Practices to Follow When Creating Layers
5.1.4. Making Sure Your Layer is Compatible With Yocto Project
5.1.5. Enabling Your Layer
5.1.6. Using .bbappend Files in Your Layer
5.1.7. Prioritizing Your Layer
5.1.8. Managing Layers
5.1.9. Creating a General Layer Using the yocto-layer Script
5.2. Customizing Images
5.2.1. Customizing Images Using local.conf
5.2.2. Customizing Images Using Custom IMAGE_FEATURES and EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES
5.2.3. Customizing Images Using Custom .bb Files
5.2.4. Customizing Images Using Custom Package Groups
5.2.5. Customizing an Image Hostname
5.3. Writing a New Recipe
5.3.1. Overview
5.3.2. Locate or Automatically Create a Base Recipe
5.3.3. Storing and Naming the Recipe
5.3.4. Understanding Recipe Syntax
5.3.5. Running a Build on the Recipe
5.3.6. Fetching Code
5.3.7. Unpacking Code
5.3.8. Patching Code
5.3.9. Licensing
5.3.10. Dependencies
5.3.11. Configuring the Recipe
5.3.12. Using Headers to Interface with Devices
5.3.13. Compilation
5.3.14. Installing
5.3.15. Enabling System Services
5.3.16. Packaging
5.3.17. Sharing Files Between Recipes
5.3.18. Properly Versioning Pre-Release Recipes
5.3.19. Post-Installation Scripts
5.3.20. Testing
5.3.21. Examples
5.3.22. Following Recipe Style Guidelines
5.4. Adding a New Machine
5.4.1. Adding the Machine Configuration File
5.4.2. Adding a Kernel for the Machine
5.4.3. Adding a Formfactor Configuration File
5.5. Building Targets with Multiple Configurations
5.6. Working With Libraries
5.6.1. Including Static Library Files
5.6.2. Combining Multiple Versions of Library Files into One Image
5.6.3. Installing Multiple Versions of the Same Library
5.7. Enabling GObject Introspection Support
5.7.1. Enabling the Generation of Introspection Data
5.7.2. Disabling the Generation of Introspection Data
5.7.3. Testing that Introspection Works in an Image
5.7.4. Known Issues
5.8. Optionally Using an External Toolchain
5.9. Creating Partitioned Images
5.9.1. Creating Partitioned Images
5.9.2. Using OpenEmbedded Image Creator Wic to Generate Partitioned Images
5.10. Building an Initial RAM Filesystem (initramfs) Image
5.11. Configuring the Kernel
5.11.1. Using  menuconfig
5.11.2. Creating a  defconfig File
5.11.3. Creating Configuration Fragments
5.11.4. Fine-Tuning the Kernel Configuration File
5.11.5. Determining Hardware and Non-Hardware Features for the Kernel Configuration Audit Phase
5.12. Patching the Kernel
5.12.1. Create a Layer for your Changes
5.12.2. Finding the Kernel Source Code
5.12.3. Creating the Patch
5.12.4. Set Up Your Layer for the Build
5.12.5. Set Up for the Build
5.12.6. Build the Modified QEMU Kernel Image
5.12.7. Boot the Image and Verify Your Changes
5.13. Making Images More Secure
5.13.1. General Considerations
5.13.2. Security Flags
5.13.3. Considerations Specific to the OpenEmbedded Build System
5.13.4. Tools for Hardening Your Image
5.14. Creating Your Own Distribution
5.15. Creating a Custom Template Configuration Directory
5.16. Building a Tiny System
5.16.1. Overview
5.16.2. Goals and Guiding Principles
5.16.3. Understand What Contributes to Your Image Size
5.16.4. Trim the Root Filesystem
5.16.5. Trim the Kernel
5.16.6. Remove Package Management Requirements
5.16.7. Look for Other Ways to Minimize Size
5.16.8. Iterate on the Process
5.17. Building Images for More than One Machine
5.18. Working with Packages
5.18.1. Excluding Packages from an Image
5.18.2. Incrementing a Package Version
5.18.3. Handling Optional Module Packaging
5.18.4. Using Runtime Package Management
5.18.5. Generating and Using Signed Packages
5.18.6. Testing Packages With ptest
5.19. Working with Source Files
5.19.1. Setting up Effective Mirrors
5.19.2. Getting Source Files and Suppressing the Build
5.20. Building Software from an External Source
5.21. Selecting an Initialization Manager
5.21.1. Using systemd Exclusively
5.21.2. Using systemd for the Main Image and Using SysVinit for the Rescue Image
5.22. Selecting a Device Manager
5.22.1. Using Persistent and Pre-Populated/dev
5.22.2. Using devtmpfs and a Device Manager
5.23. Using an External SCM
5.24. Creating a Read-Only Root Filesystem
5.24.1. Creating the Root Filesystem
5.24.2. Post-Installation Scripts
5.24.3. Areas With Write Access
5.25. Performing Automated Runtime Testing
5.25.1. Enabling Tests
5.25.2. Running Tests
5.25.3. Exporting Tests
5.25.4. Writing New Tests
5.25.5. Installing Packages in the DUT Without the Package Manager
5.26. Debugging With the GNU Project Debugger (GDB) Remotely
5.27. Debugging with the GNU Project Debugger (GDB) on the Target
5.28. Debugging Parallel Make Races
5.28.1. The Failure
5.28.2. Reproducing the Error
5.28.3. Creating a Patch for the Fix
5.28.4. Testing the Build
5.29. Maintaining Open Source License Compliance During Your Product's Lifecycle
5.29.1. Providing the Source Code
5.29.2. Providing License Text
5.29.3. Providing Compilation Scripts and Source Code Modifications
5.30. Using the Error Reporting Tool
5.30.1. Enabling and Using the Tool
5.30.2. Disabling the Tool
5.30.3. Setting Up Your Own Error Reporting Server

This chapter describes fundamental procedures such as creating layers, adding new software packages, extending or customizing images, porting work to new hardware (adding a new machine), and so forth. You will find that the procedures documented here occur often in the development cycle using the Yocto Project.

5.1. Understanding and Creating Layers

The OpenEmbedded build system supports organizing Metadata into multiple layers. Layers allow you to isolate different types of customizations from each other. You might find it tempting to keep everything in one layer when working on a single project. However, the more modular your Metadata, the easier it is to cope with future changes.

To illustrate how layers are used to keep things modular, consider machine customizations. These types of customizations typically reside in a special layer, rather than a general layer, called a Board Support Package (BSP) Layer. Furthermore, the machine customizations should be isolated from recipes and Metadata that support a new GUI environment, for example. This situation gives you a couple of layers: one for the machine configurations, and one for the GUI environment. It is important to understand, however, that the BSP layer can still make machine-specific additions to recipes within the GUI environment layer without polluting the GUI layer itself with those machine-specific changes. You can accomplish this through a recipe that is a BitBake append (.bbappend) file, which is described later in this section.

Note

For general information on BSP layer structure, see the Board Support Packages (BSP) - Developer's Guide.

5.1.1. Layers

The Source Directory contains both general layers and BSP layers right out of the box. You can easily identify layers that ship with a Yocto Project release in the Source Directory by their folder names. Folders that represent layers typically have names that begin with the string meta-.

Note

It is not a requirement that a layer name begin with the prefix meta-, but it is a commonly accepted standard in the Yocto Project community.

For example, when you set up the Source Directory structure, you will see several layers: meta, meta-skeleton, meta-selftest, meta-poky, and meta-yocto-bsp. Each of these folders represents a distinct layer.

As another example, if you set up a local copy of the meta-intel Git repository and then explore the folder of that general layer, you will discover many Intel-specific BSP layers inside. For more information on BSP layers, see the "BSP Layers" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide.

5.1.2. Creating Your Own Layer

It is very easy to create your own layers to use with the OpenEmbedded build system. The Yocto Project ships with scripts that speed up creating general layers and BSP layers. This section describes the steps you perform by hand to create a layer so that you can better understand them. For information about the layer-creation scripts, see the "Creating a New BSP Layer Using the yocto-bsp Script" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide and the "Creating a General Layer Using the yocto-layer Script" section further down in this manual.

Follow these general steps to create your layer without the aid of a script:

  1. Check Existing Layers: Before creating a new layer, you should be sure someone has not already created a layer containing the Metadata you need. You can see the OpenEmbedded Metadata Index for a list of layers from the OpenEmbedded community that can be used in the Yocto Project.

  2. Create a Directory: Create the directory for your layer. While not strictly required, prepend the name of the folder with the string meta-. For example:

         meta-mylayer
         meta-GUI_xyz
         meta-mymachine
                            

  3. Create a Layer Configuration File: Inside your new layer folder, you need to create a conf/layer.conf file. It is easiest to take an existing layer configuration file and copy that to your layer's conf directory and then modify the file as needed.

    The meta-yocto-bsp/conf/layer.conf file demonstrates the required syntax:

         # We have a conf and classes directory, add to BBPATH
         BBPATH .= ":${LAYERDIR}"
    
         # We have recipes-* directories, add to BBFILES
         BBFILES += "${LAYERDIR}/recipes-*/*/*.bb \
                     ${LAYERDIR}/recipes-*/*/*.bbappend"
    
         BBFILE_COLLECTIONS += "yoctobsp"
         BBFILE_PATTERN_yoctobsp = "^${LAYERDIR}/"
         BBFILE_PRIORITY_yoctobsp = "5"
         LAYERVERSION_yoctobsp = "3"
                            

    Here is an explanation of the example:

    • The configuration and classes directory is appended to BBPATH.

      Note

      All non-distro layers, which include all BSP layers, are expected to append the layer directory to the BBPATH. On the other hand, distro layers, such as meta-poky, can choose to enforce their own precedence over BBPATH. For an example of that syntax, see the layer.conf file for the meta-poky layer.
    • The recipes for the layers are appended to BBFILES.

    • The BBFILE_COLLECTIONS variable is then appended with the layer name.

    • The BBFILE_PATTERN variable is set to a regular expression and is used to match files from BBFILES into a particular layer. In this case, LAYERDIR is used to make BBFILE_PATTERN match within the layer's path.

    • The BBFILE_PRIORITY variable then assigns a priority to the layer. Applying priorities is useful in situations where the same recipe might appear in multiple layers and allows you to choose the layer that takes precedence.

    • The LAYERVERSION variable optionally specifies the version of a layer as a single number.

    Note the use of the LAYERDIR variable, which expands to the directory of the current layer.

    Through the use of the BBPATH variable, BitBake locates class files (.bbclass), configuration files, and files that are included with include and require statements. For these cases, BitBake uses the first file that matches the name found in BBPATH. This is similar to the way the PATH variable is used for binaries. It is recommended, therefore, that you use unique class and configuration filenames in your custom layer.

  4. Add Content: Depending on the type of layer, add the content. If the layer adds support for a machine, add the machine configuration in a conf/machine/ file within the layer. If the layer adds distro policy, add the distro configuration in a conf/distro/ file within the layer. If the layer introduces new recipes, put the recipes you need in recipes-* subdirectories within the layer.

    Note

    In order to be compliant with the Yocto Project, a layer must contain a README file.

  5. Optionally Test for Compatibility: If you want permission to use the Yocto Project Compatibility logo with your layer or application that uses your layer, perform the steps to apply for compatibility. See the "Making Sure Your Layer is Compatible With Yocto Project" section for more information.

5.1.3. Best Practices to Follow When Creating Layers

To create layers that are easier to maintain and that will not impact builds for other machines, you should consider the information in the following sections.

5.1.3.1. Avoid "Overlaying" Entire Recipes

Avoid "overlaying" entire recipes from other layers in your configuration. In other words, do not copy an entire recipe into your layer and then modify it. Rather, use an append file (.bbappend) to override only those parts of the original recipe you need to modify.

5.1.3.2. Avoid Duplicating Include Files

Avoid duplicating include files. Use append files (.bbappend) for each recipe that uses an include file. Or, if you are introducing a new recipe that requires the included file, use the path relative to the original layer directory to refer to the file. For example, use require recipes-core/package/file.inc instead of require file.inc. If you're finding you have to overlay the include file, it could indicate a deficiency in the include file in the layer to which it originally belongs. If this is the case, you should try to address that deficiency instead of overlaying the include file. For example, you could address this by getting the maintainer of the include file to add a variable or variables to make it easy to override the parts needing to be overridden.

5.1.3.3. Structure Your Layers

Proper use of overrides within append files and placement of machine-specific files within your layer can ensure that a build is not using the wrong Metadata and negatively impacting a build for a different machine. Following are some examples:

  • Modifying Variables to Support a Different Machine: Suppose you have a layer named meta-one that adds support for building machine "one". To do so, you use an append file named base-files.bbappend and create a dependency on "foo" by altering the DEPENDS variable:

         DEPENDS = "foo"
                                

    The dependency is created during any build that includes the layer meta-one. However, you might not want this dependency for all machines. For example, suppose you are building for machine "two" but your bblayers.conf file has the meta-one layer included. During the build, the base-files for machine "two" will also have the dependency on foo.

    To make sure your changes apply only when building machine "one", use a machine override with the DEPENDS statement:

         DEPENDS_one = "foo"
                                

    You should follow the same strategy when using _append and _prepend operations:

         DEPENDS_append_one = " foo"
         DEPENDS_prepend_one = "foo "
                                

    As an actual example, here's a line from the recipe for gnutls, which adds dependencies on "argp-standalone" when building with the musl C library:

         DEPENDS_append_libc-musl = " argp-standalone"
                                

    Note

    Avoiding "+=" and "=+" and using machine-specific _append and _prepend operations is recommended as well.
  • Place Machine-Specific Files in Machine-Specific Locations: When you have a base recipe, such as base-files.bb, that contains a SRC_URI statement to a file, you can use an append file to cause the build to use your own version of the file. For example, an append file in your layer at meta-one/recipes-core/base-files/base-files.bbappend could extend FILESPATH using FILESEXTRAPATHS as follows:

         FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/${BPN}:"
                                

    The build for machine "one" will pick up your machine-specific file as long as you have the file in meta-one/recipes-core/base-files/base-files/. However, if you are building for a different machine and the bblayers.conf file includes the meta-one layer and the location of your machine-specific file is the first location where that file is found according to FILESPATH, builds for all machines will also use that machine-specific file.

    You can make sure that a machine-specific file is used for a particular machine by putting the file in a subdirectory specific to the machine. For example, rather than placing the file in meta-one/recipes-core/base-files/base-files/ as shown above, put it in meta-one/recipes-core/base-files/base-files/one/. Not only does this make sure the file is used only when building for machine "one", but the build process locates the file more quickly.

    In summary, you need to place all files referenced from SRC_URI in a machine-specific subdirectory within the layer in order to restrict those files to machine-specific builds.

5.1.3.4. Other Recommendations

We also recommend the following:

  • If you want permission to use the Yocto Project Compatibility logo with your layer or application that uses your layer, perform the steps to apply for compatibility. See the "Making Sure Your Layer is Compatible With Yocto Project" section for more information.

  • Store custom layers in a Git repository that uses the meta-layer_name format.

  • Clone the repository alongside other meta directories in the Source Directory.

Following these recommendations keeps your Source Directory and its configuration entirely inside the Yocto Project's core base.

5.1.4. Making Sure Your Layer is Compatible With Yocto Project

When you create a layer used with the Yocto Project, it is advantageous to make sure that the layer interacts well with existing Yocto Project layers (i.e. the layer is compatible with the Yocto Project). Ensuring compatibility makes the layer easy to be consumed by others in the Yocto Project community and allows you permission to use the Yocto Project Compatibility logo.

Version 1.0 of the Yocto Project Compatibility Program has been in existence for a number of releases. This version of the program consists of the layer application process that requests permission to use the Yocto Project Compatibility logo for your layer and application. You can find version 1.0 of the form at https://www.yoctoproject.org/webform/yocto-project-compatible-registration. To be granted permission to use the logo, you need to be able to answer "Yes" to the questions or have an acceptable explanation for any questions answered "No".

A second version (2.0) of the Yocto Project Compatibility Program is currently under development. Included as part of version 2.0 (and currently available) is the yocto-compat-layer.py script. When run against a layer, this script tests the layer against tighter constraints based on experiences of how layers have worked in the real world and where pitfalls have been found.

Part of the 2.0 version of the program that is not currently available but is in development is an updated compatibility application form. This updated form, among other questions, specifically asks if your layer has passed the test using the yocto-compat-layer.py script.

Tip

Even though the updated application form is currently unavailable for version 2.0 of the Yocto Project Compatibility Program, the yocto-compat-layer.py script is available in OE-Core. You can use the script to assess the status of your layers in advance of the 2.0 release of the program.

The remainder of this section presents information on the version 1.0 registration form and on the yocto-compat-layer.py script.

5.1.4.1. Yocto Project Compatibility Program Application

Use the 1.0 version of the form to apply for your layer's compatibility approval. Upon successful application, you can use the Yocto Project Compatibility logo with your layer and the application that uses your layer.

To access the form, use this link: https://www.yoctoproject.org/webform/yocto-project-compatible-registration. Follow the instructions on the form to complete your application.

The application consists of the following sections:

  • Contact Information: Provide your contact information as the fields require. Along with your information, provide the released versions of the Yocto Project for which your layer is compatible.

  • Acceptance Criteria: Provide "Yes" or "No" answers for each of the items in the checklist. Space exists at the bottom of the form for any explanations for items for which you answered "No".

  • Recommendations: Provide answers for the questions regarding Linux kernel use and build success.

5.1.4.2. yocto-compat-layer.py Script

The yocto-compat-layer.py script, which is currently available, provides you a way to assess how compatible your layer is with the Yocto Project. You should run this script prior to using the form to apply for compatibility as described in the previous section.

Note

Because the script is part of the 2.0 release of the Yocto Project Compatibility Program, you are not required to successfully run your layer against it in order to be granted compatibility status. However, it is a good idea as it promotes well-behaved layers and gives you an idea of where your layer stands regarding compatibility.

The script divides tests into three areas: COMMON, BSD, and DISTRO. For example, given a distribution layer (DISTRO), the layer must pass both the COMMON and DISTRO related tests. Furthermore, if your layer is a BSP layer, the layer must pass the COMMON and BSP set of tests.

To execute the script, enter the following commands from your build directory:

     $ source oe-init-build-env
     $ yocto-compat-layer.py your_layer_directory
                    

Be sure to provide the actual directory for your layer as part of the command.

Entering the command causes the script to determine the type of layer and then to execute a set of specific tests against the layer. The following list overviews the test:

  • common.test_readme: Tests if a README file exists in the layer and the file is not empty.

  • common.test_parse: Tests to make sure that BitBake can parse the files without error (i.e. bitbake -p).

  • common.test_show_environment: Tests that the global or per-recipe environment is in order without errors (i.e. bitbake -e).

  • common.test_signatures: Tests to be sure that BSP and DISTRO layers do not come with recipes that change signatures.

  • bsp.test_bsp_defines_machines: Tests if a BSP layer has machine configurations.

  • bsp.test_bsp_no_set_machine: Tests to ensure a BSP layer does not set the machine when the layer is added.

  • distro.test_distro_defines_distros: Tests if a DISTRO layer has distro configurations.

  • distro.test_distro_no_set_distro: Tests to ensure a DISTRO layer does not set the distribution when the layer is added.

5.1.5. Enabling Your Layer

Before the OpenEmbedded build system can use your new layer, you need to enable it. To enable your layer, simply add your layer's path to the BBLAYERS variable in your conf/bblayers.conf file, which is found in the Build Directory. The following example shows how to enable a layer named meta-mylayer:

     LCONF_VERSION = "6"

     BBPATH = "${TOPDIR}"
     BBFILES ?= ""

     BBLAYERS ?= " \
       $HOME/poky/meta \
       $HOME/poky/meta-poky \
       $HOME/poky/meta-yocto-bsp \
       $HOME/poky/meta-mylayer \
       "
                

BitBake parses each conf/layer.conf file as specified in the BBLAYERS variable within the conf/bblayers.conf file. During the processing of each conf/layer.conf file, BitBake adds the recipes, classes and configurations contained within the particular layer to the source directory.

5.1.6. Using .bbappend Files in Your Layer

A recipe that appends Metadata to another recipe is called a BitBake append file. A BitBake append file uses the .bbappend file type suffix, while the corresponding recipe to which Metadata is being appended uses the .bb file type suffix.

You can use a .bbappend file in your layer to make additions or changes to the content of another layer's recipe without having to copy the other layer's recipe into your layer. Your .bbappend file resides in your layer, while the main .bb recipe file to which you are appending Metadata resides in a different layer.

Being able to append information to an existing recipe not only avoids duplication, but also automatically applies recipe changes from a different layer into your layer. If you were copying recipes, you would have to manually merge changes as they occur.

When you create an append file, you must use the same root name as the corresponding recipe file. For example, the append file someapp_2.3.3.bbappend must apply to someapp_2.3.3.bb. This means the original recipe and append file names are version number-specific. If the corresponding recipe is renamed to update to a newer version, you must also rename and possibly update the corresponding .bbappend as well. During the build process, BitBake displays an error on starting if it detects a .bbappend file that does not have a corresponding recipe with a matching name. See the BB_DANGLINGAPPENDS_WARNONLY variable for information on how to handle this error.

As an example, consider the main formfactor recipe and a corresponding formfactor append file both from the Source Directory. Here is the main formfactor recipe, which is named formfactor_0.0.bb and located in the "meta" layer at meta/recipes-bsp/formfactor:

     SUMMARY = "Device formfactor information"
     SECTION = "base"
     LICENSE = "MIT"
     LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://${COREBASE}/meta/COPYING.MIT;md5=3da9cfbcb788c80a0384361b4de20420"
     PR = "r45"

     SRC_URI = "file://config file://machconfig"
     S = "${WORKDIR}"

     PACKAGE_ARCH = "${MACHINE_ARCH}"
     INHIBIT_DEFAULT_DEPS = "1"

     do_install() {
	     # Install file only if it has contents
             install -d ${D}${sysconfdir}/formfactor/
             install -m 0644 ${S}/config ${D}${sysconfdir}/formfactor/
	     if [ -s "${S}/machconfig" ]; then
	             install -m 0644 ${S}/machconfig ${D}${sysconfdir}/formfactor/
	     fi
     }                

In the main recipe, note the SRC_URI variable, which tells the OpenEmbedded build system where to find files during the build.

Following is the append file, which is named formfactor_0.0.bbappend and is from the Raspberry Pi BSP Layer named meta-raspberrypi. The file is in the layer at recipes-bsp/formfactor:

     FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/${PN}:"
                

By default, the build system uses the FILESPATH variable to locate files. This append file extends the locations by setting the FILESEXTRAPATHS variable. Setting this variable in the .bbappend file is the most reliable and recommended method for adding directories to the search path used by the build system to find files.

The statement in this example extends the directories to include ${THISDIR}/${PN}, which resolves to a directory named formfactor in the same directory in which the append file resides (i.e. meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/formfactor. This implies that you must have the supporting directory structure set up that will contain any files or patches you will be including from the layer.

Using the immediate expansion assignment operator := is important because of the reference to THISDIR. The trailing colon character is important as it ensures that items in the list remain colon-separated.

Note

BitBake automatically defines the THISDIR variable. You should never set this variable yourself. Using "_prepend" as part of the FILESEXTRAPATHS ensures your path will be searched prior to other paths in the final list.

Also, not all append files add extra files. Many append files simply exist to add build options (e.g. systemd). For these cases, your append file would not even use the FILESEXTRAPATHS statement.

5.1.7. Prioritizing Your Layer

Each layer is assigned a priority value. Priority values control which layer takes precedence if there are recipe files with the same name in multiple layers. For these cases, the recipe file from the layer with a higher priority number takes precedence. Priority values also affect the order in which multiple .bbappend files for the same recipe are applied. You can either specify the priority manually, or allow the build system to calculate it based on the layer's dependencies.

To specify the layer's priority manually, use the BBFILE_PRIORITY variable. For example:

     BBFILE_PRIORITY_mylayer = "1"
                

Note

It is possible for a recipe with a lower version number PV in a layer that has a higher priority to take precedence.

Also, the layer priority does not currently affect the precedence order of .conf or .bbclass files. Future versions of BitBake might address this.

5.1.8. Managing Layers

You can use the BitBake layer management tool to provide a view into the structure of recipes across a multi-layer project. Being able to generate output that reports on configured layers with their paths and priorities and on .bbappend files and their applicable recipes can help to reveal potential problems.

Use the following form when running the layer management tool.

     $ bitbake-layers command [arguments]
                

The following list describes the available commands:

  • help: Displays general help or help on a specified command.

  • show-layers: Shows the current configured layers.

  • show-recipes: Lists available recipes and the layers that provide them.

  • show-overlayed: Lists overlayed recipes. A recipe is overlayed when a recipe with the same name exists in another layer that has a higher layer priority.

  • show-appends: Lists .bbappend files and the recipe files to which they apply.

  • show-cross-depends: Lists dependency relationships between recipes that cross layer boundaries.

  • add-layer: Adds a layer to bblayers.conf.

  • remove-layer: Removes a layer from bblayers.conf

  • flatten: Flattens the layer configuration into a separate output directory. Flattening your layer configuration builds a "flattened" directory that contains the contents of all layers, with any overlayed recipes removed and any .bbappend files appended to the corresponding recipes. You might have to perform some manual cleanup of the flattened layer as follows:

    • Non-recipe files (such as patches) are overwritten. The flatten command shows a warning for these files.

    • Anything beyond the normal layer setup has been added to the layer.conf file. Only the lowest priority layer's layer.conf is used.

    • Overridden and appended items from .bbappend files need to be cleaned up. The contents of each .bbappend end up in the flattened recipe. However, if there are appended or changed variable values, you need to tidy these up yourself. Consider the following example. Here, the bitbake-layers command adds the line #### bbappended ... so that you know where the following lines originate:

           ...
           DESCRIPTION = "A useful utility"
           ...
           EXTRA_OECONF = "--enable-something"
           ...
      
           #### bbappended from meta-anotherlayer ####
      
           DESCRIPTION = "Customized utility"
           EXTRA_OECONF += "--enable-somethingelse"
                                      

      Ideally, you would tidy up these utilities as follows:

           ...
           DESCRIPTION = "Customized utility"
           ...
           EXTRA_OECONF = "--enable-something --enable-somethingelse"
           ...
                                      

5.1.9. Creating a General Layer Using the yocto-layer Script

The yocto-layer script simplifies creating a new general layer.

Note

For information on BSP layers, see the "BSP Layers" section in the Yocto Project Board Specific (BSP) Developer's Guide.

The default mode of the script's operation is to prompt you for information needed to generate the layer:

  • The layer priority.

  • Whether or not to create a sample recipe.

  • Whether or not to create a sample append file.

Use the yocto-layer create sub-command to create a new general layer. In its simplest form, you can create a layer as follows:

     $ yocto-layer create mylayer
                

The previous example creates a layer named meta-mylayer in the current directory.

As the yocto-layer create command runs, default values for the prompts appear in brackets. Pressing enter without supplying anything for the prompts or pressing enter and providing an invalid response causes the script to accept the default value. Once the script completes, the new layer is created in the current working directory. The script names the layer by prepending meta- to the name you provide.

Minimally, the script creates the following within the layer:

  • The conf directory: This directory contains the layer's configuration file. The root name for the file is the same as the root name your provided for the layer (e.g. layer.conf).

  • The COPYING.MIT file: The copyright and use notice for the software.

  • The README file: A file describing the contents of your new layer.

If you choose to generate a sample recipe file, the script prompts you for the name for the recipe and then creates it in layer/recipes-example/example/. The script creates a .bb file and a directory, which contains a sample helloworld.c source file, along with a sample patch file. If you do not provide a recipe name, the script uses "example".

If you choose to generate a sample append file, the script prompts you for the name for the file and then creates it in layer/recipes-example-bbappend/example-bbappend/. The script creates a .bbappend file and a directory, which contains a sample patch file. If you do not provide a recipe name, the script uses "example". The script also prompts you for the version of the append file. The version should match the recipe to which the append file is associated.

The easiest way to see how the yocto-layer script works is to experiment with the script. You can also read the usage information by entering the following:

     $ yocto-layer help
                

Once you create your general layer, you must add it to your bblayers.conf file. Here is an example where a layer named meta-mylayer is added:

     BBLAYERS = ?" \
        /usr/local/src/yocto/meta \
        /usr/local/src/yocto/meta-poky \
        /usr/local/src/yocto/meta-yocto-bsp \
        /usr/local/src/yocto/meta-mylayer \
        "
                

Adding the layer to this file enables the build system to locate the layer during the build.

5.2. Customizing Images

You can customize images to satisfy particular requirements. This section describes several methods and provides guidelines for each.

5.2.1. Customizing Images Using local.conf

Probably the easiest way to customize an image is to add a package by way of the local.conf configuration file. Because it is limited to local use, this method generally only allows you to add packages and is not as flexible as creating your own customized image. When you add packages using local variables this way, you need to realize that these variable changes are in effect for every build and consequently affect all images, which might not be what you require.

To add a package to your image using the local configuration file, use the IMAGE_INSTALL variable with the _append operator:

     IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " strace"
                

Use of the syntax is important - specifically, the space between the quote and the package name, which is strace in this example. This space is required since the _append operator does not add the space.

Furthermore, you must use _append instead of the += operator if you want to avoid ordering issues. The reason for this is because doing so unconditionally appends to the variable and avoids ordering problems due to the variable being set in image recipes and .bbclass files with operators like ?=. Using _append ensures the operation takes affect.

As shown in its simplest use, IMAGE_INSTALL_append affects all images. It is possible to extend the syntax so that the variable applies to a specific image only. Here is an example:

     IMAGE_INSTALL_append_pn-core-image-minimal = " strace"
                

This example adds strace to the core-image-minimal image only.

You can add packages using a similar approach through the CORE_IMAGE_EXTRA_INSTALL variable. If you use this variable, only core-image-* images are affected.

5.2.2. Customizing Images Using Custom IMAGE_FEATURES and EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES

Another method for customizing your image is to enable or disable high-level image features by using the IMAGE_FEATURES and EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES variables. Although the functions for both variables are nearly equivalent, best practices dictate using IMAGE_FEATURES from within a recipe and using EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES from within your local.conf file, which is found in the Build Directory.

To understand how these features work, the best reference is meta/classes/core-image.bbclass. This class lists out the available IMAGE_FEATURES of which most map to package groups while some, such as debug-tweaks and read-only-rootfs, resolve as general configuration settings.

In summary, the file looks at the contents of the IMAGE_FEATURES variable and then maps or configures the feature accordingly. Based on this information, the build system automatically adds the appropriate packages or configurations to the IMAGE_INSTALL variable. Effectively, you are enabling extra features by extending the class or creating a custom class for use with specialized image .bb files.

Use the EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES variable from within your local configuration file. Using a separate area from which to enable features with this variable helps you avoid overwriting the features in the image recipe that are enabled with IMAGE_FEATURES. The value of EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES is added to IMAGE_FEATURES within meta/conf/bitbake.conf.

To illustrate how you can use these variables to modify your image, consider an example that selects the SSH server. The Yocto Project ships with two SSH servers you can use with your images: Dropbear and OpenSSH. Dropbear is a minimal SSH server appropriate for resource-constrained environments, while OpenSSH is a well-known standard SSH server implementation. By default, the core-image-sato image is configured to use Dropbear. The core-image-full-cmdline and core-image-lsb images both include OpenSSH. The core-image-minimal image does not contain an SSH server.

You can customize your image and change these defaults. Edit the IMAGE_FEATURES variable in your recipe or use the EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES in your local.conf file so that it configures the image you are working with to include ssh-server-dropbear or ssh-server-openssh.

Note

See the "Images" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for a complete list of image features that ship with the Yocto Project.

5.2.3. Customizing Images Using Custom .bb Files

You can also customize an image by creating a custom recipe that defines additional software as part of the image. The following example shows the form for the two lines you need:

     IMAGE_INSTALL = "packagegroup-core-x11-base package1 package2"

     inherit core-image
                

Defining the software using a custom recipe gives you total control over the contents of the image. It is important to use the correct names of packages in the IMAGE_INSTALL variable. You must use the OpenEmbedded notation and not the Debian notation for the names (e.g. glibc-dev instead of libc6-dev).

The other method for creating a custom image is to base it on an existing image. For example, if you want to create an image based on core-image-sato but add the additional package strace to the image, copy the meta/recipes-sato/images/core-image-sato.bb to a new .bb and add the following line to the end of the copy:

     IMAGE_INSTALL += "strace"
                

5.2.4. Customizing Images Using Custom Package Groups

For complex custom images, the best approach for customizing an image is to create a custom package group recipe that is used to build the image or images. A good example of a package group recipe is meta/recipes-core/packagegroups/packagegroup-base.bb.

If you examine that recipe, you see that the PACKAGES variable lists the package group packages to produce. The inherit packagegroup statement sets appropriate default values and automatically adds -dev, -dbg, and -ptest complementary packages for each package specified in the PACKAGES statement.

Note

The inherit packages should be located near the top of the recipe, certainly before the PACKAGES statement.

For each package you specify in PACKAGES, you can use RDEPENDS and RRECOMMENDS entries to provide a list of packages the parent task package should contain. You can see examples of these further down in the packagegroup-base.bb recipe.

Here is a short, fabricated example showing the same basic pieces:

     DESCRIPTION = "My Custom Package Groups"

     inherit packagegroup

     PACKAGES = "\
         packagegroup-custom-apps \
         packagegroup-custom-tools \
         "

     RDEPENDS_packagegroup-custom-apps = "\
         dropbear \
         portmap \
         psplash"

     RDEPENDS_packagegroup-custom-tools = "\
         oprofile \
         oprofileui-server \
         lttng-tools"

     RRECOMMENDS_packagegroup-custom-tools = "\
         kernel-module-oprofile"
                

In the previous example, two package group packages are created with their dependencies and their recommended package dependencies listed: packagegroup-custom-apps, and packagegroup-custom-tools. To build an image using these package group packages, you need to add packagegroup-custom-apps and/or packagegroup-custom-tools to IMAGE_INSTALL. For other forms of image dependencies see the other areas of this section.

5.2.5. Customizing an Image Hostname

By default, the configured hostname (i.e. /etc/hostname) in an image is the same as the machine name. For example, if MACHINE equals "qemux86", the configured hostname written to /etc/hostname is "qemux86".

You can customize this name by altering the value of the "hostname" variable in the base-files recipe using either an append file or a configuration file. Use the following in an append file:

     hostname="myhostname"
                

Use the following in a configuration file:

     hostname_pn-base-files = "myhostname"
                

Changing the default value of the variable "hostname" can be useful in certain situations. For example, suppose you need to do extensive testing on an image and you would like to easily identify the image under test from existing images with typical default hostnames. In this situation, you could change the default hostname to "testme", which results in all the images using the name "testme". Once testing is complete and you do not need to rebuild the image for test any longer, you can easily reset the default hostname.

Another point of interest is that if you unset the variable, the image will have no default hostname in the filesystem. Here is an example that unsets the variable in a configuration file:

     hostname_pn-base-files = ""
                

Having no default hostname in the filesystem is suitable for environments that use dynamic hostnames such as virtual machines.

5.3. Writing a New Recipe

Recipes (.bb files) are fundamental components in the Yocto Project environment. Each software component built by the OpenEmbedded build system requires a recipe to define the component. This section describes how to create, write, and test a new recipe.

Note

For information on variables that are useful for recipes and for information about recipe naming issues, see the "Required" section of the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

5.3.1. Overview

The following figure shows the basic process for creating a new recipe. The remainder of the section provides details for the steps.

5.3.2. Locate or Automatically Create a Base Recipe

You can always write a recipe from scratch. However, three choices exist that can help you quickly get a start on a new recipe:

  • devtool add: A command that assists in creating a recipe and an environment conducive to development.

  • recipetool create: A command provided by the Yocto Project that automates creation of a base recipe based on the source files.

  • Existing Recipes: Location and modification of an existing recipe that is similar in function to the recipe you need.

5.3.2.1. Creating the Base Recipe Using devtool add

The devtool add command uses the same logic for auto-creating the recipe as recipetool create, which is listed below. Additionally, however, devtool add sets up an environment that makes it easy for you to patch the source and to make changes to the recipe as is often necessary when adding a recipe to build a new piece of software to be included in a build.

You can find a complete description of the devtool add command in the "Use devtool add to Add an Application" section.

5.3.2.2. Creating the Base Recipe Using recipetool create

recipetool create automates creation of a base recipe given a set of source code files. As long as you can extract or point to the source files, the tool will construct a recipe and automatically configure all pre-build information into the recipe. For example, suppose you have an application that builds using Autotools. Creating the base recipe using recipetool results in a recipe that has the pre-build dependencies, license requirements, and checksums configured.

To run the tool, you just need to be in your Build Directory and have sourced the build environment setup script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres). Here is the basic recipetool syntax:

Note

Running recipetool -h or recipetool create -h produces the Python-generated help, which presented differently than what follows here.

     recipetool -h
     recipetool create [-h]
     recipetool [-d] [-q] [--color auto | always | never ] create -o OUTFILE [-m] [-x EXTERNALSRC] source

          -d       Enables debug output.
          -q       Outputs only errors (quiet mode).
          --color  Colorizes the output automatically, always, or never.
          -h       Displays Python generated syntax for recipetool.
          create   Causes recipetool to create a base recipe.  The create
                   command is further defined with these options:

                   -o OUTFILE      Specifies the full path and filename for the generated
                                   recipe.
                   -m              Causes the recipe to be machine-specific rather than
                                   architecture-specific (default).
                   -x EXTERNALSRC  Fetches and extracts source files from source
                                   and places them in EXTERNALSRC.
                                   source must be a URL.
                   -h              Displays Python-generated syntax for create.
                   source          Specifies the source code on which to base the
                                   recipe.
                    

Running recipetool create -o OUTFILE creates the base recipe and locates it properly in the layer that contains your source files. Following are some syntax examples:

Use this syntax to generate a recipe based on source. Once generated, the recipe resides in the existing source code layer:

     recipetool create -o OUTFILE source
                    

Use this syntax to generate a recipe using code that you extract from source. The extracted code is placed in its own layer defined by EXTERNALSRC.

     recipetool create -o OUTFILE -x EXTERNALSRC source
                    

Use this syntax to generate a recipe based on source. The options direct recipetool to generate debugging information. Once generated, the recipe resides in the existing source code layer:

     recipetool create -d -o OUTFILE source
                    

5.3.2.3. Locating and Using a Similar Recipe

Before writing a recipe from scratch, it is often useful to discover whether someone else has already written one that meets (or comes close to meeting) your needs. The Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded communities maintain many recipes that might be candidates for what you are doing. You can find a good central index of these recipes in the OpenEmbedded metadata index.

Working from an existing recipe or a skeleton recipe is the best way to get started. Here are some points on both methods:

  • Locate and modify a recipe that is close to what you want to do: This method works when you are familiar with the current recipe space. The method does not work so well for those new to the Yocto Project or writing recipes.

    Some risks associated with this method are using a recipe that has areas totally unrelated to what you are trying to accomplish with your recipe, not recognizing areas of the recipe that you might have to add from scratch, and so forth. All these risks stem from unfamiliarity with the existing recipe space.

  • Use and modify the following skeleton recipe: If for some reason you do not want to use recipetool and you cannot find an existing recipe that is close to meeting your needs, you can use the following structure to provide the fundamental areas of a new recipe.

         DESCRIPTION = ""
         HOMEPAGE = ""
         LICENSE = ""
         SECTION = ""
         DEPENDS = ""
         LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = ""
    
         SRC_URI = ""
                                

5.3.3. Storing and Naming the Recipe

Once you have your base recipe, you should put it in your own layer and name it appropriately. Locating it correctly ensures that the OpenEmbedded build system can find it when you use BitBake to process the recipe.

  • Storing Your Recipe: The OpenEmbedded build system locates your recipe through the layer's conf/layer.conf file and the BBFILES variable. This variable sets up a path from which the build system can locate recipes. Here is the typical use:

         BBFILES += "${LAYERDIR}/recipes-*/*/*.bb \
                     ${LAYERDIR}/recipes-*/*/*.bbappend"
                        

    Consequently, you need to be sure you locate your new recipe inside your layer such that it can be found.

    You can find more information on how layers are structured in the "Understanding and Creating Layers" section.

  • Naming Your Recipe: When you name your recipe, you need to follow this naming convention:

         basename_version.bb
                        

    Use lower-cased characters and do not include the reserved suffixes -native, -cross, -initial, or -dev casually (i.e. do not use them as part of your recipe name unless the string applies). Here are some examples:

         cups_1.7.0.bb
         gawk_4.0.2.bb
         irssi_0.8.16-rc1.bb
                        

5.3.4. Understanding Recipe Syntax

Understanding recipe file syntax is important for writing recipes. The following list overviews the basic items that make up a BitBake recipe file. For more complete BitBake syntax descriptions, see the "Syntax and Operators" chapter of the BitBake User Manual.

  • Variable Assignments and Manipulations: Variable assignments allow a value to be assigned to a variable. The assignment can be static text or might include the contents of other variables. In addition to the assignment, appending and prepending operations are also supported.

    The following example shows some of the ways you can use variables in recipes:

         S = "${WORKDIR}/postfix-${PV}"
         CFLAGS += "-DNO_ASM"
         SRC_URI_append = " file://fixup.patch"
                            

  • Functions: Functions provide a series of actions to be performed. You usually use functions to override the default implementation of a task function or to complement a default function (i.e. append or prepend to an existing function). Standard functions use sh shell syntax, although access to OpenEmbedded variables and internal methods are also available.

    The following is an example function from the sed recipe:

         do_install () {
             autotools_do_install
             install -d ${D}${base_bindir}
             mv ${D}${bindir}/sed ${D}${base_bindir}/sed
             rmdir ${D}${bindir}/
         }
                            

    It is also possible to implement new functions that are called between existing tasks as long as the new functions are not replacing or complementing the default functions. You can implement functions in Python instead of shell. Both of these options are not seen in the majority of recipes.

  • Keywords: BitBake recipes use only a few keywords. You use keywords to include common functions (inherit), load parts of a recipe from other files (include and require) and export variables to the environment (export).

    The following example shows the use of some of these keywords:

         export POSTCONF = "${STAGING_BINDIR}/postconf"
         inherit autoconf
         require otherfile.inc
                            

  • Comments: Any lines that begin with the hash character (#) are treated as comment lines and are ignored:

         # This is a comment
                            

This next list summarizes the most important and most commonly used parts of the recipe syntax. For more information on these parts of the syntax, you can reference the Syntax and Operators chapter in the BitBake User Manual.

  • Line Continuation: \ - Use the backward slash (\) character to split a statement over multiple lines. Place the slash character at the end of the line that is to be continued on the next line:

         VAR = "A really long \
                line"
                            

    Note

    You cannot have any characters including spaces or tabs after the slash character.

  • Using Variables: ${...} - Use the ${VARNAME} syntax to access the contents of a variable:

         SRC_URI = "${SOURCEFORGE_MIRROR}/libpng/zlib-${PV}.tar.gz"
                            

    Note

    It is important to understand that the value of a variable expressed in this form does not get substituted automatically. The expansion of these expressions happens on-demand later (e.g. usually when a function that makes reference to the variable executes). This behavior ensures that the values are most appropriate for the context in which they are finally used. On the rare occasion that you do need the variable expression to be expanded immediately, you can use the := operator instead of = when you make the assignment, but this is not generally needed.

  • Quote All Assignments: "value" - Use double quotes around the value in all variable assignments.

         VAR1 = "${OTHERVAR}"
         VAR2 = "The version is ${PV}"
                            

  • Conditional Assignment: ?= - Conditional assignment is used to assign a value to a variable, but only when the variable is currently unset. Use the question mark followed by the equal sign (?=) to make a "soft" assignment used for conditional assignment. Typically, "soft" assignments are used in the local.conf file for variables that are allowed to come through from the external environment.

    Here is an example where VAR1 is set to "New value" if it is currently empty. However, if VAR1 has already been set, it remains unchanged:

         VAR1 ?= "New value"
                            

    In this next example, VAR1 is left with the value "Original value":

         VAR1 = "Original value"
         VAR1 ?= "New value"
                            

  • Appending: += - Use the plus character followed by the equals sign (+=) to append values to existing variables.

    Note

    This operator adds a space between the existing content of the variable and the new content.

    Here is an example:

         SRC_URI += "file://fix-makefile.patch"
                            

  • Prepending: =+ - Use the equals sign followed by the plus character (=+) to prepend values to existing variables.

    Note

    This operator adds a space between the new content and the existing content of the variable.

    Here is an example:

         VAR =+ "Starts"
                            

  • Appending: _append - Use the _append operator to append values to existing variables. This operator does not add any additional space. Also, the operator is applied after all the +=, and =+ operators have been applied and after all = assignments have occurred.

    The following example shows the space being explicitly added to the start to ensure the appended value is not merged with the existing value:

         SRC_URI_append = " file://fix-makefile.patch"
                            

    You can also use the _append operator with overrides, which results in the actions only being performed for the specified target or machine:

         SRC_URI_append_sh4 = " file://fix-makefile.patch"
                            

  • Prepending: _prepend - Use the _prepend operator to prepend values to existing variables. This operator does not add any additional space. Also, the operator is applied after all the +=, and =+ operators have been applied and after all = assignments have occurred.

    The following example shows the space being explicitly added to the end to ensure the prepended value is not merged with the existing value:

         CFLAGS_prepend = "-I${S}/myincludes "
                            

    You can also use the _prepend operator with overrides, which results in the actions only being performed for the specified target or machine:

         CFLAGS_prepend_sh4 = "-I${S}/myincludes "
                            

  • Overrides: - You can use overrides to set a value conditionally, typically based on how the recipe is being built. For example, to set the KBRANCH variable's value to "standard/base" for any target MACHINE, except for qemuarm where it should be set to "standard/arm-versatile-926ejs", you would do the following:

         KBRANCH = "standard/base"
         KBRANCH_qemuarm  = "standard/arm-versatile-926ejs"
                            

    Overrides are also used to separate alternate values of a variable in other situations. For example, when setting variables such as FILES and RDEPENDS that are specific to individual packages produced by a recipe, you should always use an override that specifies the name of the package.

  • Indentation: Use spaces for indentation rather than than tabs. For shell functions, both currently work. However, it is a policy decision of the Yocto Project to use tabs in shell functions. Realize that some layers have a policy to use spaces for all indentation.

  • Using Python for Complex Operations: ${@python_code} - For more advanced processing, it is possible to use Python code during variable assignments (e.g. search and replacement on a variable).

    You indicate Python code using the ${@python_code} syntax for the variable assignment:

         SRC_URI = "ftp://ftp.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/src/zip${@d.getVar('PV',1).replace('.', '')}.tgz
                            

  • Shell Function Syntax: Write shell functions as if you were writing a shell script when you describe a list of actions to take. You should ensure that your script works with a generic sh and that it does not require any bash or other shell-specific functionality. The same considerations apply to various system utilities (e.g. sed, grep, awk, and so forth) that you might wish to use. If in doubt, you should check with multiple implementations - including those from BusyBox.

5.3.5. Running a Build on the Recipe

Creating a new recipe is usually an iterative process that requires using BitBake to process the recipe multiple times in order to progressively discover and add information to the recipe file.

Assuming you have sourced a build environment setup script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres) and you are in the Build Directory, use BitBake to process your recipe. All you need to provide is the basename of the recipe as described in the previous section:

     $ bitbake basename
                

During the build, the OpenEmbedded build system creates a temporary work directory for each recipe (${WORKDIR}) where it keeps extracted source files, log files, intermediate compilation and packaging files, and so forth.

The path to the per-recipe temporary work directory depends on the context in which it is being built. The quickest way to find this path is to have BitBake return it by running the following:

     $ bitbake -e basename | grep ^WORKDIR=
                

As an example, assume a Source Directory top-level folder named poky, a default Build Directory at poky/build, and a qemux86-poky-linux machine target system. Furthermore, suppose your recipe is named foo_1.3.0.bb. In this case, the work directory the build system uses to build the package would be as follows:

     poky/build/tmp/work/qemux86-poky-linux/foo/1.3.0-r0
                

Inside this directory you can find sub-directories such as image, packages-split, and temp. After the build, you can examine these to determine how well the build went.

Note

You can find log files for each task in the recipe's temp directory (e.g. poky/build/tmp/work/qemux86-poky-linux/foo/1.3.0-r0/temp). Log files are named log.taskname (e.g. log.do_configure, log.do_fetch, and log.do_compile).

You can find more information about the build process in the "A Closer Look at the Yocto Project Development Environment" chapter of the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

5.3.6. Fetching Code

The first thing your recipe must do is specify how to fetch the source files. Fetching is controlled mainly through the SRC_URI variable. Your recipe must have a SRC_URI variable that points to where the source is located. For a graphical representation of source locations, see the "Sources" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

The do_fetch task uses the prefix of each entry in the SRC_URI variable value to determine which fetcher to use to get your source files. It is the SRC_URI variable that triggers the fetcher. The do_patch task uses the variable after source is fetched to apply patches. The OpenEmbedded build system uses FILESOVERRIDES for scanning directory locations for local files in SRC_URI.

The SRC_URI variable in your recipe must define each unique location for your source files. It is good practice to not hard-code pathnames in an URL used in SRC_URI. Rather than hard-code these paths, use ${PV}, which causes the fetch process to use the version specified in the recipe filename. Specifying the version in this manner means that upgrading the recipe to a future version is as simple as renaming the recipe to match the new version.

Here is a simple example from the meta/recipes-devtools/cdrtools/cdrtools-native_3.01a20.bb recipe where the source comes from a single tarball. Notice the use of the PV variable:

     SRC_URI = "ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/alpha/cdrtools-${PV}.tar.bz2"
                

Files mentioned in SRC_URI whose names end in a typical archive extension (e.g. .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .zip, and so forth), are automatically extracted during the do_unpack task. For another example that specifies these types of files, see the "Autotooled Package" section.

Another way of specifying source is from an SCM. For Git repositories, you must specify SRCREV and you should specify PV to include the revision with SRCPV. Here is an example from the recipe meta/recipes-kernel/blktrace/blktrace_git.bb:

     SRCREV = "d6918c8832793b4205ed3bfede78c2f915c23385"

     PR = "r6"
     PV = "1.0.5+git${SRCPV}"

     SRC_URI = "git://git.kernel.dk/blktrace.git \
                file://ldflags.patch"
                

If your SRC_URI statement includes URLs pointing to individual files fetched from a remote server other than a version control system, BitBake attempts to verify the files against checksums defined in your recipe to ensure they have not been tampered with or otherwise modified since the recipe was written. Two checksums are used: SRC_URI[md5sum] and SRC_URI[sha256sum].

If your SRC_URI variable points to more than a single URL (excluding SCM URLs), you need to provide the md5 and sha256 checksums for each URL. For these cases, you provide a name for each URL as part of the SRC_URI and then reference that name in the subsequent checksum statements. Here is an example:

     SRC_URI = "${DEBIAN_MIRROR}/main/a/apmd/apmd_3.2.2.orig.tar.gz;name=tarball \
                ${DEBIAN_MIRROR}/main/a/apmd/apmd_${PV}.diff.gz;name=patch"

     SRC_URI[tarball.md5sum] = "b1e6309e8331e0f4e6efd311c2d97fa8"
     SRC_URI[tarball.sha256sum] = "7f7d9f60b7766b852881d40b8ff91d8e39fccb0d1d913102a5c75a2dbb52332d"

     SRC_URI[patch.md5sum] = "57e1b689264ea80f78353519eece0c92"
     SRC_URI[patch.sha256sum] = "7905ff96be93d725544d0040e425c42f9c05580db3c272f11cff75b9aa89d430"
                

Proper values for md5 and sha256 checksums might be available with other signatures on the download page for the upstream source (e.g. md5, sha1, sha256, GPG, and so forth). Because the OpenEmbedded build system only deals with sha256sum and md5sum, you should verify all the signatures you find by hand.

If no SRC_URI checksums are specified when you attempt to build the recipe, or you provide an incorrect checksum, the build will produce an error for each missing or incorrect checksum. As part of the error message, the build system provides the checksum string corresponding to the fetched file. Once you have the correct checksums, you can copy and paste them into your recipe and then run the build again to continue.

Note

As mentioned, if the upstream source provides signatures for verifying the downloaded source code, you should verify those manually before setting the checksum values in the recipe and continuing with the build.

This final example is a bit more complicated and is from the meta/recipes-sato/rxvt-unicode/rxvt-unicode_9.20.bb recipe. The example's SRC_URI statement identifies multiple files as the source files for the recipe: a tarball, a patch file, a desktop file, and an icon.

     SRC_URI = "http://dist.schmorp.de/rxvt-unicode/Attic/rxvt-unicode-${PV}.tar.bz2 \
                file://xwc.patch \
                file://rxvt.desktop \
                file://rxvt.png"
                

When you specify local files using the file:// URI protocol, the build system fetches files from the local machine. The path is relative to the FILESPATH variable and searches specific directories in a certain order: ${BP}, ${BPN}, and files. The directories are assumed to be subdirectories of the directory in which the recipe or append file resides. For another example that specifies these types of files, see the "Single .c File Package (Hello World!)" section.

The previous example also specifies a patch file. Patch files are files whose names usually end in .patch or .diff but can end with compressed suffixes such as diff.gz and patch.bz2, for example. The build system automatically applies patches as described in the "Patching Code" section.

5.3.7. Unpacking Code

During the build, the do_unpack task unpacks the source with ${S} pointing to where it is unpacked.

If you are fetching your source files from an upstream source archived tarball and the tarball's internal structure matches the common convention of a top-level subdirectory named ${BPN}-${PV}, then you do not need to set S. However, if SRC_URI specifies to fetch source from an archive that does not use this convention, or from an SCM like Git or Subversion, your recipe needs to define S.

If processing your recipe using BitBake successfully unpacks the source files, you need to be sure that the directory pointed to by ${S} matches the structure of the source.

5.3.8. Patching Code

Sometimes it is necessary to patch code after it has been fetched. Any files mentioned in SRC_URI whose names end in .patch or .diff or compressed versions of these suffixes (e.g. diff.gz are treated as patches. The do_patch task automatically applies these patches.

The build system should be able to apply patches with the "-p1" option (i.e. one directory level in the path will be stripped off). If your patch needs to have more directory levels stripped off, specify the number of levels using the "striplevel" option in the SRC_URI entry for the patch. Alternatively, if your patch needs to be applied in a specific subdirectory that is not specified in the patch file, use the "patchdir" option in the entry.

As with all local files referenced in SRC_URI using file://, you should place patch files in a directory next to the recipe either named the same as the base name of the recipe (BP and BPN) or "files".

5.3.9. Licensing

Your recipe needs to have both the LICENSE and LIC_FILES_CHKSUM variables:

  • LICENSE: This variable specifies the license for the software. If you do not know the license under which the software you are building is distributed, you should go to the source code and look for that information. Typical files containing this information include COPYING, LICENSE, and README files. You could also find the information near the top of a source file. For example, given a piece of software licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2, you would set LICENSE as follows:

         LICENSE = "GPLv2"
                            

    The licenses you specify within LICENSE can have any name as long as you do not use spaces, since spaces are used as separators between license names. For standard licenses, use the names of the files in meta/files/common-licenses/ or the SPDXLICENSEMAP flag names defined in meta/conf/licenses.conf.

  • LIC_FILES_CHKSUM: The OpenEmbedded build system uses this variable to make sure the license text has not changed. If it has, the build produces an error and it affords you the chance to figure it out and correct the problem.

    You need to specify all applicable licensing files for the software. At the end of the configuration step, the build process will compare the checksums of the files to be sure the text has not changed. Any differences result in an error with the message containing the current checksum. For more explanation and examples of how to set the LIC_FILES_CHKSUM variable, see the "Tracking License Changes" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

    To determine the correct checksum string, you can list the appropriate files in the LIC_FILES_CHKSUM variable with incorrect md5 strings, attempt to build the software, and then note the resulting error messages that will report the correct md5 strings. See the "Fetching Code" section for additional information.

    Here is an example that assumes the software has a COPYING file:

         LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://COPYING;md5=xxx"
                            

    When you try to build the software, the build system will produce an error and give you the correct string that you can substitute into the recipe file for a subsequent build.

5.3.10. Dependencies

Most software packages have a short list of other packages that they require, which are called dependencies. These dependencies fall into two main categories: build-time dependencies, which are required when the software is built; and runtime dependencies, which are required to be installed on the target in order for the software to run.

Within a recipe, you specify build-time dependencies using the DEPENDS variable. Although nuances exist, items specified in DEPENDS should be names of other recipes. It is important that you specify all build-time dependencies explicitly. If you do not, due to the parallel nature of BitBake's execution, you can end up with a race condition where the dependency is present for one task of a recipe (e.g. do_configure) and then gone when the next task runs (e.g. do_compile).

Another consideration is that configure scripts might automatically check for optional dependencies and enable corresponding functionality if those dependencies are found. This behavior means that to ensure deterministic results and thus avoid more race conditions, you need to either explicitly specify these dependencies as well, or tell the configure script explicitly to disable the functionality. If you wish to make a recipe that is more generally useful (e.g. publish the recipe in a layer for others to use), instead of hard-disabling the functionality, you can use the PACKAGECONFIG variable to allow functionality and the corresponding dependencies to be enabled and disabled easily by other users of the recipe.

Similar to build-time dependencies, you specify runtime dependencies through a variable - RDEPENDS, which is package-specific. All variables that are package-specific need to have the name of the package added to the end as an override. Since the main package for a recipe has the same name as the recipe, and the recipe's name can be found through the ${PN} variable, then you specify the dependencies for the main package by setting RDEPENDS_${PN}. If the package were named ${PN}-tools, then you would set RDEPENDS_${PN}-tools, and so forth.

Some runtime dependencies will be set automatically at packaging time. These dependencies include any shared library dependencies (i.e. if a package "example" contains "libexample" and another package "mypackage" contains a binary that links to "libexample" then the OpenEmbedded build system will automatically add a runtime dependency to "mypackage" on "example"). See the "Automatically Added Runtime Dependencies" in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for further details.

5.3.11. Configuring the Recipe

Most software provides some means of setting build-time configuration options before compilation. Typically, setting these options is accomplished by running a configure script with some options, or by modifying a build configuration file.

Note

As of Yocto Project Release 1.7, some of the core recipes that package binary configuration scripts now disable the scripts due to the scripts previously requiring error-prone path substitution. The OpenEmbedded build system uses pkg-config now, which is much more robust. You can find a list of the *-config scripts that are disabled list in the "Binary Configuration Scripts Disabled" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

A major part of build-time configuration is about checking for build-time dependencies and possibly enabling optional functionality as a result. You need to specify any build-time dependencies for the software you are building in your recipe's DEPENDS value, in terms of other recipes that satisfy those dependencies. You can often find build-time or runtime dependencies described in the software's documentation.

The following list provides configuration items of note based on how your software is built:

  • Autotools: If your source files have a configure.ac file, then your software is built using Autotools. If this is the case, you just need to worry about modifying the configuration.

    When using Autotools, your recipe needs to inherit the autotools class and your recipe does not have to contain a do_configure task. However, you might still want to make some adjustments. For example, you can set EXTRA_OECONF or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS to pass any needed configure options that are specific to the recipe.

  • CMake: If your source files have a CMakeLists.txt file, then your software is built using CMake. If this is the case, you just need to worry about modifying the configuration.

    When you use CMake, your recipe needs to inherit the cmake class and your recipe does not have to contain a do_configure task. You can make some adjustments by setting EXTRA_OECMAKE to pass any needed configure options that are specific to the recipe.

  • Other: If your source files do not have a configure.ac or CMakeLists.txt file, then your software is built using some method other than Autotools or CMake. If this is the case, you normally need to provide a do_configure task in your recipe unless, of course, there is nothing to configure.

    Even if your software is not being built by Autotools or CMake, you still might not need to deal with any configuration issues. You need to determine if configuration is even a required step. You might need to modify a Makefile or some configuration file used for the build to specify necessary build options. Or, perhaps you might need to run a provided, custom configure script with the appropriate options.

    For the case involving a custom configure script, you would run ./configure --help and look for the options you need to set.

Once configuration succeeds, it is always good practice to look at the log.do_configure file to ensure that the appropriate options have been enabled and no additional build-time dependencies need to be added to DEPENDS. For example, if the configure script reports that it found something not mentioned in DEPENDS, or that it did not find something that it needed for some desired optional functionality, then you would need to add those to DEPENDS. Looking at the log might also reveal items being checked for, enabled, or both that you do not want, or items not being found that are in DEPENDS, in which case you would need to look at passing extra options to the configure script as needed. For reference information on configure options specific to the software you are building, you can consult the output of the ./configure --help command within ${S} or consult the software's upstream documentation.

5.3.12. Using Headers to Interface with Devices

If your recipe builds an application that needs to communicate with some device or needs an API into a custom kernel, you will need to provide appropriate header files. Under no circumstances should you ever modify the existing meta/recipes-kernel/linux-libc-headers/linux-libc-headers.inc file. These headers are used to build libc and must not be compromised with custom or machine-specific header information. If you customize libc through modified headers all other applications that use libc thus become affected.

Warning

Never copy and customize the libc header file (i.e. meta/recipes-kernel/linux-libc-headers/linux-libc-headers.inc).

The correct way to interface to a device or custom kernel is to use a separate package that provides the additional headers for the driver or other unique interfaces. When doing so, your application also becomes responsible for creating a dependency on that specific provider.

Consider the following:

  • Never modify linux-libc-headers.inc. Consider that file to be part of the libc system, and not something you use to access the kernel directly. You should access libc through specific libc calls.

  • Applications that must talk directly to devices should either provide necessary headers themselves, or establish a dependency on a special headers package that is specific to that driver.

For example, suppose you want to modify an existing header that adds I/O control or network support. If the modifications are used by a small number programs, providing a unique version of a header is easy and has little impact. When doing so, bear in mind the guidelines in the previous list.

Note

If for some reason your changes need to modify the behavior of the libc, and subsequently all other applications on the system, use a .bbappend to modify the linux-kernel-headers.inc file. However, take care to not make the changes machine specific.

Consider a case where your kernel is older and you need an older libc ABI. The headers installed by your recipe should still be a standard mainline kernel, not your own custom one.

When you use custom kernel headers you need to get them from STAGING_KERNEL_DIR, which is the directory with kernel headers that are required to build out-of-tree modules. Your recipe will also need the following:

     do_configure[depends] += "virtual/kernel:do_shared_workdir"
                

5.3.13. Compilation

During a build, the do_compile task happens after source is fetched, unpacked, and configured. If the recipe passes through do_compile successfully, nothing needs to be done.

However, if the compile step fails, you need to diagnose the failure. Here are some common issues that cause failures.

Note

For cases where improper paths are detected for configuration files or for when libraries/headers cannot be found, be sure you are using the more robust pkg-config. See the note in section "Configuring the Recipe" for additional information.

  • Parallel build failures: These failures manifest themselves as intermittent errors, or errors reporting that a file or directory that should be created by some other part of the build process could not be found. This type of failure can occur even if, upon inspection, the file or directory does exist after the build has failed, because that part of the build process happened in the wrong order.

    To fix the problem, you need to either satisfy the missing dependency in the Makefile or whatever script produced the Makefile, or (as a workaround) set PARALLEL_MAKE to an empty string:

         PARALLEL_MAKE = ""
                            

    For information on parallel Makefile issues, see the "Debugging Parallel Make Races" section.

  • Improper host path usage: This failure applies to recipes building for the target or nativesdk only. The failure occurs when the compilation process uses improper headers, libraries, or other files from the host system when cross-compiling for the target.

    To fix the problem, examine the log.do_compile file to identify the host paths being used (e.g. /usr/include, /usr/lib, and so forth) and then either add configure options, apply a patch, or do both.

  • Failure to find required libraries/headers: If a build-time dependency is missing because it has not been declared in DEPENDS, or because the dependency exists but the path used by the build process to find the file is incorrect and the configure step did not detect it, the compilation process could fail. For either of these failures, the compilation process notes that files could not be found. In these cases, you need to go back and add additional options to the configure script as well as possibly add additional build-time dependencies to DEPENDS.

    Occasionally, it is necessary to apply a patch to the source to ensure the correct paths are used. If you need to specify paths to find files staged into the sysroot from other recipes, use the variables that the OpenEmbedded build system provides (e.g. STAGING_BINDIR, STAGING_INCDIR, STAGING_DATADIR, and so forth).

5.3.14. Installing

During do_install, the task copies the built files along with their hierarchy to locations that would mirror their locations on the target device. The installation process copies files from the ${S}, ${B}, and ${WORKDIR} directories to the ${D} directory to create the structure as it should appear on the target system.

How your software is built affects what you must do to be sure your software is installed correctly. The following list describes what you must do for installation depending on the type of build system used by the software being built:

  • Autotools and CMake: If the software your recipe is building uses Autotools or CMake, the OpenEmbedded build system understands how to install the software. Consequently, you do not have to have a do_install task as part of your recipe. You just need to make sure the install portion of the build completes with no issues. However, if you wish to install additional files not already being installed by make install, you should do this using a do_install_append function using the install command as described in the "Manual" bulleted item later in this list.

  • Other (using make install): You need to define a do_install function in your recipe. The function should call oe_runmake install and will likely need to pass in the destination directory as well. How you pass that path is dependent on how the Makefile being run is written (e.g. DESTDIR=${D}, PREFIX=${D}, INSTALLROOT=${D}, and so forth).

    For an example recipe using make install, see the "Makefile-Based Package" section.

  • Manual: You need to define a do_install function in your recipe. The function must first use install -d to create the directories under ${D}. Once the directories exist, your function can use install to manually install the built software into the directories.

    You can find more information on install at http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/install-invocation.html.

For the scenarios that do not use Autotools or CMake, you need to track the installation and diagnose and fix any issues until everything installs correctly. You need to look in the default location of ${D}, which is ${WORKDIR}/image, to be sure your files have been installed correctly.

Notes

  • During the installation process, you might need to modify some of the installed files to suit the target layout. For example, you might need to replace hard-coded paths in an initscript with values of variables provided by the build system, such as replacing /usr/bin/ with ${bindir}. If you do perform such modifications during do_install, be sure to modify the destination file after copying rather than before copying. Modifying after copying ensures that the build system can re-execute do_install if needed.

  • oe_runmake install, which can be run directly or can be run indirectly by the autotools and cmake classes, runs make install in parallel. Sometimes, a Makefile can have missing dependencies between targets that can result in race conditions. If you experience intermittent failures during do_install, you might be able to work around them by disabling parallel Makefile installs by adding the following to the recipe:

         PARALLEL_MAKEINST = ""
                            

    See PARALLEL_MAKEINST for additional information.

5.3.15. Enabling System Services

If you want to install a service, which is a process that usually starts on boot and runs in the background, then you must include some additional definitions in your recipe.

If you are adding services and the service initialization script or the service file itself is not installed, you must provide for that installation in your recipe using a do_install_append function. If your recipe already has a do_install function, update the function near its end rather than adding an additional do_install_append function.

When you create the installation for your services, you need to accomplish what is normally done by make install. In other words, make sure your installation arranges the output similar to how it is arranged on the target system.

The OpenEmbedded build system provides support for starting services two different ways:

  • SysVinit: SysVinit is a system and service manager that manages the init system used to control the very basic functions of your system. The init program is the first program started by the Linux kernel when the system boots. Init then controls the startup, running and shutdown of all other programs.

    To enable a service using SysVinit, your recipe needs to inherit the update-rc.d class. The class helps facilitate safely installing the package on the target.

    You will need to set the INITSCRIPT_PACKAGES, INITSCRIPT_NAME, and INITSCRIPT_PARAMS variables within your recipe.

  • systemd: System Management Daemon (systemd) was designed to replace SysVinit and to provide enhanced management of services. For more information on systemd, see the systemd homepage at http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/.

    To enable a service using systemd, your recipe needs to inherit the systemd class. See the systemd.bbclass file located in your Source Directory. section for more information.

5.3.16. Packaging

Successful packaging is a combination of automated processes performed by the OpenEmbedded build system and some specific steps you need to take. The following list describes the process:

  • Splitting Files: The do_package task splits the files produced by the recipe into logical components. Even software that produces a single binary might still have debug symbols, documentation, and other logical components that should be split out. The do_package task ensures that files are split up and packaged correctly.

  • Running QA Checks: The insane class adds a step to the package generation process so that output quality assurance checks are generated by the OpenEmbedded build system. This step performs a range of checks to be sure the build's output is free of common problems that show up during runtime. For information on these checks, see the insane class and the "QA Error and Warning Messages" chapter in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

  • Hand-Checking Your Packages: After you build your software, you need to be sure your packages are correct. Examine the ${WORKDIR}/packages-split directory and make sure files are where you expect them to be. If you discover problems, you can set PACKAGES, FILES, do_install(_append), and so forth as needed.

  • Splitting an Application into Multiple Packages: If you need to split an application into several packages, see the "Splitting an Application into Multiple Packages" section for an example.

  • Installing a Post-Installation Script: For an example showing how to install a post-installation script, see the "Post-Installation Scripts" section.

  • Marking Package Architecture: Depending on what your recipe is building and how it is configured, it might be important to mark the packages produced as being specific to a particular machine, or to mark them as not being specific to a particular machine or architecture at all.

    By default, packages apply to any machine with the same architecture as the target machine. When a recipe produces packages that are machine-specific (e.g. the MACHINE value is passed into the configure script or a patch is applied only for a particular machine), you should mark them as such by adding the following to the recipe:

         PACKAGE_ARCH = "${MACHINE_ARCH}"
                            

    On the other hand, if the recipe produces packages that do not contain anything specific to the target machine or architecture at all (e.g. recipes that simply package script files or configuration files), you should use the allarch class to do this for you by adding this to your recipe:

         inherit allarch
                            

    Ensuring that the package architecture is correct is not critical while you are doing the first few builds of your recipe. However, it is important in order to ensure that your recipe rebuilds (or does not rebuild) appropriately in response to changes in configuration, and to ensure that you get the appropriate packages installed on the target machine, particularly if you run separate builds for more than one target machine.

5.3.17. Sharing Files Between Recipes

Recipes often need to use files provided by other recipes on the build host. For example, an application linking to a common library needs access to the library itself and its associated headers. The way this access is accomplished is by populating a sysroot with files. Each recipe has two sysroots in its work directory, one for target files (recipe-sysroot) and one for files that are native to the build host (recipe-sysroot-native).

Note

You could find the term "staging" used within the Yocto project regarding files populating sysroots (e.g. the STAGING_DIR variable).

Recipes should never populate the sysroot directly (i.e. write files into sysroot). Instead, files should be installed into standard locations during the do_install task within the ${D} directory. The reason for this limitation is that almost all files that populate the sysroot are cataloged in manifests in order to ensure the files can be removed later when a recipe is either modified or removed. Thus, the sysroot is able to remain free from stale files.

A subset of the files installed by the do_install task are used by the do_populate_sysroot task as defined by the the SYSROOT_DIRS variable to automatically populate the sysroot. It is possible to modify the list of directories that populate the sysroot. The following example shows how you could add the /opt directory to the list of directories within a recipe:

     SYSROOT_DIRS += "/opt"
                

For a more complete description of the do_populate_sysroot task and its associated functions, see the staging class.

5.3.18. Properly Versioning Pre-Release Recipes

Sometimes the name of a recipe can lead to versioning problems when the recipe is upgraded to a final release. For example, consider the irssi_0.8.16-rc1.bb recipe file in the list of example recipes in the "Storing and Naming the Recipe" section. This recipe is at a release candidate stage (i.e. "rc1"). When the recipe is released, the recipe filename becomes irssi_0.8.16.bb. The version change from 0.8.16-rc1 to 0.8.16 is seen as a decrease by the build system and package managers, so the resulting packages will not correctly trigger an upgrade.

In order to ensure the versions compare properly, the recommended convention is to set PV within the recipe to "previous_version+current_version". You can use an additional variable so that you can use the current version elsewhere. Here is an example:

     REALPV = "0.8.16-rc1"
     PV = "0.8.15+${REALPV}"
                

5.3.19. Post-Installation Scripts

Post-installation scripts run immediately after installing a package on the target or during image creation when a package is included in an image. To add a post-installation script to a package, add a pkg_postinst_PACKAGENAME() function to the recipe file (.bb) and replace PACKAGENAME with the name of the package you want to attach to the postinst script. To apply the post-installation script to the main package for the recipe, which is usually what is required, specify ${PN} in place of PACKAGENAME.

A post-installation function has the following structure:

     pkg_postinst_PACKAGENAME() {
     # Commands to carry out
     }
                

The script defined in the post-installation function is called when the root filesystem is created. If the script succeeds, the package is marked as installed. If the script fails, the package is marked as unpacked and the script is executed when the image boots again.

Note

Any RPM post-installation script that runs on the target should return a 0 exit code. RPM does not allow non-zero exit codes for these scripts, and the RPM package manager will cause the package to fail installation on the target.

Sometimes it is necessary for the execution of a post-installation script to be delayed until the first boot. For example, the script might need to be executed on the device itself. To delay script execution until boot time, use the following structure in the post-installation script:

     pkg_postinst_PACKAGENAME() {
     if [ x"$D" = "x" ]; then
          # Actions to carry out on the device go here
     else
          exit 1
     fi
     }
                

The previous example delays execution until the image boots again because the environment variable D points to the directory containing the image when the root filesystem is created at build time but is unset when executed on the first boot.

If you have recipes that use pkg_postinst scripts and they require the use of non-standard native tools that have dependencies during rootfs construction, you need to use the PACKAGE_WRITE_DEPS variable in your recipe to list these tools. If you do not use this variable, the tools might be missing and execution of the post-installation script is deferred until first boot. Deferring the script to first boot is undesirable and for read-only rootfs impossible.

Note

Equivalent support for pre-install, pre-uninstall, and post-uninstall scripts exist by way of pkg_preinst, pkg_prerm, and pkg_postrm, respectively. These scrips work in exactly the same way as does pkg_postinst with the exception that they run at different times. Also, because of when they run, they are not applicable to being run at image creation time like pkg_postinst.

5.3.20. Testing

The final step for completing your recipe is to be sure that the software you built runs correctly. To accomplish runtime testing, add the build's output packages to your image and test them on the target.

For information on how to customize your image by adding specific packages, see the "Customizing Images" section.

5.3.21. Examples

To help summarize how to write a recipe, this section provides some examples given various scenarios:

  • Recipes that use local files

  • Using an Autotooled package

  • Using a Makefile-based package

  • Splitting an application into multiple packages

  • Adding binaries to an image

5.3.21.1. Single .c File Package (Hello World!)

Building an application from a single file that is stored locally (e.g. under files) requires a recipe that has the file listed in the SRC_URI variable. Additionally, you need to manually write the do_compile and do_install tasks. The S variable defines the directory containing the source code, which is set to WORKDIR in this case - the directory BitBake uses for the build.

     SUMMARY = "Simple helloworld application"
     SECTION = "examples"
     LICENSE = "MIT"
     LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://${COMMON_LICENSE_DIR}/MIT;md5=0835ade698e0bcf8506ecda2f7b4f302"

     SRC_URI = "file://helloworld.c"

     S = "${WORKDIR}"

     do_compile() {
     	${CC} helloworld.c -o helloworld
     }

     do_install() {
     	install -d ${D}${bindir}
     	install -m 0755 helloworld ${D}${bindir}
     }
                    

By default, the helloworld, helloworld-dbg, and helloworld-dev packages are built. For information on how to customize the packaging process, see the "Splitting an Application into Multiple Packages" section.

5.3.21.2. Autotooled Package

Applications that use Autotools such as autoconf and automake require a recipe that has a source archive listed in SRC_URI and also inherit the autotools class, which contains the definitions of all the steps needed to build an Autotool-based application. The result of the build is automatically packaged. And, if the application uses NLS for localization, packages with local information are generated (one package per language). Following is one example: (hello_2.3.bb)

     SUMMARY = "GNU Helloworld application"
     SECTION = "examples"
     LICENSE = "GPLv2+"
     LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://COPYING;md5=751419260aa954499f7abaabaa882bbe"

     SRC_URI = "${GNU_MIRROR}/hello/hello-${PV}.tar.gz"

     inherit autotools gettext
                     

The variable LIC_FILES_CHKSUM is used to track source license changes as described in the "Tracking License Changes" section. You can quickly create Autotool-based recipes in a manner similar to the previous example.

5.3.21.3. Makefile-Based Package

Applications that use GNU make also require a recipe that has the source archive listed in SRC_URI. You do not need to add a do_compile step since by default BitBake starts the make command to compile the application. If you need additional make options, you should store them in the EXTRA_OEMAKE or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS variables. BitBake passes these options into the GNU make invocation. Note that a do_install task is still required. Otherwise, BitBake runs an empty do_install task by default.

Some applications might require extra parameters to be passed to the compiler. For example, the application might need an additional header path. You can accomplish this by adding to the CFLAGS variable. The following example shows this:

     CFLAGS_prepend = "-I ${S}/include "
                    

In the following example, mtd-utils is a makefile-based package:

     SUMMARY = "Tools for managing memory technology devices"
     SECTION = "base"
     DEPENDS = "zlib lzo e2fsprogs util-linux"
     HOMEPAGE = "http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/"
     LICENSE = "GPLv2+"
     LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://COPYING;md5=0636e73ff0215e8d672dc4c32c317bb3 \
                         file://include/common.h;beginline=1;endline=17;md5=ba05b07912a44ea2bf81ce409380049c"

     # Use the latest version at 26 Oct, 2013
     SRCREV = "9f107132a6a073cce37434ca9cda6917dd8d866b"
     SRC_URI = "git://git.infradead.org/mtd-utils.git \
                     file://add-exclusion-to-mkfs-jffs2-git-2.patch \
     "

     PV = "1.5.1+git${SRCPV}"

     S = "${WORKDIR}/git"

     EXTRA_OEMAKE = "'CC=${CC}' 'RANLIB=${RANLIB}' 'AR=${AR}' 'CFLAGS=${CFLAGS} -I${S}/include -DWITHOUT_XATTR' 'BUILDDIR=${S}'"

     do_install () {
             oe_runmake install DESTDIR=${D} SBINDIR=${sbindir} MANDIR=${mandir} INCLUDEDIR=${includedir}
     }

     PACKAGES =+ "mtd-utils-jffs2 mtd-utils-ubifs mtd-utils-misc"

     FILES_mtd-utils-jffs2 = "${sbindir}/mkfs.jffs2 ${sbindir}/jffs2dump ${sbindir}/jffs2reader ${sbindir}/sumtool"
     FILES_mtd-utils-ubifs = "${sbindir}/mkfs.ubifs ${sbindir}/ubi*"
     FILES_mtd-utils-misc = "${sbindir}/nftl* ${sbindir}/ftl* ${sbindir}/rfd* ${sbindir}/doc* ${sbindir}/serve_image ${sbindir}/recv_image"

     PARALLEL_MAKE = ""

     BBCLASSEXTEND = "native"
                    

5.3.21.4. Splitting an Application into Multiple Packages

You can use the variables PACKAGES and FILES to split an application into multiple packages.

Following is an example that uses the libxpm recipe. By default, this recipe generates a single package that contains the library along with a few binaries. You can modify the recipe to split the binaries into separate packages:

     require xorg-lib-common.inc

     SUMMARY = "Xpm: X Pixmap extension library"
     LICENSE = "BSD"
     LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://COPYING;md5=51f4270b012ecd4ab1a164f5f4ed6cf7"
     DEPENDS += "libxext libsm libxt"
     PE = "1"

     XORG_PN = "libXpm"

     PACKAGES =+ "sxpm cxpm"
     FILES_cxpm = "${bindir}/cxpm"
     FILES_sxpm = "${bindir}/sxpm"
                    

In the previous example, we want to ship the sxpm and cxpm binaries in separate packages. Since bindir would be packaged into the main PN package by default, we prepend the PACKAGES variable so additional package names are added to the start of list. This results in the extra FILES_* variables then containing information that define which files and directories go into which packages. Files included by earlier packages are skipped by latter packages. Thus, the main PN package does not include the above listed files.

5.3.21.5. Packaging Externally Produced Binaries

Sometimes, you need to add pre-compiled binaries to an image. For example, suppose that binaries for proprietary code exist, which are created by a particular division of a company. Your part of the company needs to use those binaries as part of an image that you are building using the OpenEmbedded build system. Since you only have the binaries and not the source code, you cannot use a typical recipe that expects to fetch the source specified in SRC_URI and then compile it.

One method is to package the binaries and then install them as part of the image. Generally, it is not a good idea to package binaries since, among other things, it can hinder the ability to reproduce builds and could lead to compatibility problems with ABI in the future. However, sometimes you have no choice.

The easiest solution is to create a recipe that uses the bin_package class and to be sure that you are using default locations for build artifacts. In most cases, the bin_package class handles "skipping" the configure and compile steps as well as sets things up to grab packages from the appropriate area. In particular, this class sets noexec on both the do_configure and do_compile tasks, sets FILES_${PN} to "/" so that it picks up all files, and sets up a do_install task, which effectively copies all files from ${S} to ${D}. The bin_package class works well when the files extracted into ${S} are already laid out in the way they should be laid out on the target. For more information on these variables, see the FILES, PN, S, and D variables in the Yocto Project Reference Manual's variable glossary.

Notes

  • Using DEPENDS is a good idea even for components distributed in binary form, and is often necessary for shared libraries. For a shared library, listing the library dependencies in DEPENDS makes sure that the libraries are available in the staging sysroot when other recipes link against the library, which might be necessary for successful linking.

  • Using DEPENDS also allows runtime dependencies between packages to be added automatically. See the "Automatically Added Runtime Dependencies" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for more information.

If you cannot use the bin_package class, you need to be sure you are doing the following:

  • Create a recipe where the do_configure and do_compile tasks do nothing: It is usually sufficient to just not define these tasks in the recipe, because the default implementations do nothing unless a Makefile is found in ${S}.

    If ${S} might contain a Makefile, or if you inherit some class that replaces do_configure and do_compile with custom versions, then you can use the [noexec] flag to turn the tasks into no-ops, as follows:

         do_configure[noexec] = "1"
         do_compile[noexec] = "1"
                                

    Unlike deleting the tasks, using the flag preserves the dependency chain from the do_fetch, do_unpack, and do_patch tasks to the do_install task.

  • Make sure your do_install task installs the binaries appropriately.

  • Ensure that you set up FILES (usually FILES_${PN}) to point to the files you have installed, which of course depends on where you have installed them and whether those files are in different locations than the defaults.

5.3.22. Following Recipe Style Guidelines

When writing recipes, it is good to conform to existing style guidelines. The OpenEmbedded Styleguide wiki page provides rough guidelines for preferred recipe style.

It is common for existing recipes to deviate a bit from this style. However, aiming for at least a consistent style is a good idea. Some practices, such as omitting spaces around = operators in assignments or ordering recipe components in an erratic way, are widely seen as poor style.

5.4. Adding a New Machine

Adding a new machine to the Yocto Project is a straightforward process. This section describes how to add machines that are similar to those that the Yocto Project already supports.

Note

Although well within the capabilities of the Yocto Project, adding a totally new architecture might require changes to gcc/glibc and to the site information, which is beyond the scope of this manual.

For a complete example that shows how to add a new machine, see the "Creating a New BSP Layer Using the yocto-bsp Script" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide.

5.4.1. Adding the Machine Configuration File

To add a new machine, you need to add a new machine configuration file to the layer's conf/machine directory. This configuration file provides details about the device you are adding.

The OpenEmbedded build system uses the root name of the machine configuration file to reference the new machine. For example, given a machine configuration file named crownbay.conf, the build system recognizes the machine as "crownbay".

The most important variables you must set in your machine configuration file or include from a lower-level configuration file are as follows:

You might also need these variables:

You can find full details on these variables in the reference section. You can leverage existing machine .conf files from meta-yocto-bsp/conf/machine/.

5.4.2. Adding a Kernel for the Machine

The OpenEmbedded build system needs to be able to build a kernel for the machine. You need to either create a new kernel recipe for this machine, or extend an existing kernel recipe. You can find several kernel recipe examples in the Source Directory at meta/recipes-kernel/linux that you can use as references.

If you are creating a new kernel recipe, normal recipe-writing rules apply for setting up a SRC_URI. Thus, you need to specify any necessary patches and set S to point at the source code. You need to create a do_configure task that configures the unpacked kernel with a defconfig file. You can do this by using a make defconfig command or, more commonly, by copying in a suitable defconfig file and then running make oldconfig. By making use of inherit kernel and potentially some of the linux-*.inc files, most other functionality is centralized and the defaults of the class normally work well.

If you are extending an existing kernel recipe, it is usually a matter of adding a suitable defconfig file. The file needs to be added into a location similar to defconfig files used for other machines in a given kernel recipe. A possible way to do this is by listing the file in the SRC_URI and adding the machine to the expression in COMPATIBLE_MACHINE:

     COMPATIBLE_MACHINE = '(qemux86|qemumips)'
                

For more information on defconfig files, see the "Changing the Configuration" section in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual.

5.4.3. Adding a Formfactor Configuration File

A formfactor configuration file provides information about the target hardware for which the image is being built and information that the build system cannot obtain from other sources such as the kernel. Some examples of information contained in a formfactor configuration file include framebuffer orientation, whether or not the system has a keyboard, the positioning of the keyboard in relation to the screen, and the screen resolution.

The build system uses reasonable defaults in most cases. However, if customization is necessary, you need to create a machconfig file in the meta/recipes-bsp/formfactor/files directory. This directory contains directories for specific machines such as qemuarm and qemux86. For information about the settings available and the defaults, see the meta/recipes-bsp/formfactor/files/config file found in the same area.

Following is an example for "qemuarm" machine:

     HAVE_TOUCHSCREEN=1
     HAVE_KEYBOARD=1

     DISPLAY_CAN_ROTATE=0
     DISPLAY_ORIENTATION=0
     #DISPLAY_WIDTH_PIXELS=640
     #DISPLAY_HEIGHT_PIXELS=480
     #DISPLAY_BPP=16
     DISPLAY_DPI=150
     DISPLAY_SUBPIXEL_ORDER=vrgb
                

5.5. Building Targets with Multiple Configurations

Bitbake also has functionality that allows you to build multiple targets at the same time, where each target uses a different configuration.

In order to accomplish this, you setup each of the configurations you need to use in parallel by placing the configuration files in your current build directory alongside the usual local.conf file.

Follow these guidelines to create an environment that supports multiple configurations:

  • Create Configuration Files: You need to create a single configuration file for each configuration for which you want to add support. These files would contain lines such as the following:

         MACHINE = "A"
                        

    The files would contain any other variables that can be set and built in the same directory.

    Note

    You can change the TMPDIR to not conflict.

    Furthermore, the configuration file must be located in the current build directory in a directory named multiconfig under the build's conf directory where local.conf resides. The reason for this restriction is because the BBPATH variable is not constructed until the layers are parsed. Consequently, using the configuration file as a pre-configuration file is not possible unless it is located in the current working directory.

  • Add the BitBake Multi-Config Variable to you Local Configuration File: Use the BBMULTICONFIG variable in your conf/local.conf configuration file to specify each separate configuration. For example, the following line tells BitBake it should load conf/multiconfig/configA.conf, conf/multiconfig/configB.conf, and conf/multiconfig/configC.conf.

         BBMULTICONFIG = "configA configB configC"
                        

  • Launch BitBake: Use the following BitBake command form to launch the build:

         $ bitbake [multiconfig:multiconfigname:]target [[[multiconfig:multiconfigname:]target] ... ]
                        

    Following is an example that supports building a minimal image for configuration A alongside a standard core-image-sato, which takes its configuration from local.conf:

         $ bitbake multiconfig:configA:core-image-minimal core-image-sato
                        

Support for multiple configurations in this current release of the Yocto Project (Pyro 2.3.3) has some known issues:

  • No inter-multi-configuration dependencies exist.

  • Shared State (sstate) optimizations do not exist. Consequently, if the build uses the same object twice in, for example, two different TMPDIR directories, the build will either load from an existing sstate cache at the start or build the object twice.

5.6. Working With Libraries

Libraries are an integral part of your system. This section describes some common practices you might find helpful when working with libraries to build your system:

5.6.1. Including Static Library Files

If you are building a library and the library offers static linking, you can control which static library files (*.a files) get included in the built library.

The PACKAGES and FILES_* variables in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf configuration file define how files installed by the do_install task are packaged. By default, the PACKAGES variable includes ${PN}-staticdev, which represents all static library files.

Note

Some previously released versions of the Yocto Project defined the static library files through ${PN}-dev.

Following is part of the BitBake configuration file, where you can see how the static library files are defined:

     PACKAGE_BEFORE_PN ?= ""
     PACKAGES = "${PN}-dbg ${PN}-staticdev ${PN}-dev ${PN}-doc ${PN}-locale ${PACKAGE_BEFORE_PN} ${PN}"
     PACKAGES_DYNAMIC = "^${PN}-locale-.*"
     FILES = ""

     FILES_${PN} = "${bindir}/* ${sbindir}/* ${libexecdir}/* ${libdir}/lib*${SOLIBS} \
                 ${sysconfdir} ${sharedstatedir} ${localstatedir} \
                 ${base_bindir}/* ${base_sbindir}/* \
                 ${base_libdir}/*${SOLIBS} \
                 ${base_prefix}/lib/udev/rules.d ${prefix}/lib/udev/rules.d \
                 ${datadir}/${BPN} ${libdir}/${BPN}/* \
                 ${datadir}/pixmaps ${datadir}/applications \
                 ${datadir}/idl ${datadir}/omf ${datadir}/sounds \
                 ${libdir}/bonobo/servers"

     FILES_${PN}-bin = "${bindir}/* ${sbindir}/*"

     FILES_${PN}-doc = "${docdir} ${mandir} ${infodir} ${datadir}/gtk-doc \
                 ${datadir}/gnome/help"
     SECTION_${PN}-doc = "doc"

     FILES_SOLIBSDEV ?= "${base_libdir}/lib*${SOLIBSDEV} ${libdir}/lib*${SOLIBSDEV}"
     FILES_${PN}-dev = "${includedir} ${FILES_SOLIBSDEV} ${libdir}/*.la \
                     ${libdir}/*.o ${libdir}/pkgconfig ${datadir}/pkgconfig \
                     ${datadir}/aclocal ${base_libdir}/*.o \
                     ${libdir}/${BPN}/*.la ${base_libdir}/*.la"
     SECTION_${PN}-dev = "devel"
     ALLOW_EMPTY_${PN}-dev = "1"
     RDEPENDS_${PN}-dev = "${PN} (= ${EXTENDPKGV})"

     FILES_${PN}-staticdev = "${libdir}/*.a ${base_libdir}/*.a ${libdir}/${BPN}/*.a"
     SECTION_${PN}-staticdev = "devel"
     RDEPENDS_${PN}-staticdev = "${PN}-dev (= ${EXTENDPKGV})"
                

5.6.2. Combining Multiple Versions of Library Files into One Image

The build system offers the ability to build libraries with different target optimizations or architecture formats and combine these together into one system image. You can link different binaries in the image against the different libraries as needed for specific use cases. This feature is called "Multilib."

An example would be where you have most of a system compiled in 32-bit mode using 32-bit libraries, but you have something large, like a database engine, that needs to be a 64-bit application and uses 64-bit libraries. Multilib allows you to get the best of both 32-bit and 64-bit libraries.

While the Multilib feature is most commonly used for 32 and 64-bit differences, the approach the build system uses facilitates different target optimizations. You could compile some binaries to use one set of libraries and other binaries to use a different set of libraries. The libraries could differ in architecture, compiler options, or other optimizations.

Several examples exist in the meta-skeleton layer found in the Source Directory:

  • conf/multilib-example.conf configuration file

  • conf/multilib-example2.conf configuration file

  • recipes-multilib/images/core-image-multilib-example.bb recipe

5.6.2.1. Preparing to Use Multilib

User-specific requirements drive the Multilib feature. Consequently, there is no one "out-of-the-box" configuration that likely exists to meet your needs.

In order to enable Multilib, you first need to ensure your recipe is extended to support multiple libraries. Many standard recipes are already extended and support multiple libraries. You can check in the meta/conf/multilib.conf configuration file in the Source Directory to see how this is done using the BBCLASSEXTEND variable. Eventually, all recipes will be covered and this list will not be needed.

For the most part, the Multilib class extension works automatically to extend the package name from ${PN} to ${MLPREFIX}${PN}, where MLPREFIX is the particular multilib (e.g. "lib32-" or "lib64-"). Standard variables such as DEPENDS, RDEPENDS, RPROVIDES, RRECOMMENDS, PACKAGES, and PACKAGES_DYNAMIC are automatically extended by the system. If you are extending any manual code in the recipe, you can use the ${MLPREFIX} variable to ensure those names are extended correctly. This automatic extension code resides in multilib.bbclass.

5.6.2.2. Using Multilib

After you have set up the recipes, you need to define the actual combination of multiple libraries you want to build. You accomplish this through your local.conf configuration file in the Build Directory. An example configuration would be as follows:

     MACHINE = "qemux86-64"
     require conf/multilib.conf
     MULTILIBS = "multilib:lib32"
     DEFAULTTUNE_virtclass-multilib-lib32 = "x86"
     IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " lib32-glib-2.0"
                    

This example enables an additional library named lib32 alongside the normal target packages. When combining these "lib32" alternatives, the example uses "x86" for tuning. For information on this particular tuning, see meta/conf/machine/include/ia32/arch-ia32.inc.

The example then includes lib32-glib-2.0 in all the images, which illustrates one method of including a multiple library dependency. You can use a normal image build to include this dependency, for example:

     $ bitbake core-image-sato
                    

You can also build Multilib packages specifically with a command like this:

     $ bitbake lib32-glib-2.0
                    

5.6.2.3. Additional Implementation Details

Generic implementation details as well as details that are specific to package management systems exist. Following are implementation details that exist regardless of the package management system:

  • The typical convention used for the class extension code as used by Multilib assumes that all package names specified in PACKAGES that contain ${PN} have ${PN} at the start of the name. When that convention is not followed and ${PN} appears at the middle or the end of a name, problems occur.

  • The TARGET_VENDOR value under Multilib will be extended to "-vendormlmultilib" (e.g. "-pokymllib32" for a "lib32" Multilib with Poky). The reason for this slightly unwieldy contraction is that any "-" characters in the vendor string presently break Autoconf's config.sub, and other separators are problematic for different reasons.

For the RPM Package Management System, the following implementation details exist:

  • A unique architecture is defined for the Multilib packages, along with creating a unique deploy folder under tmp/deploy/rpm in the Build Directory. For example, consider lib32 in a qemux86-64 image. The possible architectures in the system are "all", "qemux86_64", "lib32_qemux86_64", and "lib32_x86".

  • The ${MLPREFIX} variable is stripped from ${PN} during RPM packaging. The naming for a normal RPM package and a Multilib RPM package in a qemux86-64 system resolves to something similar to bash-4.1-r2.x86_64.rpm and bash-4.1.r2.lib32_x86.rpm, respectively.

  • When installing a Multilib image, the RPM backend first installs the base image and then installs the Multilib libraries.

  • The build system relies on RPM to resolve the identical files in the two (or more) Multilib packages.

For the IPK Package Management System, the following implementation details exist:

  • The ${MLPREFIX} is not stripped from ${PN} during IPK packaging. The naming for a normal RPM package and a Multilib IPK package in a qemux86-64 system resolves to something like bash_4.1-r2.x86_64.ipk and lib32-bash_4.1-rw_x86.ipk, respectively.

  • The IPK deploy folder is not modified with ${MLPREFIX} because packages with and without the Multilib feature can exist in the same folder due to the ${PN} differences.

  • IPK defines a sanity check for Multilib installation using certain rules for file comparison, overridden, etc.

5.6.3. Installing Multiple Versions of the Same Library

Situations can exist where you need to install and use multiple versions of the same library on the same system at the same time. These situations almost always exist when a library API changes and you have multiple pieces of software that depend on the separate versions of the library. To accommodate these situations, you can install multiple versions of the same library in parallel on the same system.

The process is straightforward as long as the libraries use proper versioning. With properly versioned libraries, all you need to do to individually specify the libraries is create separate, appropriately named recipes where the PN part of the name includes a portion that differentiates each library version (e.g.the major part of the version number). Thus, instead of having a single recipe that loads one version of a library (e.g. clutter), you provide multiple recipes that result in different versions of the libraries you want. As an example, the following two recipes would allow the two separate versions of the clutter library to co-exist on the same system:

     clutter-1.6_1.6.20.bb
     clutter-1.8_1.8.4.bb
                

Additionally, if you have other recipes that depend on a given library, you need to use the DEPENDS variable to create the dependency. Continuing with the same example, if you want to have a recipe depend on the 1.8 version of the clutter library, use the following in your recipe:

     DEPENDS = "clutter-1.8"
                

5.7. Enabling GObject Introspection Support

GObject introspection is the standard mechanism for accessing GObject-based software from runtime environments. GObject is a feature of the GLib library that provides an object framework for the GNOME desktop and related software. GObject Introspection adds information to GObject that allows objects created within it to be represented across different programming languages. If you want to construct GStreamer pipelines using Python, or control UPnP infrastructure using Javascript and GUPnP, GObject introspection is the only way to do it.

This section describes the Yocto Project support for generating and packaging GObject introspection data. GObject introspection data is a description of the API provided by libraries built on top of GLib framework, and, in particular, that framework's GObject mechanism. GObject Introspection Repository (GIR) files go to -dev packages, typelib files go to main packages as they are packaged together with libraries that are introspected.

The data is generated when building such a library, by linking the library with a small executable binary that asks the library to describe itself, and then executing the binary and processing its output.

Generating this data in a cross-compilation environment is difficult because the library is produced for the target architecture, but its code needs to be executed on the build host. This problem is solved with the OpenEmbedded build system by running the code through QEMU, which allows precisely that. Unfortunately, QEMU does not always work perfectly as mentioned in the xxx section.

5.7.1. Enabling the Generation of Introspection Data

Enabling the generation of introspection data (GIR files) in your library package involves the following:

  1. Inherit the gobject-introspection class.

  2. Make sure introspection is not disabled anywhere in the recipe or from anything the recipe includes. Also, make sure that "gobject-introspection-data" is not in DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED and that "qemu-usermode" is not in MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED. If either of these conditions exist, nothing will happen.

  3. Try to build the recipe. If you encounter build errors that look like something is unable to find .so libraries, check where these libraries are located in the source tree and add the following to the recipe:

         GIR_EXTRA_LIBS_PATH = "${B}/something/.libs"
                            

    Note

    See recipes in the oe-core repository that use that GIR_EXTRA_LIBS_PATH variable as an example.

  4. Look for any other errors, which probably mean that introspection support in a package is not entirely standard, and thus breaks down in a cross-compilation environment. For such cases, custom-made fixes are needed. A good place to ask and receive help in these cases is the Yocto Project mailing lists.

Note

Using a library that no longer builds against the latest Yocto Project release and prints introspection related errors is a good candidate for the previous procedure.

5.7.2. Disabling the Generation of Introspection Data

You might find that you do not want to generate introspection data. Or, perhaps QEMU does not work on your build host and target architecture combination. If so, you can use either of the following methods to disable GIR file generations:

  • Add the following to your distro configuration:

         DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED = "gobject-introspection-data"
                            

    Adding this statement disables generating introspection data using QEMU but will still enable building introspection tools and libraries (i.e. building them does not require the use of QEMU).

  • Add the following to your machine configuration:

         MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED = "qemu-usermode"
                            

    Adding this statement disables the use of QEMU when building packages for your machine. Currently, this feature is used only by introspection recipes and has the same effect as the previously described option.

    Note

    Future releases of the Yocto Project might have other features affected by this option.

If you disable introspection data, you can still obtain it through other means such as copying the data from a suitable sysroot, or by generating it on the target hardware. The OpenEmbedded build system does not currently provide specific support for these techniques.

5.7.3. Testing that Introspection Works in an Image

Use the following procedure to test if generating introspection data is working in an image:

  1. Make sure that "gobject-introspection-data" is not in DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED and that "qemu-usermode" is not in MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED.

  2. Build core-image-sato.

  3. Launch a Terminal and then start Python in the terminal.

  4. Enter the following in the terminal:

         >>> from gi.repository import GLib
         >>> GLib.get_host_name()
                            

  5. For something a little more advanced, enter the following:

         http://python-gtk-3-tutorial.readthedocs.org/en/latest/introduction.html
                            

5.7.4. Known Issues

The following know issues exist for GObject Introspection Support:

  • qemu-ppc64 immediately crashes. Consequently, you cannot build introspection data on that architecture.

  • x32 is not supported by QEMU. Consequently, introspection data is disabled.

  • musl causes transient GLib binaries to crash on assertion failures. Consequently, generating introspection data is disabled.

  • Because QEMU is not able to run the binaries correctly, introspection is disabled for some specific packages under specific architectures (e.g. gcr, libsecret, and webkit).

  • QEMU usermode might not work properly when running 64-bit binaries under 32-bit host machines. In particular, "qemumips64" is known to not work under i686.

5.8. Optionally Using an External Toolchain

You might want to use an external toolchain as part of your development. If this is the case, the fundamental steps you need to accomplish are as follows:

  • Understand where the installed toolchain resides. For cases where you need to build the external toolchain, you would need to take separate steps to build and install the toolchain.

  • Make sure you add the layer that contains the toolchain to your bblayers.conf file through the BBLAYERS variable.

  • Set the EXTERNAL_TOOLCHAIN variable in your local.conf file to the location in which you installed the toolchain.

A good example of an external toolchain used with the Yocto Project is Mentor Graphics® Sourcery G++ Toolchain. You can see information on how to use that particular layer in the README file at http://github.com/MentorEmbedded/meta-sourcery/. You can find further information by reading about the TCMODE variable in the Yocto Project Reference Manual's variable glossary.

5.9. Creating Partitioned Images

Creating an image for a particular hardware target using the OpenEmbedded build system does not necessarily mean you can boot that image as is on your device. Physical devices accept and boot images in various ways depending on the specifics of the device. Usually, information about the hardware can tell you what image format the device requires. Should your device require multiple partitions on an SD card, flash, or an HDD, you can use the OpenEmbedded Image Creator, Wic, to create the properly partitioned image.

You can generate partitioned images (image.wic) two ways: using the OpenEmbedded build system and by running the OpenEmbedded Image Creator Wic directly. The former way is preferable as it is easier to use and understand.

5.9.1. Creating Partitioned Images

The OpenEmbedded build system can generate partitioned images the same way as it generates any other image type. To generate a partitioned image, you need to modify two variables.

Further steps to generate a partitioned image are the same as for any other image type. For information on image types, see the "Building Images" section.

5.9.2. Using OpenEmbedded Image Creator Wic to Generate Partitioned Images

The wic command generates partitioned images from existing OpenEmbedded build artifacts. Image generation is driven by partitioning commands contained in an Openembedded kickstart file (.wks) specified either directly on the command line or as one of a selection of canned .wks files as shown with the wic list images command in the "Using an Existing Kickstart File" section. When you apply the command to a given set of build artifacts, the result is an image or set of images that can be directly written onto media and used on a particular system.

The wic command and the infrastructure it is based on is by definition incomplete. The purpose of the command is to allow the generation of customized images, and as such, was designed to be completely extensible through a plug-in interface. See the "Plug-ins" section for information on these plug-ins.

This section provides some background information on Wic, describes what you need to have in place to run the tool, provides instruction on how to use the wic utility, and provides several examples.

5.9.2.1. Background

This section provides some background on the wic utility. While none of this information is required to use Wic, you might find it interesting.

  • The name "Wic" is derived from OpenEmbedded Image Creator (oeic). The "oe" diphthong in "oeic" was promoted to the letter "w", because "oeic" is both difficult to remember and to pronounce.

  • Wic is loosely based on the Meego Image Creator (mic) framework. The Wic implementation has been heavily modified to make direct use of OpenEmbedded build artifacts instead of package installation and configuration, which are already incorporated within the OpenEmbedded artifacts.

  • Wic is a completely independent standalone utility that initially provides easier-to-use and more flexible replacements for an existing functionality in OE Core's image-live class and mkefidisk.sh script. The difference between Wic and those examples is that with Wic the functionality of those scripts is implemented by a general-purpose partitioning language, which is based on Redhat kickstart syntax.

5.9.2.2. Requirements

In order to use the wic utility with the OpenEmbedded Build system, your system needs to meet the following requirements:

  • The Linux distribution on your development host must support the Yocto Project. See the "Supported Linux Distributions" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for the list of distributions that support the Yocto Project.

  • The standard system utilities, such as cp, must be installed on your development host system.

  • You need to have the build artifacts already available, which typically means that you must have already created an image using the Openembedded build system (e.g. core-image-minimal). While it might seem redundant to generate an image in order to create an image using Wic, the current version of Wic requires the artifacts in the form generated by the build system.

  • You must build several native tools, which are tools built to run on the build system:

         $ bitbake parted-native dosfstools-native mtools-native
                                

  • You must have sourced one of the build environment setup scripts (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres) found in the Build Directory.

5.9.2.3. Getting Help

You can get general help for the wic command by entering the wic command by itself or by entering the command with a help argument as follows:

     $ wic -h
     $ wic --help
                    

Currently, Wic supports two commands: create and list. You can get help for these commands as follows:

     $ wic help command
                    with command being either
                    create or list.
                    

You can also get detailed help on a number of topics from the help system. The output of wic --help displays a list of available help topics under a "Help topics" heading. You can have the help system display the help text for a given topic by prefacing the topic with wic help:

     $ wic help help_topic
                    

You can find out more about the images Wic creates using the existing kickstart files with the following form of the command:

     $ wic list image help
                    

with image being either directdisk or mkefidisk.

5.9.2.4. Operational Modes

You can use Wic in two different modes, depending on how much control you need for specifying the Openembedded build artifacts that are used for creating the image: Raw and Cooked:

  • Raw Mode: You explicitly specify build artifacts through command-line arguments.

  • Cooked Mode: The current MACHINE setting and image name are used to automatically locate and provide the build artifacts.

Regardless of the mode you use, you need to have the build artifacts ready and available. Additionally, the environment must be set up using the oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres script found in the Build Directory.

5.9.2.4.1. Raw Mode

The general form of the wic command in raw mode is:

     $ wic create image_name.wks [options] [...]

       Where:

          image_name.wks
             An OpenEmbedded kickstart file.  You can provide
             your own custom file or use a file from a set of
             existing files as described by further options.

          -o OUTDIR, --outdir=OUTDIR
             The name of a directory in which to create image.

          -i PROPERTIES_FILE, --infile=PROPERTIES_FILE
             The name of a file containing the values for image
             properties as a JSON file.

          -e IMAGE_NAME, --image-name=IMAGE_NAME
             The name of the image from which to use the artifacts
             (e.g. core-image-sato).

          -r ROOTFS_DIR, --rootfs-dir=ROOTFS_DIR
             The path to the /rootfs directory to use as the
             .wks rootfs source.

          -b BOOTIMG_DIR, --bootimg-dir=BOOTIMG_DIR
             The path to the directory containing the boot artifacts
             (e.g. /EFI or /syslinux) to use as the .wks bootimg
             source.

          -k KERNEL_DIR, --kernel-dir=KERNEL_DIR
             The path to the directory containing the kernel to use
             in the .wks boot image.

          -n NATIVE_SYSROOT, --native-sysroot=NATIVE_SYSROOT
             The path to the native sysroot containing the tools to use
             to build the image.

          -s, --skip-build-check
              Skips the build check.

          -D, --debug
              Output debug information.
                        

Note

You do not need root privileges to run Wic. In fact, you should not run as root when using the utility.

5.9.2.4.2. Cooked Mode

The general form of the wic command using Cooked Mode is:

     $ wic create kickstart_file -e image_name

       Where:

           kickstart_file
               An OpenEmbedded kickstart file. You can provide your own
               custom file or a supplied file.

           image_name
               Specifies the image built using the OpenEmbedded build
               system.
                        

This form is the simplest and most user-friendly, as it does not require specifying all individual parameters. All you need to provide is your own .wks file or one provided with the release.

5.9.2.5. Using an Existing Kickstart File

If you do not want to create your own .wks file, you can use an existing file provided by the Wic installation. Use the following command to list the available files:

     $ wic list images
     directdisk Create a 'pcbios' direct disk image
     mkefidisk Create an EFI disk image
                    

When you use an existing file, you do not have to use the .wks extension. Here is an example in Raw Mode that uses the directdisk file:

     $ wic create directdisk -r rootfs_dir -b bootimg_dir \
           -k kernel_dir -n native_sysroot
                    

Here are the actual partition language commands used in the mkefidisk.wks file to generate an image:

     # short-description: Create an EFI disk image
     # long-description: Creates a partitioned EFI disk image that the user
     # can directly dd to boot media.

     part /boot --source bootimg-efi --ondisk sda --label msdos --active --align 1024

     part / --source rootfs --ondisk sda --fstype=ext3 --label platform --align 1024

     part swap --ondisk sda --size 44 --label swap1 --fstype=swap

     bootloader  --timeout=10  --append="rootwait rootfstype=ext3 console=ttyPCH0,115200 console=tty0 vmalloc=256MB snd-hda-intel.enable_msi=0"
                    

5.9.2.6. Examples

This section provides several examples that show how to use the wic utility. All the examples assume the list of requirements in the "Requirements" section have been met. The examples assume the previously generated image is core-image-minimal.

5.9.2.6.1. Generate an Image using an Existing Kickstart File

This example runs in Cooked Mode and uses the mkefidisk kickstart file:

     $ wic create mkefidisk -e core-image-minimal
     Checking basic build environment...
     Done.

     Creating image(s)...

     Info: The new image(s) can be found here:
      current_directory/build/mkefidisk-201310230946-sda.direct

     The following build artifacts were used to create the image(s):
      ROOTFS_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/work/minnow-poky-linux/core-image-minimal/1.0-r0/rootfs
      BOOTIMG_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/work/minnow-poky-linux/core-image-minimal/1.0-r0/core-image-minimal-1.0/hddimg
      KERNEL_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/minnow/usr/src/kernel
      NATIVE_SYSROOT: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/x86_64-linux

     The image(s) were created using OE kickstart file:
      /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/scripts/lib/image/canned-wks/mkefidisk.wks
                        

The previous example shows the easiest way to create an image by running in Cooked Mode and using the -e option with an existing kickstart file. All that is necessary is to specify the image used to generate the artifacts. Your local.conf needs to have the MACHINE variable set to the machine you are using, which is "minnow" in this example.

The output specifies the exact image created as well as where it was created, which is in the current directory by default. The output also names the artifacts used and the exact .wks script that was used to generate the image.

Note

You should always verify the details provided in the output to make sure that the image was indeed created exactly as expected.

Continuing with the example, you can now write the image to a USB stick, or whatever media for which you built your image, and boot the resulting media. You can write the image by using bmaptool or dd:

     $ oe-run-native bmaptool copy build/mkefidisk-201310230946-sda.direct /dev/sdX
                        

or

     $ sudo dd if=build/mkefidisk-201310230946-sda.direct of=/dev/sdX
                        

Note

For more information on how to use the bmaptool to flash a device with an image, see the "Flashing Images Using bmaptool" section.

5.9.2.6.2. Using a Modified Kickstart File

Because partitioned image creation is driven by the kickstart file, it is easy to affect image creation by changing the parameters in the file. This next example demonstrates that through modification of the directdisk kickstart file.

As mentioned earlier, you can use the command wic list images to show the list of existing kickstart files. The directory in which these files reside is scripts/lib/image/canned-wks/ located in the Source Directory. Because the available files reside in this directory, you can create and add your own custom files to the directory. Subsequent use of the wic list images command would then include your kickstart files.

In this example, the existing directdisk file already does most of what is needed. However, for the hardware in this example, the image will need to boot from sdb instead of sda, which is what the directdisk kickstart file uses.

The example begins by making a copy of the directdisk.wks file in the scripts/lib/image/canned-wks directory and then by changing the lines that specify the target disk from which to boot.

     $ cp /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/scripts/lib/image/canned-wks/directdisk.wks \
          /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/scripts/lib/image/canned-wks/directdisksdb.wks
                        

Next, the example modifies the directdisksdb.wks file and changes all instances of "--ondisk sda" to "--ondisk sdb". The example changes the following two lines and leaves the remaining lines untouched:

     part /boot --source bootimg-pcbios --ondisk sdb --label boot --active --align 1024
     part / --source rootfs --ondisk sdb --fstype=ext3 --label platform --align 1024
                        

Once the lines are changed, the example generates the directdisksdb image. The command points the process at the core-image-minimal artifacts for the Next Unit of Computing (nuc) MACHINE the local.conf.

     $ wic create directdisksdb -e core-image-minimal
     Checking basic build environment...
     Done.

     Creating image(s)...

     Info: The new image(s) can be found here:
      current_directory/build/directdisksdb-201310231131-sdb.direct

     The following build artifacts were used to create the image(s):

      ROOTFS_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/work/nuc-poky-linux/core-image-minimal/1.0-r0/rootfs
      BOOTIMG_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/nuc/usr/share
      KERNEL_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/nuc/usr/src/kernel
      NATIVE_SYSROOT: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/x86_64-linux

     The image(s) were created using OE kickstart file:
      /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/scripts/lib/image/canned-wks/directdisksdb.wks
                        

Continuing with the example, you can now directly dd the image to a USB stick, or whatever media for which you built your image, and boot the resulting media:

     $ sudo dd if=build/directdisksdb-201310231131-sdb.direct of=/dev/sdb
     86018+0 records in
     86018+0 records out
     44041216 bytes (44 MB) copied, 13.0734 s, 3.4 MB/s
     [trz at empanada tmp]$ sudo eject /dev/sdb
                        

5.9.2.6.3. Creating an Image Based on core-image-minimal and crownbay-noemgd

This example creates an image based on core-image-minimal and a crownbay-noemgd MACHINE that works right out of the box.

     $ wic create directdisk -e core-image-minimal

     Checking basic build environment...
     Done.

     Creating image(s)...

     Info: The new image(s) can be found here:
      current_directory/build/directdisk-201309252350-sda.direct

     The following build artifacts were used to create the image(s):

     ROOTFS_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/work/crownbay_noemgd-poky-linux/core-image-minimal/1.0-r0/rootfs
     BOOTIMG_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/crownbay-noemgd/usr/share
     KERNEL_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/crownbay-noemgd/usr/src/kernel
     NATIVE_SYSROOT: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/crownbay-noemgd/usr/src/kernel

     The image(s) were created using OE kickstart file:
      /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/scripts/lib/image/canned-wks/directdisk.wks
                        

5.9.2.6.4. Using a Modified Kickstart File and Running in Raw Mode

This next example manually specifies each build artifact (runs in Raw Mode) and uses a modified kickstart file. The example also uses the -o option to cause Wic to create the output somewhere other than the default output directory, which is the current directory:

     $ wic create ~/test.wks -o /home/trz/testwic --rootfs-dir \
          /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/work/crownbay_noemgd-poky-linux/core-image-minimal/1.0-r0/rootfs \
          --bootimg-dir /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/crownbay-noemgd/usr/share \
          --kernel-dir /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/crownbay-noemgd/usr/src/kernel \
          --native-sysroot /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/x86_64-linux

     Creating image(s)...

     Info: The new image(s) can be found here:
      /home/trz/testwic/build/test-201309260032-sda.direct

     The following build artifacts were used to create the image(s):

     ROOTFS_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/work/crownbay_noemgd-poky-linux/core-image-minimal/1.0-r0/rootfs
     BOOTIMG_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/crownbay-noemgd/usr/share
     KERNEL_DIR: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/crownbay-noemgd/usr/src/kernel
     NATIVE_SYSROOT: /home/trz/yocto/yocto-image/build/tmp/sysroots/crownbay-noemgd/usr/src/kernel

     The image(s) were created using OE kickstart file:
      /home/trz/test.wks
                        

For this example, MACHINE did not have to be specified in the local.conf file since the artifact is manually specified.

5.9.2.7. Plug-ins

Plug-ins allow Wic functionality to be extended and specialized by users. This section documents the plug-in interface, which is currently restricted to source plug-ins.

Source plug-ins provide a mechanism to customize various aspects of the image generation process in Wic, mainly the contents of partitions. The plug-ins provide a mechanism for mapping values specified in .wks files using the --source keyword to a particular plug-in implementation that populates a corresponding partition.

Note

If you use plug-ins that have build-time dependencies (e.g. native tools, bootloaders, and so forth) when building a Wic image, you need to specify those dependencies using the WKS_FILE_DEPENDS variable.

A source plug-in is created as a subclass of SourcePlugin. The plug-in file containing it is added to scripts/lib/wic/plugins/source/ to make the plug-in implementation available to the Wic implementation. For more information, see scripts/lib/wic/pluginbase.py.

Source plug-ins can also be implemented and added by external layers. As such, any plug-ins found in a scripts/lib/wic/plugins/source/ directory in an external layer are also made available.

When the Wic implementation needs to invoke a partition-specific implementation, it looks for the plug-in that has the same name as the --source parameter given to that partition. For example, if the partition is set up as follows:

     part /boot --source bootimg-pcbios   ...
                    

The methods defined as class members of the plug-in having the matching bootimg-pcbios.name class member are used.

To be more concrete, here is the plug-in definition that matches a --source bootimg-pcbios usage, along with an example method called by the Wic implementation when it needs to invoke an implementation-specific partition-preparation function:

    class BootimgPcbiosPlugin(SourcePlugin):
        name = 'bootimg-pcbios'

    @classmethod
        def do_prepare_partition(self, part, ...)
                    

If the subclass itself does not implement a function, a default version in a superclass is located and used, which is why all plug-ins must be derived from SourcePlugin.

The SourcePlugin class defines the following methods, which is the current set of methods that can be implemented or overridden by --source plug-ins. Any methods not implemented by a SourcePlugin subclass inherit the implementations present in the SourcePlugin class. For more information, see the SourcePlugin source for details:

  • do_prepare_partition(): Called to do the actual content population for a partition. In other words, the method prepares the final partition image that is incorporated into the disk image.

  • do_configure_partition(): Called before do_prepare_partition(). This method is typically used to create custom configuration files for a partition (e.g. syslinux or grub configuration files).

  • do_install_disk(): Called after all partitions have been prepared and assembled into a disk image. This method provides a hook to allow finalization of a disk image, (e.g. writing an MBR).

  • do_stage_partition(): Special content-staging hook called before do_prepare_partition(). This method is normally empty.

    Typically, a partition just uses the passed-in parameters (e.g. the unmodified value of bootimg_dir). However, in some cases things might need to be more tailored. As an example, certain files might additionally need to be taken from bootimg_dir + /boot. This hook allows those files to be staged in a customized fashion.

    Note

    get_bitbake_var() allows you to access non-standard variables that you might want to use for this.

This scheme is extensible. Adding more hooks is a simple matter of adding more plug-in methods to SourcePlugin and derived classes. The code that then needs to call the plug-in methods uses plugin.get_source_plugin_methods() to find the method or methods needed by the call. Retrieval of those methods is accomplished by filling up a dict with keys containing the method names of interest. On success, these will be filled in with the actual methods. Please see the Wic implementation for examples and details.

5.9.2.8. OpenEmbedded Kickstart (.wks) Reference

The current Wic implementation supports only the basic kickstart partitioning commands: partition (or part for short) and bootloader.

Note

Future updates will implement more commands and options. If you use anything that is not specifically supported, results can be unpredictable.

The following is a list of the commands, their syntax, and meanings. The commands are based on the Fedora kickstart versions but with modifications to reflect Wic capabilities. You can see the original documentation for those commands at the following links:

5.9.2.8.1. Command: part or partition

Either of these commands create a partition on the system and use the following syntax:

     part [mntpoint]
     partition [mntpoint]
                        

If you do not provide mntpoint, Wic creates a partition but does not mount it.

The mntpoint is where the partition will be mounted and must be of one of the following forms:

  • /path: For example, "/", "/usr", or "/home"

  • swap: The created partition is used as swap space.

Specifying a mntpoint causes the partition to automatically be mounted. Wic achieves this by adding entries to the filesystem table (fstab) during image generation. In order for wic to generate a valid fstab, you must also provide one of the --ondrive, --ondisk, or --use-uuid partition options as part of the command. Here is an example using "/" as the mountpoint. The command uses "--ondisk" to force the partition onto the sdb disk:

     part / --source rootfs --ondisk sdb --fstype=ext3 --label platform --align 1024
                        

Here is a list that describes other supported options you can use with the part and partition commands:

  • --size: The minimum partition size in MBytes. Specify an integer value such as 500. Do not append the number with "MB". You do not need this option if you use --source.

  • --source: This option is a Wic-specific option that names the source of the data that populates the partition. The most common value for this option is "rootfs", but you can use any value that maps to a valid source plug-in. For information on the source plug-ins, see the "Plug-ins" section.

    If you use --source rootfs, Wic creates a partition as large as needed and to fill it with the contents of the root filesystem pointed to by the -r command-line option or the equivalent rootfs derived from the -e command-line option. The filesystem type used to create the partition is driven by the value of the --fstype option specified for the partition. See the entry on --fstype that follows for more information.

    If you use --source plugin-name, Wic creates a partition as large as needed and fills it with the contents of the partition that is generated by the specified plug-in name using the data pointed to by the -r command-line option or the equivalent rootfs derived from the -e command-line option. Exactly what those contents and filesystem type end up being are dependent on the given plug-in implementation.

    If you do not use the --source option, the wic command creates an empty partition. Consequently, you must use the --size option to specify the size of the empty partition.

  • --ondisk or --ondrive: Forces the partition to be created on a particular disk.

  • --fstype: Sets the file system type for the partition. Valid values are:

    • ext4

    • ext3

    • ext2

    • btrfs

    • squashfs

    • swap

  • --fsoptions: Specifies a free-form string of options to be used when mounting the filesystem. This string will be copied into the /etc/fstab file of the installed system and should be enclosed in quotes. If not specified, the default string is "defaults".

  • --label label: Specifies the label to give to the filesystem to be made on the partition. If the given label is already in use by another filesystem, a new label is created for the partition.

  • --active: Marks the partition as active.

  • --align (in KBytes): This option is a Wic-specific option that says to start a partition on an x KBytes boundary.

  • --no-table: This option is a Wic-specific option. Using the option reserves space for the partition and causes it to become populated. However, the partition is not added to the partition table.

  • --extra-space: This option is a Wic-specific option that adds extra space after the space filled by the content of the partition. The final size can go beyond the size specified by the --size option. The default value is 10 Mbytes.

  • --overhead-factor: This option is a Wic-specific option that multiplies the size of the partition by the option's value. You must supply a value greater than or equal to "1". The default value is "1.3".

  • --part-type: This option is a Wic-specific option that specifies the partition type globally unique identifier (GUID) for GPT partitions. You can find the list of partition type GUIDs at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table#Partition_type_GUIDs.

  • --use-uuid: This option is a Wic-specific option that causes Wic to generate a random GUID for the partition. The generated identifier is used in the bootloader configuration to specify the root partition.

  • --uuid: This option is a Wic-specific option that specifies the partition UUID.

5.9.2.8.2. Command: bootloader

This command specifies how the bootloader should be configured and supports the following options:

Note

Bootloader functionality and boot partitions are implemented by the various --source plug-ins that implement bootloader functionality. The bootloader command essentially provides a means of modifying bootloader configuration.

  • --timeout: Specifies the number of seconds before the bootloader times out and boots the default option.

  • --append: Specifies kernel parameters. These parameters will be added to the syslinux APPEND or grub kernel command line.

  • --configfile: Specifies a user-defined configuration file for the bootloader. You can provide a full pathname for the file or a file that exists in the canned-wks folder. This option overrides all other bootloader options.

5.10. Building an Initial RAM Filesystem (initramfs) Image

initramfs is the successor of Initial RAM Disk (initrd). It is a "copy in and out" (cpio) archive of the initial file system that gets loaded into memory during the Linux startup process. Because Linux uses the contents of the archive during initialization, the initramfs needs to contain all of the device drivers and tools needed to mount the final root filesystem.

To build an initramfs image and bundle it into the kernel, set the INITRAMFS_IMAGE_BUNDLE variable in your local.conf file, and set the INITRAMFS_IMAGE variable in your machine.conf file:

     INITRAMFS_IMAGE_BUNDLE = "1"
     INITRAMFS_IMAGE = "image_recipe_name"
            

Setting the INITRAMFS_IMAGE_BUNDLE flag causes the initramfs created by the recipe and defined by INITRAMFS_IMAGE to be unpacked into the ${B}/usr/ directory. The unpacked initramfs is then passed to the kernel's Makefile using the CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE variable, allowing initramfs to be built in to the kernel normally.

Note

The preferred method is to use the INITRAMFS_IMAGE variable rather than the INITRAMFS_TASK variable. Setting INITRAMFS_TASK is supported for backward compatibility. However, use of this variable has circular dependency problems. See the INITRAMFS_IMAGE_BUNDLE variable for additional information on these dependency problems.

The recipe that INITRAMFS_IMAGE points to must produce a .cpio.gz, .cpio.tar, .cpio.lz4, .cpio.lzma, or .cpio.xz file. You can ensure you produce one of these .cpio.* files by setting the INITRAMFS_FSTYPES variable in your configuration file to one or more of the above file types.

Note

If you add items to the initramfs image by way of its recipe, you should use PACKAGE_INSTALL rather than IMAGE_INSTALL. PACKAGE_INSTALL gives more direct control of what is added to the image as compared to the defaults you might not necessarily want that are set by the image or core-image classes.

5.11. Configuring the Kernel

Configuring the Yocto Project kernel consists of making sure the .config file has all the right information in it for the image you are building. You can use the menuconfig tool and configuration fragments to make sure your .config file is just how you need it. You can also save known configurations in a defconfig file that the build system can use for kernel configuration.

This section describes how to use menuconfig, create and use configuration fragments, and how to interactively modify your .config file to create the leanest kernel configuration file possible.

For more information on kernel configuration, see the "Changing the Configuration" section in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual.

5.11.1. Using  menuconfig

The easiest way to define kernel configurations is to set them through the menuconfig tool. This tool provides an interactive method with which to set kernel configurations. For general information on menuconfig, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menuconfig.

To use the menuconfig tool in the Yocto Project development environment, you must launch it using BitBake. Thus, the environment must be set up using the oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres script found in the Build Directory. You must also be sure of the state of your build in the Source Directory. The following commands run menuconfig assuming the Source Directory's top-level folder is ~/poky:

     $ cd poky
     $ source oe-init-build-env
     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c kernel_configme -f
     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c menuconfig
                

Once menuconfig comes up, its standard interface allows you to interactively examine and configure all the kernel configuration parameters. After making your changes, simply exit the tool and save your changes to create an updated version of the .config configuration file.

Consider an example that configures the linux-yocto-3.14 kernel. The OpenEmbedded build system recognizes this kernel as linux-yocto. Thus, the following commands from the shell in which you previously sourced the environment initialization script cleans the shared state cache and the WORKDIR directory and then runs menuconfig:

     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c menuconfig
                

Once menuconfig launches, use the interface to navigate through the selections to find the configuration settings in which you are interested. For example, consider the CONFIG_SMP configuration setting. You can find it at Processor Type and Features under the configuration selection Symmetric Multi-processing Support. After highlighting the selection, use the arrow keys to select or deselect the setting. When you are finished with all your selections, exit out and save them.

Saving the selections updates the .config configuration file. This is the file that the OpenEmbedded build system uses to configure the kernel during the build. You can find and examine this file in the Build Directory in tmp/work/. The actual .config is located in the area where the specific kernel is built. For example, if you were building a Linux Yocto kernel based on the Linux 3.14 kernel and you were building a QEMU image targeted for x86 architecture, the .config file would be located here:

     poky/build/tmp/work/qemux86-poky-linux/linux-yocto-3.14.11+git1+84f...
        ...656ed30-r1/linux-qemux86-standard-build
                

Note

The previous example directory is artificially split and many of the characters in the actual filename are omitted in order to make it more readable. Also, depending on the kernel you are using, the exact pathname for linux-yocto-3.14... might differ.

Within the .config file, you can see the kernel settings. For example, the following entry shows that symmetric multi-processor support is not set:

     # CONFIG_SMP is not set
                

A good method to isolate changed configurations is to use a combination of the menuconfig tool and simple shell commands. Before changing configurations with menuconfig, copy the existing .config and rename it to something else, use menuconfig to make as many changes as you want and save them, then compare the renamed configuration file against the newly created file. You can use the resulting differences as your base to create configuration fragments to permanently save in your kernel layer.

Note

Be sure to make a copy of the .config and don't just rename it. The build system needs an existing .config from which to work.

5.11.2. Creating a  defconfig File

A defconfig file is simply a .config renamed to "defconfig". You can use a defconfig file to retain a known set of kernel configurations from which the OpenEmbedded build system can draw to create the final .config file.

Note

Out-of-the-box, the Yocto Project never ships a defconfig or .config file. The OpenEmbedded build system creates the final .config file used to configure the kernel.

To create a defconfig, start with a complete, working Linux kernel .config file. Copy that file to the appropriate ${PN} directory in your layer's recipes-kernel/linux directory, and rename the copied file to "defconfig". Then, add the following lines to the linux-yocto .bbappend file in your layer:

     FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/${PN}:"
     SRC_URI += "file://defconfig"
                

The SRC_URI tells the build system how to search for the file, while the FILESEXTRAPATHS extends the FILESPATH variable (search directories) to include the ${PN} directory you created to hold the configuration changes.

Note

The build system applies the configurations from the defconfig file before applying any subsequent configuration fragments. The final kernel configuration is a combination of the configurations in the defconfig file and any configuration fragments you provide. You need to realize that if you have any configuration fragments, the build system applies these on top of and after applying the existing defconfig file configurations.

For more information on configuring the kernel, see the "Changing the Configuration" and "Generating Configuration Files" sections, both in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual.

5.11.3. Creating Configuration Fragments

Configuration fragments are simply kernel options that appear in a file placed where the OpenEmbedded build system can find and apply them. Syntactically, the configuration statement is identical to what would appear in the .config file, which is in the Build Directory:

     tmp/work/arch-poky-linux/linux-yocto-release_specific_string/linux-arch-build_type
                

It is simple to create a configuration fragment. For example, issuing the following from the shell creates a configuration fragment file named my_smp.cfg that enables multi-processor support within the kernel:

     $ echo "CONFIG_SMP=y" >> my_smp.cfg
                

Note

All configuration fragment files must use the .cfg extension in order for the OpenEmbedded build system to recognize them as a configuration fragment.

Where do you put your configuration fragment files? You can place these files in the same area pointed to by SRC_URI. The OpenEmbedded build system picks up the configuration and adds it to the kernel's configuration. For example, suppose you had a set of configuration options in a file called myconfig.cfg. If you put that file inside a directory named linux-yocto that resides in the same directory as the kernel's append file and then add a SRC_URI statement such as the following to the kernel's append file, those configuration options will be picked up and applied when the kernel is built.

     SRC_URI += "file://myconfig.cfg"
                

As mentioned earlier, you can group related configurations into multiple files and name them all in the SRC_URI statement as well. For example, you could group separate configurations specifically for Ethernet and graphics into their own files and add those by using a SRC_URI statement like the following in your append file:

     SRC_URI += "file://myconfig.cfg \
            file://eth.cfg \
            file://gfx.cfg"
                

5.11.4. Fine-Tuning the Kernel Configuration File

You can make sure the .config file is as lean or efficient as possible by reading the output of the kernel configuration fragment audit, noting any issues, making changes to correct the issues, and then repeating.

As part of the kernel build process, the do_kernel_configcheck task runs. This task validates the kernel configuration by checking the final .config file against the input files. During the check, the task produces warning messages for the following issues:

  • Requested options that did not make the final .config file.

  • Configuration items that appear twice in the same configuration fragment.

  • Configuration items tagged as "required" that were overridden.

  • A board overrides a non-board specific option.

  • Listed options not valid for the kernel being processed. In other words, the option does not appear anywhere.

Note

The do_kernel_configcheck task can also optionally report if an option is overridden during processing.

For each output warning, a message points to the file that contains a list of the options and a pointer to the configuration fragment that defines them. Collectively, the files are the key to streamlining the configuration.

To streamline the configuration, do the following:

  1. Start with a full configuration that you know works - it builds and boots successfully. This configuration file will be your baseline.

  2. Separately run the do_kernel_configme and do_kernel_configcheck tasks.

  3. Take the resulting list of files from the do_kernel_configcheck task warnings and do the following:

    • Drop values that are redefined in the fragment but do not change the final .config file.

    • Analyze and potentially drop values from the .config file that override required configurations.

    • Analyze and potentially remove non-board specific options.

    • Remove repeated and invalid options.

  4. After you have worked through the output of the kernel configuration audit, you can re-run the do_kernel_configme and do_kernel_configcheck tasks to see the results of your changes. If you have more issues, you can deal with them as described in the previous step.

Iteratively working through steps two through four eventually yields a minimal, streamlined configuration file. Once you have the best .config, you can build the Linux Yocto kernel.

5.11.5. Determining Hardware and Non-Hardware Features for the Kernel Configuration Audit Phase

This section describes part of the kernel configuration audit phase that most developers can ignore. During this part of the audit phase, the contents of the final .config file are compared against the fragments specified by the system. These fragments can be system fragments, distro fragments, or user specified configuration elements. Regardless of their origin, the OpenEmbedded build system warns the user if a specific option is not included in the final kernel configuration.

In order to not overwhelm the user with configuration warnings, by default the system only reports on missing "hardware" options because a missing hardware option could mean a boot failure or that important hardware is not available.

To determine whether or not a given option is "hardware" or "non-hardware", the kernel Metadata contains files that classify individual or groups of options as either hardware or non-hardware. To better show this, consider a situation where the Yocto Project kernel cache contains the following files:

     kernel-cache/features/drm-psb/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/features/kgdb/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/ktypes/base/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/bsp/mti-malta32/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/bsp/fsl-mpc8315e-rdb/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/bsp/qemu-ppc32/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/bsp/qemuarma9/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/bsp/mti-malta64/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/bsp/arm-versatile-926ejs/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/bsp/common-pc/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/bsp/common-pc-64/hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/features/rfkill/non-hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/ktypes/base/non-hardware.cfg
     kernel-cache/features/aufs/non-hardware.kcf
     kernel-cache/features/ocf/non-hardware.kcf
     kernel-cache/ktypes/base/non-hardware.kcf
     kernel-cache/ktypes/base/hardware.kcf
     kernel-cache/bsp/qemu-ppc32/hardware.kcf
                

The following list provides explanations for the various files:

  • hardware.kcf: Specifies a list of kernel Kconfig files that contain hardware options only.

  • non-hardware.kcf: Specifies a list of kernel Kconfig files that contain non-hardware options only.

  • hardware.cfg: Specifies a list of kernel CONFIG_ options that are hardware, regardless of whether or not they are within a Kconfig file specified by a hardware or non-hardware Kconfig file (i.e. hardware.kcf or non-hardware.kcf).

  • non-hardware.cfg: Specifies a list of kernel CONFIG_ options that are not hardware, regardless of whether or not they are within a Kconfig file specified by a hardware or non-hardware Kconfig file (i.e. hardware.kcf or non-hardware.kcf).

Here is a specific example using the kernel-cache/bsp/mti-malta32/hardware.cfg:

     CONFIG_SERIAL_8250
     CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_CONSOLE
     CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_NR_UARTS
     CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_PCI
     CONFIG_SERIAL_CORE
     CONFIG_SERIAL_CORE_CONSOLE
     CONFIG_VGA_ARB
                

The kernel configuration audit automatically detects these files (hence the names must be exactly the ones discussed here), and uses them as inputs when generating warnings about the final .config file.

A user-specified kernel Metadata repository, or recipe space feature, can use these same files to classify options that are found within its .cfg files as hardware or non-hardware, to prevent the OpenEmbedded build system from producing an error or warning when an option is not in the final .config file.

5.12. Patching the Kernel

Patching the kernel involves changing or adding configurations to an existing kernel, changing or adding recipes to the kernel that are needed to support specific hardware features, or even altering the source code itself.

Note

You can use the yocto-kernel script found in the Source Directory under scripts to manage kernel patches and configuration. See the "Managing kernel Patches and Config Items with yocto-kernel" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Packages (BSP) Developer's Guide for more information.

This example creates a simple patch by adding some QEMU emulator console output at boot time through printk statements in the kernel's calibrate.c source code file. Applying the patch and booting the modified image causes the added messages to appear on the emulator's console.

The example assumes a clean build exists for the qemux86 machine in a Source Directory named poky. Furthermore, the Build Directory is build and is located in poky and the kernel is based on the Linux 3.4 kernel.

Also, for more information on patching the kernel, see the "Applying Patches" section in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual.

5.12.1. Create a Layer for your Changes

The first step is to create a layer so you can isolate your changes. Rather than use the yocto-layer script to create the layer, this example steps through the process by hand. If you want information on the script that creates a general layer, see the "Creating a General Layer Using the yocto-layer Script" section.

These two commands create a directory you can use for your layer:

     $ cd ~/poky
     $ mkdir meta-mylayer
                

Creating a directory that follows the Yocto Project layer naming conventions sets up the layer for your changes. The layer is where you place your configuration files, append files, and patch files. To learn more about creating a layer and filling it with the files you need, see the "Understanding and Creating Layers" section.

5.12.2. Finding the Kernel Source Code

Each time you build a kernel image, the kernel source code is fetched and unpacked into the following directory:

     ${S}/linux
                

See the "Finding Temporary Source Code" section and the S variable for more information about where source is kept during a build.

For this example, we are going to patch the init/calibrate.c file by adding some simple console printk statements that we can see when we boot the image using QEMU.

5.12.3. Creating the Patch

Two methods exist by which you can create the patch: devtool and Quilt. For kernel patches, the Git workflow is more appropriate. This section assumes the Git workflow and shows the steps specific to this example.

  1. Change the working directory: Change to where the kernel source code is before making your edits to the calibrate.c file:

         $ cd ~/poky/build/tmp/work/qemux86-poky-linux/linux-yocto-${PV}-${PR}/linux
                            

    Because you are working in an established Git repository, you must be in this directory in order to commit your changes and create the patch file.

    Note

    The PV and PR variables represent the version and revision for the linux-yocto recipe. The PV variable includes the Git meta and machine hashes, which make the directory name longer than you might expect.
  2. Edit the source file: Edit the init/calibrate.c file to have the following changes:

         void calibrate_delay(void)
         {
             unsigned long lpj;
             static bool printed;
             int this_cpu = smp_processor_id();
    
             printk("*************************************\n");
             printk("*                                   *\n");
             printk("*        HELLO YOCTO KERNEL         *\n");
             printk("*                                   *\n");
             printk("*************************************\n");
    
         	if (per_cpu(cpu_loops_per_jiffy, this_cpu)) {
                   .
                   .
                   .
                            
  3. Stage and commit your changes: These Git commands display the modified file, stage it, and then commit the file:

         $ git status
         $ git add init/calibrate.c
         $ git commit -m "calibrate: Add printk example"
                            
  4. Generate the patch file: This Git command creates the a patch file named 0001-calibrate-Add-printk-example.patch in the current directory.

         $ git format-patch -1
                            

5.12.4. Set Up Your Layer for the Build

These steps get your layer set up for the build:

  1. Create additional structure: Create the additional layer structure:

         $ cd ~/poky/meta-mylayer
         $ mkdir conf
         $ mkdir recipes-kernel
         $ mkdir recipes-kernel/linux
         $ mkdir recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto
                             

    The conf directory holds your configuration files, while the recipes-kernel directory holds your append file and your patch file.

  2. Create the layer configuration file: Move to the meta-mylayer/conf directory and create the layer.conf file as follows:

         # We have a conf and classes directory, add to BBPATH
         BBPATH .= ":${LAYERDIR}"
    
         # We have recipes-* directories, add to BBFILES
         BBFILES += "${LAYERDIR}/recipes-*/*/*.bb \
                     ${LAYERDIR}/recipes-*/*/*.bbappend"
    
         BBFILE_COLLECTIONS += "mylayer"
         BBFILE_PATTERN_mylayer = "^${LAYERDIR}/"
         BBFILE_PRIORITY_mylayer = "5"
                             

    Notice mylayer as part of the last three statements.

  3. Create the kernel recipe append file: Move to the meta-mylayer/recipes-kernel/linux directory and create the linux-yocto_3.4.bbappend file as follows:

         FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/${PN}:"
    
         SRC_URI += "file://0001-calibrate-Add-printk-example.patch"
                            

    The FILESEXTRAPATHS and SRC_URI statements enable the OpenEmbedded build system to find the patch file. For more information on using append files, see the "Using .bbappend Files in Your Layer" section.

  4. Put the patch file in your layer: Move the 0001-calibrate-Add-printk-example.patch file to the meta-mylayer/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto directory.

5.12.5. Set Up for the Build

Do the following to make sure the build parameters are set up for the example. Once you set up these build parameters, they do not have to change unless you change the target architecture of the machine you are building:

  • Build for the correct target architecture: Your selected MACHINE definition within the local.conf file in the Build Directory specifies the target architecture used when building the Linux kernel. By default, MACHINE is set to qemux86, which specifies a 32-bit Intel® Architecture target machine suitable for the QEMU emulator.

  • Identify your meta-mylayer layer: The BBLAYERS variable in the bblayers.conf file found in the poky/build/conf directory needs to have the path to your local meta-mylayer layer. By default, the BBLAYERS variable contains paths to meta, meta-poky, and meta-yocto-bsp in the poky Git repository. Add the path to your meta-mylayer location:

         BBLAYERS ?= " \
           $HOME/poky/meta \
           $HOME/poky/meta-poky \
           $HOME/poky/meta-yocto-bsp \
           $HOME/poky/meta-mylayer \
           "
                            

5.12.6. Build the Modified QEMU Kernel Image

The following steps build your modified kernel image:

  1. Be sure your build environment is initialized: Your environment should be set up since you previously sourced the oe-init-build-env script. If it is not, source the script again from poky.

         $ cd ~/poky
         $ source oe-init-build-env
                            

  2. Clean up: Be sure to clean the shared state out by using BitBake to run from within the Build Directory the do_cleansstate task as follows:

         $ bitbake -c cleansstate linux-yocto
                            

    Note

    Never remove any files by hand from the tmp/deploy directory inside the Build Directory. Always use the various BitBake clean tasks to clear out previous build artifacts. For information on the clean tasks, see the "do_clean", "do_cleanall", and "do_cleansstate" sections all in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

  3. Build the image: Next, build the kernel image using this command:

         $ bitbake -k linux-yocto
                            

5.12.7. Boot the Image and Verify Your Changes

These steps boot the image and allow you to see the changes

  1. Boot the image: Boot the modified image in the QEMU emulator using this command:

         $ runqemu qemux86
                            
  2. Verify the changes: Log into the machine using root with no password and then use the following shell command to scroll through the console's boot output.

         # dmesg | less
                            

    You should see the results of your printk statements as part of the output.

5.13. Making Images More Secure

Security is of increasing concern for embedded devices. Consider the issues and problems discussed in just this sampling of work found across the Internet:

When securing your image is of concern, there are steps, tools, and variables that you can consider to help you reach the security goals you need for your particular device. Not all situations are identical when it comes to making an image secure. Consequently, this section provides some guidance and suggestions for consideration when you want to make your image more secure.

Note

Because the security requirements and risks are different for every type of device, this section cannot provide a complete reference on securing your custom OS. It is strongly recommended that you also consult other sources of information on embedded Linux system hardening and on security.

5.13.1. General Considerations

General considerations exist that help you create more secure images. You should consider the following suggestions to help make your device more secure:

  • Scan additional code you are adding to the system (e.g. application code) by using static analysis tools. Look for buffer overflows and other potential security problems.

  • Pay particular attention to the security for any web-based administration interface.

    Web interfaces typically need to perform administrative functions and tend to need to run with elevated privileges. Thus, the consequences resulting from the interface's security becoming compromised can be serious. Look for common web vulnerabilities such as cross-site-scripting (XSS), unvalidated inputs, and so forth.

    As with system passwords, the default credentials for accessing a web-based interface should not be the same across all devices. This is particularly true if the interface is enabled by default as it can be assumed that many end-users will not change the credentials.

  • Ensure you can update the software on the device to mitigate vulnerabilities discovered in the future. This consideration especially applies when your device is network-enabled.

  • Ensure you remove or disable debugging functionality before producing the final image. For information on how to do this, see the "Considerations Specific to the OpenEmbedded Build System" section.

  • Ensure you have no network services listening that are not needed.

  • Remove any software from the image that is not needed.

  • Enable hardware support for secure boot functionality when your device supports this functionality.

5.13.2. Security Flags

The Yocto Project has security flags that you can enable that help make your build output more secure. The security flags are in the meta/conf/distro/include/security_flags.inc file in your Source Directory (e.g. poky).

Note

Depending on the recipe, certain security flags are enabled and disabled by default.

Use the following line in your local.conf file or in your custom distribution configuration file to enable the security compiler and linker flags for your build:

     require conf/distro/include/security_flags.inc
                

5.13.3. Considerations Specific to the OpenEmbedded Build System

You can take some steps that are specific to the OpenEmbedded build system to make your images more secure:

  • Ensure "debug-tweaks" is not one of your selected IMAGE_FEATURES. When creating a new project, the default is to provide you with an initial local.conf file that enables this feature using the EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES variable with the line:

         EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES = "debug-tweaks"
                    

    To disable that feature, simply comment out that line in your local.conf file, or make sure IMAGE_FEATURES does not contain "debug-tweaks" before producing your final image. Among other things, leaving this in place sets the root password as blank, which makes logging in for debugging or inspection easy during development but also means anyone can easily log in during production.

  • It is possible to set a root password for the image and also to set passwords for any extra users you might add (e.g. administrative or service type users). When you set up passwords for multiple images or users, you should not duplicate passwords.

    To set up passwords, use the extrausers class, which is the preferred method. For an example on how to set up both root and user passwords, see the "extrausers.bbclass" section.

    Note

    When adding extra user accounts or setting a root password, be cautious about setting the same password on every device. If you do this, and the password you have set is exposed, then every device is now potentially compromised. If you need this access but want to ensure security, consider setting a different, random password for each device. Typically, you do this as a separate step after you deploy the image onto the device.

  • Consider enabling a Mandatory Access Control (MAC) framework such as SMACK or SELinux and tuning it appropriately for your device's usage. You can find more information in the meta-selinux layer.

5.13.4. Tools for Hardening Your Image

The Yocto Project provides tools for making your image more secure. You can find these tools in the meta-security layer of the Yocto Project Source Repositories.

5.14. Creating Your Own Distribution

When you build an image using the Yocto Project and do not alter any distribution Metadata, you are creating a Poky distribution. If you wish to gain more control over package alternative selections, compile-time options, and other low-level configurations, you can create your own distribution.

To create your own distribution, the basic steps consist of creating your own distribution layer, creating your own distribution configuration file, and then adding any needed code and Metadata to the layer. The following steps provide some more detail:

  • Create a layer for your new distro: Create your distribution layer so that you can keep your Metadata and code for the distribution separate. It is strongly recommended that you create and use your own layer for configuration and code. Using your own layer as compared to just placing configurations in a local.conf configuration file makes it easier to reproduce the same build configuration when using multiple build machines. See the "Creating a General Layer Using the yocto-layer Script" section for information on how to quickly set up a layer.

  • Create the distribution configuration file: The distribution configuration file needs to be created in the conf/distro directory of your layer. You need to name it using your distribution name (e.g. mydistro.conf).

    Note

    The DISTRO variable in your local.conf file determines the name of your distribution.

    You can split out parts of your configuration file into include files and then "require" them from within your distribution configuration file. Be sure to place the include files in the conf/distro/include directory of your layer. A common example usage of include files would be to separate out the selection of desired version and revisions for individual recipes.

    Your configuration file needs to set the following required variables:

         DISTRO_NAME
         DISTRO_VERSION
                        

    These following variables are optional and you typically set them from the distribution configuration file:

         DISTRO_FEATURES
         DISTRO_EXTRA_RDEPENDS
         DISTRO_EXTRA_RRECOMMENDS
         TCLIBC
                        

    Tip

    If you want to base your distribution configuration file on the very basic configuration from OE-Core, you can use conf/distro/defaultsetup.conf as a reference and just include variables that differ as compared to defaultsetup.conf. Alternatively, you can create a distribution configuration file from scratch using the defaultsetup.conf file or configuration files from other distributions such as Poky or Angstrom as references.
  • Provide miscellaneous variables: Be sure to define any other variables for which you want to create a default or enforce as part of the distribution configuration. You can include nearly any variable from the local.conf file. The variables you use are not limited to the list in the previous bulleted item.

  • Point to Your distribution configuration file: In your local.conf file in the Build Directory, set your DISTRO variable to point to your distribution's configuration file. For example, if your distribution's configuration file is named mydistro.conf, then you point to it as follows:

         DISTRO = "mydistro"
                        
  • Add more to the layer if necessary: Use your layer to hold other information needed for the distribution:

    • Add recipes for installing distro-specific configuration files that are not already installed by another recipe. If you have distro-specific configuration files that are included by an existing recipe, you should add an append file (.bbappend) for those. For general information and recommendations on how to add recipes to your layer, see the "Creating Your Own Layer" and "Best Practices to Follow When Creating Layers" sections.

    • Add any image recipes that are specific to your distribution.

    • Add a psplash append file for a branded splash screen. For information on append files, see the "Using .bbappend Files in Your Layer" section.

    • Add any other append files to make custom changes that are specific to individual recipes.

5.15. Creating a Custom Template Configuration Directory

If you are producing your own customized version of the build system for use by other users, you might want to customize the message shown by the setup script or you might want to change the template configuration files (i.e. local.conf and bblayers.conf) that are created in a new build directory.

The OpenEmbedded build system uses the environment variable TEMPLATECONF to locate the directory from which it gathers configuration information that ultimately ends up in the Build Directory's conf directory. By default, TEMPLATECONF is set as follows in the poky repository:

     TEMPLATECONF=${TEMPLATECONF:-meta-poky/conf}
            

This is the directory used by the build system to find templates from which to build some key configuration files. If you look at this directory, you will see the bblayers.conf.sample, local.conf.sample, and conf-notes.txt files. The build system uses these files to form the respective bblayers.conf file, local.conf file, and display the list of BitBake targets when running the setup script.

To override these default configuration files with configurations you want used within every new Build Directory, simply set the TEMPLATECONF variable to your directory. The TEMPLATECONF variable is set in the .templateconf file, which is in the top-level Source Directory folder (e.g. poky). Edit the .templateconf so that it can locate your directory.

Best practices dictate that you should keep your template configuration directory in your custom distribution layer. For example, suppose you have a layer named meta-mylayer located in your home directory and you want your template configuration directory named myconf. Changing the .templateconf as follows causes the OpenEmbedded build system to look in your directory and base its configuration files on the *.sample configuration files it finds. The final configuration files (i.e. local.conf and bblayers.conf ultimately still end up in your Build Directory, but they are based on your *.sample files.

     TEMPLATECONF=${TEMPLATECONF:-meta-mylayer/myconf}
            

Aside from the *.sample configuration files, the conf-notes.txt also resides in the default meta-poky/conf directory. The scripts that set up the build environment (i.e. oe-init-build-env and oe-init-build-env-memres) use this file to display BitBake targets as part of the script output. Customizing this conf-notes.txt file is a good way to make sure your list of custom targets appears as part of the script's output.

Here is the default list of targets displayed as a result of running either of the setup scripts:

     You can now run 'bitbake <target>'

     Common targets are:
         core-image-minimal
         core-image-sato
         meta-toolchain
         meta-ide-support
            

Changing the listed common targets is as easy as editing your version of conf-notes.txt in your custom template configuration directory and making sure you have TEMPLATECONF set to your directory.

5.16. Building a Tiny System

Very small distributions have some significant advantages such as requiring less on-die or in-package memory (cheaper), better performance through efficient cache usage, lower power requirements due to less memory, faster boot times, and reduced development overhead. Some real-world examples where a very small distribution gives you distinct advantages are digital cameras, medical devices, and small headless systems.

This section presents information that shows you how you can trim your distribution to even smaller sizes than the poky-tiny distribution, which is around 5 Mbytes, that can be built out-of-the-box using the Yocto Project.

5.16.1. Overview

The following list presents the overall steps you need to consider and perform to create distributions with smaller root filesystems, achieve faster boot times, maintain your critical functionality, and avoid initial RAM disks:

5.16.2. Goals and Guiding Principles

Before you can reach your destination, you need to know where you are going. Here is an example list that you can use as a guide when creating very small distributions:

  • Determine how much space you need (e.g. a kernel that is 1 Mbyte or less and a root filesystem that is 3 Mbytes or less).

  • Find the areas that are currently taking 90% of the space and concentrate on reducing those areas.

  • Do not create any difficult "hacks" to achieve your goals.

  • Leverage the device-specific options.

  • Work in a separate layer so that you keep changes isolated. For information on how to create layers, see the "Understanding and Creating Layers" section.

5.16.3. Understand What Contributes to Your Image Size

It is easiest to have something to start with when creating your own distribution. You can use the Yocto Project out-of-the-box to create the poky-tiny distribution. Ultimately, you will want to make changes in your own distribution that are likely modeled after poky-tiny.

Note

To use poky-tiny in your build, set the DISTRO variable in your local.conf file to "poky-tiny" as described in the "Creating Your Own Distribution" section.

Understanding some memory concepts will help you reduce the system size. Memory consists of static, dynamic, and temporary memory. Static memory is the TEXT (code), DATA (initialized data in the code), and BSS (uninitialized data) sections. Dynamic memory represents memory that is allocated at runtime: stacks, hash tables, and so forth. Temporary memory is recovered after the boot process. This memory consists of memory used for decompressing the kernel and for the __init__ functions.

To help you see where you currently are with kernel and root filesystem sizes, you can use two tools found in the Source Directory in the scripts/tiny/ directory:

  • ksize.py: Reports component sizes for the kernel build objects.

  • dirsize.py: Reports component sizes for the root filesystem.

This next tool and command help you organize configuration fragments and view file dependencies in a human-readable form:

  • merge_config.sh: Helps you manage configuration files and fragments within the kernel. With this tool, you can merge individual configuration fragments together. The tool allows you to make overrides and warns you of any missing configuration options. The tool is ideal for allowing you to iterate on configurations, create minimal configurations, and create configuration files for different machines without having to duplicate your process.

    The merge_config.sh script is part of the Linux Yocto kernel Git repositories (i.e. linux-yocto-3.14, linux-yocto-3.10, linux-yocto-3.8, and so forth) in the scripts/kconfig directory.

    For more information on configuration fragments, see the "Generating Configuration Files" section of the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual and the "Creating Configuration Fragments" section, which is in this manual.

  • bitbake -u taskexp -g bitbake_target: Using the BitBake command with these options brings up a Dependency Explorer from which you can view file dependencies. Understanding these dependencies allows you to make informed decisions when cutting out various pieces of the kernel and root filesystem.

5.16.4. Trim the Root Filesystem

The root filesystem is made up of packages for booting, libraries, and applications. To change things, you can configure how the packaging happens, which changes the way you build them. You can also modify the filesystem itself or select a different filesystem.

First, find out what is hogging your root filesystem by running the dirsize.py script from your root directory:

     $ cd root-directory-of-image
     $ dirsize.py 100000 > dirsize-100k.log
     $ cat dirsize-100k.log
                

You can apply a filter to the script to ignore files under a certain size. The previous example filters out any files below 100 Kbytes. The sizes reported by the tool are uncompressed, and thus will be smaller by a relatively constant factor in a compressed root filesystem. When you examine your log file, you can focus on areas of the root filesystem that take up large amounts of memory.

You need to be sure that what you eliminate does not cripple the functionality you need. One way to see how packages relate to each other is by using the Dependency Explorer UI with the BitBake command:

     $ cd image-directory
     $ bitbake -u taskexp -g image
                

Use the interface to select potential packages you wish to eliminate and see their dependency relationships.

When deciding how to reduce the size, get rid of packages that result in minimal impact on the feature set. For example, you might not need a VGA display. Or, you might be able to get by with devtmpfs and mdev instead of udev.

Use your local.conf file to make changes. For example, to eliminate udev and glib, set the following in the local configuration file:

     VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_dev_manager = ""
                

Finally, you should consider exactly the type of root filesystem you need to meet your needs while also reducing its size. For example, consider cramfs, squashfs, ubifs, ext2, or an initramfs using initramfs. Be aware that ext3 requires a 1 Mbyte journal. If you are okay with running read-only, you do not need this journal.

Note

After each round of elimination, you need to rebuild your system and then use the tools to see the effects of your reductions.

5.16.5. Trim the Kernel

The kernel is built by including policies for hardware-independent aspects. What subsystems do you enable? For what architecture are you building? Which drivers do you build by default?

Note

You can modify the kernel source if you want to help with boot time.

Run the ksize.py script from the top-level Linux build directory to get an idea of what is making up the kernel:

     $ cd top-level-linux-build-directory
     $ ksize.py > ksize.log
     $ cat ksize.log
                

When you examine the log, you will see how much space is taken up with the built-in .o files for drivers, networking, core kernel files, filesystem, sound, and so forth. The sizes reported by the tool are uncompressed, and thus will be smaller by a relatively constant factor in a compressed kernel image. Look to reduce the areas that are large and taking up around the "90% rule."

To examine, or drill down, into any particular area, use the -d option with the script:

     $ ksize.py -d > ksize.log
                

Using this option breaks out the individual file information for each area of the kernel (e.g. drivers, networking, and so forth).

Use your log file to see what you can eliminate from the kernel based on features you can let go. For example, if you are not going to need sound, you do not need any drivers that support sound.

After figuring out what to eliminate, you need to reconfigure the kernel to reflect those changes during the next build. You could run menuconfig and make all your changes at once. However, that makes it difficult to see the effects of your individual eliminations and also makes it difficult to replicate the changes for perhaps another target device. A better method is to start with no configurations using allnoconfig, create configuration fragments for individual changes, and then manage the fragments into a single configuration file using merge_config.sh. The tool makes it easy for you to iterate using the configuration change and build cycle.

Each time you make configuration changes, you need to rebuild the kernel and check to see what impact your changes had on the overall size.

5.16.6. Remove Package Management Requirements

Packaging requirements add size to the image. One way to reduce the size of the image is to remove all the packaging requirements from the image. This reduction includes both removing the package manager and its unique dependencies as well as removing the package management data itself.

To eliminate all the packaging requirements for an image, be sure that "package-management" is not part of your IMAGE_FEATURES statement for the image. When you remove this feature, you are removing the package manager as well as its dependencies from the root filesystem.

5.16.7. Look for Other Ways to Minimize Size

Depending on your particular circumstances, other areas that you can trim likely exist. The key to finding these areas is through tools and methods described here combined with experimentation and iteration. Here are a couple of areas to experiment with:

  • glibc: In general, follow this process:

    1. Remove glibc features from DISTRO_FEATURES that you think you do not need.

    2. Build your distribution.

    3. If the build fails due to missing symbols in a package, determine if you can reconfigure the package to not need those features. For example, change the configuration to not support wide character support as is done for ncurses. Or, if support for those characters is needed, determine what glibc features provide the support and restore the configuration.

    4. Rebuild and repeat the process.

  • busybox: For BusyBox, use a process similar as described for glibc. A difference is you will need to boot the resulting system to see if you are able to do everything you expect from the running system. You need to be sure to integrate configuration fragments into Busybox because BusyBox handles its own core features and then allows you to add configuration fragments on top.

5.16.8. Iterate on the Process

If you have not reached your goals on system size, you need to iterate on the process. The process is the same. Use the tools and see just what is taking up 90% of the root filesystem and the kernel. Decide what you can eliminate without limiting your device beyond what you need.

Depending on your system, a good place to look might be Busybox, which provides a stripped down version of Unix tools in a single, executable file. You might be able to drop virtual terminal services or perhaps ipv6.

5.17. Building Images for More than One Machine

A common scenario developers face is creating images for several different machines that use the same software environment. In this situation, it is tempting to set the tunings and optimization flags for each build specifically for the targeted hardware (i.e. "maxing out" the tunings). Doing so can considerably add to build times and package feed maintenance collectively for the machines. For example, selecting tunes that are extremely specific to a CPU core used in a system might enable some micro optimizations in GCC for that particular system but would otherwise not gain you much of a performance difference across the other systems as compared to using a more general tuning across all the builds (e.g. setting DEFAULTTUNE specifically for each machine's build). Rather than "max out" each build's tunings, you can take steps that cause the OpenEmbedded build system to reuse software across the various machines where it makes sense.

If build speed and package feed maintenance are considerations, you should consider the points in this section that can help you optimize your tunings to best consider build times and package feed maintenance.

  • Share the Build Directory: If at all possible, share the TMPDIR across builds. The Yocto Project supports switching between different MACHINE values in the same TMPDIR. This practice is well supported and regularly used by developers when building for multiple machines. When you use the same TMPDIR for multiple machine builds, the OpenEmbedded build system can reuse the existing native and often cross-recipes for multiple machines. Thus, build time decreases.

    Note

    If DISTRO settings change or fundamental configuration settings such as the filesystem layout, you need to work with a clean TMPDIR. Sharing TMPDIR under these circumstances might work but since it is not guaranteed, you should use a clean TMPDIR.

  • Enable the Appropriate Package Architecture: By default, the OpenEmbedded build system enables three levels of package architectures: "all", "tune" or "package", and "machine". Any given recipe usually selects one of these package architectures (types) for its output. Depending for what a given recipe creates packages, making sure you enable the appropriate package architecture can directly impact the build time.

    A recipe that just generates scripts can enable "all" architecture because there are no binaries to build. To specifically enable "all" architecture, be sure your recipe inherits the allarch class. This class is useful for "all" architectures because it configures many variables so packages can be used across multiple architectures.

    If your recipe needs to generate packages that are machine-specific or when one of the build or runtime dependencies is already machine-architecture dependent, which makes your recipe also machine-architecture dependent, make sure your recipe enables the "machine" package architecture through the MACHINE_ARCH variable:

         PACKAGE_ARCH = "${MACHINE_ARCH}"
                        

    When you do not specifically enable a package architecture through the PACKAGE_ARCH, The OpenEmbedded build system defaults to the TUNE_PKGARCH setting:

         PACKAGE_ARCH = "${TUNE_PKGARCH}"
                        

  • Choose a Generic Tuning File if Possible: Some tunes are more generic and can run on multiple targets (e.g. an armv5 set of packages could run on armv6 and armv7 processors in most cases). Similarly, i486 binaries could work on i586 and higher processors. You should realize, however, that advances on newer processor versions would not be used.

    If you select the same tune for several different machines, the OpenEmbedded build system reuses software previously built, thus speeding up the overall build time. Realize that even though a new sysroot for each machine is generated, the software is not recompiled and only one package feed exists.

  • Manage Granular Level Packaging: Sometimes cases exist where injecting another level of package architecture beyond the three higher levels noted earlier can be useful. For example, consider the emgd graphics stack in the meta-intel layer. In this layer, a subset of software exists that is compiled against something different from the rest of the generic packages. You can examine the key code in the Source Repositories "daisy" branch in classes/emgd-gl.bbclass. For a specific set of packages, the code redefines PACKAGE_ARCH. PACKAGE_EXTRA_ARCHS is then appended with this extra tune name in meta-intel-emgd.inc. The result is that when searching for packages, the build system uses a four-level search and the packages in this new level are preferred as compared to the standard tune. The overall result is that the build system reuses most software from the common tune except for specific cases as needed.

  • Use Tools to Debug Issues: Sometimes you can run into situations where software is being rebuilt when you think it should not be. For example, the OpenEmbedded build system might not be using shared state between machines when you think it should be. These types of situations are usually due to references to machine-specific variables such as MACHINE, SERIAL_CONSOLE, XSERVER, MACHINE_FEATURES, and so forth in code that is supposed to only be tune-specific or when the recipe depends (DEPENDS, RDEPENDS, RRECOMMENDS, RSUGGESTS, and so forth) on some other recipe that already has PACKAGE_ARCH defined as "${MACHINE_ARCH}".

    Note

    Patches to fix any issues identified are most welcome as these issues occasionally do occur.

    For such cases, you can use some tools to help you sort out the situation:

    • sstate-diff-machines.sh: You can find this tool in the scripts directory of the Source Repositories. See the comments in the script for information on how to use the tool.

    • BitBake's "-S printdiff" Option: Using this option causes BitBake to try to establish the closest signature match it can (e.g. in the shared state cache) and then run bitbake-diffsigs over the matches to determine the stamps and delta where these two stamp trees diverge.

5.18. Working with Packages

This section describes a few tasks that involve packages:

5.18.1. Excluding Packages from an Image

You might find it necessary to prevent specific packages from being installed into an image. If so, you can use several variables to direct the build system to essentially ignore installing recommended packages or to not install a package at all.

The following list introduces variables you can use to prevent packages from being installed into your image. Each of these variables only works with IPK and RPM package types. Support for Debian packages does not exist. Also, you can use these variables from your local.conf file or attach them to a specific image recipe by using a recipe name override. For more detail on the variables, see the descriptions in the Yocto Project Reference Manual's glossary chapter.

  • BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS: Use this variable to specify "recommended-only" packages that you do not want installed.

  • NO_RECOMMENDATIONS: Use this variable to prevent all "recommended-only" packages from being installed.

  • PACKAGE_EXCLUDE: Use this variable to prevent specific packages from being installed regardless of whether they are "recommended-only" or not. You need to realize that the build process could fail with an error when you prevent the installation of a package whose presence is required by an installed package.

5.18.2. Incrementing a Package Version

This section provides some background on how binary package versioning is accomplished and presents some of the services, variables, and terminology involved.

In order to understand binary package versioning, you need to consider the following:

  • Binary Package: The binary package that is eventually built and installed into an image.

  • Binary Package Version: The binary package version is composed of two components - a version and a revision.

    Note

    Technically, a third component, the "epoch" (i.e. PE) is involved but this discussion for the most part ignores PE.

    The version and revision are taken from the PV and PR variables, respectively.

  • PV: The recipe version. PV represents the version of the software being packaged. Do not confuse PV with the binary package version.

  • PR: The recipe revision.

  • SRCPV: The OpenEmbedded build system uses this string to help define the value of PV when the source code revision needs to be included in it.

  • PR Service: A network-based service that helps automate keeping package feeds compatible with existing package manager applications such as RPM, APT, and OPKG.

Whenever the binary package content changes, the binary package version must change. Changing the binary package version is accomplished by changing or "bumping" the PR and/or PV values. Increasing these values occurs one of two ways:

  • Automatically using a Package Revision Service (PR Service).

  • Manually incrementing the PR and/or PV variables.

Given a primary challenge of any build system and its users is how to maintain a package feed that is compatible with existing package manager applications such as RPM, APT, and OPKG, using an automated system is much preferred over a manual system. In either system, the main requirement is that binary package version numbering increases in a linear fashion and that a number of version components exist that support that linear progression. For information on how to ensure package revisioning remains linear, see the "Automatically Incrementing a Binary Package Revision Number" section.

The following three sections provide related information on the PR Service, the manual method for "bumping" PR and/or PV, and on how to ensure binary package revisioning remains linear.

5.18.2.1. Working With a PR Service

As mentioned, attempting to maintain revision numbers in the Metadata is error prone, inaccurate, and causes problems for people submitting recipes. Conversely, the PR Service automatically generates increasing numbers, particularly the revision field, which removes the human element.

Note

For additional information on using a PR Service, you can see the PR Service wiki page.

The Yocto Project uses variables in order of decreasing priority to facilitate revision numbering (i.e. PE, PV, and PR for epoch, version, and revision, respectively). The values are highly dependent on the policies and procedures of a given distribution and package feed.

Because the OpenEmbedded build system uses "signatures", which are unique to a given build, the build system knows when to rebuild packages. All the inputs into a given task are represented by a signature, which can trigger a rebuild when different. Thus, the build system itself does not rely on the PR, PV, and PE numbers to trigger a rebuild. The signatures, however, can be used to generate these values.

The PR Service works with both OEBasic and OEBasicHash generators. The value of PR bumps when the checksum changes and the different generator mechanisms change signatures under different circumstances.

As implemented, the build system includes values from the PR Service into the PR field as an addition using the form ".x" so r0 becomes r0.1, r0.2 and so forth. This scheme allows existing PR values to be used for whatever reasons, which include manual PR bumps, should it be necessary.

By default, the PR Service is not enabled or running. Thus, the packages generated are just "self consistent". The build system adds and removes packages and there are no guarantees about upgrade paths but images will be consistent and correct with the latest changes.

The simplest form for a PR Service is for it to exist for a single host development system that builds the package feed (building system). For this scenario, you can enable a local PR Service by setting PRSERV_HOST in your local.conf file in the Build Directory:

     PRSERV_HOST = "localhost:0"
                    

Once the service is started, packages will automatically get increasing PR values and BitBake takes care of starting and stopping the server.

If you have a more complex setup where multiple host development systems work against a common, shared package feed, you have a single PR Service running and it is connected to each building system. For this scenario, you need to start the PR Service using the bitbake-prserv command:

     bitbake-prserv --host ip --port port --start
                    

In addition to hand-starting the service, you need to update the local.conf file of each building system as described earlier so each system points to the server and port.

It is also recommended you use build history, which adds some sanity checks to binary package versions, in conjunction with the server that is running the PR Service. To enable build history, add the following to each building system's local.conf file:

     # It is recommended to activate "buildhistory" for testing the PR service
     INHERIT += "buildhistory"
     BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT = "1"
                    

For information on build history, see the "Maintaining Build Output Quality" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

Note

The OpenEmbedded build system does not maintain PR information as part of the shared state (sstate) packages. If you maintain an sstate feed, its expected that either all your building systems that contribute to the sstate feed use a shared PR Service, or you do not run a PR Service on any of your building systems. Having some systems use a PR Service while others do not leads to obvious problems.

For more information on shared state, see the "Shared State Cache" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

5.18.2.2. Manually Bumping PR

The alternative to setting up a PR Service is to manually "bump" the PR variable.

If a committed change results in changing the package output, then the value of the PR variable needs to be increased (or "bumped") as part of that commit. For new recipes you should add the PR variable and set its initial value equal to "r0", which is the default. Even though the default value is "r0", the practice of adding it to a new recipe makes it harder to forget to bump the variable when you make changes to the recipe in future.

If you are sharing a common .inc file with multiple recipes, you can also use the INC_PR variable to ensure that the recipes sharing the .inc file are rebuilt when the .inc file itself is changed. The .inc file must set INC_PR (initially to "r0"), and all recipes referring to it should set PR to "${INC_PR}.0" initially, incrementing the last number when the recipe is changed. If the .inc file is changed then its INC_PR should be incremented.

When upgrading the version of a binary package, assuming the PV changes, the PR variable should be reset to "r0" (or "${INC_PR}.0" if you are using INC_PR).

Usually, version increases occur only to binary packages. However, if for some reason PV changes but does not increase, you can increase the PE variable (Package Epoch). The PE variable defaults to "0".

Binary package version numbering strives to follow the Debian Version Field Policy Guidelines. These guidelines define how versions are compared and what "increasing" a version means.

5.18.2.3. Automatically Incrementing a Package Version Number

When fetching a repository, BitBake uses the SRCREV variable to determine the specific source code revision from which to build. You set the SRCREV variable to AUTOREV to cause the OpenEmbedded build system to automatically use the latest revision of the software:

     SRCREV = "${AUTOREV}"
                    

Furthermore, you need to reference SRCPV in PV in order to automatically update the version whenever the revision of the source code changes. Here is an example:

     PV = "1.0+git${SRCPV}"
                    

The OpenEmbedded build system substitutes SRCPV with the following:

     AUTOINC+source_code_revision
                    

The build system replaces the AUTOINC with a number. The number used depends on the state of the PR Service:

  • If PR Service is enabled, the build system increments the number, which is similar to the behavior of PR. This behavior results in linearly increasing package versions, which is desirable. Here is an example:

         hello-world-git_0.0+git0+b6558dd387-r0.0_armv7a-neon.ipk
         hello-world-git_0.0+git1+dd2f5c3565-r0.0_armv7a-neon.ipk
                                

  • If PR Service is not enabled, the build system replaces the AUTOINC placeholder with zero (i.e. "0"). This results in changing the package version since the source revision is included. However, package versions are not increased linearly. Here is an example:

         hello-world-git_0.0+git0+b6558dd387-r0.0_armv7a-neon.ipk
         hello-world-git_0.0+git0+dd2f5c3565-r0.0_armv7a-neon.ipk
                                

In summary, the OpenEmbedded build system does not track the history of binary package versions for this purpose. AUTOINC, in this case, is comparable to PR. If PR server is not enabled, AUTOINC in the package version is simply replaced by "0". If PR server is enabled, the build system keeps track of the package versions and bumps the number when the package revision changes.

5.18.3. Handling Optional Module Packaging

Many pieces of software split functionality into optional modules (or plug-ins) and the plug-ins that are built might depend on configuration options. To avoid having to duplicate the logic that determines what modules are available in your recipe or to avoid having to package each module by hand, the OpenEmbedded build system provides functionality to handle module packaging dynamically.

To handle optional module packaging, you need to do two things:

  • Ensure the module packaging is actually done.

  • Ensure that any dependencies on optional modules from other recipes are satisfied by your recipe.

5.18.3.1. Making Sure the Packaging is Done

To ensure the module packaging actually gets done, you use the do_split_packages function within the populate_packages Python function in your recipe. The do_split_packages function searches for a pattern of files or directories under a specified path and creates a package for each one it finds by appending to the PACKAGES variable and setting the appropriate values for FILES_packagename, RDEPENDS_packagename, DESCRIPTION_packagename, and so forth. Here is an example from the lighttpd recipe:

     python populate_packages_prepend () {
         lighttpd_libdir = d.expand('${libdir}')
         do_split_packages(d, lighttpd_libdir, '^mod_(.*)\.so$',
                          'lighttpd-module-%s', 'Lighttpd module for %s',
                           extra_depends='')
     }
                    

The previous example specifies a number of things in the call to do_split_packages.

  • A directory within the files installed by your recipe through do_install in which to search.

  • A regular expression used to match module files in that directory. In the example, note the parentheses () that mark the part of the expression from which the module name should be derived.

  • A pattern to use for the package names.

  • A description for each package.

  • An empty string for extra_depends, which disables the default dependency on the main lighttpd package. Thus, if a file in ${libdir} called mod_alias.so is found, a package called lighttpd-module-alias is created for it and the DESCRIPTION is set to "Lighttpd module for alias".

Often, packaging modules is as simple as the previous example. However, more advanced options exist that you can use within do_split_packages to modify its behavior. And, if you need to, you can add more logic by specifying a hook function that is called for each package. It is also perfectly acceptable to call do_split_packages multiple times if you have more than one set of modules to package.

For more examples that show how to use do_split_packages, see the connman.inc file in the meta/recipes-connectivity/connman/ directory of the poky source repository. You can also find examples in meta/classes/kernel.bbclass.

Following is a reference that shows do_split_packages mandatory and optional arguments:

     Mandatory arguments

     root
        The path in which to search
     file_regex
        Regular expression to match searched files.
        Use parentheses () to mark the part of this
        expression that should be used to derive the
        module name (to be substituted where %s is
        used in other function arguments as noted below)
     output_pattern
        Pattern to use for the package names. Must
        include %s.
     description
        Description to set for each package. Must
        include %s.

     Optional arguments

     postinst
        Postinstall script to use for all packages
        (as a string)
     recursive
        True to perform a recursive search - default
        False
     hook
        A hook function to be called for every match.
        The function will be called with the following
        arguments (in the order listed):

        f
           Full path to the file/directory match
        pkg
           The package name
        file_regex
           As above
        output_pattern
           As above
        modulename
           The module name derived using file_regex

     extra_depends
        Extra runtime dependencies (RDEPENDS) to be
        set for all packages. The default value of None
        causes a dependency on the main package
        (${PN}) - if you do not want this, pass empty
        string '' for this parameter.
     aux_files_pattern
        Extra item(s) to be added to FILES for each
        package. Can be a single string item or a list
        of strings for multiple items. Must include %s.
     postrm
        postrm script to use for all packages (as a
        string)
     allow_dirs
        True to allow directories to be matched -
        default False
     prepend
        If True, prepend created packages to PACKAGES
        instead of the default False which appends them
     match_path
        match file_regex on the whole relative path to
        the root rather than just the file name
     aux_files_pattern_verbatim
        Extra item(s) to be added to FILES for each
        package, using the actual derived module name
        rather than converting it to something legal
        for a package name. Can be a single string item
        or a list of strings for multiple items. Must
        include %s.
     allow_links
        True to allow symlinks to be matched - default
        False
     summary
        Summary to set for each package. Must include %s;
        defaults to description if not set.
                     

5.18.3.2. Satisfying Dependencies

The second part for handling optional module packaging is to ensure that any dependencies on optional modules from other recipes are satisfied by your recipe. You can be sure these dependencies are satisfied by using the PACKAGES_DYNAMIC variable. Here is an example that continues with the lighttpd recipe shown earlier:

     PACKAGES_DYNAMIC = "lighttpd-module-.*"
                    

The name specified in the regular expression can of course be anything. In this example, it is lighttpd-module- and is specified as the prefix to ensure that any RDEPENDS and RRECOMMENDS on a package name starting with the prefix are satisfied during build time. If you are using do_split_packages as described in the previous section, the value you put in PACKAGES_DYNAMIC should correspond to the name pattern specified in the call to do_split_packages.

5.18.4. Using Runtime Package Management

During a build, BitBake always transforms a recipe into one or more packages. For example, BitBake takes the bash recipe and currently produces the bash-dbg, bash-staticdev, bash-dev, bash-doc, bash-locale, and bash packages. Not all generated packages are included in an image.

In several situations, you might need to update, add, remove, or query the packages on a target device at runtime (i.e. without having to generate a new image). Examples of such situations include:

  • You want to provide in-the-field updates to deployed devices (e.g. security updates).

  • You want to have a fast turn-around development cycle for one or more applications that run on your device.

  • You want to temporarily install the "debug" packages of various applications on your device so that debugging can be greatly improved by allowing access to symbols and source debugging.

  • You want to deploy a more minimal package selection of your device but allow in-the-field updates to add a larger selection for customization.

In all these situations, you have something similar to a more traditional Linux distribution in that in-field devices are able to receive pre-compiled packages from a server for installation or update. Being able to install these packages on a running, in-field device is what is termed "runtime package management".

In order to use runtime package management, you need a host/server machine that serves up the pre-compiled packages plus the required metadata. You also need package manipulation tools on the target. The build machine is a likely candidate to act as the server. However, that machine does not necessarily have to be the package server. The build machine could push its artifacts to another machine that acts as the server (e.g. Internet-facing).

A simple build that targets just one device produces more than one package database. In other words, the packages produced by a build are separated out into a couple of different package groupings based on criteria such as the target's CPU architecture, the target board, or the C library used on the target. For example, a build targeting the qemuarm device produces the following three package databases: all, armv5te, and qemuarm. If you wanted your qemuarm device to be aware of all the packages that were available to it, you would need to point it to each of these databases individually. In a similar way, a traditional Linux distribution usually is configured to be aware of a number of software repositories from which it retrieves packages.

Using runtime package management is completely optional and not required for a successful build or deployment in any way. But if you want to make use of runtime package management, you need to do a couple things above and beyond the basics. The remainder of this section describes what you need to do.

5.18.4.1. Build Considerations

This section describes build considerations of which you need to be aware in order to provide support for runtime package management.

When BitBake generates packages, it needs to know what format or formats to use. In your configuration, you use the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable to specify the format:

  1. Open the local.conf file inside your Build Directory (e.g. ~/poky/build/conf/local.conf).

  2. Select the desired package format as follows:

         PACKAGE_CLASSES ?= “package_packageformat

    where packageformat can be "ipk", "rpm", and "deb", which are the supported package formats.

    Note

    Because the Yocto Project supports three different package formats, you can set the variable with more than one argument. However, the OpenEmbedded build system only uses the first argument when creating an image or Software Development Kit (SDK).

If you would like your image to start off with a basic package database containing the packages in your current build as well as to have the relevant tools available on the target for runtime package management, you can include "package-management" in the IMAGE_FEATURES variable. Including "package-management" in this configuration variable ensures that when the image is assembled for your target, the image includes the currently-known package databases as well as the target-specific tools required for runtime package management to be performed on the target. However, this is not strictly necessary. You could start your image off without any databases but only include the required on-target package tool(s). As an example, you could include "opkg" in your IMAGE_INSTALL variable if you are using the IPK package format. You can then initialize your target's package database(s) later once your image is up and running.

Whenever you perform any sort of build step that can potentially generate a package or modify an existing package, it is always a good idea to re-generate the package index with:

    $ bitbake package-index
                    

Realize that it is not sufficient to simply do the following:

    $ bitbake some-package package-index
                    

The reason for this restriction is because BitBake does not properly schedule the package-index target fully after any other target has completed. Thus, be sure to run the package update step separately.

You can use the PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS, PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS, and PACKAGE_FEED_URIS variables to pre-configure target images to use a package feed. If you do not define these variables, then manual steps as described in the subsequent sections are necessary to configure the target. You should set these variables before building the image in order to produce a correctly configured image.

When your build is complete, your packages reside in the ${TMPDIR}/deploy/packageformat directory. For example, if ${TMPDIR} is tmp and your selected package type is IPK, then your IPK packages are available in tmp/deploy/ipk.

5.18.4.2. Host or Server Machine Setup

Although other protocols are possible, a server using HTTP typically serves packages. If you want to use HTTP, then set up and configure a web server such as Apache 2, lighttpd, or SimpleHTTPServer on the machine serving the packages.

To keep things simple, this section describes how to set up a SimpleHTTPServer web server to share package feeds from the developer's machine. Although this server might not be the best for a production environment, the setup is simple and straight forward. Should you want to use a different server more suited for production (e.g. Apache 2, Lighttpd, or Nginx), take the appropriate steps to do so.

From within the build directory where you have built an image based on your packaging choice (i.e. the PACKAGE_CLASSES setting), simply start the server. The following example assumes a build directory of ~/poky/build/tmp/deploy/rpm and a PACKAGE_CLASSES setting of "package_rpm":

     $ cd ~/poky/build/tmp/deploy/rpm
     $ python -m SimpleHTTPServer
                    

5.18.4.3. Target Setup

Setting up the target differs depending on the package management system. This section provides information for RPM, IPK, and DEB.

5.18.4.3.1. Using RPM

The dnf application performs runtime package management of RPM packages. You must perform an initial setup for dnf on the target machine if the PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS, PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS, and PACKAGE_FEED_URIS variables have not been set or the target image was built before the variables were set.

As an example, assume the target is able to use the following package databases: all, i586, and qemux86 from a server named my.server. You must inform dnf of the availability of these databases by creating a /etc/yum.repos.d/oe-packages.repo file with the following content:

     [oe-packages]
     baseurl="http://my.server/rpm/i586 http://my.server/rpm/qemux86 http://my.server/rpm/all"
                        

From the target machine, fetch the repository:

     # dnf makecache
                        

After everything is set up, dnf is able to find, install, and upgrade packages from the specified repository.

Note

See the DNF documentation for additional information.

5.18.4.3.2. Using IPK

The opkg application performs runtime package management of IPK packages. You must perform an initial setup for opkg on the target machine if the PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS, PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS, and PACKAGE_FEED_URIS variables have not been set or the target image was built before the variables were set.

The opkg application uses configuration files to find available package databases. Thus, you need to create a configuration file inside the /etc/opkg/ direction, which informs opkg of any repository you want to use.

As an example, suppose you are serving packages from a ipk/ directory containing the i586, all, and qemux86 databases through an HTTP server named my.server. On the target, create a configuration file (e.g. my_repo.conf) inside the /etc/opkg/ directory containing the following:

     src/gz all http://my.server/ipk/all
     src/gz i586 http://my.server/ipk/i586
     src/gz qemux86 http://my.server/ipk/qemux86
                        

Next, instruct opkg to fetch the repository information:

     # opkg update
                        

The opkg application is now able to find, install, and upgrade packages from the specified repository.

5.18.4.3.3. Using DEB

The apt application performs runtime package management of DEB packages. This application uses a source list file to find available package databases. You must perform an initial setup for apt on the target machine if the PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS, PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS, and PACKAGE_FEED_URIS variables have not been set or the target image was built before the variables were set.

To inform apt of the repository you want to use, you might create a list file (e.g. my_repo.list) inside the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ directory. As an example, suppose you are serving packages from a deb/ directory containing the i586, all, and qemux86 databases through an HTTP server named my.server. The list file should contain:

     deb http://my.server/deb/all ./
     deb http://my.server/deb/i586 ./
     deb http://my.server/deb/qemux86 ./
                        

Next, instruct the apt application to fetch the repository information:

     # apt-get update
                        

After this step, apt is able to find, install, and upgrade packages from the specified repository.

5.18.5. Generating and Using Signed Packages

In order to add security to RPM packages used during a build, you can take steps to securely sign them. Once a signature is verified, the OpenEmbedded build system can use the package in the build. If security fails for a signed package, the build system aborts the build.

This section describes how to sign RPM packages during a build and how to use signed package feeds (repositories) when doing a build.

5.18.5.1. Signing RPM Packages

To enable signing RPM packages, you must set up the following configurations in either your local.config or distro.config file:

     # Inherit sign_rpm.bbclass to enable signing functionality
     INHERIT += " sign_rpm"
     # Define the GPG key that will be used for signing.
     RPM_GPG_NAME = "key_name"
     # Provide passphrase for the key
     RPM_GPG_PASSPHRASE = "passphrase"
                    

Note

Be sure to supply appropriate values for both key_name and passphrase

Aside from the RPM_GPG_NAME and RPM_GPG_PASSPHRASE variables in the previous example, two optional variables related to signing exist:

  • GPG_BIN: Specifies a gpg binary/wrapper that is executed when the package is signed.

  • GPG_PATH: Specifies the gpg home directory used when the package is signed.

5.18.5.2. Processing Package Feeds

In addition to being able to sign RPM packages, you can also enable the OpenEmbedded build system to be able to handle previously signed package feeds for IPK packages.

Note

The OpenEmbedded build system does not currently support signed DPKG or RPM package feeds.

The steps you need to take to enable signed package feed use are similar to the steps used to sign RPM packages. You must define the following in your local.config or distro.config file:

     INHERIT += "sign_package_feed"
     PACKAGE_FEED_GPG_NAME = "key_name"
     PACKAGE_FEED_GPG_PASSPHRASE_FILE = "path_to_file_containing_passphrase"
                    

For signed package feeds, the passphrase must exist in a separate file, which is pointed to by the PACKAGE_FEED_GPG_PASSPHRASE_FILE variable. Regarding security, keeping a plain text passphrase out of the configuration is more secure.

Aside from the PACKAGE_FEED_GPG_NAME and PACKAGE_FEED_GPG_PASSPHRASE_FILE variables, three optional variables related to signed package feeds exist:

  • GPG_BIN: Specifies a gpg binary/wrapper that is executed when the package is signed.

  • GPG_PATH: Specifies the gpg home directory used when the package is signed.

  • PACKAGE_FEED_GPG_SIGNATURE_TYPE: Specifies the type of gpg signature. This variable applies only to RPM and IPK package feeds. Allowable values for the PACKAGE_FEED_GPG_SIGNATURE_TYPE are "ASC", which is the default and specifies ascii armored, and "BIN", which specifies binary.

5.18.6. Testing Packages With ptest

A Package Test (ptest) runs tests against packages built by the OpenEmbedded build system on the target machine. A ptest contains at least two items: the actual test, and a shell script (run-ptest) that starts the test. The shell script that starts the test must not contain the actual test - the script only starts the test. On the other hand, the test can be anything from a simple shell script that runs a binary and checks the output to an elaborate system of test binaries and data files.

The test generates output in the format used by Automake:

     result: testname
                

where the result can be PASS, FAIL, or SKIP, and the testname can be any identifying string.

For a list of Yocto Project recipes that are already enabled with ptest, see the Ptest wiki page.

Note

A recipe is "ptest-enabled" if it inherits the ptest class.

5.18.6.1. Adding ptest to Your Build

To add package testing to your build, add the DISTRO_FEATURES and EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES variables to your local.conf file, which is found in the Build Directory:

     DISTRO_FEATURES_append = " ptest"
     EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES += "ptest-pkgs"
                    

Once your build is complete, the ptest files are installed into the /usr/lib/package/ptest directory within the image, where package is the name of the package.

5.18.6.2. Running ptest

The ptest-runner package installs a shell script that loops through all installed ptest test suites and runs them in sequence. Consequently, you might want to add this package to your image.

5.18.6.3. Getting Your Package Ready

In order to enable a recipe to run installed ptests on target hardware, you need to prepare the recipes that build the packages you want to test. Here is what you have to do for each recipe:

  • Be sure the recipe inherits the ptest class: Include the following line in each recipe:

         inherit ptest
                                

  • Create run-ptest: This script starts your test. Locate the script where you will refer to it using SRC_URI. Here is an example that starts a test for dbus:

         #!/bin/sh
         cd test
         make -k runtest-TESTS
                                

  • Ensure dependencies are met: If the test adds build or runtime dependencies that normally do not exist for the package (such as requiring "make" to run the test suite), use the DEPENDS and RDEPENDS variables in your recipe in order for the package to meet the dependencies. Here is an example where the package has a runtime dependency on "make":

         RDEPENDS_${PN}-ptest += "make"
                                

  • Add a function to build the test suite: Not many packages support cross-compilation of their test suites. Consequently, you usually need to add a cross-compilation function to the package.

    Many packages based on Automake compile and run the test suite by using a single command such as make check. However, the host make check builds and runs on the same computer, while cross-compiling requires that the package is built on the host but executed for the target architecture (though often, as in the case for ptest, the execution occurs on the host). The built version of Automake that ships with the Yocto Project includes a patch that separates building and execution. Consequently, packages that use the unaltered, patched version of make check automatically cross-compiles.

    Regardless, you still must add a do_compile_ptest function to build the test suite. Add a function similar to the following to your recipe:

         do_compile_ptest() {
            oe_runmake buildtest-TESTS
         }
                                

  • Ensure special configurations are set: If the package requires special configurations prior to compiling the test code, you must insert a do_configure_ptest function into the recipe.

  • Install the test suite: The ptest class automatically copies the file run-ptest to the target and then runs make install-ptest to run the tests. If this is not enough, you need to create a do_install_ptest function and make sure it gets called after the "make install-ptest" completes.

5.19. Working with Source Files

The OpenEmbedded build system works with source files located through the SRC_URI variable. When you build something using BitBake, a big part of the operation is locating and downloading all the source tarballs. For images, downloading all the source for various packages can take a significant amount of time.

This section presents information for working with source files that can lead to more efficient use of resources and time.

5.19.1. Setting up Effective Mirrors

As mentioned, a good deal that goes into a Yocto Project build is simply downloading all of the source tarballs. Maybe you have been working with another build system (OpenEmbedded or Angstrom) for which you have built up a sizable directory of source tarballs. Or, perhaps someone else has such a directory for which you have read access. If so, you can save time by adding statements to your configuration file so that the build process checks local directories first for existing tarballs before checking the Internet.

Here is an efficient way to set it up in your local.conf file:

     SOURCE_MIRROR_URL ?= "file:///home/you/your-download-dir/"
     INHERIT += "own-mirrors"
     BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS = "1"
     # BB_NO_NETWORK = "1"
                

In the previous example, the BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS variable causes the OpenEmbedded build system to generate tarballs of the Git repositories and store them in the DL_DIR directory. Due to performance reasons, generating and storing these tarballs is not the build system's default behavior.

You can also use the PREMIRRORS variable. For an example, see the variable's glossary entry in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

5.19.2. Getting Source Files and Suppressing the Build

Another technique you can use to ready yourself for a successive string of build operations, is to pre-fetch all the source files without actually starting a build. This technique lets you work through any download issues and ultimately gathers all the source files into your download directory build/downloads, which is located with DL_DIR.

Use the following BitBake command form to fetch all the necessary sources without starting the build:

     $ bitbake -c fetchall target
                

This variation of the BitBake command guarantees that you have all the sources for that BitBake target should you disconnect from the Internet and want to do the build later offline.

5.20. Building Software from an External Source

By default, the OpenEmbedded build system uses the Build Directory when building source code. The build process involves fetching the source files, unpacking them, and then patching them if necessary before the build takes place.

Situations exist where you might want to build software from source files that are external to and thus outside of the OpenEmbedded build system. For example, suppose you have a project that includes a new BSP with a heavily customized kernel. And, you want to minimize exposing the build system to the development team so that they can focus on their project and maintain everyone's workflow as much as possible. In this case, you want a kernel source directory on the development machine where the development occurs. You want the recipe's SRC_URI variable to point to the external directory and use it as is, not copy it.

To build from software that comes from an external source, all you need to do is inherit the externalsrc class and then set the EXTERNALSRC variable to point to your external source code. Here are the statements to put in your local.conf file:

     INHERIT += "externalsrc"
     EXTERNALSRC_pn-myrecipe = "path-to-your-source-tree"
            

This next example shows how to accomplish the same thing by setting EXTERNALSRC in the recipe itself or in the recipe's append file:

     EXTERNALSRC = "path"
     EXTERNALSRC_BUILD = "path"
            

Note

In order for these settings to take effect, you must globally or locally inherit the externalsrc class.

By default, externalsrc.bbclass builds the source code in a directory separate from the external source directory as specified by EXTERNALSRC. If you need to have the source built in the same directory in which it resides, or some other nominated directory, you can set EXTERNALSRC_BUILD to point to that directory:

     EXTERNALSRC_BUILD_pn-myrecipe = "path-to-your-source-tree"
            

5.21. Selecting an Initialization Manager

By default, the Yocto Project uses SysVinit as the initialization manager. However, support also exists for systemd, which is a full replacement for init with parallel starting of services, reduced shell overhead and other features that are used by many distributions.

If you want to use SysVinit, you do not have to do anything. But, if you want to use systemd, you must take some steps as described in the following sections.

5.21.1. Using systemd Exclusively

Set the these variables in your distribution configuration file as follows:

     DISTRO_FEATURES_append = " systemd"
     VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_init_manager = "systemd"
                

You can also prevent the SysVinit distribution feature from being automatically enabled as follows:

     DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED = "sysvinit"
                

Doing so removes any redundant SysVinit scripts.

To remove initscripts from your image altogether, set this variable also:

     VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_initscripts = ""
                

For information on the backfill variable, see DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED.

5.21.2. Using systemd for the Main Image and Using SysVinit for the Rescue Image

Set these variables in your distribution configuration file as follows:

     DISTRO_FEATURES_append = " systemd"
     VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_init_manager = "systemd"
                

Doing so causes your main image to use the packagegroup-core-boot.bb recipe and systemd. The rescue/minimal image cannot use this package group. However, it can install SysVinit and the appropriate packages will have support for both systemd and SysVinit.

5.22. Selecting a Device Manager

The Yocto Project provides multiple ways to manage the device manager (/dev):

  • Persistent and Pre-Populated/dev: For this case, the /dev directory is persistent and the required device nodes are created during the build.

  • Use devtmpfs with a Device Manager: For this case, the /dev directory is provided by the kernel as an in-memory file system and is automatically populated by the kernel at runtime. Additional configuration of device nodes is done in user space by a device manager like udev or busybox-mdev.

5.22.1. Using Persistent and Pre-Populated/dev

To use the static method for device population, you need to set the USE_DEVFS variable to "0" as follows:

     USE_DEVFS = "0"
                

The content of the resulting /dev directory is defined in a Device Table file. The IMAGE_DEVICE_TABLES variable defines the Device Table to use and should be set in the machine or distro configuration file. Alternatively, you can set this variable in your local.conf configuration file.

If you do not define the IMAGE_DEVICE_TABLES variable, the default device_table-minimal.txt is used:

     IMAGE_DEVICE_TABLES = "device_table-mymachine.txt"
                

The population is handled by the makedevs utility during image creation:

5.22.2. Using devtmpfs and a Device Manager

To use the dynamic method for device population, you need to use (or be sure to set) the USE_DEVFS variable to "1", which is the default:

     USE_DEVFS = "1"
                

With this setting, the resulting /dev directory is populated by the kernel using devtmpfs. Make sure the corresponding kernel configuration variable CONFIG_DEVTMPFS is set when building you build a Linux kernel.

All devices created by devtmpfs will be owned by root and have permissions 0600.

To have more control over the device nodes, you can use a device manager like udev or busybox-mdev. You choose the device manager by defining the VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_dev_manager variable in your machine or distro configuration file. Alternatively, you can set this variable in your local.conf configuration file:

     VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_dev_manager = "udev"

     # Some alternative values
     # VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_dev_manager = "busybox-mdev"
     # VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_dev_manager = "systemd"
                

5.23. Using an External SCM

If you're working on a recipe that pulls from an external Source Code Manager (SCM), it is possible to have the OpenEmbedded build system notice new recipe changes added to the SCM and then build the resulting packages that depend on the new recipes by using the latest versions. This only works for SCMs from which it is possible to get a sensible revision number for changes. Currently, you can do this with Apache Subversion (SVN), Git, and Bazaar (BZR) repositories.

To enable this behavior, the PV of the recipe needs to reference SRCPV. Here is an example:

     PV = "1.2.3+git${SRCPV}"
            

Then, you can add the following to your local.conf:

     SRCREV_pn-PN = "${AUTOREV}"
            

PN is the name of the recipe for which you want to enable automatic source revision updating.

If you do not want to update your local configuration file, you can add the following directly to the recipe to finish enabling the feature:

     SRCREV = "${AUTOREV}"
            

The Yocto Project provides a distribution named poky-bleeding, whose configuration file contains the line:

     require conf/distro/include/poky-floating-revisions.inc
            

This line pulls in the listed include file that contains numerous lines of exactly that form:

     #SRCREV_pn-opkg-native ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     #SRCREV_pn-opkg-sdk ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     #SRCREV_pn-opkg ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     #SRCREV_pn-opkg-utils-native ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     #SRCREV_pn-opkg-utils ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-gconf-dbus ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-common ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-config-gtk ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-desktop ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-keyboard ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-panel-2 ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-themes-extra ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-terminal ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-wm ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-settings-daemon ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-screenshot ?= "${AUTOREV}"
          .
          .
          .
            

These lines allow you to experiment with building a distribution that tracks the latest development source for numerous packages.

Caution

The poky-bleeding distribution is not tested on a regular basis. Keep this in mind if you use it.

5.24. Creating a Read-Only Root Filesystem

Suppose, for security reasons, you need to disable your target device's root filesystem's write permissions (i.e. you need a read-only root filesystem). Or, perhaps you are running the device's operating system from a read-only storage device. For either case, you can customize your image for that behavior.

Note

Supporting a read-only root filesystem requires that the system and applications do not try to write to the root filesystem. You must configure all parts of the target system to write elsewhere, or to gracefully fail in the event of attempting to write to the root filesystem.

5.24.1. Creating the Root Filesystem

To create the read-only root filesystem, simply add the "read-only-rootfs" feature to your image. Using either of the following statements in your image recipe or from within the local.conf file found in the Build Directory causes the build system to create a read-only root filesystem:

     IMAGE_FEATURES = "read-only-rootfs"
                

or

     EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES += "read-only-rootfs"
                

For more information on how to use these variables, see the "Customizing Images Using Custom IMAGE_FEATURES and EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES" section. For information on the variables, see IMAGE_FEATURES and EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES.

5.24.2. Post-Installation Scripts

It is very important that you make sure all post-Installation (pkg_postinst) scripts for packages that are installed into the image can be run at the time when the root filesystem is created during the build on the host system. These scripts cannot attempt to run during first-boot on the target device. With the "read-only-rootfs" feature enabled, the build system checks during root filesystem creation to make sure all post-installation scripts succeed. If any of these scripts still need to be run after the root filesystem is created, the build immediately fails. These build-time checks ensure that the build fails rather than the target device fails later during its initial boot operation.

Most of the common post-installation scripts generated by the build system for the out-of-the-box Yocto Project are engineered so that they can run during root filesystem creation (e.g. post-installation scripts for caching fonts). However, if you create and add custom scripts, you need to be sure they can be run during this file system creation.

Here are some common problems that prevent post-installation scripts from running during root filesystem creation:

  • Not using $D in front of absolute paths: The build system defines $D when the root filesystem is created. Furthermore, $D is blank when the script is run on the target device. This implies two purposes for $D: ensuring paths are valid in both the host and target environments, and checking to determine which environment is being used as a method for taking appropriate actions.

  • Attempting to run processes that are specific to or dependent on the target architecture: You can work around these attempts by using native tools, which run on the host system, to accomplish the same tasks, or by alternatively running the processes under QEMU, which has the qemu_run_binary function. For more information, see the qemu class.

5.24.3. Areas With Write Access

With the "read-only-rootfs" feature enabled, any attempt by the target to write to the root filesystem at runtime fails. Consequently, you must make sure that you configure processes and applications that attempt these types of writes do so to directories with write access (e.g. /tmp or /var/run).

5.25. Performing Automated Runtime Testing

The OpenEmbedded build system makes available a series of automated tests for images to verify runtime functionality. You can run these tests on either QEMU or actual target hardware. Tests are written in Python making use of the unittest module, and the majority of them run commands on the target system over SSH. This section describes how you set up the environment to use these tests, run available tests, and write and add your own tests.

For information on the test and QA infrastructure available within the Yocto Project, see the "Testing and Quality Assurance" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual.

5.25.1. Enabling Tests

Depending on whether you are planning to run tests using QEMU or on the hardware, you have to take different steps to enable the tests. See the following subsections for information on how to enable both types of tests.

5.25.1.1. Enabling Runtime Tests on QEMU

In order to run tests, you need to do the following:

  • Set up to avoid interaction with sudo for networking: To accomplish this, you must do one of the following:

    • Add NOPASSWD for your user in /etc/sudoers either for all commands or just for runqemu-ifup. You must provide the full path as that can change if you are using multiple clones of the source repository.

      Note

      On some distributions, you also need to comment out "Defaults requiretty" in /etc/sudoers.
    • Manually configure a tap interface for your system.

    • Run as root the script in scripts/runqemu-gen-tapdevs, which should generate a list of tap devices. This is the option typically chosen for Autobuilder-type environments.

  • Set the DISPLAY variable: You need to set this variable so that you have an X server available (e.g. start vncserver for a headless machine).

  • Be sure your host's firewall accepts incoming connections from 192.168.7.0/24: Some of the tests (in particular DNF tests) start an HTTP server on a random high number port, which is used to serve files to the target. The DNF module serves ${WORKDIR}/oe-rootfs-repo so it can run DNF channel commands. That means your host's firewall must accept incoming connections from 192.168.7.0/24, which is the default IP range used for tap devices by runqemu.

  • Be sure your host has the correct packages installed: Depending your host's distribution, you need to have the following packages installed:

    • Ubuntu and Debian: sysstat and iproute2

    • OpenSUSE: sysstat and iproute2

    • Fedora: sysstat and iproute

    • CentOS: sysstat and iproute

Once you start running the tests, the following happens:

  1. A copy of the root filesystem is written to ${WORKDIR}/testimage.

  2. The image is booted under QEMU using the standard runqemu script.

  3. A default timeout of 500 seconds occurs to allow for the boot process to reach the login prompt. You can change the timeout period by setting TEST_QEMUBOOT_TIMEOUT in the local.conf file.

  4. Once the boot process is reached and the login prompt appears, the tests run. The full boot log is written to ${WORKDIR}/testimage/qemu_boot_log.

  5. Each test module loads in the order found in TEST_SUITES. You can find the full output of the commands run over SSH in ${WORKDIR}/testimgage/ssh_target_log.

  6. If no failures occur, the task running the tests ends successfully. You can find the output from the unittest in the task log at ${WORKDIR}/temp/log.do_testimage.

5.25.1.2. Enabling Runtime Tests on Hardware

The OpenEmbedded build system can run tests on real hardware, and for certain devices it can also deploy the image to be tested onto the device beforehand.

For automated deployment, a "master image" is installed onto the hardware once as part of setup. Then, each time tests are to be run, the following occurs:

  1. The master image is booted into and used to write the image to be tested to a second partition.

  2. The device is then rebooted using an external script that you need to provide.

  3. The device boots into the image to be tested.

When running tests (independent of whether the image has been deployed automatically or not), the device is expected to be connected to a network on a pre-determined IP address. You can either use static IP addresses written into the image, or set the image to use DHCP and have your DHCP server on the test network assign a known IP address based on the MAC address of the device.

In order to run tests on hardware, you need to set TEST_TARGET to an appropriate value. For QEMU, you do not have to change anything, the default value is "QemuTarget". For running tests on hardware, the following options exist:

  • "SimpleRemoteTarget": Choose "SimpleRemoteTarget" if you are going to run tests on a target system that is already running the image to be tested and is available on the network. You can use "SimpleRemoteTarget" in conjunction with either real hardware or an image running within a separately started QEMU or any other virtual machine manager.

  • "Systemd-bootTarget": Choose "Systemd-bootTarget" if your hardware is an EFI-based machine with systemd-boot as bootloader and core-image-testmaster (or something similar) is installed. Also, your hardware under test must be in a DHCP-enabled network that gives it the same IP address for each reboot.

    If you choose "Systemd-bootTarget", there are additional requirements and considerations. See the "Selecting Systemd-bootTarget" section, which follows, for more information.

  • "BeagleBoneTarget": Choose "BeagleBoneTarget" if you are deploying images and running tests on the BeagleBone "Black" or original "White" hardware. For information on how to use these tests, see the comments at the top of the BeagleBoneTarget meta-yocto-bsp/lib/oeqa/controllers/beaglebonetarget.py file.

  • "EdgeRouterTarget": Choose "EdgeRouterTarget" is you are deploying images and running tests on the Ubiquiti Networks EdgeRouter Lite. For information on how to use these tests, see the comments at the top of the EdgeRouterTarget meta-yocto-bsp/lib/oeqa/controllers/edgeroutertarget.py file.

  • "GrubTarget": Choose the "supports deploying images and running tests on any generic PC that boots using GRUB. For information on how to use these tests, see the comments at the top of the GrubTarget meta-yocto-bsp/lib/oeqa/controllers/grubtarget.py file.

  • "your-target": Create your own custom target if you want to run tests when you are deploying images and running tests on a custom machine within your BSP layer. To do this, you need to add a Python unit that defines the target class under lib/oeqa/controllers/ within your layer. You must also provide an empty __init__.py. For examples, see files in meta-yocto-bsp/lib/oeqa/controllers/.

5.25.1.3. Selecting Systemd-bootTarget

If you did not set TEST_TARGET to "Systemd-bootTarget", then you do not need any information in this section. You can skip down to the "Running Tests" section.

If you did set TEST_TARGET to "Systemd-bootTarget", you also need to perform a one-time setup of your master image by doing the following:

  1. Set EFI_PROVIDER: Be sure that EFI_PROVIDER is as follows:

         EFI_PROVIDER = "systemd-boot"
                                

  2. Build the master image: Build the core-image-testmaster image. The core-image-testmaster recipe is provided as an example for a "master" image and you can customize the image recipe as you would any other recipe.

    Here are the image recipe requirements:

    • Inherits core-image so that kernel modules are installed.

    • Installs normal linux utilities not busybox ones (e.g. bash, coreutils, tar, gzip, and kmod).

    • Uses a custom Initial RAM Disk (initramfs) image with a custom installer. A normal image that you can install usually creates a single rootfs partition. This image uses another installer that creates a specific partition layout. Not all Board Support Packages (BSPs) can use an installer. For such cases, you need to manually create the following partition layout on the target:

      • First partition mounted under /boot, labeled "boot".

      • The main rootfs partition where this image gets installed, which is mounted under /.

      • Another partition labeled "testrootfs" where test images get deployed.

  3. Install image: Install the image that you just built on the target system.

The final thing you need to do when setting TEST_TARGET to "Systemd-bootTarget" is to set up the test image:

  1. Set up your local.conf file: Make sure you have the following statements in your local.conf file:

         IMAGE_FSTYPES += "tar.gz"
         INHERIT += "testimage"
         TEST_TARGET = "Systemd-bootTarget"
         TEST_TARGET_IP = "192.168.2.3"
                                

  2. Build your test image: Use BitBake to build the image:

         $ bitbake core-image-sato
                                

5.25.1.4. Power Control

For most hardware targets other than SimpleRemoteTarget, you can control power:

  • You can use TEST_POWERCONTROL_CMD together with TEST_POWERCONTROL_EXTRA_ARGS as a command that runs on the host and does power cycling. The test code passes one argument to that command: off, on or cycle (off then on). Here is an example that could appear in your local.conf file:

         TEST_POWERCONTROL_CMD = "powercontrol.exp test 10.11.12.1 nuc1"
                                

    In this example, the expect script does the following:

         ssh test@10.11.12.1 "pyctl nuc1 arg"
                                

    It then runs a Python script that controls power for a label called nuc1.

    Note

    You need to customize TEST_POWERCONTROL_CMD and TEST_POWERCONTROL_EXTRA_ARGS for your own setup. The one requirement is that it accepts "on", "off", and "cycle" as the last argument.

  • When no command is defined, it connects to the device over SSH and uses the classic reboot command to reboot the device. Classic reboot is fine as long as the machine actually reboots (i.e. the SSH test has not failed). It is useful for scenarios where you have a simple setup, typically with a single board, and where some manual interaction is okay from time to time.

If you have no hardware to automatically perform power control but still wish to experiment with automated hardware testing, you can use the dialog-power-control script that shows a dialog prompting you to perform the required power action. This script requires either KDialog or Zenity to be installed. To use this script, set the TEST_POWERCONTROL_CMD variable as follows:

     TEST_POWERCONTROL_CMD = "${COREBASE}/scripts/contrib/dialog-power-control"
                    

5.25.1.5. Serial Console Connection

For test target classes requiring a serial console to interact with the bootloader (e.g. BeagleBoneTarget, EdgeRouterTarget, and GrubTarget), you need to specify a command to use to connect to the serial console of the target machine by using the TEST_SERIALCONTROL_CMD variable and optionally the TEST_SERIALCONTROL_EXTRA_ARGS variable.

These cases could be a serial terminal program if the machine is connected to a local serial port, or a telnet or ssh command connecting to a remote console server. Regardless of the case, the command simply needs to connect to the serial console and forward that connection to standard input and output as any normal terminal program does. For example, to use the picocom terminal program on serial device /dev/ttyUSB0 at 115200bps, you would set the variable as follows:

     TEST_SERIALCONTROL_CMD = "picocom /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 115200"
                    

For local devices where the serial port device disappears when the device reboots, an additional "serdevtry" wrapper script is provided. To use this wrapper, simply prefix the terminal command with ${COREBASE}/scripts/contrib/serdevtry:

     TEST_SERIALCONTROL_CMD = "${COREBASE}/scripts/contrib/serdevtry picocom -b
115200 /dev/ttyUSB0"
                    

5.25.2. Running Tests

You can start the tests automatically or manually:

  • Automatically running tests: To run the tests automatically after the OpenEmbedded build system successfully creates an image, first set the TEST_IMAGE variable to "1" in your local.conf file in the Build Directory:

         TEST_IMAGE = "1"
                            

    Next, build your image. If the image successfully builds, the tests will be run:

         bitbake core-image-sato
                            
  • Manually running tests: To manually run the tests, first globally inherit the testimage class by editing your local.conf file:

        INHERIT += "testimage"
                            

    Next, use BitBake to run the tests:

         bitbake -c testimage image
                            

All test files reside in meta/lib/oeqa/runtime in the Source Directory. A test name maps directly to a Python module. Each test module may contain a number of individual tests. Tests are usually grouped together by the area tested (e.g tests for systemd reside in meta/lib/oeqa/runtime/systemd.py).

You can add tests to any layer provided you place them in the proper area and you extend BBPATH in the local.conf file as normal. Be sure that tests reside in layer/lib/oeqa/runtime.

Note

Be sure that module names do not collide with module names used in the default set of test modules in meta/lib/oeqa/runtime.

You can change the set of tests run by appending or overriding TEST_SUITES variable in local.conf. Each name in TEST_SUITES represents a required test for the image. Test modules named within TEST_SUITES cannot be skipped even if a test is not suitable for an image (e.g. running the RPM tests on an image without rpm). Appending "auto" to TEST_SUITES causes the build system to try to run all tests that are suitable for the image (i.e. each test module may elect to skip itself).

The order you list tests in TEST_SUITES is important and influences test dependencies. Consequently, tests that depend on other tests should be added after the test on which they depend. For example, since the ssh test depends on the ping test, "ssh" needs to come after "ping" in the list. The test class provides no re-ordering or dependency handling.

Note

Each module can have multiple classes with multiple test methods. And, Python unittest rules apply.

Here are some things to keep in mind when running tests:

  • The default tests for the image are defined as:

         DEFAULT_TEST_SUITES_pn-image = "ping ssh df connman syslog xorg scp vnc date rpm dnf dmesg"
                            
  • Add your own test to the list of the by using the following:

         TEST_SUITES_append = " mytest"
                            
  • Run a specific list of tests as follows:

         TEST_SUITES = "test1 test2 test3"
                            

    Remember, order is important. Be sure to place a test that is dependent on another test later in the order.

5.25.3. Exporting Tests

You can export tests so that they can run independently of the build system. Exporting tests is required if you want to be able to hand the test execution off to a scheduler. You can only export tests that are defined in TEST_SUITES.

If your image is already built, make sure the following are set in your local.conf file:

     INHERIT +="testexport"
     TEST_TARGET_IP = "IP-address-for-the-test-target"
     TEST_SERVER_IP = "IP-address-for-the-test-server"
                

You can then export the tests with the following BitBake command form:

     $ bitbake image -c testexport
                

Exporting the tests places them in the Build Directory in tmp/testexport/image, which is controlled by the TEST_EXPORT_DIR variable.

You can now run the tests outside of the build environment:

     $ cd tmp/testexport/image
     $ ./runexported.py testdata.json
                

Here is a complete example that shows IP addresses and uses the core-image-sato image:

     INHERIT +="testexport"
     TEST_TARGET_IP = "192.168.7.2"
     TEST_SERVER_IP = "192.168.7.1"
                

Use BitBake to export the tests:

     $ bitbake core-image-sato -c testexport
                

Run the tests outside of the build environment using the following:

     $ cd tmp/testexport/core-image-sato
     $ ./runexported.py testdata.json
                

5.25.4. Writing New Tests

As mentioned previously, all new test files need to be in the proper place for the build system to find them. New tests for additional functionality outside of the core should be added to the layer that adds the functionality, in layer/lib/oeqa/runtime (as long as BBPATH is extended in the layer's layer.conf file as normal). Just remember the following:

  • Filenames need to map directly to test (module) names.

  • Do not use module names that collide with existing core tests.

  • Minimally, an empty __init__.py file must exist in the runtime directory.

To create a new test, start by copying an existing module (e.g. syslog.py or gcc.py are good ones to use). Test modules can use code from meta/lib/oeqa/utils, which are helper classes.

Note

Structure shell commands such that you rely on them and they return a single code for success. Be aware that sometimes you will need to parse the output. See the df.py and date.py modules for examples.

You will notice that all test classes inherit oeRuntimeTest, which is found in meta/lib/oetest.py. This base class offers some helper attributes, which are described in the following sections:

5.25.4.1. Class Methods

Class methods are as follows:

  • hasPackage(pkg): Returns "True" if pkg is in the installed package list of the image, which is based on the manifest file that is generated during the do_rootfs task.

  • hasFeature(feature): Returns "True" if the feature is in IMAGE_FEATURES or DISTRO_FEATURES.

5.25.4.2. Class Attributes

Class attributes are as follows:

  • pscmd: Equals "ps -ef" if procps is installed in the image. Otherwise, pscmd equals "ps" (busybox).

  • tc: The called test context, which gives access to the following attributes:

    • d: The BitBake datastore, which allows you to use stuff such as oeRuntimeTest.tc.d.getVar("VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_init_manager").

    • testslist and testsrequired: Used internally. The tests do not need these.

    • filesdir: The absolute path to meta/lib/oeqa/runtime/files, which contains helper files for tests meant for copying on the target such as small files written in C for compilation.

    • target: The target controller object used to deploy and start an image on a particular target (e.g. QemuTarget, SimpleRemote, and Systemd-bootTarget). Tests usually use the following:

      • ip: The target's IP address.

      • server_ip: The host's IP address, which is usually used by the DNF test suite.

      • run(cmd, timeout=None): The single, most used method. This command is a wrapper for: ssh root@host "cmd". The command returns a tuple: (status, output), which are what their names imply - the return code of "cmd" and whatever output it produces. The optional timeout argument represents the number of seconds the test should wait for "cmd" to return. If the argument is "None", the test uses the default instance's timeout period, which is 300 seconds. If the argument is "0", the test runs until the command returns.

      • copy_to(localpath, remotepath): scp localpath root@ip:remotepath.

      • copy_from(remotepath, localpath): scp root@host:remotepath localpath.

5.25.4.3. Instance Attributes

A single instance attribute exists, which is target. The target instance attribute is identical to the class attribute of the same name, which is described in the previous section. This attribute exists as both an instance and class attribute so tests can use self.target.run(cmd) in instance methods instead of oeRuntimeTest.tc.target.run(cmd).

5.25.5. Installing Packages in the DUT Without the Package Manager

When a test requires a package built by BitBake, it is possible to install that package. Installing the package does not require a package manager be installed in the device under test (DUT). It does, however, require an SSH connection and the target must be using the sshcontrol class.

Note

This method uses scp to copy files from the host to the target, which causes permissions and special attributes to be lost.

A JSON file is used to define the packages needed by a test. This file must be in the same path as the file used to define the tests. Furthermore, the filename must map directly to the test module name with a .json extension.

The JSON file must include an object with the test name as keys of an object or an array. This object (or array of objects) uses the following data:

  • "pkg" - A mandatory string that is the name of the package to be installed.

  • "rm" - An optional boolean, which defaults to "false", that specifies to remove the package after the test.

  • "extract" - An optional boolean, which defaults to "false", that specifies if the package must be extracted from the package format. When set to "true", the package is not automatically installed into the DUT.

Following is an example JSON file that handles test "foo" installing package "bar" and test "foobar" installing packages "foo" and "bar". Once the test is complete, the packages are removed from the DUT.

     {
         "foo": {
             "pkg": "bar"
         },
         "foobar": [
             {
                 "pkg": "foo",
                 "rm": true
             },
             {
                 "pkg": "bar",
                 "rm": true
             }
         ]
     }
                

5.26. Debugging With the GNU Project Debugger (GDB) Remotely

GDB allows you to examine running programs, which in turn helps you to understand and fix problems. It also allows you to perform post-mortem style analysis of program crashes. GDB is available as a package within the Yocto Project and is installed in SDK images by default. See the "Images" chapter in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for a description of these images. You can find information on GDB at http://sourceware.org/gdb/.

Tip

For best results, install debug (-dbg) packages for the applications you are going to debug. Doing so makes extra debug symbols available that give you more meaningful output.

Sometimes, due to memory or disk space constraints, it is not possible to use GDB directly on the remote target to debug applications. These constraints arise because GDB needs to load the debugging information and the binaries of the process being debugged. Additionally, GDB needs to perform many computations to locate information such as function names, variable names and values, stack traces and so forth - even before starting the debugging process. These extra computations place more load on the target system and can alter the characteristics of the program being debugged.

To help get past the previously mentioned constraints, you can use gdbserver, which runs on the remote target and does not load any debugging information from the debugged process. Instead, a GDB instance processes the debugging information that is run on a remote computer - the host GDB. The host GDB then sends control commands to gdbserver to make it stop or start the debugged program, as well as read or write memory regions of that debugged program. All the debugging information loaded and processed as well as all the heavy debugging is done by the host GDB. Offloading these processes gives the gdbserver running on the target a chance to remain small and fast.

Because the host GDB is responsible for loading the debugging information and for doing the necessary processing to make actual debugging happen, you have to make sure the host can access the unstripped binaries complete with their debugging information and also be sure the target is compiled with no optimizations. The host GDB must also have local access to all the libraries used by the debugged program. Because gdbserver does not need any local debugging information, the binaries on the remote target can remain stripped. However, the binaries must also be compiled without optimization so they match the host's binaries.

To remain consistent with GDB documentation and terminology, the binary being debugged on the remote target machine is referred to as the "inferior" binary. For documentation on GDB see the GDB site.

The following steps show you how to debug using the GNU project debugger.

  1. Configure your build system to construct the companion debug filesystem:

    In your local.conf file, set the following:

         IMAGE_GEN_DEBUGFS = "1"
         IMAGE_FSTYPES_DEBUGFS = "tar.bz2"
                        

    These options cause the OpenEmbedded build system to generate a special companion filesystem fragment, which contains the matching source and debug symbols to your deployable filesystem. The build system does this by looking at what is in the deployed filesystem, and pulling the corresponding -dbg packages.

    The companion debug filesystem is not a complete filesystem, but only contains the debug fragments. This filesystem must be combined with the full filesystem for debugging. Subsequent steps in this procedure show how to combine the partial filesystem with the full filesystem.

  2. Configure the system to include gdbserver in the target filesystem:

    Make the following addition in either your local.conf file or in an image recipe:

         IMAGE_INSTALL_append = “ gdbserver"
                        

    The change makes sure the gdbserver package is included.

  3. Build the environment:

    Use the following command to construct the image and the companion Debug Filesystem:

         $ bitbake image
                        

    Build the cross GDB component and make it available for debugging. Build the SDK that matches the image. Building the SDK is best for a production build that can be used later for debugging, especially during long term maintenance:

         $ bitbake -c populate_sdk image
                        

    Alternatively, you can build the minimal toolchain components that match the target. Doing so creates a smaller than typical SDK and only contains a minimal set of components with which to build simple test applications, as well as run the debugger:

         $ bitbake meta-toolchain
                        

    A final method is to build Gdb itself within the build system:

         $ bitbake gdb-cross-architecture
                        

    Doing so produces a temporary copy of cross-gdb you can use for debugging during development. While this is the quickest approach, the two previous methods in this step are better when considering long-term maintenance strategies.

    Note

    If you run bitbake gdb-cross, the OpenEmbedded build system suggests the actual image (e.g. gdb-cross-i586). The suggestion is usually the actual name you want to use.

  4. Set up the debugfs

    Run the following commands to set up the debugfs:

         $ mkdir debugfs
         $ cd debugfs
         $ tar xvfj build-dir/tmp-glibc/deploy/images/machine/image.rootfs.tar.bz2
         $ tar xvfj build-dir/tmp-glibc/deploy/images/machine/image-dbg.rootfs.tar.bz2
                        

  5. Set up GDB

    Install the SDK (if you built one) and then source the correct environment file. Sourcing the environment file puts the SDK in your PATH environment variable.

    If you are using the build system, Gdb is located in build-dir/tmp/sysroots/host/usr/bin/architecture/architecture-gdb

  6. Boot the target:

    For information on how to run QEMU, see the QEMU Documentation.

    Note

    Be sure to verify that your host can access the target via TCP.

  7. Debug a program:

    Debugging a program involves running gdbserver on the target and then running Gdb on the host. The example in this step debugs gzip:

         root@qemux86:~# gdbserver localhost:1234 /bin/gzip —help
                        

    For additional gdbserver options, see the GDB Server Documentation.

    After running gdbserver on the target, you need to run Gdb on the host and configure it and connect to the target. Use these commands:

         $ cd directory-holding-the-debugfs-directory
         $ arch-gdb
    
         (gdb) set sysroot debugfs
         (gdb) set substitute-path /usr/src/debug debugfs/usr/src/debug
         (gdb) target remote IP-of-target:1234
                        

    At this point, everything should automatically load (i.e. matching binaries, symbols and headers).

    Note

    The Gdb set commands in the previous example can be placed into the users ~/.gdbinit file. Upon starting, Gdb automatically runs whatever commands are in that file.

  8. Deploying without a full image rebuild:

    In many cases, during development you want a quick method to deploy a new binary to the target and debug it, without waiting for a full image build.

    One approach to solving this situation is to just build the component you want to debug. Once you have built the component, copy the executable directly to both the target and the host debugfs.

    If the binary is processed through the debug splitting in OpenEmbedded, you should also copy the debug items (i.e. .debug contents and corresponding /usr/src/debug files) from the work directory. Here is an example:

         $ bitbake bash
         $ bitbake -c devshell bash
         $ cd ..
         $ scp packages-split/bash/bin/bash target:/bin/bash
         $ cp -a packages-split/bash-dbg/* path/debugfs
                        

5.27. Debugging with the GNU Project Debugger (GDB) on the Target

The previous section addressed using GDB remotely for debugging purposes, which is the most usual case due to the inherent hardware limitations on many embedded devices. However, debugging in the target hardware itself is also possible with more powerful devices. This section describes what you need to do in order to support using GDB to debug on the target hardware.

To support this kind of debugging, you need do the following:

  • Ensure that GDB is on the target. You can do this by adding "gdb" to IMAGE_INSTALL:

         IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " gdb"
                        

    Alternatively, you can add "tools-debug" to IMAGE_FEATURES:

         IMAGE_FEATURES_append = " tools-debug"
                        

  • Ensure that debug symbols are present. You can make sure these symbols are present by installing -dbg:

         IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " packagename-dbg"
                        

    Alternatively, you can do the following to include all the debug symbols:

         IMAGE_FEATURES_append = " dbg-pkgs"
                        

Note

To improve the debug information accuracy, you can reduce the level of optimization used by the compiler. For example, when adding the following line to your local.conf file, you will reduce optimization from FULL_OPTIMIZATION of "-O2" to DEBUG_OPTIMIZATION of "-O -fno-omit-frame-pointer":
     DEBUG_BUILD = "1"
                
Consider that this will reduce the application's performance and is recommended only for debugging purposes.

5.28. Debugging Parallel Make Races

A parallel make race occurs when the build consists of several parts that are run simultaneously and a situation occurs when the output or result of one part is not ready for use with a different part of the build that depends on that output. Parallel make races are annoying and can sometimes be difficult to reproduce and fix. However, some simple tips and tricks exist that can help you debug and fix them. This section presents a real-world example of an error encountered on the Yocto Project autobuilder and the process used to fix it.

Note

If you cannot properly fix a make race condition, you can work around it by clearing either the PARALLEL_MAKE or PARALLEL_MAKEINST variables.

5.28.1. The Failure

For this example, assume that you are building an image that depends on the "neard" package. And, during the build, BitBake runs into problems and creates the following output.

Note

This example log file has longer lines artificially broken to make the listing easier to read.

If you examine the output or the log file, you see the failure during make:

     | DEBUG: SITE files ['endian-little', 'bit-32', 'ix86-common', 'common-linux', 'common-glibc', 'i586-linux', 'common']
     | DEBUG: Executing shell function do_compile
     | NOTE: make -j 16
     | make --no-print-directory all-am
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/types.h include/near/types.h
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/log.h include/near/log.h
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/plugin.h include/near/plugin.h
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/tag.h include/near/tag.h
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/adapter.h include/near/adapter.h
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/ndef.h include/near/ndef.h
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/tlv.h include/near/tlv.h
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/setting.h include/near/setting.h
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | /bin/mkdir -p include/near
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/device.h include/near/device.h
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/nfc_copy.h include/near/nfc_copy.h
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/snep.h include/near/snep.h
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/version.h include/near/version.h
     | ln -s /home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/neard/
       0.14-r0/neard-0.14/include/dbus.h include/near/dbus.h
     | ./src/genbuiltin nfctype1 nfctype2 nfctype3 nfctype4 p2p > src/builtin.h
     | i586-poky-linux-gcc  -m32 -march=i586 --sysroot=/home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/
       build/build/tmp/sysroots/qemux86 -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I./include -I./src -I./gdbus  -I/home/pokybuild/
       yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/sysroots/qemux86/usr/include/glib-2.0
       -I/home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/sysroots/qemux86/usr/
       lib/glib-2.0/include  -I/home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/
       tmp/sysroots/qemux86/usr/include/dbus-1.0 -I/home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/yocto-slave/
       nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/sysroots/qemux86/usr/lib/dbus-1.0/include  -I/home/pokybuild/yocto-autobuilder/
       yocto-slave/nightly-x86/build/build/tmp/sysroots/qemux86/usr/include/libnl3
       -DNEAR_PLUGIN_BUILTIN -DPLUGINDIR=\""/usr/lib/near/plugins"\"
       -DCONFIGDIR=\""/etc/neard\"" -O2 -pipe -g -feliminate-unused-debug-types -c
       -o tools/snep-send.o tools/snep-send.c
     | In file included from tools/snep-send.c:16:0:
     | tools/../src/near.h:41:23: fatal error: near/dbus.h: No such file or directory
     |  #include <near/dbus.h>
     |                        ^
     | compilation terminated.
     | make[1]: *** [tools/snep-send.o] Error 1
     | make[1]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
     | make: *** [all] Error 2
     | ERROR: oe_runmake failed
                

5.28.2. Reproducing the Error

Because race conditions are intermittent, they do not manifest themselves every time you do the build. In fact, most times the build will complete without problems even though the potential race condition exists. Thus, once the error surfaces, you need a way to reproduce it.

In this example, compiling the "neard" package is causing the problem. So the first thing to do is build "neard" locally. Before you start the build, set the PARALLEL_MAKE variable in your local.conf file to a high number (e.g. "-j 20"). Using a high value for PARALLEL_MAKE increases the chances of the race condition showing up:

     $ bitbake neard
                

Once the local build for "neard" completes, start a devshell build:

     $ bitbake neard -c devshell
                

For information on how to use a devshell, see the "Using a Development Shell" section.

In the devshell, do the following:

     $ make clean
     $ make tools/snep-send.o
                

The devshell commands cause the failure to clearly be visible. In this case, a missing dependency exists for the "neard" Makefile target. Here is some abbreviated, sample output with the missing dependency clearly visible at the end:

     i586-poky-linux-gcc  -m32 -march=i586 --sysroot=/home/scott-lenovo/......
        .
        .
        .
     tools/snep-send.c
     In file included from tools/snep-send.c:16:0:
     tools/../src/near.h:41:23: fatal error: near/dbus.h: No such file or directory
      #include <near/dbus.h>
                       ^
     compilation terminated.
     make: *** [tools/snep-send.o] Error 1
     $
                

5.28.3. Creating a Patch for the Fix

Because there is a missing dependency for the Makefile target, you need to patch the Makefile.am file, which is generated from Makefile.in. You can use Quilt to create the patch:

     $ quilt new parallelmake.patch
     Patch patches/parallelmake.patch is now on top
     $ quilt add Makefile.am
     File Makefile.am added to patch patches/parallelmake.patch
                

For more information on using Quilt, see the "Using Quilt in Your Workflow" section.

At this point you need to make the edits to Makefile.am to add the missing dependency. For our example, you have to add the following line to the file:

     tools/snep-send.$(OBJEXT): include/near/dbus.h
                

Once you have edited the file, use the refresh command to create the patch:

     $ quilt refresh
     Refreshed patch patches/parallelmake.patch
                

Once the patch file exists, you need to add it back to the originating recipe folder. Here is an example assuming a top-level Source Directory named poky:

     $ cp patches/parallelmake.patch poky/meta/recipes-connectivity/neard/neard
                

The final thing you need to do to implement the fix in the build is to update the "neard" recipe (i.e. neard-0.14.bb) so that the SRC_URI statement includes the patch file. The recipe file is in the folder above the patch. Here is what the edited SRC_URI statement would look like:

     SRC_URI = "${KERNELORG_MIRROR}/linux/network/nfc/${BPN}-${PV}.tar.xz \
                file://neard.in \
                file://neard.service.in \
                file://parallelmake.patch \
               "
                

With the patch complete and moved to the correct folder and the SRC_URI statement updated, you can exit the devshell:

     $ exit
                

5.28.4. Testing the Build

With everything in place, you can get back to trying the build again locally:

     $ bitbake neard
                

This build should succeed.

Now you can open up a devshell again and repeat the clean and make operations as follows:

     $ bitbake neard -c devshell
     $ make clean
     $ make tools/snep-send.o
                

The build should work without issue.

As with all solved problems, if they originated upstream, you need to submit the fix for the recipe in OE-Core and upstream so that the problem is taken care of at its source. See the "How to Submit a Change" section for more information.

5.29. Maintaining Open Source License Compliance During Your Product's Lifecycle

One of the concerns for a development organization using open source software is how to maintain compliance with various open source licensing during the lifecycle of the product. While this section does not provide legal advice or comprehensively cover all scenarios, it does present methods that you can use to assist you in meeting the compliance requirements during a software release.

With hundreds of different open source licenses that the Yocto Project tracks, it is difficult to know the requirements of each and every license. However, the requirements of the major FLOSS licenses can begin to be covered by assuming that three main areas of concern exist:

  • Source code must be provided.

  • License text for the software must be provided.

  • Compilation scripts and modifications to the source code must be provided.

There are other requirements beyond the scope of these three and the methods described in this section (e.g. the mechanism through which source code is distributed).

As different organizations have different methods of complying with open source licensing, this section is not meant to imply that there is only one single way to meet your compliance obligations, but rather to describe one method of achieving compliance. The remainder of this section describes methods supported to meet the previously mentioned three requirements. Once you take steps to meet these requirements, and prior to releasing images, sources, and the build system, you should audit all artifacts to ensure completeness.

Note

The Yocto Project generates a license manifest during image creation that is located in ${DEPLOY_DIR}/licenses/image_name-datestamp to assist with any audits.

5.29.1. Providing the Source Code

Compliance activities should begin before you generate the final image. The first thing you should look at is the requirement that tops the list for most compliance groups - providing the source. The Yocto Project has a few ways of meeting this requirement.

One of the easiest ways to meet this requirement is to provide the entire DL_DIR used by the build. This method, however, has a few issues. The most obvious is the size of the directory since it includes all sources used in the build and not just the source used in the released image. It will include toolchain source, and other artifacts, which you would not generally release. However, the more serious issue for most companies is accidental release of proprietary software. The Yocto Project provides an archiver class to help avoid some of these concerns.

Before you employ DL_DIR or the archiver class, you need to decide how you choose to provide source. The source archiver class can generate tarballs and SRPMs and can create them with various levels of compliance in mind.

One way of doing this (but certainly not the only way) is to release just the source as a tarball. You can do this by adding the following to the local.conf file found in the Build Directory:

     INHERIT += "archiver"
     ARCHIVER_MODE[src] = "original"
                

During the creation of your image, the source from all recipes that deploy packages to the image is placed within subdirectories of DEPLOY_DIR/sources based on the LICENSE for each recipe. Releasing the entire directory enables you to comply with requirements concerning providing the unmodified source. It is important to note that the size of the directory can get large.

A way to help mitigate the size issue is to only release tarballs for licenses that require the release of source. Let us assume you are only concerned with GPL code as identified by running the following script:

     # Script to archive a subset of packages matching specific license(s)
     # Source and license files are copied into sub folders of package folder
     # Must be run from build folder
     #!/bin/bash
     src_release_dir="source-release"
     mkdir -p $src_release_dir
     for a in tmp/deploy/sources/*; do
        for d in $a/*; do
           # Get package name from path
           p=`basename $d`
           p=${p%-*}
           p=${p%-*}
           # Only archive GPL packages (update *GPL* regex for your license check)
           numfiles=`ls tmp/deploy/licenses/$p/*GPL* 2> /dev/null | wc -l`
           if [ $numfiles -gt 1 ]; then
              echo Archiving $p
              mkdir -p $src_release_dir/$p/source
              cp $d/* $src_release_dir/$p/source 2> /dev/null
              mkdir -p $src_release_dir/$p/license
              cp tmp/deploy/licenses/$p/* $src_release_dir/$p/license 2> /dev/null
           fi
        done
     done                

At this point, you could create a tarball from the gpl_source_release directory and provide that to the end user. This method would be a step toward achieving compliance with section 3a of GPLv2 and with section 6 of GPLv3.

5.29.2. Providing License Text

One requirement that is often overlooked is inclusion of license text. This requirement also needs to be dealt with prior to generating the final image. Some licenses require the license text to accompany the binary. You can achieve this by adding the following to your local.conf file:

     COPY_LIC_MANIFEST = "1"
     COPY_LIC_DIRS = "1"
     LICENSE_CREATE_PACKAGE = "1"
                

Adding these statements to the configuration file ensures that the licenses collected during package generation are included on your image.

Note

Setting all three variables to "1" results in the image having two copies of the same license file. One copy resides in /usr/share/common-licenses and the other resides in /usr/share/license.

The reason for this behavior is because COPY_LIC_DIRS and COPY_LIC_MANIFEST add a copy of the license when the image is built but do not offer a path for adding licenses for newly installed packages to an image. LICENSE_CREATE_PACKAGE adds a separate package and an upgrade path for adding licenses to an image.

As the source archiver class has already archived the original unmodified source that contains the license files, you would have already met the requirements for inclusion of the license information with source as defined by the GPL and other open source licenses.

5.29.3. Providing Compilation Scripts and Source Code Modifications

At this point, we have addressed all we need to prior to generating the image. The next two requirements are addressed during the final packaging of the release.

By releasing the version of the OpenEmbedded build system and the layers used during the build, you will be providing both compilation scripts and the source code modifications in one step.

If the deployment team has a BSP layer and a distro layer, and those those layers are used to patch, compile, package, or modify (in any way) any open source software included in your released images, you might be required to release those layers under section 3 of GPLv2 or section 1 of GPLv3. One way of doing that is with a clean checkout of the version of the Yocto Project and layers used during your build. Here is an example:

     # We built using the pyro branch of the poky repo
     $ git clone -b pyro git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky
     $ cd poky
     # We built using the release_branch for our layers
     $ git clone -b release_branch git://git.mycompany.com/meta-my-bsp-layer
     $ git clone -b release_branch git://git.mycompany.com/meta-my-software-layer
     # clean up the .git repos
     $ find . -name ".git" -type d -exec rm -rf {} \;
                

One thing a development organization might want to consider for end-user convenience is to modify meta-poky/conf/bblayers.conf.sample to ensure that when the end user utilizes the released build system to build an image, the development organization's layers are included in the bblayers.conf file automatically:

     # LAYER_CONF_VERSION is increased each time build/conf/bblayers.conf
     # changes incompatibly
     LCONF_VERSION = "6"

     BBPATH = "${TOPDIR}"
     BBFILES ?= ""

     BBLAYERS ?= " \
       ##OEROOT##/meta \
       ##OEROOT##/meta-poky \
       ##OEROOT##/meta-yocto-bsp \
       ##OEROOT##/meta-mylayer \
       "
                

Creating and providing an archive of the Metadata layers (recipes, configuration files, and so forth) enables you to meet your requirements to include the scripts to control compilation as well as any modifications to the original source.

5.30. Using the Error Reporting Tool

The error reporting tool allows you to submit errors encountered during builds to a central database. Outside of the build environment, you can use a web interface to browse errors, view statistics, and query for errors. The tool works using a client-server system where the client portion is integrated with the installed Yocto Project Source Directory (e.g. poky). The server receives the information collected and saves it in a database.

A live instance of the error reporting server exists at http://errors.yoctoproject.org. This server exists so that when you want to get help with build failures, you can submit all of the information on the failure easily and then point to the URL in your bug report or send an email to the mailing list.

Note

If you send error reports to this server, the reports become publicly visible.

5.30.1. Enabling and Using the Tool

By default, the error reporting tool is disabled. You can enable it by inheriting the report-error class by adding the following statement to the end of your local.conf file in your Build Directory.

     INHERIT += "report-error"
                

By default, the error reporting feature stores information in ${LOG_DIR}/error-report. However, you can specify a directory to use by adding the following to your local.conf file:

     ERR_REPORT_DIR = "path"
                

Enabling error reporting causes the build process to collect the errors and store them in a file as previously described. When the build system encounters an error, it includes a command as part of the console output. You can run the command to send the error file to the server. For example, the following command sends the errors to an upstream server:

     $ send-error-report /home/brandusa/project/poky/build/tmp/log/error-report/error_report_201403141617.txt
                

In the previous example, the errors are sent to a public database available at http://errors.yoctoproject.org, which is used by the entire community. If you specify a particular server, you can send the errors to a different database. Use the following command for more information on available options:

     $ send-error-report --help
                

When sending the error file, you are prompted to review the data being sent as well as to provide a name and optional email address. Once you satisfy these prompts, the command returns a link from the server that corresponds to your entry in the database. For example, here is a typical link:

     http://errors.yoctoproject.org/Errors/Details/9522/
                

Following the link takes you to a web interface where you can browse, query the errors, and view statistics.

5.30.2. Disabling the Tool

To disable the error reporting feature, simply remove or comment out the following statement from the end of your local.conf file in your Build Directory.

     INHERIT += "report-error"
                

5.30.3. Setting Up Your Own Error Reporting Server

If you want to set up your own error reporting server, you can obtain the code from the Git repository at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/error-report-web/. Instructions on how to set it up are in the README document.

Chapter 6. Using the Quick EMUlator (QEMU)

Quick EMUlator (QEMU) is an Open Source project the Yocto Project uses as part of its development "tool set". As such, the information in this chapter is limited to the Yocto Project integration of QEMU and not QEMU in general. For official information and documentation on QEMU, see the following references:

This chapter provides an overview of the Yocto Project's integration of QEMU, a description of how you use QEMU and its various options, running under a Network File System (NFS) server, and a few tips and tricks you might find helpful when using QEMU.

6.1. Overview

Within the context of the Yocto Project, QEMU is an emulator and virtualization machine that allows you to run a complete image you have built using the Yocto Project as just another task on your build system. QEMU is useful for running and testing images and applications on supported Yocto Project architectures without having actual hardware. Among other things, the Yocto Project uses QEMU to run automated Quality Assurance (QA) tests on final images shipped with each release.

QEMU is made available with the Yocto Project a number of ways. One method is to install a Software Development Kit (SDK). For more information on how to make sure you have QEMU available, see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

6.2. Running QEMU

Running QEMU involves having your build environment set up, having the right artifacts available, and understanding how to use the many options that are available to you when you start QEMU using the runqemu command.

6.2.1. Setting Up the Environment

You run QEMU in the same environment from which you run BitBake. This means you need to source a build environment script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres).

6.2.2. Using the runqemu Command

The basic runqemu command syntax is as follows:

     $ runqemu [option ]  [...]
            

Based on what you provide on the command line, runqemu does a good job of figuring out what you are trying to do. For example, by default, QEMU looks for the most recently built image according to the timestamp when it needs to look for an image. Minimally, through the use of options, you must provide either a machine name, a virtual machine image (*.vmdk), or a kernel image (*.bin).

Following is a description of runqemu options you can provide on the command line:

Tip

If you do provide some "illegal" option combination or perhaps you do not provide enough in the way of options, runqemu provides appropriate error messaging to help you correct the problem.

  • QEMUARCH: The QEMU machine architecture, which must be "qemux86", "qemux86_64", "qemuarm", "qemumips", "qemumipsel", “qemumips64", "qemush4", "qemuppc", "qemumicroblaze", or "qemuzynq".

  • VM: The virtual machine image, which must be a .vmdk file. Use this option when you want to boot a .vmdk image. The image filename you provide must contain one of the following strings: "qemux86-64", "qemux86", "qemuarm", "qemumips64", "qemumips", "qemuppc", or "qemush4".

  • ROOTFS: A root filesystem that has one of the following filetype extensions: "ext2", "ext3", "ext4", "jffs2", "nfs", or "btrfs". If the filename you provide for this option uses “nfs”, it must provide an explicit root filesystem path.

  • KERNEL: A kernel image, which is a .bin file. When you provide a .bin file, runqemu detects it and assumes the file is a kernel image.

  • MACHINE: The architecture of the QEMU machine, which must be one of the following: "qemux86", "qemux86-64", "qemuarm", "qemumips", "qemumipsel", “qemumips64", "qemush4", "qemuppc", "qemumicroblaze", or "qemuzynq". The MACHINE and QEMUARCH options are basically identical. If you do not provide a MACHINE option, runqemu tries to determine it based on other options.

  • ramfs: Indicates you are booting an initial RAM disk (initramfs) image, which means the FSTYPE is cpio.gz.

  • iso: Indicates you are booting an ISO image, which means the FSTYPE is .iso.

  • nographic: Disables the video console, which sets the console to "ttys0".

  • serial: Enables a serial console on /dev/ttyS0.

  • biosdir: Establishes a custom directory for BIOS, VGA BIOS and keymaps.

  • biosfilename: Establishes a custom BIOS name.

  • qemuparams=\"xyz\": Specifies custom QEMU parameters. Use this option to pass options other than the simple "kvm" and "serial" options.

  • bootparams=\"xyz\": Specifies custom boot parameters for the kernel.

  • audio: Enables audio in QEMU. The MACHINE option must be either "qemux86" or "qemux86-64" in order for audio to be enabled. Additionally, the snd_intel8x0 or snd_ens1370 driver must be installed in linux guest.

  • slirp: Enables "slirp" networking, which is a different way of networking that does not need root access but also is not as easy to use or comprehensive as the default.

  • kvm: Enables KVM when running "qemux86" or "qemux86-64" QEMU architectures. For KVM to work, all the following conditions must be met:

    • Your MACHINE must be either qemux86" or "qemux86-64".

    • Your build host has to have the KVM modules installed, which are /dev/kvm.

    • The build host /dev/kvm directory has to be both writable and readable.

  • kvm-vhost: Enables KVM with VHOST support when running "qemux86" or "qemux86-64" QEMU architectures. For KVM with VHOST to work, the following conditions must be met:

    • kvm option conditions must be met.

    • Your build host has to have virtio net device, which are /dev/vhost-net.

    • The build host /dev/vhost-net directory has to be either readable or writable and “slirp-enabled”.

  • publicvnc: Enables a VNC server open to all hosts.

For further understanding regarding option use with runqemu, consider some examples.

This example starts QEMU with MACHINE set to "qemux86". Assuming a standard Build Directory, runqemu automatically finds the bzImage-qemux86.bin image file and the core-image-minimal-qemux86-20140707074611.rootfs.ext3 (assuming the current build created a core-image-minimal image).

Note

When more than one image with the same name exists, QEMU finds and uses the most recently built image according to the timestamp.

    $ runqemu qemux86
            

This example produces the exact same results as the previous example. This command, however, specifically provides the image and root filesystem type.

     $ runqemu qemux86 core-image-minimal ext3
            

This example specifies to boot an initial RAM disk image and to enable audio in QEMU. For this case, runqemu set the internal variable FSTYPE to "cpio.gz". Also, for audio to be enabled, an appropriate driver must be installed (see the previous description for the audio option for more information).

     $ runqemu qemux86 ramfs audio
            

This example does not provide enough information for QEMU to launch. While the command does provide a root filesystem type, it must also minimally provide a MACHINE, KERNEL, or VM option.

     $ runqemu ext3
            

This example specifies to boot a virtual machine image (.vmdk file). From the .vmdk, runqemu determines the QEMU architecture (MACHINE) to be "qemux86" and the root filesystem type to be "vmdk".

     $ runqemu /home/scott-lenovo/vm/core-image-minimal-qemux86.vmdk
            

6.3. Running Under a Network File System (NFS) Server

One method for running QEMU is to run it on an NFS server. This is useful when you need to access the same file system from both the build and the emulated system at the same time. It is also worth noting that the system does not need root privileges to run. It uses a user space NFS server to avoid that. This section describes how to set up for running QEMU using an NFS server and then how you can start and stop the server.

6.3.1. Setting Up to Use NFS

Once you are able to run QEMU in your environment, you can use the runqemu-extract-sdk script, which is located in the scripts directory along with runqemu script. The runqemu-extract-sdk takes a root file system tarball and extracts it into a location that you specify. Then, when you run runqemu, you can specify the location that has the file system to pass it to QEMU. Here is an example that takes a file system and extracts it to a directory named test-nfs:

     runqemu-extract-sdk ./tmp/deploy/images/qemux86/core-image-sato-qemux86.tar.bz2 test-nfs
            

Once you have extracted the file system, you can run runqemu normally with the additional location of the file system. You can then also make changes to the files within ./test-nfs and see those changes appear in the image in real time. Here is an example using the qemux86 image:

     runqemu qemux86 ./test-nfs
            

6.3.2. Starting and Stopping NFS

You can manually start and stop the NFS share using these commands:

  • start: Starts the NFS share:

         runqemu-export-rootfs start file-system-location
                        

  • stop: Stops the NFS share:

         runqemu-export-rootfs stop file-system-location
                        

  • restart: Restarts the NFS share:

         runqemu-export-rootfs restart file-system-location
                        

6.4. Tips and Tricks

The following list describes things you can do to make running QEMU in the context of the Yocto Project a better experience:

  • Switching Between Consoles: When booting or running QEMU, you can switch between supported consoles by using Ctrl+Alt+number. For example, Ctrl+Alt+3 switches you to the serial console as long as that console is enabled. Being able to switch consoles is helpful, for example, if the main QEMU console breaks for some reason.

    Note

    Usually, "2" gets you to the main console and "3" gets you to the serial console.

  • Removing the Splash Screen: You can remove the splash screen when QEMU is booting by using Alt+left. Removing the splash screen allows you to see what is happening in the background.

  • Disabling the Cursor Grab: The default QEMU integration captures the cursor within the main window. It does this since standard mouse devices only provide relative input and not absolute coordinates. You then have to break out of the grab using the "Ctrl+Alt" key combination. However, the Yocto Project's integration of QEMU enables the wacom USB touch pad driver by default to allow input of absolute coordinates. This default means that the mouse can enter and leave the main window without the grab taking effect leading to a better user experience.

Chapter 7. Introduction

7.1. Introduction

Welcome to the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide. This manual provides information that explains how to use both the Yocto Project extensible and standard SDKs to develop applications and images. Additionally, the manual also provides information on how to use the popular Eclipse™ IDE as part of your application development workflow within the SDK environment.

Note

Prior to the 2.0 Release of the Yocto Project, application development was primarily accomplished through the use of the Application Development Toolkit (ADT) and the availability of stand-alone cross-development toolchains and other tools. With the 2.1 Release of the Yocto Project, application development has transitioned to within a tool-rich extensible SDK and the more traditional standard SDK.

All SDKs consist of the following:

  • Cross-Development Toolchain: This toolchain contains a compiler, debugger, and various miscellaneous tools.

  • Libraries, Headers, and Symbols: The libraries, headers, and symbols are specific to the image (i.e. they match the image).

  • Environment Setup Script: This *.sh file, once run, sets up the cross-development environment by defining variables and preparing for SDK use.

Additionally an extensible SDK has tools that allow you to easily add new applications and libraries to an image, modify the source of an existing component, test changes on the target hardware, and easily integrate an application into the OpenEmbedded build system.

You can use an SDK to independently develop and test code that is destined to run on some target machine. SDKs are completely self-contained. The binaries are linked against their own copy of libc, which results in no dependencies on the target system. To achieve this, the pointer to the dynamic loader is configured at install time since that path cannot be dynamically altered. This is the reason for a wrapper around the populate_sdk and populate_sdk_ext archives.

Another feature for the SDKs is that only one set of cross-compiler toolchain binaries are produced for any given architecture. This feature takes advantage of the fact that the target hardware can be passed to gcc as a set of compiler options. Those options are set up by the environment script and contained in variables such as CC and LD. This reduces the space needed for the tools. Understand, however, that a sysroot is still needed for every target since those binaries are target-specific.

The SDK development environment consists of the following:

  • The self-contained SDK, which is an architecture-specific cross-toolchain and matching sysroots (target and native) all built by the OpenEmbedded build system (e.g. the SDK). The toolchain and sysroots are based on a Metadata configuration and extensions, which allows you to cross-develop on the host machine for the target hardware. Additionally, the extensible SDK contains the devtool functionality.

  • The Quick EMUlator (QEMU), which lets you simulate target hardware. QEMU is not literally part of the SDK. You must build and include this emulator separately. However, QEMU plays an important role in the development process that revolves around use of the SDK.

  • The Eclipse IDE Yocto Plug-in. This plug-in is available for you if you are an Eclipse user. In the same manner as QEMU, the plug-in is not literally part of the SDK but is rather available for use as part of the development process.

  • Various performance-related tools that can enhance your development experience. These tools are also separate from the actual SDK but can be independently obtained and used in the development process.

In summary, the extensible and standard SDK share many features. However, the extensible SDK has powerful development tools to help you more quickly develop applications. Following is a table that summarizes the primary differences between the standard and extensible SDK types when considering which to build:

FeatureStandard SDKExtensible SDK
ToolchainYesYes*
DebuggerYesYes*
Size100+ MBytes1+ GBytes (or 300+ MBytes for minimal w/toolchain)
devtoolNoYes
Build ImagesNoYes
UpdateableNoYes
Managed Sysroot**NoYes
Installed PackagesNo***Yes****
ConstructionPackagesShared State

     * Extensible SDK will contain the toolchain and debugger if SDK_EXT_TYPE is "full" or SDK_INCLUDE_TOOLCHAIN is "1", which is the default.

     ** Sysroot is managed through use of devtool.  Thus, it is less likely that you will corrupt your SDK sysroot when you try to add additional libraries.

     *** Runtime package management can be added to the standard SDK but it is not supported by default.

     **** You must build and make the shared state available to extensible SDK users for "packages" you want to enable users to install.
        

7.1.1. The Cross-Development Toolchain

The Cross-Development Toolchain consists of a cross-compiler, cross-linker, and cross-debugger that are used to develop user-space applications for targeted hardware. Additionally, for an extensible SDK, the toolchain also has built-in devtool functionality. This toolchain is created by running a SDK installer script or through a Build Directory that is based on your Metadata configuration or extension for your targeted device. The cross-toolchain works with a matching target sysroot.

7.1.2. Sysroots

The native and target sysroots contain needed headers and libraries for generating binaries that run on the target architecture. The target sysroot is based on the target root filesystem image that is built by the OpenEmbedded build system and uses the same Metadata configuration used to build the cross-toolchain.

7.1.3. The QEMU Emulator

The QEMU emulator allows you to simulate your hardware while running your application or image. QEMU is not part of the SDK but is made available a number of ways:

  • If you have cloned the poky Git repository to create a Source Directory and you have sourced the environment setup script, QEMU is installed and automatically available.

  • If you have downloaded a Yocto Project release and unpacked it to create a Source Directory and you have sourced the environment setup script, QEMU is installed and automatically available.

  • If you have installed the cross-toolchain tarball and you have sourced the toolchain's setup environment script, QEMU is also installed and automatically available.

7.1.4. Eclipse Yocto Plug-in

The Eclipse IDE is a popular development environment and it fully supports development using the Yocto Project. When you install and configure the Eclipse Yocto Project Plug-in into the Eclipse IDE, you maximize your Yocto Project experience. Installing and configuring the Plug-in results in an environment that has extensions specifically designed to let you more easily develop software. These extensions allow for cross-compilation, deployment, and execution of your output into a QEMU emulation session. You can also perform cross-debugging and profiling. The environment also supports many performance-related tools that enhance your development experience.

Note

Previous releases of the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in supported "user-space tools" (i.e. LatencyTOP, PowerTOP, Perf, SystemTap, and Lttng-ust) that also added to the development experience. These tools have been deprecated beginning with this release of the plug-in.

For information about the application development workflow that uses the Eclipse IDE and for a detailed example of how to install and configure the Eclipse Yocto Project Plug-in, see the "Developing Applications Using Eclipse" section.

7.1.5. Performance Enhancing Tools

Supported performance enhancing tools are available that let you profile, debug, and perform tracing on your projects developed using Eclipse. For information on these tools see http://www.eclipse.org/linuxtools/.

7.2. SDK Development Model

Fundamentally, the SDK fits into the development process as follows:

The SDK is installed on any machine and can be used to develop applications, images, and kernels. An SDK can even be used by a QA Engineer or Release Engineer. The fundamental concept is that the machine that has the SDK installed does not have to be associated with the machine that has the Yocto Project installed. A developer can independently compile and test an object on their machine and then, when the object is ready for integration into an image, they can simply make it available to the machine that has the Yocto Project. Once the object is available, the image can be rebuilt using the Yocto Project to produce the modified image.

You just need to follow these general steps:

  1. Install the SDK for your target hardware: For information on how to install the SDK, see the "Installing the SDK" section.

  2. Download or Build the Target Image: The Yocto Project supports several target architectures and has many pre-built kernel images and root filesystem images.

    If you are going to develop your application on hardware, go to the machines download area and choose a target machine area from which to download the kernel image and root filesystem. This download area could have several files in it that support development using actual hardware. For example, the area might contain .hddimg files that combine the kernel image with the filesystem, boot loaders, and so forth. Be sure to get the files you need for your particular development process.

    If you are going to develop your application and then run and test it using the QEMU emulator, go to the machines/qemu download area. From this area, go down into the directory for your target architecture (e.g. qemux86_64 for an Intel®-based 64-bit architecture). Download kernel, root filesystem, and any other files you need for your process.

    Note

    To use the root filesystem in QEMU, you need to extract it. See the "Extracting the Root Filesystem" section for information on how to extract the root filesystem.

  3. Develop and Test your Application: At this point, you have the tools to develop your application. If you need to separately install and use the QEMU emulator, you can go to QEMU Home Page to download and learn about the emulator. See the "Using the Quick EMUlator (QEMU)" chapter in the Yocto Project Development Manual for information on using QEMU within the Yocto Project.

The remainder of this manual describes how to use both the standard SDK and the extensible SDK. Information also exists in appendix form that describes how you can build, install, and modify an SDK.

Chapter 8. Using the Extensible SDK

This chapter describes the extensible SDK and how to install it. Information covers the pieces of the SDK, how to install it, and presents a look at using the devtool functionality. The extensible SDK makes it easy to add new applications and libraries to an image, modify the source for an existing component, test changes on the target hardware, and ease integration into the rest of the OpenEmbedded build system.

Note

For a side-by-side comparison of main features supported for an extensible SDK as compared to a standard SDK, see the "Introduction" section.

In addition to the functionality available through devtool, you can alternatively make use of the toolchain directly, for example from Makefile, Autotools, and Eclipse-based projects. See the "Using the SDK Toolchain Directly" chapter for more information.

8.1. Why use the Extensible SDK and What is in It?

The extensible SDK provides a cross-development toolchain and libraries tailored to the contents of a specific image. You would use the Extensible SDK if you want a toolchain experience supplemented with the powerful set of devtool commands tailored for the Yocto Project environment.

The installed extensible SDK consists of several files and directories. Basically, it contains an SDK environment setup script, some configuration files, an internal build system, and the devtool functionality.

8.2. Setting Up to Use the Extensible SDK

The first thing you need to do is install the SDK on your host development machine by running the *.sh installation script.

You can download a tarball installer, which includes the pre-built toolchain, the runqemu script, the internal build system, devtool, and support files from the appropriate directory under http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/releases/yocto/yocto-2.3.3/toolchain/. Toolchains are available for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 development systems from the i686 and x86_64 directories, respectively. The toolchains the Yocto Project provides are based off the core-image-sato image and contain libraries appropriate for developing against that image. Each type of development system supports five or more target architectures.

The names of the tarball installer scripts are such that a string representing the host system appears first in the filename and then is immediately followed by a string representing the target architecture. An extensible SDK has the string "-ext" as part of the name.

     poky-glibc-host_system-image_type-arch-toolchain-ext-release_version.sh

     Where:
         host_system is a string representing your development system:

                    i686 or x86_64.

         image_type is the image for which the SDK was built.

         arch is a string representing the tuned target architecture:

                    i586, x86_64, powerpc, mips, armv7a or armv5te

         release_version is a string representing the release number of the
                Yocto Project:

                    2.3.3, 2.3.3+snapshot
            

For example, the following SDK installer is for a 64-bit development host system and a i586-tuned target architecture based off the SDK for core-image-sato and using the current 2.3.3 snapshot:

     poky-glibc-x86_64-core-image-sato-i586-toolchain-ext-2.3.3.sh
            

Note

As an alternative to downloading an SDK, you can build the SDK installer. For information on building the installer, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section. Another helpful resource for building an installer is the Cookbook guide to Making an Eclipse Debug Capable Image wiki page. This wiki page focuses on development when using the Eclipse IDE.

The SDK and toolchains are self-contained and by default are installed into the poky_sdk folder in your home directory. You can choose to install the extensible SDK in any location when you run the installer. However, the location you choose needs to be writable for whichever users need to use the SDK, since files will need to be written under that directory during the normal course of operation.

The following command shows how to run the installer given a toolchain tarball for a 64-bit x86 development host system and a 64-bit x86 target architecture. The example assumes the SDK installer is located in ~/Downloads/.

Note

If you do not have write permissions for the directory into which you are installing the SDK, the installer notifies you and exits. Be sure you have write permissions in the directory and run the installer again.

     $ ./poky-glibc-x86_64-core-image-minimal-core2-64-toolchain-ext-2.3.3.sh
     Poky (Yocto Project Reference Distro) Extensible SDK installer version 2.3.3
     ===================================================================================
     Enter target directory for SDK (default: ~/poky_sdk):
     You are about to install the SDK to "/home/scottrif/poky_sdk". Proceed[Y/n]? Y
     Extracting SDK......................................................................done
     Setting it up...
     Extracting buildtools...
     Preparing build system...
     done
     SDK has been successfully set up and is ready to be used.
     Each time you wish to use the SDK in a new shell session, you need to source the environment setup script e.g.
      $ . /home/scottrif/poky_sdk/environment-setup-core2-64-poky-linux
            

8.3. Running the Extensible SDK Environment Setup Script

Once you have the SDK installed, you must run the SDK environment setup script before you can actually use it. This setup script resides in the directory you chose when you installed the SDK, which is either the default poky_sdk directory or the directory you chose during installation.

Before running the script, be sure it is the one that matches the architecture for which you are developing. Environment setup scripts begin with the string "environment-setup" and include as part of their name the tuned target architecture. As an example, the following commands set the working directory to where the SDK was installed and then source the environment setup script. In this example, the setup script is for an IA-based target machine using i586 tuning:

     $ cd /home/scottrif/poky_sdk
     $ source environment-setup-core2-64-poky-linux
     SDK environment now set up; additionally you may now run devtool to perform development tasks.
     Run devtool --help for further details.
            

When you run the setup script, many environment variables are defined:

     SDKTARGETSYSROOT - The path to the sysroot used for cross-compilation
     PKG_CONFIG_PATH - The path to the target pkg-config files
     CONFIG_SITE - A GNU autoconf site file preconfigured for the target
     CC - The minimal command and arguments to run the C compiler
     CXX - The minimal command and arguments to run the C++ compiler
     CPP - The minimal command and arguments to run the C preprocessor
     AS - The minimal command and arguments to run the assembler
     LD - The minimal command and arguments to run the linker
     GDB - The minimal command and arguments to run the GNU Debugger
     STRIP - The minimal command and arguments to run 'strip', which strips symbols
     RANLIB - The minimal command and arguments to run 'ranlib'
     OBJCOPY - The minimal command and arguments to run 'objcopy'
     OBJDUMP - The minimal command and arguments to run 'objdump'
     AR - The minimal command and arguments to run 'ar'
     NM - The minimal command and arguments to run 'nm'
     TARGET_PREFIX - The toolchain binary prefix for the target tools
     CROSS_COMPILE - The toolchain binary prefix for the target tools
     CONFIGURE_FLAGS - The minimal arguments for GNU configure
     CFLAGS - Suggested C flags
     CXXFLAGS - Suggested C++ flags
     LDFLAGS - Suggested linker flags when you use CC to link
     CPPFLAGS - Suggested preprocessor flags
            

8.4. Using devtool in Your SDK Workflow

The cornerstone of the extensible SDK is a command-line tool called devtool. This tool provides a number of features that help you build, test and package software within the extensible SDK, and optionally integrate it into an image built by the OpenEmbedded build system.

The devtool command line is organized similarly to Git in that it has a number of sub-commands for each function. You can run devtool --help to see all the commands.

Three devtool subcommands that provide entry-points into development are:

  • devtool add: Assists in adding new software to be built.

  • devtool modify: Sets up an environment to enable you to modify the source of an existing component.

  • devtool upgrade: Updates an existing recipe so that you can build it for an updated set of source files.

As with the OpenEmbedded build system, "recipes" represent software packages within devtool. When you use devtool add, a recipe is automatically created. When you use devtool modify, the specified existing recipe is used in order to determine where to get the source code and how to patch it. In both cases, an environment is set up so that when you build the recipe a source tree that is under your control is used in order to allow you to make changes to the source as desired. By default, both new recipes and the source go into a "workspace" directory under the SDK.

The remainder of this section presents the devtool add, devtool modify, and devtool upgrade workflows.

8.4.1. Use devtool add to Add an Application

The devtool add command generates a new recipe based on existing source code. This command takes advantage of the workspace layer that many devtool commands use. The command is flexible enough to allow you to extract source code into both the workspace or a separate local Git repository and to use existing code that does not need to be extracted.

Depending on your particular scenario, the arguments and options you use with devtool add form different combinations. The following diagram shows common development flows you would use with the devtool add command:

  1. Generating the New Recipe: The top part of the flow shows three scenarios by which you could use devtool add to generate a recipe based on existing source code.

    In a shared development environment, it is typical where other developers are responsible for various areas of source code. As a developer, you are probably interested in using that source code as part of your development using the Yocto Project. All you need is access to the code, a recipe, and a controlled area in which to do your work.

    Within the diagram, three possible scenarios feed into the devtool add workflow:

    • Left: The left scenario represents a common situation where the source code does not exist locally and needs to be extracted. In this situation, you just let it get extracted to the default workspace - you do not want it in some specific location outside of the workspace. Thus, everything you need will be located in the workspace:

           $ devtool add recipe fetchuri
                                      

      With this command, devtool creates a recipe and an append file in the workspace as well as extracts the upstream source files into a local Git repository also within the sources folder.

    • Middle: The middle scenario also represents a situation where the source code does not exist locally. In this case, the code is again upstream and needs to be extracted to some local area - this time outside of the default workspace. If required, devtool always creates a Git repository locally during the extraction. Furthermore, the first positional argument srctree in this case identifies where the devtool add command will locate the extracted code outside of the workspace:

           $ devtool add recipe srctree fetchuri
                                      

      In summary, the source code is pulled from fetchuri and extracted into the location defined by srctree as a local Git repository.

      Within workspace, devtool creates both the recipe and an append file for the recipe.

    • Right: The right scenario represents a situation where the source tree (srctree) has been previously prepared outside of the devtool workspace.

      The following command names the recipe and identifies where the existing source tree is located:

           $ devtool add recipe srctree
                                      

      The command examines the source code and creates a recipe for it placing the recipe into the workspace.

      Because the extracted source code already exists, devtool does not try to relocate it into the workspace - just the new the recipe is placed in the workspace.

      Aside from a recipe folder, the command also creates an append folder and places an initial *.bbappend within.

  2. Edit the Recipe: At this point, you can use devtool edit-recipe to open up the editor as defined by the $EDITOR environment variable and modify the file:

         $ devtool edit-recipe recipe
                            

    From within the editor, you can make modifications to the recipe that take affect when you build it later.

  3. Build the Recipe or Rebuild the Image: At this point in the flow, the next step you take depends on what you are going to do with the new code.

    If you need to take the build output and eventually move it to the target hardware, you would use devtool build:

         $ devtool build recipe
                            

    On the other hand, if you want an image to contain the recipe's packages for immediate deployment onto a device (e.g. for testing purposes), you can use the devtool build-image command:

         $ devtool build-image image
                            

  4. Deploy the Build Output: When you use the devtool build command to build out your recipe, you probably want to see if the resulting build output works as expected on target hardware.

    Note

    This step assumes you have a previously built image that is already either running in QEMU or running on actual hardware. Also, it is assumed that for deployment of the image to the target, SSH is installed in the image and if the image is running on real hardware that you have network access to and from your development machine.

    You can deploy your build output to that target hardware by using the devtool deploy-target command:

         $ devtool deploy-target recipe target
                            

    The target is a live target machine running as an SSH server.

    You can, of course, also deploy the image you build using the devtool build-image command to actual hardware. However, devtool does not provide a specific command that allows you to do this.

  5. Finish Your Work With the Recipe: The devtool finish command creates any patches corresponding to commits in the local Git repository, moves the new recipe to a more permanent layer, and then resets the recipe so that the recipe is built normally rather than from the workspace.

         $ devtool finish recipe layer
                            

    Note

    Any changes you want to turn into patches must be committed to the Git repository in the source tree.

    As mentioned, the devtool finish command moves the final recipe to its permanent layer.

    As a final process of the devtool finish command, the state of the standard layers and the upstream source is restored so that you can build the recipe from those areas rather than the workspace.

    Note

    You can use the devtool reset command to put things back should you decide you do not want to proceed with your work. If you do use this command, realize that the source tree is preserved.

8.4.2. Use devtool modify to Modify the Source of an Existing Component

The devtool modify command prepares the way to work on existing code that already has a recipe in place. The command is flexible enough to allow you to extract code, specify the existing recipe, and keep track of and gather any patch files from other developers that are associated with the code.

Depending on your particular scenario, the arguments and options you use with devtool modify form different combinations. The following diagram shows common development flows you would use with the devtool modify command:

  1. Preparing to Modify the Code: The top part of the flow shows three scenarios by which you could use devtool modify to prepare to work on source files. Each scenario assumes the following:

    • The recipe exists in some layer external to the devtool workspace.

    • The source files exist upstream in an un-extracted state or locally in a previously extracted state.

    The typical situation is where another developer has created some layer for use with the Yocto Project and their recipe already resides in that layer. Furthermore, their source code is readily available either upstream or locally.

    • Left: The left scenario represents a common situation where the source code does not exist locally and needs to be extracted. In this situation, the source is extracted into the default workspace location. The recipe, in this scenario, is in its own layer outside the workspace (i.e. meta-layername).

      The following command identifies the recipe and by default extracts the source files:

           $ devtool modify recipe
                                      

      Once devtoollocates the recipe, it uses the SRC_URI variable to locate the source code and any local patch files from other developers are located.

      Note

      You cannot provide an URL for srctree when using the devtool modify command.

      With this scenario, however, since no srctree argument exists, the devtool modify command by default extracts the source files to a Git structure. Furthermore, the location for the extracted source is the default area within the workspace. The result is that the command sets up both the source code and an append file within the workspace with the recipe remaining in its original location.

    • Middle: The middle scenario represents a situation where the source code also does not exist locally. In this case, the code is again upstream and needs to be extracted to some local area as a Git repository. The recipe, in this scenario, is again in its own layer outside the workspace.

      The following command tells devtool what recipe with which to work and, in this case, identifies a local area for the extracted source files that is outside of the default workspace:

           $ devtool modify recipe srctree
                                      

      As with all extractions, the command uses the recipe's SRC_URI to locate the source files. Once the files are located, the command by default extracts them. Providing the srctree argument instructs devtool where place the extracted source.

      Within workspace, devtool creates an append file for the recipe. The recipe remains in its original location but the source files are extracted to the location you provided with srctree.

    • Right: The right scenario represents a situation where the source tree (srctree) exists as a previously extracted Git structure outside of the devtool workspace. In this example, the recipe also exists elsewhere in its own layer.

      The following command tells devtool the recipe with which to work, uses the "-n" option to indicate source does not need to be extracted, and uses srctree to point to the previously extracted source files:

           $ devtool modify -n recipe srctree
                                      

      Once the command finishes, it creates only an append file for the recipe in the workspace. The recipe and the source code remain in their original locations.

  2. Edit the Source: Once you have used the devtool modify command, you are free to make changes to the source files. You can use any editor you like to make and save your source code modifications.

  3. Build the Recipe: Once you have updated the source files, you can build the recipe.

  4. Deploy the Build Output: When you use the devtool build command to build out your recipe, you probably want to see if the resulting build output works as expected on target hardware.

    Note

    This step assumes you have a previously built image that is already either running in QEMU or running on actual hardware. Also, it is assumed that for deployment of the image to the target, SSH is installed in the image and if the image is running on real hardware that you have network access to and from your development machine.

    You can deploy your build output to that target hardware by using the devtool deploy-target command:

         $ devtool deploy-target recipe target
                            

    The target is a live target machine running as an SSH server.

    You can, of course, also deploy the image you build using the devtool build-image command to actual hardware. However, devtool does not provide a specific command that allows you to do this.

  5. Finish Your Work With the Recipe: The devtool finish command creates any patches corresponding to commits in the local Git repository, updates the recipe to point to them (or creates a .bbappend file to do so, depending on the specified destination layer), and then resets the recipe so that the recipe is built normally rather than from the workspace.

         $ devtool finish recipe layer
                            

    Note

    Any changes you want to turn into patches must be committed to the Git repository in the source tree.

    Because there is no need to move the recipe, devtool finish either updates the original recipe in the original layer or the command creates a .bbappend in a different layer as provided by layer.

    As a final process of the devtool finish command, the state of the standard layers and the upstream source is restored so that you can build the recipe from those areas rather than the workspace.

    Note

    You can use the devtool reset command to put things back should you decide you do not want to proceed with your work. If you do use this command, realize that the source tree is preserved.

8.4.3. Use devtool upgrade to Create a Version of the Recipe that Supports a Newer Version of the Software

The devtool upgrade command updates an existing recipe so that you can build it for an updated set of source files. The command is flexible enough to allow you to specify source code revision and versioning schemes, extract code into or out of the devtool workspace, and work with any source file forms that the fetchers support.

Depending on your particular scenario, the arguments and options you use with devtool upgrade form different combinations. The following diagram shows a common development flow you would use with the devtool modify command:

  1. Initiate the Upgrade: The top part of the flow shows a typical scenario by which you could use devtool upgrade. The following conditions exist:

    • The recipe exists in some layer external to the devtool workspace.

    • The source files for the new release exist adjacent to the same location pointed to by SRC_URI in the recipe (e.g. a tarball with the new version number in the name, or as a different revision in the upstream Git repository).

    A common situation is where third-party software has undergone a revision so that it has been upgraded. The recipe you have access to is likely in your own layer. Thus, you need to upgrade the recipe to use the newer version of the software:

         $ devtool upgrade -V version recipe
                            

    By default, the devtool upgrade command extracts source code into the sources directory in the workspace. If you want the code extracted to any other location, you need to provide the srctree positional argument with the command as follows:

         $ devtool upgrade -V version recipe srctree
                            

    Also, in this example, the "-V" option is used to specify the new version. If the source files pointed to by the SRC_URI statement in the recipe are in a Git repository, you must provide the "-S" option and specify a revision for the software.

    Once devtool locates the recipe, it uses the SRC_URI variable to locate the source code and any local patch files from other developers are located. The result is that the command sets up the source code, the new version of the recipe, and an append file all within the workspace.

  2. Resolve any Conflicts created by the Upgrade: At this point, there could be some conflicts due to the software being upgraded to a new version. This would occur if your recipe specifies some patch files in SRC_URI that conflict with changes made in the new version of the software. If this is the case, you need to resolve the conflicts by editing the source and following the normal git rebase conflict resolution process.

    Before moving onto the next step, be sure to resolve any such conflicts created through use of a newer or different version of the software.

  3. Build the Recipe: Once you have your recipe in order, you can build it. You can either use devtool build or bitbake. Either method produces build output that is stored in TMPDIR.

  4. Deploy the Build Output: When you use the devtool build command or bitbake to build out your recipe, you probably want to see if the resulting build output works as expected on target hardware.

    Note

    This step assumes you have a previously built image that is already either running in QEMU or running on actual hardware. Also, it is assumed that for deployment of the image to the target, SSH is installed in the image and if the image is running on real hardware that you have network access to and from your development machine.

    You can deploy your build output to that target hardware by using the devtool deploy-target command:

         $ devtool deploy-target recipe target
                            

    The target is a live target machine running as an SSH server.

    You can, of course, also deploy the image you build using the devtool build-image command to actual hardware. However, devtool does not provide a specific command that allows you to do this.

  5. Finish Your Work With the Recipe: The devtool finish command creates any patches corresponding to commits in the local Git repository, moves the new recipe to a more permanent layer, and then resets the recipe so that the recipe is built normally rather than from the workspace. If you specify a destination layer that is the same as the original source, then the old version of the recipe and associated files will be removed prior to adding the new version.

         $ devtool finish recipe layer
                            

    Note

    Any changes you want to turn into patches must be committed to the Git repository in the source tree.

    As a final process of the devtool finish command, the state of the standard layers and the upstream source is restored so that you can build the recipe from those areas rather than the workspace.

    Note

    You can use the devtool reset command to put things back should you decide you do not want to proceed with your work. If you do use this command, realize that the source tree is preserved.

8.5. A Closer Look at devtool add

The devtool add command automatically creates a recipe based on the source tree with which you provide it. Currently, the command has support for the following:

  • Autotools (autoconf and automake)

  • CMake

  • Scons

  • qmake

  • Plain Makefile

  • Out-of-tree kernel module

  • Binary package (i.e. "-b" option)

  • Node.js module

  • Python modules that use setuptools or distutils

Apart from binary packages, the determination of how a source tree should be treated is automatic based on the files present within that source tree. For example, if a CMakeLists.txt file is found, then the source tree is assumed to be using CMake and is treated accordingly.

Note

In most cases, you need to edit the automatically generated recipe in order to make it build properly. Typically, you would go through several edit and build cycles until you can build the recipe. Once the recipe can be built, you could use possible further iterations to test the recipe on the target device.

The remainder of this section covers specifics regarding how parts of the recipe are generated.

8.5.1. Name and Version

If you do not specify a name and version on the command line, devtool add attempts to determine the name and version of the software being built from various metadata within the source tree. Furthermore, the command sets the name of the created recipe file accordingly. If the name or version cannot be determined, the devtool add command prints an error and you must re-run the command with both the name and version or just the name or version specified.

Sometimes the name or version determined from the source tree might be incorrect. For such a case, you must reset the recipe:

     $ devtool reset -n recipename
                

After running the devtool reset command, you need to run devtool add again and provide the name or the version.

8.5.2. Dependency Detection and Mapping

The devtool add command attempts to detect build-time dependencies and map them to other recipes in the system. During this mapping, the command fills in the names of those recipes in the DEPENDS value within the recipe. If a dependency cannot be mapped, then a comment is placed in the recipe indicating such. The inability to map a dependency might be caused because the naming is not recognized or because the dependency simply is not available. For cases where the dependency is not available, you must use the devtool add command to add an additional recipe to satisfy the dependency and then come back to the first recipe and add its name to DEPENDS.

If you need to add runtime dependencies, you can do so by adding the following to your recipe:

     RDEPENDS_${PN} += "dependency1 dependency2 ..."
                

Note

The devtool add command often cannot distinguish between mandatory and optional dependencies. Consequently, some of the detected dependencies might in fact be optional. When in doubt, consult the documentation or the configure script for the software the recipe is building for further details. In some cases, you might find you can substitute the dependency for an option to disable the associated functionality passed to the configure script.

8.5.3. License Detection

The devtool add command attempts to determine if the software you are adding is able to be distributed under a common open-source license and sets the LICENSE value accordingly. You should double-check this value against the documentation or source files for the software you are building and update that LICENSE value if necessary.

The devtool add command also sets the LIC_FILES_CHKSUM value to point to all files that appear to be license-related. However, license statements often appear in comments at the top of source files or within documentation. Consequently, you might need to amend the LIC_FILES_CHKSUM variable to point to one or more of those comments if present. Setting LIC_FILES_CHKSUM is particularly important for third-party software. The mechanism attempts to ensure correct licensing should you upgrade the recipe to a newer upstream version in future. Any change in licensing is detected and you receive an error prompting you to check the license text again.

If the devtool add command cannot determine licensing information, the LICENSE value is set to "CLOSED" and the LIC_FILES_CHKSUM value remains unset. This behavior allows you to continue with development but is unlikely to be correct in all cases. Consequently, you should check the documentation or source files for the software you are building to determine the actual license.

8.5.4. Adding Makefile-Only Software

The use of make by itself is very common in both proprietary and open source software. Unfortunately, Makefiles are often not written with cross-compilation in mind. Thus, devtool add often cannot do very much to ensure that these Makefiles build correctly. It is very common, for example, to explicitly call gcc instead of using the CC variable. Usually, in a cross-compilation environment, gcc is the compiler for the build host and the cross-compiler is named something similar to arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-gcc and might require some arguments (e.g. to point to the associated sysroot for the target machine).

When writing a recipe for Makefile-only software, keep the following in mind:

  • You probably need to patch the Makefile to use variables instead of hardcoding tools within the toolchain such as gcc and g++.

  • The environment in which make runs is set up with various standard variables for compilation (e.g. CC, CXX, and so forth) in a similar manner to the environment set up by the SDK's environment setup script. One easy way to see these variables is to run the devtool build command on the recipe and then look in oe-logs/run.do_compile. Towards the top of this file you will see a list of environment variables that are being set. You can take advantage of these variables within the Makefile.

  • If the Makefile sets a default for a variable using "=", that default overrides the value set in the environment, which is usually not desirable. In this situation, you can either patch the Makefile so it sets the default using the "?=" operator, or you can alternatively force the value on the make command line. To force the value on the command line, add the variable setting to EXTRA_OEMAKE or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS within the recipe. Here is an example using EXTRA_OEMAKE:

         EXTRA_OEMAKE += "'CC=${CC}' 'CXX=${CXX}'"
                            

    In the above example, single quotes are used around the variable settings as the values are likely to contain spaces because required default options are passed to the compiler.

  • Hardcoding paths inside Makefiles is often problematic in a cross-compilation environment. This is particularly true because those hardcoded paths often point to locations on the build host and thus will either be read-only or will introduce contamination into the cross-compilation by virtue of being specific to the build host rather than the target. Patching the Makefile to use prefix variables or other path variables is usually the way to handle this.

  • Sometimes a Makefile runs target-specific commands such as ldconfig. For such cases, you might be able to simply apply patches that remove these commands from the Makefile.

8.5.5. Adding Native Tools

Often, you need to build additional tools that run on the build host system as opposed to the target. You should indicate this using one of the following methods when you run devtool add:

  • Specify the name of the recipe such that it ends with "-native". Specifying the name like this produces a recipe that only builds for the build host.

  • Specify the "‐‐also-native" option with the devtool add command. Specifying this option creates a recipe file that still builds for the target but also creates a variant with a "-native" suffix that builds for the build host.

Note

If you need to add a tool that is shipped as part of a source tree that builds code for the target, you can typically accomplish this by building the native and target parts separately rather than within the same compilation process. Realize though that with the "‐‐also-native" option, you can add the tool using just one recipe file.

8.5.6. Adding Node.js Modules

You can use the devtool add command two different ways to add Node.js modules: 1) Through npm and, 2) from a repository or local source.

Use the following form to add Node.js modules through npm:

     $ devtool add "npm://registry.npmjs.org;name=forever;version=0.15.1"
                

The name and version parameters are mandatory. Lockdown and shrinkwrap files are generated and pointed to by the recipe in order to freeze the version that is fetched for the dependencies according to the first time. This also saves checksums that are verified on future fetches. Together, these behaviors ensure the reproducibility and integrity of the build.

Notes

  • You must use quotes around the URL. The devtool add does not require the quotes, but the shell considers ";" as a splitter between multiple commands. Thus, without the quotes, devtool add does not receive the other parts, which results in several "command not found" errors.

  • In order to support adding Node.js modules, a nodejs recipe must be part of your SDK in order to provide Node.js itself.

As mentioned earlier, you can also add Node.js modules directly from a repository or local source tree. To add modules this way, use devtool add in the following form:

     $ devtool add https://github.com/diversario/node-ssdp
                

In this example, devtool fetches the specified Git repository, detects that the code is Node.js code, fetches dependencies using npm, and sets SRC_URI accordingly.

8.6. Working With Recipes

When building a recipe with devtool build the typical build progression is as follows:

  1. Fetch the source

  2. Unpack the source

  3. Configure the source

  4. Compiling the source

  5. Install the build output

  6. Package the installed output

For recipes in the workspace, fetching and unpacking is disabled as the source tree has already been prepared and is persistent. Each of these build steps is defined as a function, usually with a "do_" prefix. These functions are typically shell scripts but can instead be written in Python.

If you look at the contents of a recipe, you will see that the recipe does not include complete instructions for building the software. Instead, common functionality is encapsulated in classes inherited with the inherit directive, leaving the recipe to describe just the things that are specific to the software to be built. A base class exists that is implicitly inherited by all recipes and provides the functionality that most typical recipes need.

The remainder of this section presents information useful when working with recipes.

8.6.1. Finding Logs and Work Files

When you are debugging a recipe that you previously created using devtool add or whose source you are modifying by using the devtool modify command, after the first run of devtool build, you will find some symbolic links created within the source tree: oe-logs, which points to the directory in which log files and run scripts for each build step are created and oe-workdir, which points to the temporary work area for the recipe. You can use these links to get more information on what is happening at each build step.

These locations under oe-workdir are particularly useful:

  • image/: Contains all of the files installed at the do_install stage. Within a recipe, this directory is referred to by the expression ${D}.

  • sysroot-destdir/: Contains a subset of files installed within do_install that have been put into the shared sysroot. For more information, see the "Sharing Files Between Recipes" section.

  • packages-split/: Contains subdirectories for each package produced by the recipe. For more information, see the "Packaging" section.

8.6.2. Setting Configure Arguments

If the software your recipe is building uses GNU autoconf, then a fixed set of arguments is passed to it to enable cross-compilation plus any extras specified by EXTRA_OECONF or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS set within the recipe. If you wish to pass additional options, add them to EXTRA_OECONF or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS. Other supported build tools have similar variables (e.g. EXTRA_OECMAKE for CMake, EXTRA_OESCONS for Scons, and so forth). If you need to pass anything on the make command line, you can use EXTRA_OEMAKE or the PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS variables to do so.

You can use the devtool configure-help command to help you set the arguments listed in the previous paragraph. The command determines the exact options being passed, and shows them to you along with any custom arguments specified through EXTRA_OECONF or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS. If applicable, the command also shows you the output of the configure script's "‐‐help" option as a reference.

8.6.3. Sharing Files Between Recipes

Recipes often need to use files provided by other recipes on the build host. For example, an application linking to a common library needs access to the library itself and its associated headers. The way this access is accomplished within the extensible SDK is through the sysroot. One sysroot exists per "machine" for which the SDK is being built. In practical terms, this means a sysroot exists for the target machine, and a sysroot exists for the build host.

Recipes should never write files directly into the sysroot. Instead, files should be installed into standard locations during the do_install task within the ${D} directory. A subset of these files automatically go into the sysroot. The reason for this limitation is that almost all files that go into the sysroot are cataloged in manifests in order to ensure they can be removed later when a recipe is modified or removed. Thus, the sysroot is able to remain free from stale files.

8.6.4. Packaging

Packaging is not always particularly relevant within the extensible SDK. However, if you examine how build output gets into the final image on the target device, it is important to understand packaging because the contents of the image are expressed in terms of packages and not recipes.

During the do_package task, files installed during the do_install task are split into one main package, which is almost always named the same as the recipe, and several other packages. This separation is done because not all of those installed files are always useful in every image. For example, you probably do not need any of the documentation installed in a production image. Consequently, for each recipe the documentation files are separated into a -doc package. Recipes that package software that has optional modules or plugins might do additional package splitting as well.

After building a recipe you can see where files have gone by looking in the oe-workdir/packages-split directory, which contains a subdirectory for each package. Apart from some advanced cases, the PACKAGES and FILES variables controls splitting. The PACKAGES variable lists all of the packages to be produced, while the FILES variable specifies which files to include in each package, using an override to specify the package. For example, FILES_${PN} specifies the files to go into the main package (i.e. the main package is named the same as the recipe and ${PN} evaluates to the recipe name). The order of the PACKAGES value is significant. For each installed file, the first package whose FILES value matches the file is the package into which the file goes. Defaults exist for both the PACKAGES and FILES variables. Consequently, you might find you do not even need to set these variables in your recipe unless the software the recipe is building installs files into non-standard locations.

8.7. Restoring the Target Device to its Original State

If you use the devtool deploy-target command to write a recipe's build output to the target, and you are working on an existing component of the system, then you might find yourself in a situation where you need to restore the original files that existed prior to running the devtool deploy-target command. Because the devtool deploy-target command backs up any files it overwrites, you can use the devtool undeploy-target to restore those files and remove any other files the recipe deployed. Consider the following example:

     $ devtool undeploy-target lighttpd root@192.168.7.2
            

If you have deployed multiple applications, you can remove them all at once thus restoring the target device back to its original state:

     $ devtool undeploy-target -a root@192.168.7.2
            

Information about files deployed to the target as well as any backed up files are stored on the target itself. This storage of course requires some additional space on the target machine.

Note

The devtool deploy-target and devtool undeploy-target command do not currently interact with any package management system on the target device (e.g. RPM or OPKG). Consequently, you should not intermingle operations devtool deploy-target and the package manager operations on the target device. Doing so could result in a conflicting set of files.

8.8. Installing Additional Items Into the Extensible SDK

The extensible SDK typically only comes with a small number of tools and libraries out of the box. If you have a minimal SDK, then it starts mostly empty and is populated on-demand. However, sometimes you will need to explicitly install extra items into the SDK. If you need these extra items, you can first search for the items using the devtool search command. For example, suppose you need to link to libGL but you are not sure which recipe provides it. You can use the following command to find out:

     $ devtool search libGL
     mesa                  A free implementation of the OpenGL API
            

Once you know the recipe (i.e. mesa in this example), you can install it:

     $ devtool sdk-install mesa
            

By default, the devtool sdk-install assumes the item is available in pre-built form from your SDK provider. If the item is not available and it is acceptable to build the item from source, you can add the "-s" option as follows:

     $ devtool sdk-install -s mesa
            

It is important to remember that building the item from source takes significantly longer than installing the pre-built artifact. Also, if no recipe exists for the item you want to add to the SDK, you must instead add it using the devtool add command.

8.9. Updating the Extensible SDK

If you are working with an extensible SDK that gets occasionally updated (e.g. typically when that SDK has been provided to you by another party), then you will need to manually pull down those updates to your installed SDK.

To update your installed SDK, run the following:

     $ devtool sdk-update
            

The previous command assumes your SDK provider has set the default update URL for you. If that URL has not been set, you need to specify it yourself as follows:

     $ devtool sdk-update path_to_update_directory
            

Note

The URL needs to point specifically to a published SDK and not an SDK installer that you would download and install.

8.10. Creating a Derivative SDK With Additional Components

You might need to produce an SDK that contains your own custom libraries for sending to a third party (e.g., if you are a vendor with customers needing to build their own software for the target platform). If that is the case, then you can produce a derivative SDK based on the currently installed SDK fairly easily. Use these steps:

  1. If necessary, install an extensible SDK that you want to use as a base for your derivative SDK.

  2. Source the environment script for the SDK.

  3. Add the extra libraries or other components you want by using the devtool add command.

  4. Run the devtool build-sdk command.

The above procedure takes the recipes added to the workspace and constructs a new SDK installer containing those recipes and the resulting binary artifacts. The recipes go into their own separate layer in the constructed derivative SDK, leaving the workspace clean and ready for users to add their own recipes.

Chapter 9. Using the Standard SDK

This chapter describes the standard SDK and how to install it. Information includes unique installation and setup aspects for the standard SDK.

Note

For a side-by-side comparison of main features supported for a standard SDK as compared to an extensible SDK, see the "Introduction" section.

You can use a standard SDK to work on Makefile, Autotools, and Eclipse-based projects. See the "Working with Different Types of Projects" chapter for more information.

9.1. Why use the Standard SDK and What is in It?

The Standard SDK provides a cross-development toolchain and libraries tailored to the contents of a specific image. You would use the Standard SDK if you want a more traditional toolchain experience as compared to the extensible SDK, which provides an internal build system and the devtool functionality.

The installed Standard SDK consists of several files and directories. Basically, it contains an SDK environment setup script, some configuration files, and host and target root filesystems to support usage. You can see the directory structure in the "Installed Standard SDK Directory Structure" section.

9.2. Installing the SDK

The first thing you need to do is install the SDK on your host development machine by running the *.sh installation script.

You can download a tarball installer, which includes the pre-built toolchain, the runqemu script, and support files from the appropriate directory under http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/releases/yocto/yocto-2.3.3/toolchain/. Toolchains are available for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 development systems from the i686 and x86_64 directories, respectively. The toolchains the Yocto Project provides are based off the core-image-sato image and contain libraries appropriate for developing against that image. Each type of development system supports five or more target architectures.

The names of the tarball installer scripts are such that a string representing the host system appears first in the filename and then is immediately followed by a string representing the target architecture.

     poky-glibc-host_system-image_type-arch-toolchain-release_version.sh

     Where:
         host_system is a string representing your development system:

                    i686 or x86_64.

         image_type is the image for which the SDK was built.

         arch is a string representing the tuned target architecture:

                    i586, x86_64, powerpc, mips, armv7a or armv5te

         release_version is a string representing the release number of the
                Yocto Project:

                    2.3.3, 2.3.3+snapshot
            

For example, the following SDK installer is for a 64-bit development host system and a i586-tuned target architecture based off the SDK for core-image-sato and using the current 2.3.3 snapshot:

     poky-glibc-x86_64-core-image-sato-i586-toolchain-2.3.3.sh
            

Note

As an alternative to downloading an SDK, you can build the SDK installer. For information on building the installer, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section. Another helpful resource for building an installer is the Cookbook guide to Making an Eclipse Debug Capable Image wiki page. This wiki page focuses on development when using the Eclipse IDE.

The SDK and toolchains are self-contained and by default are installed into /opt/poky. However, when you run the SDK installer, you can choose an installation directory.

Note

You must change the permissions on the SDK installer script so that it is executable:
     $ chmod +x poky-glibc-x86_64-core-image-sato-i586-toolchain-2.3.3.sh
                

The following command shows how to run the installer given a toolchain tarball for a 64-bit x86 development host system and a 32-bit x86 target architecture. The example assumes the SDK installer is located in ~/Downloads/.

Note

If you do not have write permissions for the directory into which you are installing the SDK, the installer notifies you and exits. Be sure you have write permissions in the directory and run the installer again.

     $ ./poky-glibc-x86_64-core-image-sato-i586-toolchain-2.3.3.sh
     Poky (Yocto Project Reference Distro) SDK installer version 2.3.3
     ===============================================================
     Enter target directory for SDK (default: /opt/poky/2.3.3):
     You are about to install the SDK to "/opt/poky/2.3.3". Proceed[Y/n]? Y
     Extracting SDK.......................................................................done
     Setting it up...done
     SDK has been successfully set up and is ready to be used.
     Each time you wish to use the SDK in a new shell session, you need to source the environment setup script e.g.
      $ . /opt/poky/2.3.3/environment-setup-i586-poky-linux
            

Again, reference the "Installed Standard SDK Directory Structure" section for more details on the resulting directory structure of the installed SDK.

9.3. Running the SDK Environment Setup Script

Once you have the SDK installed, you must run the SDK environment setup script before you can actually use it. This setup script resides in the directory you chose when you installed the SDK. For information on where this setup script can reside, see the "Obtaining the SDK" Appendix.

Before running the script, be sure it is the one that matches the architecture for which you are developing. Environment setup scripts begin with the string "environment-setup" and include as part of their name the tuned target architecture. For example, the command to source a setup script for an IA-based target machine using i586 tuning and located in the default SDK installation directory is as follows:

     $ source /opt/poky/2.3.3/environment-setup-i586-poky-linux
            

When you run the setup script, the same environment variables are defined as are when you run the setup script for an extensible SDK. See the "Running the Extensible SDK Environment Setup Script" section for more information.

Chapter 10. Using the SDK Toolchain Directly

You can use the SDK toolchain directly with Makefile, Autotools, and Eclipse™ based projects. This chapter covers information specific to each of these types of projects.

10.1. Autotools-Based Projects

Once you have a suitable cross-toolchain installed, it is very easy to develop a project outside of the OpenEmbedded build system. This section presents a simple "Helloworld" example that shows how to set up, compile, and run the project.

10.1.1. Creating and Running a Project Based on GNU Autotools

Follow these steps to create a simple Autotools-based project:

  1. Create your directory: Create a clean directory for your project and then make that directory your working location:

         $ mkdir $HOME/helloworld
         $ cd $HOME/helloworld
                            

  2. Populate the directory: Create hello.c, Makefile.am, and configure.ac files as follows:

    • For hello.c, include these lines:

           #include <stdio.h>
      
           main()
              {
                 printf("Hello World!\n");
              }
                                      

    • For Makefile.am, include these lines:

           bin_PROGRAMS = hello
           hello_SOURCES = hello.c
                                      

    • For configure.in, include these lines:

           AC_INIT(hello,0.1)
           AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign])
           AC_PROG_CC
           AC_PROG_INSTALL
           AC_OUTPUT(Makefile)
                                      

  3. Source the cross-toolchain environment setup file: As described earlier in the manual, installing the cross-toolchain creates a cross-toolchain environment setup script in the directory that the SDK was installed. Before you can use the tools to develop your project, you must source this setup script. The script begins with the string "environment-setup" and contains the machine architecture, which is followed by the string "poky-linux". Here is an example that sources a script from the default SDK installation directory that uses the 32-bit Intel x86 Architecture and the Pyro Yocto Project release:

         $ source /opt/poky/2.3.3/environment-setup-i586-poky-linux
                            

  4. Generate the local aclocal.m4 files and create the configure script: The following GNU Autotools generate the local aclocal.m4 files and create the configure script:

         $ aclocal
         $ autoconf
                            

  5. Generate files needed by GNU coding standards: GNU coding standards require certain files in order for the project to be compliant. This command creates those files:

         $ touch NEWS README AUTHORS ChangeLog
                            

  6. Generate the configure file: This command generates the configure:

         $ automake -a
                            

  7. Cross-compile the project: This command compiles the project using the cross-compiler. The CONFIGURE_FLAGS environment variable provides the minimal arguments for GNU configure:

         $ ./configure ${CONFIGURE_FLAGS}
                            

  8. Make and install the project: These two commands generate and install the project into the destination directory:

         $ make
         $ make install DESTDIR=./tmp
                            

  9. Verify the installation: This command is a simple way to verify the installation of your project. Running the command prints the architecture on which the binary file can run. This architecture should be the same architecture that the installed cross-toolchain supports.

         $ file ./tmp/usr/local/bin/hello
                            

  10. Execute your project: To execute the project in the shell, simply enter the name. You could also copy the binary to the actual target hardware and run the project there as well:

         $ ./hello
                            

    As expected, the project displays the "Hello World!" message.

10.1.2. Passing Host Options

For an Autotools-based project, you can use the cross-toolchain by just passing the appropriate host option to configure.sh. The host option you use is derived from the name of the environment setup script found in the directory in which you installed the cross-toolchain. For example, the host option for an ARM-based target that uses the GNU EABI is armv5te-poky-linux-gnueabi. You will notice that the name of the script is environment-setup-armv5te-poky-linux-gnueabi. Thus, the following command works to update your project and rebuild it using the appropriate cross-toolchain tools:

     $ ./configure --host=armv5te-poky-linux-gnueabi \
        --with-libtool-sysroot=sysroot_dir
                

Note

If the configure script results in problems recognizing the --with-libtool-sysroot=sysroot-dir option, regenerate the script to enable the support by doing the following and then run the script again:
     $ libtoolize --automake
     $ aclocal -I ${OECORE_TARGET_SYSROOT}/usr/share/aclocal [-I dir_containing_your_project-specific_m4_macros]
     $ autoconf
     $ autoheader
     $ automake -a
                    

10.2. Makefile-Based Projects

For Makefile-based projects, the cross-toolchain environment variables established by running the cross-toolchain environment setup script are subject to general make rules.

To illustrate this, consider the following four cross-toolchain environment variables:

     CC=i586-poky-linux-gcc -m32 -march=i586 --sysroot=/opt/poky/2.3.3/sysroots/i586-poky-linux
     LD=i586-poky-linux-ld --sysroot=/opt/poky/2.3.3/sysroots/i586-poky-linux
     CFLAGS=-O2 -pipe -g -feliminate-unused-debug-types
     CXXFLAGS=-O2 -pipe -g -feliminate-unused-debug-types
            

Now, consider the following three cases:

  • Case 1 - No Variables Set in the Makefile: Because these variables are not specifically set in the Makefile, the variables retain their values based on the environment.

  • Case 2 - Variables Set in the Makefile: Specifically setting variables in the Makefile during the build results in the environment settings of the variables being overwritten.

  • Case 3 - Variables Set when the Makefile is Executed from the Command Line: Executing the Makefile from the command-line results in the variables being overwritten with command-line content regardless of what is being set in the Makefile. In this case, environment variables are not considered unless you use the "-e" flag during the build:

         $ make -e file
                        

    If you use this flag, then the environment values of the variables override any variables specifically set in the Makefile.

Note

For the list of variables set up by the cross-toolchain environment setup script, see the "Running the SDK Environment Setup Script" section.

10.3. Developing Applications Using Eclipse

If you are familiar with the popular Eclipse IDE, you can use an Eclipse Yocto Plug-in to allow you to develop, deploy, and test your application all from within Eclipse. This section describes general workflow using the SDK and Eclipse and how to configure and set up Eclipse.

10.3.1. Workflow Using Eclipse

The following figure and supporting list summarize the application development general workflow that employs both the SDK Eclipse.

  1. Prepare the host system for the Yocto Project: See "Supported Linux Distributions" and "Required Packages for the Host Development System" sections both in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for requirements. In particular, be sure your host system has the xterm package installed.

  2. Secure the Yocto Project kernel target image: You must have a target kernel image that has been built using the OpenEmbedded build system.

    Depending on whether the Yocto Project has a pre-built image that matches your target architecture and where you are going to run the image while you develop your application (QEMU or real hardware), the area from which you get the image differs.

    • Download the image from machines if your target architecture is supported and you are going to develop and test your application on actual hardware.

    • Download the image from machines/qemu if your target architecture is supported and you are going to develop and test your application using the QEMU emulator.

    • Build your image if you cannot find a pre-built image that matches your target architecture. If your target architecture is similar to a supported architecture, you can modify the kernel image before you build it. See the "Patching the Kernel" section in the Yocto Project Development manual for an example.

  3. Install the SDK: The SDK provides a target-specific cross-development toolchain, the root filesystem, the QEMU emulator, and other tools that can help you develop your application. For information on how to install the SDK, see the "Installing the SDK" section.

  4. Secure the target root filesystem and the Cross-development toolchain: You need to find and download the appropriate root filesystem and the cross-development toolchain.

    You can find the tarballs for the root filesystem in the same area used for the kernel image. Depending on the type of image you are running, the root filesystem you need differs. For example, if you are developing an application that runs on an image that supports Sato, you need to get a root filesystem that supports Sato.

    You can find the cross-development toolchains at toolchains. Be sure to get the correct toolchain for your development host and your target architecture. See the "Locating Pre-Built SDK Installers" section for information and the "Installing the SDK" section for installation information.

    Note

    As an alternative to downloading an SDK, you can build the SDK installer. For information on building the installer, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section. Another helpful resource for building an installer is the Cookbook guide to Making an Eclipse Debug Capable Image wiki page.

  5. Create and build your application: At this point, you need to have source files for your application. Once you have the files, you can use the Eclipse IDE to import them and build the project. If you are not using Eclipse, you need to use the cross-development tools you have installed to create the image.

  6. Deploy the image with the application: Using the Eclipse IDE, you can deploy your image to the hardware or to QEMU through the project's preferences. You can also use Eclipse to load and test your image under QEMU. See the "Using the Quick EMUlator (QEMU)" chapter in the Yocto Project Development Manual for information on using QEMU.

  7. Test and debug the application: Once your application is deployed, you need to test it. Within the Eclipse IDE, you can use the debugging environment along with supported performance enhancing Linux Tools.

10.3.2. Working Within Eclipse

The Eclipse IDE is a popular development environment and it fully supports development using the Yocto Project.

When you install and configure the Eclipse Yocto Project Plug-in into the Eclipse IDE, you maximize your Yocto Project experience. Installing and configuring the Plug-in results in an environment that has extensions specifically designed to let you more easily develop software. These extensions allow for cross-compilation, deployment, and execution of your output into a QEMU emulation session as well as actual target hardware. You can also perform cross-debugging and profiling. The environment also supports performance enhancing tools that allow you to perform remote profiling, tracing, collection of power data, collection of latency data, and collection of performance data.

Note

This release of the Yocto Project supports both the Neon and Mars versions of the Eclipse IDE. This section provides information on how to use the Neon release with the Yocto Project. For information on how to use the Mars version of Eclipse with the Yocto Project, see "Appendix C.

10.3.2.1. Setting Up the Neon Version of the Eclipse IDE

To develop within the Eclipse IDE, you need to do the following:

  1. Install the Neon version of the Eclipse IDE.

  2. Configure the Eclipse IDE.

  3. Install the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in.

  4. Configure the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in.

Note

Do not install Eclipse from your distribution's package repository. Be sure to install Eclipse from the official Eclipse download site as directed in the next section.

10.3.2.1.1. Installing the Neon Eclipse IDE

Follow these steps to locate, install, and configure Neon Eclipse:

  1. Locate the Neon Download: Open a browser and go to http://www.eclipse.org/neon/.

  2. Download the Tarball: Click through the "Download" buttons to download the file.

  3. Unpack the Tarball: Move to a clean directory and unpack the tarball. Here is an example:

         $ cd ~
         $ tar -xzvf ~/Downloads/eclipse-inst-linux64.tar.gz
                                    

    Everything unpacks into a folder named "eclipse-installer".

  4. Launch the Installer: Use the following commands to launch the installer:

         $ cd ~/eclipse-installer
         $ ./eclipse-inst
                                    

  5. Select Your IDE: From the list, select the "Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers".

  6. Install the Software: Accept the default "cpp-neon" directory and click "Install". Accept any license agreements and approve any certificates.

  7. Launch Neon: Click the "Launch" button and accept the default "workspace".

10.3.2.1.2. Configuring the Neon Eclipse IDE

Follow these steps to configure the Neon Eclipse IDE.

Note

Depending on how you installed Eclipse and what you have already done, some of the options will not appear. If you cannot find an option as directed by the manual, it has already been installed.

  1. Be sure Eclipse is running and you are in your workbench.

  2. Select "Install New Software" from the "Help" pull-down menu.

  3. Select "Neon - http://download.eclipse.org/releases/neon" from the "Work with:" pull-down menu.

  4. Expand the box next to "Linux Tools" and select the following:

         C/C++ Remote (Over TCF/TE) Run/Debug Launcher
         TM Terminal
                                    

  5. Expand the box next to "Mobile and Device Development" and select the following boxes:

         C/C++ Remote (Over TCF/TE) Run/Debug Launcher
         Remote System Explorer User Actions
         TM Terminal
         TCF Remote System Explorer add-in
         TCF Target Explorer
                                    

  6. Expand the box next to "Programming Languages" and select the following box:

         C/C++ Development Tools SDK
                                    

  7. Complete the installation by clicking through appropriate "Next" and "Finish" buttons.

10.3.2.1.3. Installing or Accessing the Neon Eclipse Yocto Plug-in

You can install the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in into the Eclipse IDE one of two ways: use the Yocto Project's Eclipse Update site to install the pre-built plug-in or build and install the plug-in from the latest source code.

10.3.2.1.3.1. Installing the Pre-built Plug-in from the Yocto Project Eclipse Update Site

To install the Neon Eclipse Yocto Plug-in from the update site, follow these steps:

  1. Start up the Eclipse IDE.

  2. In Eclipse, select "Install New Software" from the "Help" menu.

  3. Click "Add..." in the "Work with:" area.

  4. Enter http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/releases/eclipse-plugin/2.3.3/neon in the URL field and provide a meaningful name in the "Name" field.

  5. Click "OK" to have the entry added to the "Work with:" drop-down list.

  6. Select the entry for the plug-in from the "Work with:" drop-down list.

  7. Check the boxes next to the following:

         Yocto Project SDK Plug-in
         Yocto Project Documentation plug-in
                                        

  8. Complete the remaining software installation steps and then restart the Eclipse IDE to finish the installation of the plug-in.

    Note

    You can click "OK" when prompted about installing software that contains unsigned content.

10.3.2.1.3.2. Installing the Plug-in Using the Latest Source Code

To install the Neon Eclipse Yocto Plug-in from the latest source code, follow these steps:

  1. Be sure your development system has JDK 1.8+

  2. Install X11-related packages:

         $ sudo apt-get install xauth
                                        

  3. In a new terminal shell, create a Git repository with:

         $ cd ~
         $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/eclipse-poky
                                        

  4. Use Git to create the correct tag:

         $ cd ~/eclipse-poky
         $ git checkout neon/yocto-2.3.3
                                        

    This creates a local tag named neon/yocto-2.3.3 based on the branch origin/neon-master. You are put into a detached HEAD state, which is fine since you are only going to be building and not developing.

  5. Change to the scripts directory within the Git repository:

         $ cd scripts
                                        

  6. Set up the local build environment by running the setup script:

         $ ./setup.sh
                                        

    When the script finishes execution, it prompts you with instructions on how to run the build.sh script, which is also in the scripts directory of the Git repository created earlier.

  7. Run the build.sh script as directed. Be sure to provide the tag name, documentation branch, and a release name.

    Following is an example:

         $ ECLIPSE_HOME=/home/scottrif/eclipse-poky/scripts/eclipse ./build.sh -l neon/yocto-2.3.3 master yocto-2.3.3 2>&1 | tee build.log
                                        

    The previous example command adds the tag you need for mars/yocto-2.3.3 to HEAD, then tells the build script to use the local (-l) Git checkout for the build. After running the script, the file org.yocto.sdk-release-date-archive.zip is in the current directory.

  8. If necessary, start the Eclipse IDE and be sure you are in the Workbench.

  9. Select "Install New Software" from the "Help" pull-down menu.

  10. Click "Add".

  11. Provide anything you want in the "Name" field.

  12. Click "Archive" and browse to the ZIP file you built earlier. This ZIP file should not be "unzipped", and must be the *archive.zip file created by running the build.sh script.

  13. Click the "OK" button.

  14. Check the boxes that appear in the installation window to install the following:

         Yocto Project SDK Plug-in
         Yocto Project Documentation plug-in
                                        

  15. Finish the installation by clicking through the appropriate buttons. You can click "OK" when prompted about installing software that contains unsigned content.

  16. Restart the Eclipse IDE if necessary.

At this point you should be able to configure the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in as described in the "Configuring the Neon Eclipse Yocto Plug-in" section.

10.3.2.1.4. Configuring the Neon Eclipse Yocto Plug-in

Configuring the Neon Eclipse Yocto Plug-in involves setting the Cross Compiler options and the Target options. The configurations you choose become the default settings for all projects. You do have opportunities to change them later when you configure the project (see the following section).

To start, you need to do the following from within the Eclipse IDE:

  • Choose "Preferences" from the "Window" menu to display the Preferences Dialog.

  • Click "Yocto Project SDK" to display the configuration screen.

The following sub-sections describe how to configure the plug-in.

Note

Throughout the descriptions, a start-to-finish example for preparing a QEMU image for use with Eclipse is referenced as the "wiki" and is linked to the example on the Cookbook guide to Making an Eclipse Debug Capable Image wiki page.

10.3.2.1.4.1. Configuring the Cross-Compiler Options

Cross Compiler options enable Eclipse to use your specific cross compiler toolchain. To configure these options, you must select the type of toolchain, point to the toolchain, specify the sysroot location, and select the target architecture.

  • Selecting the Toolchain Type: Choose between Standalone pre-built toolchain and Build system derived toolchain for Cross Compiler Options.

    • Standalone Pre-built Toolchain: Select this type when you are using a stand-alone cross-toolchain. For example, suppose you are an application developer and do not need to build a target image. Instead, you just want to use an architecture-specific toolchain on an existing kernel and target root filesystem. In other words, you have downloaded and installed a pre-built toolchain for an existing image.

    • Build System Derived Toolchain: Select this type if you built the toolchain as part of the Build Directory. When you select Build system derived toolchain, you are using the toolchain built and bundled inside the Build Directory. For example, suppose you created a suitable image using the steps in the wiki. In this situation, you would select the Build system derived toolchain.

  • Specify the Toolchain Root Location: If you are using a stand-alone pre-built toolchain, you should be pointing to where it is installed (e.g. /opt/poky/2.3.3). See the "Installing the SDK" section for information about how the SDK is installed.

    If you are using a build system derived toolchain, the path you provide for the Toolchain Root Location field is the Build Directory from which you run the bitbake command (e.g /home/scottrif/poky/build).

    For more information, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section.

  • Specify Sysroot Location: This location is where the root filesystem for the target hardware resides.

    This location depends on where you separately extracted and installed the target filesystem. As an example, suppose you prepared an image using the steps in the wiki. If so, the MY_QEMU_ROOTFS directory is found in the Build Directory and you would browse to and select that directory (e.g. /home/scottrif/poky/build/MY_QEMU_ROOTFS).

    For more information on how to install the toolchain and on how to extract and install the sysroot filesystem, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section.

  • Select the Target Architecture: The target architecture is the type of hardware you are going to use or emulate. Use the pull-down Target Architecture menu to make your selection. The pull-down menu should have the supported architectures. If the architecture you need is not listed in the menu, you will need to build the image. See the "Building Images" section of the Yocto Project Quick Start for more information. You can also see the wiki.

10.3.2.1.4.2. Configuring the Target Options

You can choose to emulate hardware using the QEMU emulator, or you can choose to run your image on actual hardware.

  • QEMU: Select this option if you will be using the QEMU emulator. If you are using the emulator, you also need to locate the kernel and specify any custom options.

    If you selected the Build system derived toolchain, the target kernel you built will be located in the Build Directory in tmp/deploy/images/machine directory. As an example, suppose you performed the steps in the wiki. In this case, you specify your Build Directory path followed by the image (e.g. /home/scottrif/poky/build/tmp/deploy/images/qemux86/bzImage-qemux86.bin).

    If you selected the standalone pre-built toolchain, the pre-built image you downloaded is located in the directory you specified when you downloaded the image.

    Most custom options are for advanced QEMU users to further customize their QEMU instance. These options are specified between paired angled brackets. Some options must be specified outside the brackets. In particular, the options serial, nographic, and kvm must all be outside the brackets. Use the man qemu command to get help on all the options and their use. The following is an example:

        serial ‘<-m 256 -full-screen>’
                                        

    Regardless of the mode, Sysroot is already defined as part of the Cross-Compiler Options configuration in the Sysroot Location: field.

  • External HW: Select this option if you will be using actual hardware.

Click the "Apply" and "OK" to save your plug-in configurations.

10.3.2.2. Creating the Project

You can create two types of projects: Autotools-based, or Makefile-based. This section describes how to create Autotools-based projects from within the Eclipse IDE. For information on creating Makefile-based projects in a terminal window, see the "Makefile-Based Projects" section.

Note

Do not use special characters in project names (e.g. spaces, underscores, etc.). Doing so can cause configuration to fail.

To create a project based on a Yocto template and then display the source code, follow these steps:

  1. Select "C Project" from the "File -> New" menu.

  2. Expand Yocto Project SDK Autotools Project.

  3. Select Hello World ANSI C Autotools Projects. This is an Autotools-based project based on a Yocto template.

  4. Put a name in the Project name: field. Do not use hyphens as part of the name (e.g. hello).

  5. Click "Next".

  6. Add appropriate information in the various fields.

  7. Click "Finish".

  8. If the "open perspective" prompt appears, click "Yes" so that you in the C/C++ perspective.

  9. The left-hand navigation pane shows your project. You can display your source by double clicking the project's source file.

10.3.2.3. Configuring the Cross-Toolchains

The earlier section, "Configuring the Neon Eclipse Yocto Plug-in", sets up the default project configurations. You can override these settings for a given project by following these steps:

  1. Select "Yocto Project Settings" from the "Project -> Properties" menu. This selection brings up the Yocto Project Settings Dialog and allows you to make changes specific to an individual project.

    By default, the Cross Compiler Options and Target Options for a project are inherited from settings you provided using the Preferences Dialog as described earlier in the "Configuring the Neon Eclipse Yocto Plug-in" section. The Yocto Project Settings Dialog allows you to override those default settings for a given project.

  2. Make or verify your configurations for the project and click "OK".

  3. Right-click in the navigation pane and select "Reconfigure Project" from the pop-up menu. This selection reconfigures the project by running autogen.sh in the workspace for your project. The script also runs libtoolize, aclocal, autoconf, autoheader, automake --a, and ./configure. Click on the "Console" tab beneath your source code to see the results of reconfiguring your project.

10.3.2.4. Building the Project

To build the project select "Build All" from the "Project" menu. The console should update and you can note the cross-compiler you are using.

Note

When building "Yocto Project SDK Autotools" projects, the Eclipse IDE might display error messages for Functions/Symbols/Types that cannot be "resolved", even when the related include file is listed at the project navigator and when the project is able to build. For these cases only, it is recommended to add a new linked folder to the appropriate sysroot. Use these steps to add the linked folder:
  1. Select the project.

  2. Select "Folder" from the File > New menu.

  3. In the "New Folder" Dialog, select "Link to alternate location (linked folder)".

  4. Click "Browse" to navigate to the include folder inside the same sysroot location selected in the Yocto Project configuration preferences.

  5. Click "OK".

  6. Click "Finish" to save the linked folder.

10.3.2.5. Starting QEMU in User-Space NFS Mode

To start the QEMU emulator from within Eclipse, follow these steps:

Note

See the "Using the Quick EMUlator (QEMU)" chapter in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information on using QEMU.

  1. Expose and select "External Tools Configurations ..." from the "Run -> External Tools" menu.

  2. Locate and select your image in the navigation panel to the left (e.g. qemu_i586-poky-linux).

  3. Click "Run" to launch QEMU.

    Note

    The host on which you are running QEMU must have the rpcbind utility running to be able to make RPC calls on a server on that machine. If QEMU does not invoke and you receive error messages involving rpcbind, follow the suggestions to get the service running. As an example, on a new Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installation, you must do the following in order to get QEMU to launch:
         $ sudo apt-get install rpcbind
                                    
    After installing rpcbind, you need to edit the /etc/init.d/rpcbind file to include the following line:
         OPTIONS="-i -w"
                                    
    After modifying the file, you need to start the service:
         $ sudo service portmap restart
                                    

  4. If needed, enter your host root password in the shell window at the prompt. This sets up a Tap 0 connection needed for running in user-space NFS mode.

  5. Wait for QEMU to launch.

  6. Once QEMU launches, you can begin operating within that environment. One useful task at this point would be to determine the IP Address for the user-space NFS by using the ifconfig command. The IP address of the QEMU machine appears in the xterm window. You can use this address to help you see which particular IP address the instance of QEMU is using.

10.3.2.6. Deploying and Debugging the Application

Once the QEMU emulator is running the image, you can deploy your application using the Eclipse IDE and then use the emulator to perform debugging. Follow these steps to deploy the application.

Note

Currently, Eclipse does not support SSH port forwarding. Consequently, if you need to run or debug a remote application using the host display, you must create a tunneling connection from outside Eclipse and keep that connection alive during your work. For example, in a new terminal, run the following:
     $ ssh -XY user_name@remote_host_ip
                        
Using the above form, here is an example:
     $ ssh -XY root@192.168.7.2
                        
After running the command, add the command to be executed in Eclipse's run configuration before the application as follows:
     export DISPLAY=:10.0
                        
Be sure to not destroy the connection during your QEMU session (i.e. do not exit out of or close that shell).

  1. Select "Debug Configurations..." from the "Run" menu.

  2. In the left area, expand C/C++Remote Application.

  3. Locate your project and select it to bring up a new tabbed view in the Debug Configurations Dialog.

  4. Click on the "Debugger" tab to see the cross-tool debugger you are using. Be sure to change to the debugger perspective in Eclipse.

  5. Click on the "Main" tab.

  6. Create a new connection to the QEMU instance by clicking on "new".

  7. Select SSH, which means Secure Socket Shell and then click "OK". Optionally, you can select an TCF connection instead.

  8. Clear out the "Connection name" field and enter any name you want for the connection.

  9. Put the IP address for the connection in the "Host" field. For QEMU, the default is 192.168.7.2. However, if a previous QEMU session did not exit cleanly, the IP address increments (e.g. 192.168.7.3).

    Note

    You can find the IP address for the current QEMU session by looking in the xterm that opens when you launch QEMU.

  10. Enter root, which is the default for QEMU, for the "User" field. Be sure to leave the password field empty.

  11. Click "Finish" to close the New Connections Dialog.

  12. If necessary, use the drop-down menu now in the "Connection" field and pick the IP Address you entered.

  13. Assuming you are connecting as the root user, which is the default for QEMU x86-64 SDK images provided by the Yocto Project, in the "Remote Absolute File Path for C/C++ Application" field, browse to /home/root/ProjectName (e.g. /home/root/hello). You could also browse to any other path you have write access to on the target such as /usr/bin. This location is where your application will be located on the QEMU system. If you fail to browse to and specify an appropriate location, QEMU will not understand what to remotely launch. Eclipse is helpful in that it auto fills your application name for you assuming you browsed to a directory.

    Note

    If you are prompted to provide a username and to optionally set a password, be sure you provide "root" as the username and you leave the password field blank.

  14. Be sure you change to the "Debug" perspective in Eclipse.

  15. Click "Debug"

  16. Accept the debug perspective.

10.3.2.7. Using Linuxtools

As mentioned earlier in the manual, performance tools exist (Linuxtools) that enhance your development experience. These tools are aids in developing and debugging applications and images. You can run these tools from within the Eclipse IDE through the "Linuxtools" menu.

For information on how to configure and use these tools, see http://www.eclipse.org/linuxtools/.

Appendix A. Obtaining the SDK

A.1. Locating Pre-Built SDK Installers

You can use existing, pre-built toolchains by locating and running an SDK installer script that ships with the Yocto Project. Using this method, you select and download an architecture-specific SDK installer and then run the script to hand-install the toolchain.

You can find SDK installers here:

  • Standard SDK Installers: Go to http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/releases/yocto/yocto-2.3.3/toolchain/ and find the folder that matches your host development system (i.e. i686 for 32-bit machines or x86_64 for 64-bit machines).

    Go into that folder and download the SDK installer whose name includes the appropriate target architecture. The toolchains provided by the Yocto Project are based off of the core-image-sato image and contain libraries appropriate for developing against that image. For example, if your host development system is a 64-bit x86 system and you are going to use your cross-toolchain for a 32-bit x86 target, go into the x86_64 folder and download the following installer:

         poky-glibc-x86_64-core-image-sato-i586-toolchain-2.3.3.sh
                    

  • Extensible SDK Installers: Installers for the extensible SDK are also located in http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/releases/yocto/yocto-2.3.3/toolchain/. These installers have the string ext as part of their names:

         poky-glibc-x86_64-core-image-sato-core2-64-toolchain-ext-2.3.3.sh
                    

A.2. Building an SDK Installer

As an alternative to locating and downloading a SDK installer, you can build the SDK installer assuming you have first sourced the environment setup script. See the "Building Images" section in the Yocto Project Quick Start for steps that show you how to set up the Yocto Project environment. In particular, you need to be sure the MACHINE variable matches the architecture for which you are building and that the SDKMACHINE variable is correctly set if you are building a toolchain designed to run on an architecture that differs from your current development host machine (i.e. the build machine).

To build the SDK installer for a standard SDK and populate the SDK image, use the following command:

     $ bitbake image -c populate_sdk
        

You can do the same for the extensible SDK using this command:

     $ bitbake image -c populate_sdk_ext
        

These commands result in a SDK installer that contains the sysroot that matches your target root filesystem.

When the bitbake command completes, the SDK installer will be in tmp/deploy/sdk in the Build Directory.

Notes

  • By default, this toolchain does not build static binaries. If you want to use the toolchain to build these types of libraries, you need to be sure your SDK has the appropriate static development libraries. Use the TOOLCHAIN_TARGET_TASK variable inside your local.conf file to install the appropriate library packages in the SDK. Following is an example using libc static development libraries:

         TOOLCHAIN_TARGET_TASK_append = " libc-staticdev"
                        

  • For additional information on building the installer, see the Cookbook guide to Making an Eclipse Debug Capable Image wiki page.

A.3. Extracting the Root Filesystem

After installing the toolchain, for some use cases you might need to separately extract a root filesystem:

  • You want to boot the image using NFS.

  • You want to use the root filesystem as the target sysroot. For example, the Eclipse IDE environment with the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in installed allows you to use QEMU to boot under NFS.

  • You want to develop your target application using the root filesystem as the target sysroot.

To extract the root filesystem, first source the cross-development environment setup script to establish necessary environment variables. If you built the toolchain in the Build Directory, you will find the toolchain environment script in the tmp directory. If you installed the toolchain by hand, the environment setup script is located in /opt/poky/2.3.3.

After sourcing the environment script, use the runqemu-extract-sdk command and provide the filesystem image.

Following is an example. The second command sets up the environment. In this case, the setup script is located in the /opt/poky/2.3.3 directory. The third command extracts the root filesystem from a previously built filesystem that is located in the ~/Downloads directory. Furthermore, this command extracts the root filesystem into the qemux86-sato directory:

     $ cd ~
     $ source /opt/poky/2.3.3/environment-setup-i586-poky-linux
     $ runqemu-extract-sdk \
        ~/Downloads/core-image-sato-sdk-qemux86-2011091411831.rootfs.tar.bz2 \
        $HOME/qemux86-sato
        

You could now point to the target sysroot at qemux86-sato.

A.4. Installed Standard SDK Directory Structure

The following figure shows the resulting directory structure after you install the Standard SDK by running the *.sh SDK installation script:

The installed SDK consists of an environment setup script for the SDK, a configuration file for the target, a version file for the target, and the root filesystem (sysroots) needed to develop objects for the target system.

Within the figure, italicized text is used to indicate replaceable portions of the file or directory name. For example, install_dir/version is the directory where the SDK is installed. By default, this directory is /opt/poky/. And, version represents the specific snapshot of the SDK (e.g. 2.3.3). Furthermore, target represents the target architecture (e.g. i586) and host represents the development system's architecture (e.g. x86_64). Thus, the complete names of the two directories within the sysroots could be i586-poky-linux and x86_64-pokysdk-linux for the target and host, respectively.

A.5. Installed Extensible SDK Directory Structure

The following figure shows the resulting directory structure after you install the Extensible SDK by running the *.sh SDK installation script:

The installed directory structure for the extensible SDK is quite different than the installed structure for the standard SDK. The extensible SDK does not separate host and target parts in the same manner as does the standard SDK. The extensible SDK uses an embedded copy of the OpenEmbedded build system, which has its own sysroots.

Of note in the directory structure are an environment setup script for the SDK, a configuration file for the target, a version file for the target, and a log file for the OpenEmbedded build system preparation script run by the installer.

Within the figure, italicized text is used to indicate replaceable portions of the file or directory name. For example, install_dir is the directory where the SDK is installed, which is poky_sdk by default. target represents the target architecture (e.g. i586) and host represents the development system's architecture (e.g. x86_64).

Appendix B. Customizing the Extensible SDK

This appendix presents customizations you can apply to the extensible SDK.

B.1. Configuring the Extensible SDK

The extensible SDK primarily consists of a pre-configured copy of the OpenEmbedded build system from which it was produced. Thus, the SDK's configuration is derived using that build system and the following filters, which the OpenEmbedded build system applies against local.conf and auto.conf if they are present:

  • Variables whose values start with "/" are excluded since the assumption is that those values are paths that are likely to be specific to the build host.

  • Variables listed in SDK_LOCAL_CONF_BLACKLIST are excluded. The default value blacklists CONF_VERSION, BB_NUMBER_THREADS, PARALLEL_MAKE, PRSERV_HOST, and SSTATE_MIRRORS.

  • Variables listed in SDK_LOCAL_CONF_WHITELIST are included. Including a variable in the value of SDK_LOCAL_CONF_WHITELIST overrides either of the above two conditions. The default value is blank.

  • Classes inherited globally with INHERIT that are listed in SDK_INHERIT_BLACKLIST are disabled. Using SDK_INHERIT_BLACKLIST to disable these classes is is the typical method to disable classes that are problematic or unnecessary in the SDK context. The default value blacklists the buildhistory and icecc classes.

Additionally, the contents of conf/sdk-extra.conf, when present, are appended to the end of conf/local.conf within the produced SDK, without any filtering. The sdk-extra.conf file is particularly useful if you want to set a variable value just for the SDK and not the OpenEmbedded build system used to create the SDK.

B.2. Adjusting the Extensible SDK to Suit Your Build System Setup

In most cases, the extensible SDK defaults should work. However, some cases exist for which you might consider making adjustments:

  • If your SDK configuration inherits additional classes using the INHERIT variable and you do not need or want those classes enabled in the SDK, you can blacklist them by adding them to the SDK_INHERIT_BLACKLIST variable. The default value of SDK_INHERIT_BLACKLIST is set using the "?=" operator. Consequently, you will need to either set the complete value using "=" or append the value using "_append".

  • If you have classes or recipes that add additional tasks to the standard build flow (i.e. that execute as part of building the recipe as opposed to needing to be called explicitly), then you need to do one of the following:

    • Ensure the tasks are shared state tasks (i.e. their output is saved to and can be restored from the shared state cache), or that the tasks are able to be produced quickly from a task that is a shared state task and add the task name to the value of SDK_RECRDEP_TASKS.

    • Disable the tasks if they are added by a class and you do not need the functionality the class provides in the extensible SDK. To disable the tasks, add the class to SDK_INHERIT_BLACKLIST as previously described.

  • Generally, you want to have a shared state mirror set up so users of the SDK can add additional items to the SDK after installation without needing to build the items from source. See the "Providing Additional Installable Extensible SDK Content" section for information.

  • If you want users of the SDK to be able to easily update the SDK, you need to set the SDK_UPDATE_URL variable. For more information, see the "Providing Updates After Installing the Extensible SDK" section.

  • If you have adjusted the list of files and directories that appear in COREBASE (other than layers that are enabled through bblayers.conf), then you must list these files in COREBASE_FILES so that the files are copied into the SDK.

  • If your OpenEmbedded build system setup uses a different environment setup script other than oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres, then you must set OE_INIT_ENV_SCRIPT to point to the environment setup script you use.

    Note

    You must also reflect this change in the value used for the COREBASE_FILES variable as previously described.

B.3. Changing the Appearance of the Extensible SDK

You can change the title shown by the SDK installer by setting the SDK_TITLE variable. By default, this title is derived from DISTRO_NAME when it is set. If the DISTRO_NAME variable is not set, the title is derived from the DISTRO variable.

B.4. Providing Updates After Installing the Extensible SDK

When you make changes to your configuration or to the metadata and if you want those changes to be reflected in installed SDKs, you need to perform additional steps to make it possible for those that use the SDK to update their installations with the devtool sdk-update command:

  1. Arrange to be created a directory that can be shared over HTTP or HTTPS.

  2. Set the SDK_UPDATE_URL variable to point to the corresponding HTTP or HTTPS URL. Setting this variable causes any SDK built to default to that URL and thus, the user does not have to pass the URL to the devtool sdk-update command.

  3. Build the extensible SDK normally (i.e., use the bitbake -c populate_sdk_ext imagename command).

  4. Publish the SDK using the following command:

         $ oe-publish-sdk some_path/sdk-installer.sh path_to_shared/http_directory
                    

    You must repeat this step each time you rebuild the SDK with changes that you want to make available through the update mechanism.

Completing the above steps allows users of the existing SDKs to simply run devtool sdk-update to retrieve the latest updates. See the "Updating the Extensible SDK" section for further information.

B.5. Providing Additional Installable Extensible SDK Content

If you want the users of the extensible SDK you are building to be able to add items to the SDK without needing to build the items from source, you need to do a number of things:

  1. Ensure the additional items you want the user to be able to install are actually built. You can ensure these items are built a number of different ways: 1) Build them explicitly, perhaps using one or more "meta" recipes that depend on lists of other recipes to keep things tidy, or 2) Build the "world" target and set EXCLUDE_FROM_WORLD_pn-recipename for the recipes you do not want built. See the EXCLUDE_FROM_WORLD variable for additional information.

  2. Expose the sstate-cache directory produced by the build. Typically, you expose this directory over HTTP or HTTPS.

  3. Set the appropriate configuration so that the produced SDK knows how to find the configuration. The variable you need to set is SSTATE_MIRRORS:

         SSTATE_MIRRORS = "file://.*  http://example.com/some_path/sstate-cache/PATH"
                    

    You can set the SSTATE_MIRRORS variable in two different places:

    • If the mirror value you are setting is appropriate to be set for both the OpenEmbedded build system that is actually building the SDK and the SDK itself (i.e. the mirror is accessible in both places or it will fail quickly on the OpenEmbedded build system side, and its contents will not interfere with the build), then you can set the variable in your local.conf or custom distro configuration file. You can then "whitelist" the variable through to the SDK by adding the following:

           SDK_LOCAL_CONF_WHITELIST = "SSTATE_MIRRORS"
                              

    • Alternatively, if you just want to set the SSTATE_MIRRORS variable's value for the SDK alone, create a conf/sdk-extra.conf either in your Build Directory or within any layer and put your SSTATE_MIRRORS setting within that file.

      Note

      This second option is the safest option should you have any doubts as to which method to use when setting SSTATE_MIRRORS.

B.6. Minimizing the Size of the Extensible SDK Installer Download

By default, the extensible SDK bundles the shared state artifacts for everything needed to reconstruct the image for which the SDK was built. This bundling can lead to an SDK installer file that is a Gigabyte or more in size. If the size of this file causes a problem, you can build an SDK that has just enough in it to install and provide access to the devtool command by setting the following in your configuration:

     SDK_EXT_TYPE = "minimal"
        

Setting SDK_EXT_TYPE to "minimal" produces an SDK installer that is around 35 Mbytes in size, which downloads and installs quickly. You need to realize, though, that the minimal installer does not install any libraries or tools out of the box. These must be installed either "on the fly" or through actions you perform using devtool or explicitly with the devtool sdk-install command.

In most cases, when building a minimal SDK you will need to also enable bringing in the information on a wider range of packages produced by the system. This is particularly true so that devtool add is able to effectively map dependencies it discovers in a source tree to the appropriate recipes. Also so that the devtool search command is able to return useful results.

To facilitate this wider range of information, you would additionally set the following:

     SDK_INCLUDE_PKGDATA = "1"
        

See the SDK_INCLUDE_PKGDATA variable for additional information.

Setting the SDK_INCLUDE_PKGDATA variable as shown causes the "world" target to be built so that information for all of the recipes included within it are available. Having these recipes available increases build time significantly and increases the size of the SDK installer by 30-80 Mbytes depending on how many recipes are included in your configuration.

You can use EXCLUDE_FROM_WORLD_pn-recipename for recipes you want to exclude. However, it is assumed that you would need to be building the "world" target if you want to provide additional items to the SDK. Consequently, building for "world" should not represent undue overhead in most cases.

Note

If you set SDK_EXT_TYPE to "minimal", then providing a shared state mirror is mandatory so that items can be installed as needed. See the "Providing Additional Installable Extensible SDK Content" section for more information.

You can explicitly control whether or not to include the toolchain when you build an SDK by setting the SDK_INCLUDE_TOOLCHAIN variable to "1". In particular, it is useful to include the toolchain when you have set SDK_EXT_TYPE to "minimal", which by default, excludes the toolchain. Also, it is helpful if you are building a small SDK for use with an IDE, such as Eclipse, or some other tool where you do not want to take extra steps to install a toolchain.

Appendix C. Customizing the Standard SDK

This appendix presents customizations you can apply to the standard SDK.

C.1. Adding Individual Packages to the Standard SDK

When you build a standard SDK using the bitbake -c populate_sdk, a default set of packages is included in the resulting SDK. The TOOLCHAIN_HOST_TASK and TOOLCHAIN_TARGET_TASK variables control the set of packages adding to the SDK.

If you want to add individual packages to the toolchain that runs on the host, simply add those packages to the TOOLCHAIN_HOST_TASK variable. Similarly, if you want to add packages to the default set that is part of the toolchain that runs on the target, add the packages to the TOOLCHAIN_TARGET_TASK variable.

C.2. Adding API Documentation to the Standard SDK

You can include API documentation as well as any other documentation provided by recipes with the standard SDK by adding "api-documentation" to the DISTRO_FEATURES variable:

     DISTRO_FEATURES_append = " api-documentation"
        

Setting this variable as shown here causes the OpenEmbedded build system to build the documentation and then include it in the standard SDK.

Appendix D. Using Eclipse Mars

This release of the Yocto Project supports both the Neon and Mars versions of the Eclipse IDE. This appendix presents information that describes how to obtain and configure the Mars version of Eclipse. It also provides a basic project example that you can work through from start to finish. For general information on using the Eclipse IDE and the Yocto Project Eclipse Plug-In, see the "Developing Applications Using Eclipse" section.

D.1. Setting Up the Mars Version of the Eclipse IDE

To develop within the Eclipse IDE, you need to do the following:

  1. Install the Mars version of the Eclipse IDE.

  2. Configure the Eclipse IDE.

  3. Install the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in.

  4. Configure the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in.

Note

Do not install Eclipse from your distribution's package repository. Be sure to install Eclipse from the official Eclipse download site as directed in the next section.

D.1.1. Installing the Mars Eclipse IDE

Follow these steps to locate, install, and configure Mars Eclipse:

  1. Locate the Mars Download: Open a browser and go to http://www.eclipse.org/mars/.

  2. Download the Tarball: Click the "Download" button and then use the "Linux for Eclipse IDE for C++ Developers" appropriate for your development system (e.g. 64-bit under Linux for Eclipse IDE for C++ Developers if your development system is a Linux 64-bit machine.

  3. Unpack the Tarball: Move to a clean directory and unpack the tarball. Here is an example:

         $ cd ~
         $ tar -xzvf ~/Downloads/eclipse-cpp-mars-2-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz
                            

    Everything unpacks into a folder named "Eclipse".

  4. Launch Eclipse: Double click the "Eclipse" file in the folder to launch Eclipse.

    Note

    If you experience a NullPointer Exception after launch Eclipse or the debugger from within Eclipse, try adding the following to your eclipse.ini file, which is located in the directory in which you unpacked the Eclipse tar file:
         --launcher.GTK_version
         2
                                
    Alternatively, you can export the SWT_GTK variable in your shell as follows:
         $ export SWT_GTK3=0
                                

D.1.2. Configuring the Mars Eclipse IDE

Follow these steps to configure the Mars Eclipse IDE.

Note

Depending on how you installed Eclipse and what you have already done, some of the options will not appear. If you cannot find an option as directed by the manual, it has already been installed.

  1. Be sure Eclipse is running and you are in your workbench.

  2. Select "Install New Software" from the "Help" pull-down menu.

  3. Select "Mars - http://download.eclipse.org/releases/mars" from the "Work with:" pull-down menu.

  4. Expand the box next to "Linux Tools" and select "C/C++ Remote (Over TCF/TE) Run/Debug Launcher" and "TM Terminal".

  5. Expand the box next to "Mobile and Device Development" and select the following boxes:

         C/C++ Remote (Over TCF/TE) Run/Debug Launcher
         Remote System Explorer User Actions
         TM Terminal
         TCF Remote System Explorer add-in
         TCF Target Explorer
                            

  6. Expand the box next to "Programming Languages" and select the following boxes:

         C/C++ Autotools Support
         C/C++ Development Tools SDK
                            

  7. Complete the installation by clicking through appropriate "Next" and "Finish" buttons.

D.1.3. Installing or Accessing the Mars Eclipse Yocto Plug-in

You can install the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in into the Eclipse IDE one of two ways: use the Yocto Project's Eclipse Update site to install the pre-built plug-in or build and install the plug-in from the latest source code.

D.1.3.1. Installing the Pre-built Plug-in from the Yocto Project Eclipse Update Site

To install the Mars Eclipse Yocto Plug-in from the update site, follow these steps:

  1. Start up the Eclipse IDE.

  2. In Eclipse, select "Install New Software" from the "Help" menu.

  3. Click "Add..." in the "Work with:" area.

  4. Enter http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/releases/eclipse-plugin/2.3.3/mars in the URL field and provide a meaningful name in the "Name" field.

  5. Click "OK" to have the entry added to the "Work with:" drop-down list.

  6. Select the entry for the plug-in from the "Work with:" drop-down list.

  7. Check the boxes next to the following:

         Yocto Project SDK Plug-in
         Yocto Project Documentation plug-in
                                

  8. Complete the remaining software installation steps and then restart the Eclipse IDE to finish the installation of the plug-in.

    Note

    You can click "OK" when prompted about installing software that contains unsigned content.

D.1.3.2. Installing the Plug-in Using the Latest Source Code

To install the Mars Eclipse Yocto Plug-in from the latest source code, follow these steps:

  1. Be sure your development system has JDK 1.7+

  2. install X11-related packages:

         $ sudo apt-get install xauth
                                

  3. In a new terminal shell, create a Git repository with:

         $ cd ~
         $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/eclipse-poky
                                

  4. Use Git to checkout the correct tag:

         $ cd ~/eclipse-poky
         $ git checkout mars/yocto-2.3.3
                                

    This puts you in a detached HEAD state, which is fine since you are only going to be building and not developing.

  5. Change to the scripts directory within the Git repository:

         $ cd scripts
                                

  6. Set up the local build environment by running the setup script:

         $ ./setup.sh
                                

    When the script finishes execution, it prompts you with instructions on how to run the build.sh script, which is also in the scripts directory of the Git repository created earlier.

  7. Run the build.sh script as directed. Be sure to provide the tag name, documentation branch, and a release name.

    Following is an example:

         $ ECLIPSE_HOME=/home/scottrif/eclipse-poky/scripts/eclipse ./build.sh -l mars/yocto-2.3.3 master yocto-2.3.3 2>&1 | tee build.log
                                

    The previous example command adds the tag you need for mars/yocto-2.3.3 to HEAD, then tells the build script to use the local (-l) Git checkout for the build. After running the script, the file org.yocto.sdk-release-date-archive.zip is in the current directory.

  8. If necessary, start the Eclipse IDE and be sure you are in the Workbench.

  9. Select "Install New Software" from the "Help" pull-down menu.

  10. Click "Add".

  11. Provide anything you want in the "Name" field.

  12. Click "Archive" and browse to the ZIP file you built earlier. This ZIP file should not be "unzipped", and must be the *archive.zip file created by running the build.sh script.

  13. Click the "OK" button.

  14. Check the boxes that appear in the installation window to install the following:

         Yocto Project SDK Plug-in
         Yocto Project Documentation plug-in
                                

  15. Finish the installation by clicking through the appropriate buttons. You can click "OK" when prompted about installing software that contains unsigned content.

  16. Restart the Eclipse IDE if necessary.

At this point you should be able to configure the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in as described in the "Configuring the Mars Eclipse Yocto Plug-in" section.

D.1.4. Configuring the Mars Eclipse Yocto Plug-in

Configuring the Mars Eclipse Yocto Plug-in involves setting the Cross Compiler options and the Target options. The configurations you choose become the default settings for all projects. You do have opportunities to change them later when you configure the project (see the following section).

To start, you need to do the following from within the Eclipse IDE:

  • Choose "Preferences" from the "Window" menu to display the Preferences Dialog.

  • Click "Yocto Project SDK" to display the configuration screen.

The following sub-sections describe how to configure the the plug-in.

Note

Throughout the descriptions, a start-to-finish example for preparing a QEMU image for use with Eclipse is referenced as the "wiki" and is linked to the example on the Cookbook guide to Making an Eclipse Debug Capable Image wiki page.

D.1.4.1. Configuring the Cross-Compiler Options

Cross Compiler options enable Eclipse to use your specific cross compiler toolchain. To configure these options, you must select the type of toolchain, point to the toolchain, specify the sysroot location, and select the target architecture.

  • Selecting the Toolchain Type: Choose between Standalone pre-built toolchain and Build system derived toolchain for Cross Compiler Options.

    • Standalone Pre-built Toolchain: Select this type when you are using a stand-alone cross-toolchain. For example, suppose you are an application developer and do not need to build a target image. Instead, you just want to use an architecture-specific toolchain on an existing kernel and target root filesystem. In other words, you have downloaded and installed a pre-built toolchain for an existing image.

    • Build System Derived Toolchain: Select this type if you built the toolchain as part of the Build Directory. When you select Build system derived toolchain, you are using the toolchain built and bundled inside the Build Directory. For example, suppose you created a suitable image using the steps in the wiki. In this situation, you would select the Build system derived toolchain.

  • Specify the Toolchain Root Location: If you are using a stand-alone pre-built toolchain, you should be pointing to where it is installed (e.g. /opt/poky/2.3.3). See the "Installing the SDK" section for information about how the SDK is installed.

    If you are using a build system derived toolchain, the path you provide for the Toolchain Root Location field is the Build Directory from which you run the bitbake command (e.g /home/scottrif/poky/build).

    For more information, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section.

  • Specify Sysroot Location: This location is where the root filesystem for the target hardware resides.

    This location depends on where you separately extracted and installed the target filesystem. As an example, suppose you prepared an image using the steps in the wiki. If so, the MY_QEMU_ROOTFS directory is found in the Build Directory and you would browse to and select that directory (e.g. /home/scottrif/build/MY_QEMU_ROOTFS).

    For more information on how to install the toolchain and on how to extract and install the sysroot filesystem, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section.

  • Select the Target Architecture: The target architecture is the type of hardware you are going to use or emulate. Use the pull-down Target Architecture menu to make your selection. The pull-down menu should have the supported architectures. If the architecture you need is not listed in the menu, you will need to build the image. See the "Building Images" section of the Yocto Project Quick Start for more information. You can also see the wiki.

D.1.4.2. Configuring the Target Options

You can choose to emulate hardware using the QEMU emulator, or you can choose to run your image on actual hardware.

  • QEMU: Select this option if you will be using the QEMU emulator. If you are using the emulator, you also need to locate the kernel and specify any custom options.

    If you selected the Build system derived toolchain, the target kernel you built will be located in the Build Directory in tmp/deploy/images/machine directory. As an example, suppose you performed the steps in the wiki. In this case, you specify your Build Directory path followed by the image (e.g. /home/scottrif/poky/build/tmp/deploy/images/qemux86/bzImage-qemux86.bin).

    If you selected the standalone pre-built toolchain, the pre-built image you downloaded is located in the directory you specified when you downloaded the image.

    Most custom options are for advanced QEMU users to further customize their QEMU instance. These options are specified between paired angled brackets. Some options must be specified outside the brackets. In particular, the options serial, nographic, and kvm must all be outside the brackets. Use the man qemu command to get help on all the options and their use. The following is an example:

        serial ‘<-m 256 -full-screen>’
                                

    Regardless of the mode, Sysroot is already defined as part of the Cross-Compiler Options configuration in the Sysroot Location: field.

  • External HW: Select this option if you will be using actual hardware.

Click the "Apply" and "OK" to save your plug-in configurations.

D.2. Creating the Project

You can create two types of projects: Autotools-based, or Makefile-based. This section describes how to create Autotools-based projects from within the Eclipse IDE. For information on creating Makefile-based projects in a terminal window, see the "Makefile-Based Projects" section.

Note

Do not use special characters in project names (e.g. spaces, underscores, etc.). Doing so can cause configuration to fail.

To create a project based on a Yocto template and then display the source code, follow these steps:

  1. Select "C Project" from the "File -> New" menu.

  2. Expand Yocto Project SDK Autotools Project.

  3. Select Hello World ANSI C Autotools Projects. This is an Autotools-based project based on a Yocto template.

  4. Put a name in the Project name: field. Do not use hyphens as part of the name (e.g. hello).

  5. Click "Next".

  6. Add appropriate information in the various fields.

  7. Click "Finish".

  8. If the "open perspective" prompt appears, click "Yes" so that you in the C/C++ perspective.

  9. The left-hand navigation pane shows your project. You can display your source by double clicking the project's source file.

D.3. Configuring the Cross-Toolchains

The earlier section, "Configuring the Mars Eclipse Yocto Plug-in", sets up the default project configurations. You can override these settings for a given project by following these steps:

  1. Select "Yocto Project Settings" from the "Project -> Properties" menu. This selection brings up the Yocto Project Settings Dialog and allows you to make changes specific to an individual project.

    By default, the Cross Compiler Options and Target Options for a project are inherited from settings you provided using the Preferences Dialog as described earlier in the "Configuring the Mars Eclipse Yocto Plug-in" section. The Yocto Project Settings Dialog allows you to override those default settings for a given project.

  2. Make or verify your configurations for the project and click "OK".

  3. Right-click in the navigation pane and select "Reconfigure Project" from the pop-up menu. This selection reconfigures the project by running autogen.sh in the workspace for your project. The script also runs libtoolize, aclocal, autoconf, autoheader, automake --a, and ./configure. Click on the "Console" tab beneath your source code to see the results of reconfiguring your project.

D.4. Building the Project

To build the project select "Build All" from the "Project" menu. The console should update and you can note the cross-compiler you are using.

Note

When building "Yocto Project SDK Autotools" projects, the Eclipse IDE might display error messages for Functions/Symbols/Types that cannot be "resolved", even when the related include file is listed at the project navigator and when the project is able to build. For these cases only, it is recommended to add a new linked folder to the appropriate sysroot. Use these steps to add the linked folder:
  1. Select the project.

  2. Select "Folder" from the File > New menu.

  3. In the "New Folder" Dialog, select "Link to alternate location (linked folder)".

  4. Click "Browse" to navigate to the include folder inside the same sysroot location selected in the Yocto Project configuration preferences.

  5. Click "OK".

  6. Click "Finish" to save the linked folder.

D.5. Starting QEMU in User-Space NFS Mode

To start the QEMU emulator from within Eclipse, follow these steps:

Note

See the "Using the Quick EMUlator (QEMU)" chapter in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information on using QEMU.

  1. Expose and select "External Tools Configurations ..." from the "Run -> External Tools" menu.

  2. Locate and select your image in the navigation panel to the left (e.g. qemu_i586-poky-linux).

  3. Click "Run" to launch QEMU.

    Note

    The host on which you are running QEMU must have the rpcbind utility running to be able to make RPC calls on a server on that machine. If QEMU does not invoke and you receive error messages involving rpcbind, follow the suggestions to get the service running. As an example, on a new Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installation, you must do the following in order to get QEMU to launch:
         $ sudo apt-get install rpcbind
                            
    After installing rpcbind, you need to edit the /etc/init.d/rpcbind file to include the following line:
         OPTIONS="-i -w"
                            
    After modifying the file, you need to start the service:
         $ sudo service portmap restart
                            

  4. If needed, enter your host root password in the shell window at the prompt. This sets up a Tap 0 connection needed for running in user-space NFS mode.

  5. Wait for QEMU to launch.

  6. Once QEMU launches, you can begin operating within that environment. One useful task at this point would be to determine the IP Address for the user-space NFS by using the ifconfig command. The IP address of the QEMU machine appears in the xterm window. You can use this address to help you see which particular IP address the instance of QEMU is using.

D.6. Deploying and Debugging the Application

Once the QEMU emulator is running the image, you can deploy your application using the Eclipse IDE and then use the emulator to perform debugging. Follow these steps to deploy the application.

Note

Currently, Eclipse does not support SSH port forwarding. Consequently, if you need to run or debug a remote application using the host display, you must create a tunneling connection from outside Eclipse and keep that connection alive during your work. For example, in a new terminal, run the following:
     $ ssh -XY user_name@remote_host_ip
                
Using the above form, here is an example:
     $ ssh -XY root@192.168.7.2
                
After running the command, add the command to be executed in Eclipse's run configuration before the application as follows:
     export DISPLAY=:10.0
                
Be sure to not destroy the connection during your QEMU session (i.e. do not exit out of or close that shell).

  1. Select "Debug Configurations..." from the "Run" menu.

  2. In the left area, expand C/C++Remote Application.

  3. Locate your project and select it to bring up a new tabbed view in the Debug Configurations Dialog.

  4. Click on the "Debugger" tab to see the cross-tool debugger you are using. Be sure to change to the debugger perspective in Eclipse.

  5. Click on the "Main" tab.

  6. Create a new connection to the QEMU instance by clicking on "new".

  7. Select SSH, which means Secure Socket Shell. Optionally, you can select an TCF connection instead.

  8. Click "Next".

  9. Clear out the "Connection name" field and enter any name you want for the connection.

  10. Put the IP address for the connection in the "Host" field. For QEMU, the default is 192.168.7.2. However, if a previous QEMU session did not exit cleanly, the IP address increments (e.g. 192.168.7.3).

    Note

    You can find the IP address for the current QEMU session by looking in the xterm that opens when you launch QEMU.

  11. Enter root, which is the default for QEMU, for the "User" field. Be sure to leave the password field empty.

  12. Click "Finish" to close the New Connections Dialog.

  13. If necessary, use the drop-down menu now in the "Connection" field and pick the IP Address you entered.

  14. Assuming you are connecting as the root user, which is the default for QEMU x86-64 SDK images provided by the Yocto Project, in the "Remote Absolute File Path for C/C++ Application" field, browse to /home/root. You could also browse to any other path you have write access to on the target such as /usr/bin. This location is where your application will be located on the QEMU system. If you fail to browse to and specify an appropriate location, QEMU will not understand what to remotely launch. Eclipse is helpful in that it auto fills your application name for you assuming you browsed to a directory.

    Note

    If you are prompted to provide a username and to optionally set a password, be sure you provide "root" as the username and you leave the password field blank.

  15. Be sure you change to the "Debug" perspective in Eclipse.

  16. Click "Debug"

  17. Accept the debug perspective.

D.7. Using Linuxtools

As mentioned earlier in the manual, performance tools exist (Linuxtools) that enhance your development experience. These tools are aids in developing and debugging applications and images. You can run these tools from within the Eclipse IDE through the "Linuxtools" menu.

For information on how to configure and use these tools, see http://www.eclipse.org/linuxtools/.

Chapter 11. Board Support Packages (BSP) - Developer's Guide

A Board Support Package (BSP) is a collection of information that defines how to support a particular hardware device, set of devices, or hardware platform. The BSP includes information about the hardware features present on the device and kernel configuration information along with any additional hardware drivers required. The BSP also lists any additional software components required in addition to a generic Linux software stack for both essential and optional platform features.

This guide presents information about BSP Layers, defines a structure for components so that BSPs follow a commonly understood layout, discusses how to customize a recipe for a BSP, addresses BSP licensing, and provides information that shows you how to create and manage a BSP Layer using two Yocto Project BSP Tools.

11.1. BSP Layers

A BSP consists of a file structure inside a base directory. Collectively, you can think of the base directory, its file structure, and the contents as a BSP Layer. Although not a strict requirement, layers in the Yocto Project use the following well-established naming convention:

     meta-bsp_name
                

The string "meta-" is prepended to the machine or platform name, which is bsp_name in the above form.

Tip

Because the BSP layer naming convention is well-established, it is advisable to follow it when creating layers. Technically speaking, a BSP layer name does not need to start with meta-. However, you might run into situations where obscure scripts assume this convention.

To help understand the BSP layer concept, consider the BSPs that the Yocto Project supports and provides with each release. You can see the layers in the Yocto Project Source Repositories through a web interface at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi. If you go to that interface, you will find near the bottom of the list under "Yocto Metadata Layers" several BSP layers all of which are supported by the Yocto Project (e.g. meta-raspberrypi and meta-intel). Each of these layers is a repository unto itself and clicking on a layer reveals information that includes two links from which you can choose to set up a clone of the layer's repository on your local host system. Here is an example that clones the Raspberry Pi BSP layer:

     $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-raspberrypi
                

In addition to BSP layers near the bottom of that referenced Yocto Project Source Repository, the meta-yocto-bsp layer is part of the shipped poky repository. The meta-yocto-bsp layer maintains several BSPs such as the Beaglebone, EdgeRouter, and generic versions of both 32 and 64-bit IA machines.

For information on the BSP development workflow, see the "Developing a Board Support Package (BSP)" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual. For more information on how to set up a local copy of source files from a Git repository, see the "Getting Set Up" section also in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

The layer's base directory (meta-bsp_name) is the root of the BSP Layer. This root is what you add to the BBLAYERS variable in the conf/bblayers.conf file found in the Build Directory, which is established after you run one of the OpenEmbedded build environment setup scripts (i.e. oe-init-build-env and oe-init-build-env-memres). Adding the root allows the OpenEmbedded build system to recognize the BSP definition and from it build an image. Here is an example:

     BBLAYERS ?= " \
       /usr/local/src/yocto/meta \
       /usr/local/src/yocto/meta-poky \
       /usr/local/src/yocto/meta-yocto-bsp \
       /usr/local/src/yocto/meta-mylayer \
       "
                

Some BSPs require additional layers on top of the BSP's root layer in order to be functional. For these cases, you also need to add those layers to the BBLAYERS variable in order to build the BSP. You must also specify in the "Dependencies" section of the BSP's README file any requirements for additional layers and, preferably, any build instructions that might be contained elsewhere in the README file.

Some layers function as a layer to hold other BSP layers. An example of this type of layer is the meta-intel layer, which contains a number of individual BSP sub-layers, as well as a directory named common/ full of common content across those layers. Another example is the meta-yocto-bsp layer mentioned earlier.

For more detailed information on layers, see the "Understanding and Creating Layers" section of the Yocto Project Development Manual.

11.2. Example Filesystem Layout

Defining a common BSP directory structure allows end-users to understand and become familiar with that structure. A common format also encourages standardization of software support of hardware.

The proposed form does have elements that are specific to the OpenEmbedded build system. It is intended that this information can be used by other build systems besides the OpenEmbedded build system and that it will be simple to extract information and convert it to other formats if required. The OpenEmbedded build system, through its standard layers mechanism, can directly accept the format described as a layer. The BSP captures all the hardware-specific details in one place in a standard format, which is useful for any person wishing to use the hardware platform regardless of the build system they are using.

The BSP specification does not include a build system or other tools - it is concerned with the hardware-specific components only. At the end-distribution point, you can ship the BSP combined with a build system and other tools. However, it is important to maintain the distinction that these are separate components that happen to be combined in certain end products.

Before looking at the common form for the file structure inside a BSP Layer, you should be aware that some requirements do exist in order for a BSP to be considered compliant with the Yocto Project. For that list of requirements, see the "Released BSP Requirements" section.

Below is the common form for the file structure inside a BSP Layer. While you can use this basic form for the standard, realize that the actual structures for specific BSPs could differ.

     meta-bsp_name/
     meta-bsp_name/bsp_license_file
     meta-bsp_name/README
     meta-bsp_name/README.sources
     meta-bsp_name/binary/bootable_images
     meta-bsp_name/conf/layer.conf
     meta-bsp_name/conf/machine/*.conf
     meta-bsp_name/recipes-bsp/*
     meta-bsp_name/recipes-core/*
     meta-bsp_name/recipes-graphics/*
     meta-bsp_name/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto_kernel_rev.bbappend
                

Below is an example of the Raspberry Pi BSP:

     meta-raspberrypi/COPYING.MIT
     meta-raspberrypi/README
     meta-raspberrypi/classes
     meta-raspberrypi/classes/linux-raspberrypi-base.bbclass
     meta-raspberrypi/classes/sdcard_image-rpi.bbclass
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/layer.conf
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/raspberrypi.conf
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/raspberrypi0.conf
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/raspberrypi2.conf
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/raspberrypi3.conf
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/include
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/include/rpi-base.inc
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/include/rpi-default-providers.inc
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/include/rpi-default-settings.inc
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/include/rpi-default-versions.inc
     meta-raspberrypi/conf/machine/include/rpi-tune-arm1176jzf-s.inc
     meta-raspberrypi/files
     meta-raspberrypi/files/custom-licenses
     meta-raspberrypi/files/custom-licenses/Broadcom
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/bootfiles
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/bootfiles/bcm2835-bootfiles.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/bootfiles/rpi-config_git.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/common
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/common/firmware.inc
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/formfactor_00.bbappend
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/formfactor/raspberrypi/machconfig
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/rpi-mkimage_git.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/rpi-mkimage/License
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/rpi-mkimage/open-files-relative-to-script.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-bsp/u-boot/u-boot-rpi_git.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core/images
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core/images/rpi-basic-image.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core/images/rpi-hwup-image.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core/images/rpi-test-image.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core/packagegroups
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core/packagegroups/packagegroup-rpi-test.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core/psplash
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core/psplash/files
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core/psplash/psplash_git.bbappend
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-core/psplash/files/psplash-raspberrypi-img.h
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/bcm2835
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/bcm2835/bcm2835_1.46.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/pi-blaster
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/pi-blaster/files
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/pi-blaster/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/pi-blaster/pi-blaster.inc
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/pi-blaster/pi-blaster_git.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python/python-rtimu
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python/python-rtimu/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python/python-rtimu_git.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python/python-sense-hat_2.1.0.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python/rpi-gpio
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python/rpi-gpio/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python/rpi-gpio_0.6.1.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python/rpio
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python/rpio/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/python/rpio_0.10.0.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/wiringPi
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/wiringPi/files
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/wiringPi/files/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/wiringPi/wiringpi
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/wiringPi/wiringpi/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-devtools/wiringPi/wiringpi_git.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/eglinfo
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/eglinfo/eglinfo-fb_%.bbappend
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/eglinfo/eglinfo-x11_%.bbappend
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/userland
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/userland/userland
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/userland/userland/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/userland/userland_git.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/vc-graphics
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/vc-graphics/files
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/vc-graphics/files/egl.pc
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/vc-graphics/files/vchiq.sh
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/vc-graphics/vc-graphics-hardfp.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/vc-graphics/vc-graphics.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/vc-graphics/vc-graphics.inc
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/wayland
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/wayland/weston_%.bbappend
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/weston
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/weston/weston_%.bbappend
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/xorg-xserver
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/xorg-xserver/xserver-xf86-config
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/xorg-xserver/xserver-xf86-config/rpi
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/xorg-xserver/xserver-xf86-config/rpi/xorg.conf
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/xorg-xserver/xserver-xf86-config/rpi/xorg.conf.d
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/xorg-xserver/xserver-xf86-config/rpi/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/xorg-xserver/xserver-xf86-config/rpi/xorg.conf.d/99-pitft.conf
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-graphics/xorg-xserver/xserver-xf86-config_0.1.bbappend
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux-firmware
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux-firmware/linux-firmware
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux-firmware/linux-firmware/LICENSE.broadcom_brcm80211
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux-firmware/linux-firmware/brcmfmac43430-sdio.bin
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux-firmware/linux-firmware/brcmfmac43430-sdio.txt
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux-firmware/linux-firmware_git.bbappend
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi-3.14
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi-3.14/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi-3.18
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi-3.18/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi-4.1
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi-4.1/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi.inc
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi/defconfig
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi_3.14.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi_3.18.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi_4.1.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi_4.4.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux.inc
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-multimedia
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-multimedia/gstreamer
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-multimedia/gstreamer/gstreamer1.0-omx
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-multimedia/gstreamer/gstreamer1.0-omx/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-multimedia/gstreamer/gstreamer1.0-omx_%.bbappend
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-multimedia/gstreamer/gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad_%.bbappend
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-multimedia/omxplayer
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-multimedia/omxplayer/omxplayer
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-multimedia/omxplayer/omxplayer/*.patch
     meta-raspberrypi/recipes-multimedia/omxplayer/omxplayer_git.bb
     meta-raspberrypi/scripts
     meta-raspberrypi/scripts/lib
     meta-raspberrypi/scripts/lib/image
     meta-raspberrypi/scripts/lib/image/canned-wks
     meta-raspberrypi/scripts/lib/image/canned-wks/sdimage-raspberrypi.wks
                

The following sections describe each part of the proposed BSP format.

11.2.1. License Files

You can find these files in the BSP Layer at:

     meta-bsp_name/bsp_license_file
                    

These optional files satisfy licensing requirements for the BSP. The type or types of files here can vary depending on the licensing requirements. For example, in the Raspberry Pi BSP all licensing requirements are handled with the COPYING.MIT file.

Licensing files can be MIT, BSD, GPLv*, and so forth. These files are recommended for the BSP but are optional and totally up to the BSP developer.

11.2.2. README File

You can find this file in the BSP Layer at:

     meta-bsp_name/README
                    

This file provides information on how to boot the live images that are optionally included in the binary/ directory. The README file also provides special information needed for building the image.

At a minimum, the README file must contain a list of dependencies, such as the names of any other layers on which the BSP depends and the name of the BSP maintainer with his or her contact information.

11.2.3. README.sources File

You can find this file in the BSP Layer at:

     meta-bsp_name/README.sources
                    

This file provides information on where to locate the BSP source files used to build the images (if any) that reside in meta-bsp_name/binary. Images in the binary would be images released with the BSP. The information in the README.sources file also helps you find the Metadata used to generate the images that ship with the BSP.

Note

If the BSP's binary directory is missing or the directory has no images, an existing README.sources file is meaningless.

11.2.4. Pre-built User Binaries

You can find these files in the BSP Layer at:

     meta-bsp_name/binary/bootable_images
                    

This optional area contains useful pre-built kernels and user-space filesystem images released with the BSP that are appropriate to the target system. This directory typically contains graphical (e.g. Sato) and minimal live images when the BSP tarball has been created and made available in the Yocto Project website. You can use these kernels and images to get a system running and quickly get started on development tasks.

The exact types of binaries present are highly hardware-dependent. The README file should be present in the BSP Layer and it will explain how to use the images with the target hardware. Additionally, the README.sources file should be present to locate the sources used to build the images and provide information on the Metadata.

11.2.5. Layer Configuration File

You can find this file in the BSP Layer at:

     meta-bsp_name/conf/layer.conf
                    

The conf/layer.conf file identifies the file structure as a layer, identifies the contents of the layer, and contains information about how the build system should use it. Generally, a standard boilerplate file such as the following works. In the following example, you would replace "bsp" and "_bsp" with the actual name of the BSP (i.e. bsp_name from the example template).

     # We have a conf and classes directory, add to BBPATH
     BBPATH .= ":${LAYERDIR}"

     # We have a recipes directory, add to BBFILES
     BBFILES += "${LAYERDIR}/recipes-*/*/*.bb \
                 ${LAYERDIR}/recipes-*/*/*.bbappend"

     BBFILE_COLLECTIONS += "bsp"
     BBFILE_PATTERN_bsp = "^${LAYERDIR}/"
     BBFILE_PRIORITY_bsp = "6"

     LAYERDEPENDS_bsp = "intel"
                    

To illustrate the string substitutions, here are the corresponding statements from the Raspberry Pi conf/layer.conf file:

     # We have a conf and classes directory, append to BBPATH
     BBPATH .= ":${LAYERDIR}"

     # We have a recipes directory containing .bb and .bbappend files, add to BBFILES
     BBFILES += "${LAYERDIR}/recipes*/*/*.bb \
                 ${LAYERDIR}/recipes*/*/*.bbappend"

     BBFILE_COLLECTIONS += "raspberrypi"
     BBFILE_PATTERN_raspberrypi := "^${LAYERDIR}/"
     BBFILE_PRIORITY_raspberrypi = "9"

     # Additional license directories.
     LICENSE_PATH += "${LAYERDIR}/files/custom-licenses"
                    

This file simply makes BitBake aware of the recipes and configuration directories. The file must exist so that the OpenEmbedded build system can recognize the BSP.

11.2.6. Hardware Configuration Options

You can find these files in the BSP Layer at:

     meta-bsp_name/conf/machine/*.conf
                    

The machine files bind together all the information contained elsewhere in the BSP into a format that the build system can understand. If the BSP supports multiple machines, multiple machine configuration files can be present. These filenames correspond to the values to which users have set the MACHINE variable.

These files define things such as the kernel package to use (PREFERRED_PROVIDER of virtual/kernel), the hardware drivers to include in different types of images, any special software components that are needed, any bootloader information, and also any special image format requirements.

Each BSP Layer requires at least one machine file. However, you can supply more than one file.

This configuration file could also include a hardware "tuning" file that is commonly used to define the package architecture and specify optimization flags, which are carefully chosen to give best performance on a given processor.

Tuning files are found in the meta/conf/machine/include directory within the Source Directory. For example, the ia32-base.inc file resides in the meta/conf/machine/include directory.

To use an include file, you simply include them in the machine configuration file. For example, the Raspberry Pi BSP raspberrypi3.conf contains the following statement:

     include conf/machine/raspberrypi2.conf
                    

11.2.7. Miscellaneous BSP-Specific Recipe Files

You can find these files in the BSP Layer at:

     meta-bsp_name/recipes-bsp/*
                    

This optional directory contains miscellaneous recipe files for the BSP. Most notably would be the formfactor files. For example, in the Raspberry Pi BSP there is the formfactor_0.0.bbappend file, which is an append file used to augment the recipe that starts the build. Furthermore, there are machine-specific settings used during the build that are defined by the machconfig file further down in the directory. Here is the machconfig file for the Raspberry Pi BSP:

     HAVE_TOUCHSCREEN=0
     HAVE_KEYBOARD=1

     DISPLAY_CAN_ROTATE=0
     DISPLAY_ORIENTATION=0
     DISPLAY_DPI=133
                    

Note

If a BSP does not have a formfactor entry, defaults are established according to the formfactor configuration file that is installed by the main formfactor recipe meta/recipes-bsp/formfactor/formfactor_0.0.bb, which is found in the Source Directory.

11.2.8. Display Support Files

You can find these files in the BSP Layer at:

     meta-bsp_name/recipes-graphics/*
                    

This optional directory contains recipes for the BSP if it has special requirements for graphics support. All files that are needed for the BSP to support a display are kept here.

11.2.9. Linux Kernel Configuration

You can find these files in the BSP Layer at:

     meta-bsp_name/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto*.bbappend
                    

These files append machine-specific changes to the main kernel recipe you are using.

For your BSP, you typically want to use an existing Yocto Project kernel recipe found in the Source Directory at meta/recipes-kernel/linux. You can append machine-specific changes to the kernel recipe by using a similarly named append file, which is located in the BSP Layer for your target device (e.g. the meta-bsp_name/recipes-kernel/linux directory).

Suppose you are using the linux-yocto_4.4.bb recipe to build the kernel. In other words, you have selected the kernel in your bsp_name.conf file by adding PREFERRED_PROVIDER and PREFERRED_VERSION statements as follows:

     PREFERRED_PROVIDER_virtual/kernel ?= "linux-yocto"
     PREFERRED_VERSION_linux-yocto ?= "4.4%"
                    

Note

When the preferred provider is assumed by default, the PREFERRED_PROVIDER statement does not appear in the bsp_name.conf file.

You would use the linux-yocto_4.4.bbappend file to append specific BSP settings to the kernel, thus configuring the kernel for your particular BSP.

You can find more information on what your append file should contain in the "Creating the Append File" section in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual.

11.3. Requirements and Recommendations for Released BSPs

Certain requirements exist for a released BSP to be considered compliant with the Yocto Project. Additionally, recommendations also exist. This section describes the requirements and recommendations for released BSPs.

11.3.1. Released BSP Requirements

Before looking at BSP requirements, you should consider the following:

  • The requirements here assume the BSP layer is a well-formed, "legal" layer that can be added to the Yocto Project. For guidelines on creating a layer that meets these base requirements, see the "BSP Layers" and the "Understanding and Creating Layers" in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

  • The requirements in this section apply regardless of how you package a BSP. You should consult the packaging and distribution guidelines for your specific release process. For an example of packaging and distribution requirements, see the "Third Party BSP Release Process" wiki page.

  • The requirements for the BSP as it is made available to a developer are completely independent of the released form of the BSP. For example, the BSP Metadata can be contained within a Git repository and could have a directory structure completely different from what appears in the officially released BSP layer.

  • It is not required that specific packages or package modifications exist in the BSP layer, beyond the requirements for general compliance with the Yocto Project. For example, no requirement exists dictating that a specific kernel or kernel version be used in a given BSP.

Following are the requirements for a released BSP that conform to the Yocto Project:

  • Layer Name: The BSP must have a layer name that follows the Yocto Project standards. For information on BSP layer names, see the "BSP Layers" section.

  • File System Layout: When possible, use the same directory names in your BSP layer as listed in the recipes.txt file. In particular, you should place recipes (.bb files) and recipe modifications (.bbappend files) into recipes-* subdirectories by functional area as outlined in recipes.txt. If you cannot find a category in recipes.txt to fit a particular recipe, you can make up your own recipes-* subdirectory. You can find recipes.txt in the meta directory of the Source Directory, or in the OpenEmbedded Core Layer (openembedded-core) found at http://git.openembedded.org/openembedded-core/tree/meta.

    Within any particular recipes-* category, the layout should match what is found in the OpenEmbedded Core Git repository (openembedded-core) or the Source Directory (poky). In other words, make sure you place related files in appropriately related recipes-* subdirectories specific to the recipe's function, or within a subdirectory containing a set of closely-related recipes. The recipes themselves should follow the general guidelines for recipes used in the Yocto Project found in the "OpenEmbedded Style Guide".

  • License File: You must include a license file in the meta-bsp_name directory. This license covers the BSP Metadata as a whole. You must specify which license to use since there is no default license if one is not specified. See the COPYING.MIT file for the Raspberry Pi BSP in the meta-raspberrypi BSP layer as an example.

  • README File: You must include a README file in the meta-bsp_name directory. See the README file for the Raspberry Pi BSP in the meta-raspberrypi BSP layer as an example.

    At a minimum, the README file should contain the following:

    • A brief description about the hardware the BSP targets.

    • A list of all the dependencies on which a BSP layer depends. These dependencies are typically a list of required layers needed to build the BSP. However, the dependencies should also contain information regarding any other dependencies the BSP might have.

    • Any required special licensing information. For example, this information includes information on special variables needed to satisfy a EULA, or instructions on information needed to build or distribute binaries built from the BSP Metadata.

    • The name and contact information for the BSP layer maintainer. This is the person to whom patches and questions should be sent. For information on how to find the right person, see the "How to Submit a Change" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

    • Instructions on how to build the BSP using the BSP layer.

    • Instructions on how to boot the BSP build from the BSP layer.

    • Instructions on how to boot the binary images contained in the binary directory, if present.

    • Information on any known bugs or issues that users should know about when either building or booting the BSP binaries.

  • README.sources File: You must include a README.sources in the meta-bsp_name directory. This file specifies exactly where you can find the sources used to generate the binary images contained in the binary directory, if present.

  • Layer Configuration File: You must include a conf/layer.conf in the meta-bsp_name directory. This file identifies the meta-bsp_name BSP layer as a layer to the build system.

  • Machine Configuration File: You must include one or more conf/machine/bsp_name.conf files in the meta-bsp_name directory. These configuration files define machine targets that can be built using the BSP layer. Multiple machine configuration files define variations of machine configurations that are supported by the BSP. If a BSP supports multiple machine variations, you need to adequately describe each variation in the BSP README file. Do not use multiple machine configuration files to describe disparate hardware. If you do have very different targets, you should create separate BSP layers for each target.

    Note

    It is completely possible for a developer to structure the working repository as a conglomeration of unrelated BSP files, and to possibly generate BSPs targeted for release from that directory using scripts or some other mechanism (e.g. meta-yocto-bsp layer). Such considerations are outside the scope of this document.

11.3.2. Released BSP Recommendations

Following are recommendations for a released BSP that conforms to the Yocto Project:

  • Bootable Images: BSP releases can contain one or more bootable images. Including bootable images allows users to easily try out the BSP on their own hardware.

    In some cases, it might not be convenient to include a bootable image. In this case, you might want to make two versions of the BSP available: one that contains binary images, and one that does not. The version that does not contain bootable images avoids unnecessary download times for users not interested in the images.

    If you need to distribute a BSP and include bootable images or build kernel and filesystems meant to allow users to boot the BSP for evaluation purposes, you should put the images and artifacts within a binary/ subdirectory located in the meta-bsp_name directory.

    Note

    If you do include a bootable image as part of the BSP and the image was built by software covered by the GPL or other open source licenses, it is your responsibility to understand and meet all licensing requirements, which could include distribution of source files.
  • Use a Yocto Linux Kernel: Kernel recipes in the BSP should be based on a Yocto Linux kernel. Basing your recipes on these kernels reduces the costs for maintaining the BSP and increases its scalability. See the Yocto Linux Kernel category in the Source Repositories for these kernels.

11.4. Customizing a Recipe for a BSP

If you plan on customizing a recipe for a particular BSP, you need to do the following:

  • Create a .bbappend file for the modified recipe. For information on using append files, see the "Using .bbappend Files in Your Layer" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

  • Ensure your directory structure in the BSP layer that supports your machine is such that it can be found by the build system. See the example later in this section for more information.

  • Put the append file in a directory whose name matches the machine's name and is located in an appropriate sub-directory inside the BSP layer (i.e. recipes-bsp, recipes-graphics, recipes-core, and so forth).

  • Place the BSP-specific files in the proper directory inside the BSP layer. How expansive the layer is affects where you must place these files. For example, if your layer supports several different machine types, you need to be sure your layer's directory structure includes hierarchy that separates the files out according to machine. If your layer does not support multiple machines, the layer would not have that additional hierarchy and the files would obviously not be able to reside in a machine-specific directory.

Following is a specific example to help you better understand the process. Consider an example that customizes a recipe by adding a BSP-specific configuration file named interfaces to the init-ifupdown_1.0.bb recipe for machine "xyz" where the BSP layer also supports several other machines. Do the following:

  1. Edit the init-ifupdown_1.0.bbappend file so that it contains the following:

         FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/files:"
                           

    The append file needs to be in the meta-xyz/recipes-core/init-ifupdown directory.

  2. Create and place the new interfaces configuration file in the BSP's layer here:

         meta-xyz/recipes-core/init-ifupdown/files/xyz-machine-one/interfaces
                           

    Note

    If the meta-xyz layer did not support multiple machines, you would place the interfaces configuration file in the layer here:
         meta-xyz/recipes-core/init-ifupdown/files/interfaces
                               

    The FILESEXTRAPATHS variable in the append files extends the search path the build system uses to find files during the build. Consequently, for this example you need to have the files directory in the same location as your append file.

11.5. BSP Licensing Considerations

In some cases, a BSP contains separately licensed Intellectual Property (IP) for a component or components. For these cases, you are required to accept the terms of a commercial or other type of license that requires some kind of explicit End User License Agreement (EULA). Once the license is accepted, the OpenEmbedded build system can then build and include the corresponding component in the final BSP image. If the BSP is available as a pre-built image, you can download the image after agreeing to the license or EULA.

You could find that some separately licensed components that are essential for normal operation of the system might not have an unencumbered (or free) substitute. Without these essential components, the system would be non-functional. Then again, you might find that other licensed components that are simply 'good-to-have' or purely elective do have an unencumbered, free replacement component that you can use rather than agreeing to the separately licensed component. Even for components essential to the system, you might find an unencumbered component that is not identical but will work as a less-capable version of the licensed version in the BSP recipe.

For cases where you can substitute a free component and still maintain the system's functionality, the "Downloads" page from the Yocto Project website's makes available de-featured BSPs that are completely free of any IP encumbrances. For these cases, you can use the substitution directly and without any further licensing requirements. If present, these fully de-featured BSPs are named appropriately different as compared to the names of the respective encumbered BSPs. If available, these substitutions are your simplest and most preferred options. Use of these substitutions of course assumes the resulting functionality meets system requirements.

If however, a non-encumbered version is unavailable or it provides unsuitable functionality or quality, you can use an encumbered version.

A couple different methods exist within the OpenEmbedded build system to satisfy the licensing requirements for an encumbered BSP. The following list describes them in order of preference:

  1. Use the LICENSE_FLAGS variable to define the recipes that have commercial or other types of specially-licensed packages: For each of those recipes, you can specify a matching license string in a local.conf variable named LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST. Specifying the matching license string signifies that you agree to the license. Thus, the build system can build the corresponding recipe and include the component in the image. See the "Enabling Commercially Licensed Recipes" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual for details on how to use these variables.

    If you build as you normally would, without specifying any recipes in the LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST, the build stops and provides you with the list of recipes that you have tried to include in the image that need entries in the LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST. Once you enter the appropriate license flags into the whitelist, restart the build to continue where it left off. During the build, the prompt will not appear again since you have satisfied the requirement.

    Once the appropriate license flags are on the white list in the LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST variable, you can build the encumbered image with no change at all to the normal build process.

  2. Get a pre-built version of the BSP: You can get this type of BSP by visiting the "Downloads" page of the Yocto Project website. You can download BSP tarballs that contain proprietary components after agreeing to the licensing requirements of each of the individually encumbered packages as part of the download process. Obtaining the BSP this way allows you to access an encumbered image immediately after agreeing to the click-through license agreements presented by the website. Note that if you want to build the image yourself using the recipes contained within the BSP tarball, you will still need to create an appropriate LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST to match the encumbered recipes in the BSP.

Note

Pre-compiled images are bundled with a time-limited kernel that runs for a predetermined amount of time (10 days) before it forces the system to reboot. This limitation is meant to discourage direct redistribution of the image. You must eventually rebuild the image if you want to remove this restriction.

11.6. Using the Yocto Project's BSP Tools

The Yocto Project includes a couple of tools that enable you to create a BSP layer from scratch and do basic configuration and maintenance of the kernel without ever looking at a Metadata file. These tools are yocto-bsp and yocto-kernel, respectively.

The following sections describe the common location and help features as well as provide details for the yocto-bsp and yocto-kernel tools.

11.6.1. Common Features

Designed to have a command interface somewhat like Git, each tool is structured as a set of sub-commands under a top-level command. The top-level command (yocto-bsp or yocto-kernel) itself does nothing but invoke or provide help on the sub-commands it supports.

Both tools reside in the scripts/ subdirectory of the Source Directory. Consequently, to use the scripts, you must source the environment just as you would when invoking a build:

     $ source oe-init-build-env build_dir
                    

The most immediately useful function is to get help on both tools. The built-in help system makes it easy to drill down at any time and view the syntax required for any specific command. Simply enter the name of the command with the help switch:

     $ yocto-bsp help
     Usage:

      Create a customized Yocto BSP layer.

      usage: yocto-bsp [--version] [--help] COMMAND [ARGS]

      Current 'yocto-bsp' commands are:
         create            Create a new Yocto BSP
         list              List available values for options and BSP properties

      See 'yocto-bsp help COMMAND' for more information on a specific command.


     Options:
       --version    show program's version number and exit
       -h, --help   show this help message and exit
       -D, --debug  output debug information
                    

Similarly, entering just the name of a sub-command shows the detailed usage for that sub-command:

     $ yocto-bsp create
     ERROR:root:Wrong number of arguments, exiting

     Usage:

      Create a new Yocto BSP

      usage: yocto-bsp create <bsp-name> <karch> [-o <DIRNAME> | --outdir <DIRNAME>]
            [-i <JSON PROPERTY FILE> | --infile <JSON PROPERTY_FILE>]

      This command creates a Yocto BSP based on the specified parameters.
      The new BSP will be a new Yocto BSP layer contained by default within
      the top-level directory specified as 'meta-bsp-name'.  The -o option
      can be used to place the BSP layer in a directory with a different
      name and location.

      The value of the 'karch' parameter determines the set of files that
      will be generated for the BSP, along with the specific set of
      'properties' that will be used to fill out the BSP-specific portions
      of the BSP.  The possible values for the 'karch' parameter can be
      listed via 'yocto-bsp list karch'.

      ...
                    

For any sub-command, you can use the word "help" option just before the sub-command to get more extensive documentation:

     $ yocto-bsp help create

     NAME
         yocto-bsp create - Create a new Yocto BSP

     SYNOPSIS
         yocto-bsp create <bsp-name> <karch> [-o <DIRNAME> | --outdir <DIRNAME>]
             [-i <JSON PROPERTY FILE> | --infile <JSON PROPERTY_FILE>]

     DESCRIPTION
         This command creates a Yocto BSP based on the specified
         parameters.  The new BSP will be a new Yocto BSP layer contained
         by default within the top-level directory specified as
         'meta-bsp-name'.  The -o option can be used to place the BSP layer
         in a directory with a different name and location.

         ...
                    

Now that you know where these two commands reside and how to access information on them, you should find it relatively straightforward to discover the commands necessary to create a BSP and perform basic kernel maintenance on that BSP using the tools.

Note

You can also use the yocto-layer tool to create a "generic" layer. For information on this tool, see the "Creating a General Layer Using the yocto-layer Script" section in the Yocto Project Development Guide.

The next sections provide a concrete starting point to expand on a few points that might not be immediately obvious or that could use further explanation.

11.6.2. Creating a new BSP Layer Using the yocto-bsp Script

The yocto-bsp script creates a new BSP layer for any architecture supported by the Yocto Project, as well as QEMU versions of the same. The default mode of the script's operation is to prompt you for information needed to generate the BSP layer.

For the current set of BSPs, the script prompts you for various important parameters such as:

  • The kernel to use

  • The branch of that kernel to use (or re-use)

  • Whether or not to use X, and if so, which drivers to use

  • Whether to turn on SMP

  • Whether the BSP has a keyboard

  • Whether the BSP has a touchscreen

  • Remaining configurable items associated with the BSP

You use the yocto-bsp create sub-command to create a new BSP layer. This command requires you to specify a particular kernel architecture (karch) on which to base the BSP. Assuming you have sourced the environment, you can use the yocto-bsp list karch sub-command to list the architectures available for BSP creation as follows:

     $ yocto-bsp list karch
     Architectures available:
         powerpc
         x86_64
         i386
         arm
         qemu
         mips
         mips64
                    

The remainder of this section presents an example that uses myarm as the machine name and qemu as the machine architecture. Of the available architectures, qemu is the only architecture that causes the script to prompt you further for an actual architecture. In every other way, this architecture is representative of how creating a BSP for an actual machine would work. The reason the example uses this architecture is because it is an emulated architecture and can easily be followed without requiring actual hardware.

As the yocto-bsp create command runs, default values for the prompts appear in brackets. Pressing enter without supplying anything on the command line or pressing enter with an invalid response causes the script to accept the default value. Once the script completes, the new meta-myarm BSP layer is created in the current working directory. This example assumes you have sourced the oe-init-build-env setup script.

Following is the complete example:

     $ yocto-bsp create myarm qemu
     Checking basic git connectivity...
     Done.

     Which qemu architecture would you like to use? [default: i386]
	     1) i386    (32-bit)
	     2) x86_64  (64-bit)
	     3) ARM     (32-bit)
	     4) PowerPC (32-bit)
	     5) MIPS    (32-bit)
	     6) MIPS64  (64-bit)
     3
     Would you like to use the default (4.8) kernel? (y/n) [default: y]
     Do you need a new machine branch for this BSP (the alternative is to re-use an existing branch)? [y/n] [default: y]
     Getting branches from remote repo git://git.yoctoproject.org/linux-yocto-4.8.git...
     Please choose a machine branch to base this BSP on: [default: standard/base]
	     1) standard/arm-versatile-926ejs
	     2) standard/base
	     3) standard/beaglebone
	     4) standard/edgerouter
	     5) standard/fsl-mpc8315e-rdb
	     6) standard/mti-malta32
	     7) standard/mti-malta64
	     8) standard/qemuarm64
	     9) standard/qemuppc
     1
     Would you like SMP support? (y/n) [default: y]
     Does your BSP have a touchscreen? (y/n) [default: n]
     Does your BSP have a keyboard? (y/n) [default: y]

     New qemu BSP created in meta-myarm
                    

Take a closer look at the example now:

  1. For the QEMU architecture, the script first prompts you for which emulated architecture to use. In the example, we use the ARM architecture.

  2. The script then prompts you for the kernel. The default 4.8 kernel is acceptable. So, the example accepts the default. If you enter 'n', the script prompts you to further enter the kernel you do want to use.

  3. Next, the script asks whether you would like to have a new branch created especially for your BSP in the local Linux Yocto Kernel Git repository . If not, then the script re-uses an existing branch.

    In this example, the default (or "yes") is accepted. Thus, a new branch is created for the BSP rather than using a common, shared branch. The new branch is the branch committed to for any patches you might later add. The reason a new branch is the default is that typically new BSPs do require BSP-specific patches. The tool thus assumes that most of time a new branch is required.

  4. Regardless of which choice you make in the previous step, you are now given the opportunity to select a particular machine branch on which to base your new BSP-specific machine branch (or to re-use if you had elected to not create a new branch). Because this example is generating an ARM-based BSP, the example uses #1 at the prompt, which selects the ARM-versatile branch.

  5. The remainder of the prompts are routine. Defaults are accepted for each.

  6. By default, the script creates the new BSP Layer in the current working directory of the Source Directory, (i.e. poky/build).

Once the BSP Layer is created, you must add it to your bblayers.conf file. Here is an example:

     BBLAYERS = ? " \
        /usr/local/src/yocto/meta \
        /usr/local/src/yocto/meta-poky \
        /usr/local/src/yocto/meta-yocto-bsp \
        /usr/local/src/yocto/meta-myarm \
        "
                    

Adding the layer to this file allows the build system to build the BSP and the yocto-kernel tool to be able to find the layer and other Metadata it needs on which to operate.

11.6.3. Managing Kernel Patches and Config Items with yocto-kernel

Assuming you have created a BSP Layer using yocto-bsp and you added it to your BBLAYERS variable in the bblayers.conf file, you can now use the yocto-kernel script to add patches and configuration items to the BSP's kernel.

The yocto-kernel script allows you to add, remove, and list patches and kernel config settings to a BSP's kernel .bbappend file. All you need to do is use the appropriate sub-command. Recall that the easiest way to see exactly what sub-commands are available is to use the yocto-kernel built-in help as follows:

     $ yocto-kernel --help
     Usage:

      Modify and list Yocto BSP kernel config items and patches.

      usage: yocto-kernel [--version] [--help] COMMAND [ARGS]

      Current 'yocto-kernel' commands are:
        config list       List the modifiable set of bare kernel config options for a BSP
        config add        Add or modify bare kernel config options for a BSP
        config rm         Remove bare kernel config options from a BSP
        patch list        List the patches associated with a BSP
        patch add         Patch the Yocto kernel for a BSP
        patch rm          Remove patches from a BSP
        feature list      List the features used by a BSP
        feature add       Have a BSP use a feature
        feature rm        Have a BSP stop using a feature
        features list     List the features available to BSPs
        feature describe  Describe a particular feature
        feature create    Create a new BSP-local feature
        feature destroy   Remove a BSP-local feature

      See 'yocto-kernel help COMMAND' for more information on a specific command.



     Options:
       --version    show program's version number and exit
       -h, --help   show this help message and exit
       -D, --debug  output debug information
                    

The yocto-kernel patch add sub-command allows you to add a patch to a BSP. The following example adds two patches to the myarm BSP:

     $ yocto-kernel patch add myarm ~/test.patch
     Added patches:
       test.patch

     $ yocto-kernel patch add myarm ~/yocto-testmod.patch
     Added patches:
       yocto-testmod.patch
                    

Note

Although the previous example adds patches one at a time, it is possible to add multiple patches at the same time.

You can verify patches have been added by using the yocto-kernel patch list sub-command. Here is an example:

     $ yocto-kernel patch list myarm
     The current set of machine-specific patches for myarm is:
       1) test.patch
       2) yocto-testmod.patch
                    

You can also use the yocto-kernel script to remove a patch using the yocto-kernel patch rm sub-command. Here is an example:

     $ yocto-kernel patch rm myarm
     Specify the patches to remove:
       1) test.patch
       2) yocto-testmod.patch
     1
     Removed patches:
       test.patch
                    

Again, using the yocto-kernel patch list sub-command, you can verify that the patch was in fact removed:

     $ yocto-kernel patch list myarm
     The current set of machine-specific patches for myarm is:
       1) yocto-testmod.patch
                    

In a completely similar way, you can use the yocto-kernel config add sub-command to add one or more kernel config item settings to a BSP. The following commands add a couple of config items to the myarm BSP:

     $ yocto-kernel config add myarm CONFIG_MISC_DEVICES=y
     Added item:
       CONFIG_MISC_DEVICES=y

     $ yocto-kernel config add myarm CONFIG_YOCTO_TESTMOD=y
     Added item:
       CONFIG_YOCTO_TESTMOD=y
                    

Note

Although the previous example adds config items one at a time, it is possible to add multiple config items at the same time.

You can list the config items now associated with the BSP. Doing so shows you the config items you added as well as others associated with the BSP:

     $ yocto-kernel config list myarm
     The current set of machine-specific kernel config items for myarm is:
             1) CONFIG_MISC_DEVICES=y
             2) CONFIG_YOCTO_TESTMOD=y
                    

Finally, you can remove one or more config items using the yocto-kernel config rm sub-command in a manner completely analogous to yocto-kernel patch rm.

Chapter 12. Introduction

12.1. Overview

Regardless of how you intend to make use of the Yocto Project, chances are you will work with the Linux kernel. This manual provides background information on the Yocto Linux kernel Metadata, describes common tasks you can perform using the kernel tools, and shows you how to use the kernel Metadata needed to work with the kernel inside the Yocto Project.

Each Yocto Project release has a set of linux-yocto recipes, whose Git repositories you can view in the Yocto Source Repositories under the "Yocto Linux Kernel" heading. New recipes for the release track the latest upstream developments and introduce newly-supported platforms. Previous recipes in the release are refreshed and supported for at least one additional release. As they align, these previous releases are updated to include the latest from the Long Term Support Initiative (LTSI) project. Also included is a linux-yocto development recipe (linux-yocto-dev.bb) should you want to work with the very latest in upstream Linux kernel development and kernel Metadata development.

The Yocto Project also provides a powerful set of kernel tools for managing Linux kernel sources and configuration data. You can use these tools to make a single configuration change, apply multiple patches, or work with your own kernel sources.

In particular, the kernel tools allow you to generate configuration fragments that specify only what you must, and nothing more. Configuration fragments only need to contain the highest level visible CONFIG options as presented by the Linux kernel menuconfig system. Contrast this against a complete Linux kernel .config, which includes all the automatically selected CONFIG options. This efficiency reduces your maintenance effort and allows you to further separate your configuration in ways that make sense for your project. A common split separates policy and hardware. For example, all your kernels might support the proc and sys filesystems, but only specific boards require sound, USB, or specific drivers. Specifying these configurations individually allows you to aggregate them together as needed, but maintains them in only one place. Similar logic applies to separating source changes.

If you do not maintain your own kernel sources and need to make only minimal changes to the sources, the released recipes provide a vetted base upon which to layer your changes. Doing so allows you to benefit from the continual kernel integration and testing performed during development of the Yocto Project.

If, instead, you have a very specific Linux kernel source tree and are unable to align with one of the official linux-yocto recipes, an alternative exists by which you can use the Yocto Project Linux kernel tools with your own kernel sources.

12.2. Other Resources

The sections that follow provide instructions for completing specific Linux kernel development tasks. These instructions assume you are comfortable working with BitBake recipes and basic open-source development tools. Understanding these concepts will facilitate the process of working with the kernel recipes. If you find you need some additional background, please be sure to review and understand the following documentation:

Finally, while this document focuses on the manual creation of recipes, patches, and configuration files, the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) tools are available to automate this process with existing content and work well to create the initial framework and boilerplate code. For details on these tools, see the "Using the Yocto Project's BSP Tools" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide.

Chapter 13. Common Tasks

This chapter presents several common tasks you perform when you work with the Yocto Project Linux kernel. These tasks include preparing a layer, modifying an existing recipe, iterative development, working with your own sources, and incorporating out-of-tree modules.

Note

The examples presented in this chapter work with the Yocto Project 1.2.2 Release and forward.

13.1. Creating and Preparing a Layer

If you are going to be modifying kernel recipes, it is recommended that you create and prepare your own layer in which to do your work. Your layer contains its own BitBake append files (.bbappend) and provides a convenient mechanism to create your own recipe files (.bb). For details on how to create and work with layers, see the "Understanding and Creating Layers" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

Tip

The Yocto Project comes with many tools that simplify tasks you need to perform. One such tool is the yocto-layer create script, which simplifies creating a new layer. See the "Creating a General Layer Using the yocto-layer Script" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information.

13.2. Modifying an Existing Recipe

In many cases, you can customize an existing linux-yocto recipe to meet the needs of your project. Each release of the Yocto Project provides a few Linux kernel recipes from which you can choose. These are located in the Source Directory in meta/recipes-kernel/linux.

Modifying an existing recipe can consist of the following:

  • Creating the append file

  • Applying patches

  • Changing the configuration

Before modifying an existing recipe, be sure that you have created a minimal, custom layer from which you can work. See the "Creating and Preparing a Layer" section for some general resources. You can also see the "Set Up Your Layer for the Build" section of the Yocto Project Development Manual for a detailed example.

13.2.1. Creating the Append File

You create this file in your custom layer. You also name it accordingly based on the linux-yocto recipe you are using. For example, if you are modifying the meta/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto_4.4.bb recipe, the append file will typically be located as follows within your custom layer:

     your-layer/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto_4.4.bbappend
                

The append file should initially extend the FILESPATH search path by prepending the directory that contains your files to the FILESEXTRAPATHS variable as follows:

     FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/${PN}:"
                

The path ${THISDIR}/${PN} expands to "linux-yocto" in the current directory for this example. If you add any new files that modify the kernel recipe and you have extended FILESPATH as described above, you must place the files in your layer in the following area:

     your-layer/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto/
                

Note

If you are working on a new machine Board Support Package (BSP), be sure to refer to the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide.

As an example, consider the following append file used by the BSPs in meta-yocto-bsp:

     meta-yocto-bsp/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto_4.4.bbappend
                

The following listing shows the file. Be aware that the actual commit ID strings in this example listing might be different than the actual strings in the file from the meta-yocto-bsp layer upstream.

     KBRANCH_genericx86  = "standard/base"
     KBRANCH_genericx86-64  = "standard/base"

     KMACHINE_genericx86 ?= "common-pc"
     KMACHINE_genericx86-64 ?= "common-pc-64"
     KBRANCH_edgerouter = "standard/edgerouter"
     KBRANCH_beaglebone = "standard/beaglebone"
     KBRANCH_mpc8315e-rdb = "standard/fsl-mpc8315e-rdb"

     SRCREV_machine_genericx86    ?= "ad8b1d659ddd2699ebf7d50ef9de8940b157bfc2"
     SRCREV_machine_genericx86-64 ?= "ad8b1d659ddd2699ebf7d50ef9de8940b157bfc2"
     SRCREV_machine_edgerouter ?= "cebe1ad56aebd89e0de29412e19433fb441bf13c"
     SRCREV_machine_beaglebone ?= "cebe1ad56aebd89e0de29412e19433fb441bf13c"
     SRCREV_machine_mpc8315e-rdb ?= "06c0dbdcba374ca7f92a53d69292d6bb7bc9b0f3"

     COMPATIBLE_MACHINE_genericx86 = "genericx86"
     COMPATIBLE_MACHINE_genericx86-64 = "genericx86-64"
     COMPATIBLE_MACHINE_edgerouter = "edgerouter"
     COMPATIBLE_MACHINE_beaglebone = "beaglebone"
     COMPATIBLE_MACHINE_mpc8315e-rdb = "mpc8315e-rdb"

     LINUX_VERSION_genericx86 = "4.4.41"
     LINUX_VERSION_genericx86-64 = "4.4.41"
     LINUX_VERSION_edgerouter = "4.4.53"
     LINUX_VERSION_beaglebone = "4.4.53"
     LINUX_VERSION_mpc8315e-rdb = "4.4.53"
                

This append file contains statements used to support several BSPs that ship with the Yocto Project. The file defines machines using the COMPATIBLE_MACHINE variable and uses the KMACHINE variable to ensure the machine name used by the OpenEmbedded build system maps to the machine name used by the Linux Yocto kernel. The file also uses the optional KBRANCH variable to ensure the build process uses the appropriate kernel branch.

Although this particular example does not use it, the KERNEL_FEATURES variable could be used to enable features specific to the kernel. The append file points to specific commits in the Source Directory Git repository and the meta Git repository branches to identify the exact kernel needed to build the BSP.

One thing missing in this particular BSP, which you will typically need when developing a BSP, is the kernel configuration file (.config) for your BSP. When developing a BSP, you probably have a kernel configuration file or a set of kernel configuration files that, when taken together, define the kernel configuration for your BSP. You can accomplish this definition by putting the configurations in a file or a set of files inside a directory located at the same level as your kernel's append file and having the same name as the kernel's main recipe file. With all these conditions met, simply reference those files in the SRC_URI statement in the append file.

For example, suppose you had some configuration options in a file called network_configs.cfg. You can place that file inside a directory named linux-yocto and then add a SRC_URI statement such as the following to the append file. When the OpenEmbedded build system builds the kernel, the configuration options are picked up and applied.

     SRC_URI += "file://network_configs.cfg"
                

To group related configurations into multiple files, you perform a similar procedure. Here is an example that groups separate configurations specifically for Ethernet and graphics into their own files and adds the configurations by using a SRC_URI statement like the following in your append file:

     SRC_URI += "file://myconfig.cfg \
                 file://eth.cfg \
                 file://gfx.cfg"
                

Another variable you can use in your kernel recipe append file is the FILESEXTRAPATHS variable. When you use this statement, you are extending the locations used by the OpenEmbedded system to look for files and patches as the recipe is processed.

Note

Other methods exist to accomplish grouping and defining configuration options. For example, if you are working with a local clone of the kernel repository, you could checkout the kernel's meta branch, make your changes, and then push the changes to the local bare clone of the kernel. The result is that you directly add configuration options to the meta branch for your BSP. The configuration options will likely end up in that location anyway if the BSP gets added to the Yocto Project.

In general, however, the Yocto Project maintainers take care of moving the SRC_URI-specified configuration options to the kernel's meta branch. Not only is it easier for BSP developers to not have to worry about putting those configurations in the branch, but having the maintainers do it allows them to apply 'global' knowledge about the kinds of common configuration options multiple BSPs in the tree are typically using. This allows for promotion of common configurations into common features.

13.2.2. Applying Patches

If you have a single patch or a small series of patches that you want to apply to the Linux kernel source, you can do so just as you would with any other recipe. You first copy the patches to the path added to FILESEXTRAPATHS in your .bbappend file as described in the previous section, and then reference them in SRC_URI statements.

For example, you can apply a three-patch series by adding the following lines to your linux-yocto .bbappend file in your layer:

     SRC_URI += "file://0001-first-change.patch"
     SRC_URI += "file://0002-second-change.patch"
     SRC_URI += "file://0003-third-change.patch"
                

The next time you run BitBake to build the Linux kernel, BitBake detects the change in the recipe and fetches and applies the patches before building the kernel.

For a detailed example showing how to patch the kernel, see the "Patching the Kernel" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

13.2.3. Changing the Configuration

You can make wholesale or incremental changes to the final .config file used for the eventual Linux kernel configuration by including a defconfig file and by specifying configuration fragments in the SRC_URI to be applied to that file.

If you have a complete, working Linux kernel .config file you want to use for the configuration, as before, copy that file to the appropriate ${PN} directory in your layer's recipes-kernel/linux directory, and rename the copied file to "defconfig". Then, add the following lines to the linux-yocto .bbappend file in your layer:

     FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/${PN}:"
     SRC_URI += "file://defconfig"
                

The SRC_URI tells the build system how to search for the file, while the FILESEXTRAPATHS extends the FILESPATH variable (search directories) to include the ${PN} directory you created to hold the configuration changes.

Note

The build system applies the configurations from the defconfig file before applying any subsequent configuration fragments. The final kernel configuration is a combination of the configurations in the defconfig file and any configuration fragments you provide. You need to realize that if you have any configuration fragments, the build system applies these on top of and after applying the existing defconfig file configurations.

Generally speaking, the preferred approach is to determine the incremental change you want to make and add that as a configuration fragment. For example, if you want to add support for a basic serial console, create a file named 8250.cfg in the ${PN} directory with the following content (without indentation):

     CONFIG_SERIAL_8250=y
     CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_CONSOLE=y
     CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_PCI=y
     CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_NR_UARTS=4
     CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_RUNTIME_UARTS=4
     CONFIG_SERIAL_CORE=y
     CONFIG_SERIAL_CORE_CONSOLE=y
                

Next, include this configuration fragment and extend the FILESPATH variable in your .bbappend file:

     FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/${PN}:"
     SRC_URI += "file://8250.cfg"
                

The next time you run BitBake to build the Linux kernel, BitBake detects the change in the recipe and fetches and applies the new configuration before building the kernel.

For a detailed example showing how to configure the kernel, see the "Configuring the Kernel" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

13.2.4. Using an "In-Tree"  defconfig File

It might be desirable to have kernel configuration fragment support through a defconfig file that is pulled from the kernel source tree for the configured machine. By default, the OpenEmbedded build system looks for defconfig files in the layer used for Metadata, which is "out-of-tree", and then configures them using the following:

     SRC_URI += "file://defconfig"
                

If you do not want to maintain copies of defconfig files in your layer but would rather allow users to use the default configuration from the kernel tree and still be able to add configuration fragments to the SRC_URI through, for example, append files, you can direct the OpenEmbedded build system to use a defconfig file that is "in-tree".

To specify an "in-tree" defconfig file, edit the recipe that builds your kernel so that it has the following command form:

     KBUILD_DEFCONFIG_KMACHINE ?= defconfig_file
                

You need to append the variable with KMACHINE and then supply the path to your "in-tree" defconfig file.

Aside from modifying your kernel recipe and providing your own defconfig file, you need to be sure no files or statements set SRC_URI to use a defconfig other than your "in-tree" file (e.g. a kernel's linux-machine.inc file). In other words, if the build system detects a statement that identifies an "out-of-tree" defconfig file, that statement will override your KBUILD_DEFCONFIG variable.

See the KBUILD_DEFCONFIG variable description for more information.

13.3. Using an Iterative Development Process

If you do not have existing patches or configuration files, you can iteratively generate them from within the BitBake build environment as described within this section. During an iterative workflow, running a previously completed BitBake task causes BitBake to invalidate the tasks that follow the completed task in the build sequence. Invalidated tasks rebuild the next time you run the build using BitBake.

As you read this section, be sure to substitute the name of your Linux kernel recipe for the term "linux-yocto".

13.3.1. "-dirty" String

If kernel images are being built with "-dirty" on the end of the version string, this simply means that modifications in the source directory have not been committed.

     $ git status
                

You can use the above Git command to report modified, removed, or added files. You should commit those changes to the tree regardless of whether they will be saved, exported, or used. Once you commit the changes, you need to rebuild the kernel.

To force a pickup and commit of all such pending changes, enter the following:

     $ git add .
     $ git commit -s -a -m "getting rid of -dirty"
                

Next, rebuild the kernel.

13.3.2. Generating Configuration Files

You can manipulate the .config file used to build a linux-yocto recipe with the menuconfig command as follows:

     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c menuconfig
                

This command starts the Linux kernel configuration tool, which allows you to prepare a new .config file for the build. When you exit the tool, be sure to save your changes at the prompt.

The resulting .config file is located in the build directory, ${B}, which expands to ${WORKDIR}/linux-${PACKAGE_ARCH}-${LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE}-build. You can use the entire .config file as the defconfig file as described in the "Changing the Configuration" section. For more information on the .config file, see the "Using menuconfig" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

Note

You can determine what a variable expands to by looking at the output of the bitbake -e command:
     $ bitbake -e virtual/kernel
                    
Search the output for the variable in which you are interested to see exactly how it is expanded and used.

A better method is to create a configuration fragment using the differences between two configuration files: one previously created and saved, and one freshly created using the menuconfig tool.

To create a configuration fragment using this method, follow these steps:

  1. Complete a build at least through the kernel configuration task as follows:

         $ bitbake linux-yocto -c kernel_configme -f
                            

    This step ensures that you will be creating a .config file from a known state. Because situations exist where your build state might become unknown, it is best to run the previous command prior to starting up menuconfig.

  2. Run the menuconfig command:

         $ bitbake linux-yocto -c menuconfig
                            
  3. Run the diffconfig command to prepare a configuration fragment. The resulting file fragment.cfg will be placed in the ${WORKDIR} directory:

         $ bitbake linux-yocto -c diffconfig
                            

The diffconfig command creates a file that is a list of Linux kernel CONFIG_ assignments. See the "Changing the Configuration" section for information on how to use the output as a configuration fragment.

Note

You can also use this method to create configuration fragments for a BSP. See the "BSP Descriptions" section for more information.

The kernel tools also provide configuration validation. You can use these tools to produce warnings for when a requested configuration does not appear in the final .config file or when you override a policy configuration in a hardware configuration fragment. Here is an example with some sample output of the command that runs these tools:

     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c kernel_configcheck -f

     ...

     NOTE: validating kernel configuration
     This BSP sets 3 invalid/obsolete kernel options.
     These config options are not offered anywhere within this kernel.
     The full list can be found in your kernel src dir at:
     meta/cfg/standard/mybsp/invalid.cfg

     This BSP sets 21 kernel options that are possibly non-hardware related.
     The full list can be found in your kernel src dir at:
     meta/cfg/standard/mybsp/specified_non_hdw.cfg

     WARNING: There were 2 hardware options requested that do not
              have a corresponding value present in the final ".config" file.
              This probably means you are not getting the config you wanted.
              The full list can be found in your kernel src dir at:
              meta/cfg/standard/mybsp/mismatch.cfg
                

The output describes the various problems that you can encounter along with where to find the offending configuration items. You can use the information in the logs to adjust your configuration files and then repeat the kernel_configme and kernel_configcheck commands until they produce no warnings.

For more information on how to use the menuconfig tool, see the "Using menuconfig" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

13.3.3. Modifying Source Code

You can experiment with source code changes and create a simple patch without leaving the BitBake environment. To get started, be sure to complete a build at least through the kernel configuration task:

     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c kernel_configme -f
                

Taking this step ensures you have the sources prepared and the configuration completed. You can find the sources in the build directory within the source/ directory, which is a symlink (i.e. ${B}/source). The source/ directory expands to ${WORKDIR}/linux-${PACKAGE_ARCH}-${LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE}-build/source. The directory pointed to by the source/ symlink is also known as ${STAGING_KERNEL_DIR}.

You can edit the sources as you would any other Linux source tree. However, keep in mind that you will lose changes if you trigger the do_fetch task for the recipe. You can avoid triggering this task by not using BitBake to run the cleanall, cleansstate, or forced fetch commands. Also, do not modify the recipe itself while working with temporary changes or BitBake might run the fetch command depending on the changes to the recipe.

To test your temporary changes, instruct BitBake to run the compile again. The -f option forces the command to run even though BitBake might think it has already done so:

     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c compile -f
                

If the compile fails, you can update the sources and repeat the compile. Once compilation is successful, you can inspect and test the resulting build (i.e. kernel, modules, and so forth) from the following build directory:

     ${WORKDIR}/linux-${PACKAGE_ARCH}-${LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE}-build
                

Alternatively, you can run the deploy command to place the kernel image in the tmp/deploy/images directory:

	$ bitbake linux-yocto -c deploy
                

And, of course, you can perform the remaining installation and packaging steps by issuing:

	$ bitbake linux-yocto
                

For rapid iterative development, the edit-compile-repeat loop described in this section is preferable to rebuilding the entire recipe because the installation and packaging tasks are very time consuming.

Once you are satisfied with your source code modifications, you can make them permanent by generating patches and applying them to the SRC_URI statement as described in the "Applying Patches" section. If you are not familiar with generating patches, refer to the "Creating the Patch" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

13.4. Working With Your Own Sources

If you cannot work with one of the Linux kernel versions supported by existing linux-yocto recipes, you can still make use of the Yocto Project Linux kernel tooling by working with your own sources. When you use your own sources, you will not be able to leverage the existing kernel Metadata and stabilization work of the linux-yocto sources. However, you will be able to manage your own Metadata in the same format as the linux-yocto sources. Maintaining format compatibility facilitates converging with linux-yocto on a future, mutually-supported kernel version.

To help you use your own sources, the Yocto Project provides a linux-yocto custom recipe (linux-yocto-custom.bb) that uses kernel.org sources and the Yocto Project Linux kernel tools for managing kernel Metadata. You can find this recipe in the poky Git repository of the Yocto Project Source Repository at:

     poky/meta-skeleton/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto-custom.bb
            

Here are some basic steps you can use to work with your own sources:

  1. Copy the linux-yocto-custom.bb recipe to your layer and give it a meaningful name. The name should include the version of the Linux kernel you are using (e.g. linux-yocto-myproject_3.19.bb, where "3.19" is the base version of the Linux kernel with which you would be working).

  2. In the same directory inside your layer, create a matching directory to store your patches and configuration files (e.g. linux-yocto-myproject).

  3. Make sure you have either a defconfig file or configuration fragment files. When you use the linux-yocto-custom.bb recipe, you must specify a configuration. If you do not have a defconfig file, you can run the following:

         $ make defconfig
                        

    After running the command, copy the resulting .config to the files directory as "defconfig" and then add it to the SRC_URI variable in the recipe.

    Running the make defconfig command results in the default configuration for your architecture as defined by your kernel. However, no guarantee exists that this configuration is valid for your use case, or that your board will even boot. This is particularly true for non-x86 architectures. To use non-x86 defconfig files, you need to be more specific and find one that matches your board (i.e. for arm, you look in arch/arm/configs and use the one that is the best starting point for your board).

  4. Edit the following variables in your recipe as appropriate for your project:

    • SRC_URI: The SRC_URI should specify a Git repository that uses one of the supported Git fetcher protocols (i.e. file, git, http, and so forth). The SRC_URI variable should also specify either a defconfig file or some configuration fragment files. The skeleton recipe provides an example SRC_URI as a syntax reference.

    • LINUX_VERSION: The Linux kernel version you are using (e.g. "3.19").

    • LINUX_VERSION_EXTENSION: The Linux kernel CONFIG_LOCALVERSION that is compiled into the resulting kernel and visible through the uname command.

    • SRCREV: The commit ID from which you want to build.

    • PR: Treat this variable the same as you would in any other recipe. Increment the variable to indicate to the OpenEmbedded build system that the recipe has changed.

    • PV: The default PV assignment is typically adequate. It combines the LINUX_VERSION with the Source Control Manager (SCM) revision as derived from the SRCPV variable. The combined results are a string with the following form:

           3.19.11+git1+68a635bf8dfb64b02263c1ac80c948647cc76d5f_1+218bd8d2022b9852c60d32f0d770931e3cf343e2
                                  

      While lengthy, the extra verbosity in PV helps ensure you are using the exact sources from which you intend to build.

    • COMPATIBLE_MACHINE: A list of the machines supported by your new recipe. This variable in the example recipe is set by default to a regular expression that matches only the empty string, "(^$)". This default setting triggers an explicit build failure. You must change it to match a list of the machines that your new recipe supports. For example, to support the qemux86 and qemux86-64 machines, use the following form:

           COMPATIBLE_MACHINE = "qemux86|qemux86-64"
                                  
  5. Provide further customizations to your recipe as needed just as you would customize an existing linux-yocto recipe. See the "Modifying an Existing Recipe" section for information.

13.5. Working with Out-of-Tree Modules

This section describes steps to build out-of-tree modules on your target and describes how to incorporate out-of-tree modules in the build.

13.5.1. Building Out-of-Tree Modules on the Target

While the traditional Yocto Project development model would be to include kernel modules as part of the normal build process, you might find it useful to build modules on the target. This could be the case if your target system is capable and powerful enough to handle the necessary compilation. Before deciding to build on your target, however, you should consider the benefits of using a proper cross-development environment from your build host.

If you want to be able to build out-of-tree modules on the target, there are some steps you need to take on the target that is running your SDK image. Briefly, the kernel-dev package is installed by default on all *.sdk images and the kernel-devsrc package is installed on many of the *.sdk images. However, you need to create some scripts prior to attempting to build the out-of-tree modules on the target that is running that image.

Prior to attempting to build the out-of-tree modules, you need to be on the target as root and you need to change to the /usr/src/kernel directory. Next, make the scripts:

     # cd /usr/src/kernel
     # make scripts
                

Because all SDK image recipes include dev-pkgs, the kernel-dev packages will be installed as part of the SDK image and the kernel-devsrc packages will be installed as part of applicable SDK images. The SDK uses the scripts when building out-of-tree modules. Once you have switched to that directory and created the scripts, you should be able to build your out-of-tree modules on the target.

13.5.2. Incorporating Out-of-Tree Modules

While it is always preferable to work with sources integrated into the Linux kernel sources, if you need an external kernel module, the hello-mod.bb recipe is available as a template from which you can create your own out-of-tree Linux kernel module recipe.

This template recipe is located in the poky Git repository of the Yocto Project Source Repository at:

     poky/meta-skeleton/recipes-kernel/hello-mod/hello-mod_0.1.bb
                

To get started, copy this recipe to your layer and give it a meaningful name (e.g. mymodule_1.0.bb). In the same directory, create a new directory named files where you can store any source files, patches, or other files necessary for building the module that do not come with the sources. Finally, update the recipe as needed for the module. Typically, you will need to set the following variables:

Depending on the build system used by the module sources, you might need to make some adjustments. For example, a typical module Makefile looks much like the one provided with the hello-mod template:

     obj-m := hello.o

     SRC := $(shell pwd)

     all:
         $(MAKE) -C $(KERNEL_SRC) M=$(SRC)

     modules_install:
         $(MAKE) -C $(KERNEL_SRC) M=$(SRC) modules_install
     ...
                

The important point to note here is the KERNEL_SRC variable. The module class sets this variable and the KERNEL_PATH variable to ${STAGING_KERNEL_DIR} with the necessary Linux kernel build information to build modules. If your module Makefile uses a different variable, you might want to override the do_compile() step, or create a patch to the Makefile to work with the more typical KERNEL_SRC or KERNEL_PATH variables.

After you have prepared your recipe, you will likely want to include the module in your images. To do this, see the documentation for the following variables in the Yocto Project Reference Manual and set one of them appropriately for your machine configuration file:

Modules are often not required for boot and can be excluded from certain build configurations. The following allows for the most flexibility:

     MACHINE_EXTRA_RRECOMMENDS += "kernel-module-mymodule"
                

The value is derived by appending the module filename without the .ko extension to the string "kernel-module-".

Because the variable is RRECOMMENDS and not a RDEPENDS variable, the build will not fail if this module is not available to include in the image.

13.6. Inspecting Changes and Commits

A common question when working with a kernel is: "What changes have been applied to this tree?" Rather than using "grep" across directories to see what has changed, you can use Git to inspect or search the kernel tree. Using Git is an efficient way to see what has changed in the tree.

13.6.1. What Changed in a Kernel?

Following are a few examples that show how to use Git commands to examine changes. These examples are by no means the only way to see changes.

Note

In the following examples, unless you provide a commit range, kernel.org history is blended with Yocto Project kernel changes. You can form ranges by using branch names from the kernel tree as the upper and lower commit markers with the Git commands. You can see the branch names through the web interface to the Yocto Project source repositories at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi.

To see a full range of the changes, use the git whatchanged command and specify a commit range for the branch (commit..commit).

Here is an example that looks at what has changed in the emenlow branch of the linux-yocto-3.19 kernel. The lower commit range is the commit associated with the standard/base branch, while the upper commit range is the commit associated with the standard/emenlow branch.

     $ git whatchanged origin/standard/base..origin/standard/emenlow
                

To see short, one line summaries of changes use the git log command:

     $ git log --oneline origin/standard/base..origin/standard/emenlow
                

Use this command to see code differences for the changes:

     $ git diff origin/standard/base..origin/standard/emenlow
                

Use this command to see the commit log messages and the text differences:

     $ git show origin/standard/base..origin/standard/emenlow
                

Use this command to create individual patches for each change. Here is an example that that creates patch files for each commit and places them in your Documents directory:

     $ git format-patch -o $HOME/Documents origin/standard/base..origin/standard/emenlow
                

13.6.2. Showing a Particular Feature or Branch Change

Tags in the Yocto Project kernel tree divide changes for significant features or branches. The git show tag command shows changes based on a tag. Here is an example that shows systemtap changes:

     $ git show systemtap
                

You can use the git branch --contains tag command to show the branches that contain a particular feature. This command shows the branches that contain the systemtap feature:

     $ git branch --contains systemtap
                

13.7. Adding Recipe-Space Kernel Features

You can add kernel features in the recipe-space by using the KERNEL_FEATURES variable and by specifying the feature's .scc file path in the SRC_URI statement. When you add features using this method, the OpenEmbedded build system checks to be sure the features are present. If the features are not present, the build stops. Kernel features are the last elements processed for configuring and patching the kernel. Therefore, adding features in this manner is a way to enforce specific features are present and enabled without needing to do a full audit of any other layer's additions to the SRC_URI statement.

You add a kernel feature by providing the feature as part of the KERNEL_FEATURES variable and by providing the path to the feature's .scc file, which is relative to the root of the kernel Metadata. The OpenEmbedded build system searches all forms of kernel Metadata on the SRC_URI statement regardless of whether the Metadata is in the "kernel-cache", system kernel Metadata, or a recipe-space Metadata. See the "Kernel Metadata Location" section for additional information.

When you specify the feature's .scc file on the SRC_URI statement, the OpenEmbedded build system adds the directory of that .scc file along with all its subdirectories to the kernel feature search path. Because subdirectories are searched, you can reference a single .scc file in the SRC_URI statement to reference multiple kernel features.

Consider the following example that adds the "test.scc" feature to the build.

  1. Create a .scc file and locate it just as you would any other patch file, .cfg file, or fetcher item you specify in the SRC_URI statement.

    Notes

    • You must add the directory of the .scc file to the fetcher's search path in the same manner as you would add a .patch file.

    • You can create additional .scc files beneath the directory that contains the file you are adding. All subdirectories are searched during the build as potential feature directories.

    Continuing with the example, suppose the "test.scc" feature you are adding has a test.scc file in the following directory:

         my_recipe
            |
            +-linux-yocto
               |
               +-test.cfg
               +-test.scc
                        

    In this example, the linux-yocto directory has both the feature test.scc file and a similarly named configuration fragment file test.cfg.

  2. Add the .scc file to the recipe's SRC_URI statement:

         SRC_URI_append = " file://test.scc"
                        

    The leading space before the path is important as the path is appended to the existing path.

  3. Specify the feature as a kernel feature:

         KERNEL_FEATURES_append = " test.scc"
                        

    The OpenEmbedded build system processes the kernel feature when it builds the kernel.

    Note

    If other features are contained below "test.scc", then their directories are relative to the directory containing the test.scc file.

Chapter 14. Working with Advanced Metadata

14.1. Overview

In addition to supporting configuration fragments and patches, the Yocto Project kernel tools also support rich Metadata that you can use to define complex policies and Board Support Package (BSP) support. The purpose of the Metadata and the tools that manage it, known as the kern-tools (kern-tools-native_git.bb), is to help you manage the complexity of the configuration and sources used to support multiple BSPs and Linux kernel types.

14.2. Using Kernel Metadata in a Recipe

The kernel sources in the Yocto Project contain kernel Metadata, which is located in the meta branches of the kernel source Git repositories. This Metadata defines Board Support Packages (BSPs) that correspond to definitions in linux-yocto recipes for the same BSPs. A BSP consists of an aggregation of kernel policy and enabled hardware-specific features. The BSP can be influenced from within the linux-yocto recipe.

Note

Linux kernel source that contains kernel Metadata is said to be "linux-yocto style" kernel source. A Linux kernel recipe that inherits from the linux-yocto.inc include file is said to be a "linux-yocto style" recipe.

Every linux-yocto style recipe must define the KMACHINE variable. This variable is typically set to the same value as the MACHINE variable, which is used by BitBake. However, in some cases, the variable might instead refer to the underlying platform of the MACHINE.

Multiple BSPs can reuse the same KMACHINE name if they are built using the same BSP description. The "ep108-zynqmp" and "qemuzynqmp" BSP combination in the meta-xilinx layer is a good example of two BSPs using the same KMACHINE value (i.e. "zynqmp"). See the BSP Descriptions section for more information.

Every linux-yocto style recipe must also indicate the Linux kernel source repository branch used to build the Linux kernel. The KBRANCH variable must be set to indicate the branch.

Note

You can use the KBRANCH value to define an alternate branch typically with a machine override as shown here from the meta-emenlow layer:
     KBRANCH_emenlow-noemgd = "standard/base"
            

The linux-yocto style recipes can optionally define the following variables:

     KERNEL_FEATURES
     LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE
        

LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE defines the kernel type to be used in assembling the configuration. If you do not specify a LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE, it defaults to "standard". Together with KMACHINE, LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE defines the search arguments used by the kernel tools to find the appropriate description within the kernel Metadata with which to build out the sources and configuration. The linux-yocto recipes define "standard", "tiny", and "preempt-rt" kernel types. See the "Kernel Types" section for more information on kernel types.

During the build, the kern-tools search for the BSP description file that most closely matches the KMACHINE and LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE variables passed in from the recipe. The tools use the first BSP description it finds that match both variables. If the tools cannot find a match, they issue a warning such as the following:

     WARNING: Can't find any BSP hardware or required configuration fragments.
     WARNING: Looked at meta/cfg/broken/emenlow-broken/hdw_frags.txt and
              meta/cfg/broken/emenlow-broken/required_frags.txt in directory:
              meta/cfg/broken/emenlow-broken
        

In this example, KMACHINE was set to "emenlow-broken" and LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE was set to "broken".

The tools first search for the KMACHINE and then for the LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE. If the tools cannot find a partial match, they will use the sources from the KBRANCH and any configuration specified in the SRC_URI.

You can use the KERNEL_FEATURES variable to include features (configuration fragments, patches, or both) that are not already included by the KMACHINE and LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE variable combination. For example, to include a feature specified as "features/netfilter/netfilter.scc", specify:

     KERNEL_FEATURES += "features/netfilter/netfilter.scc"
        

To include a feature called "cfg/sound.scc" just for the qemux86 machine, specify:

     KERNEL_FEATURES_append_qemux86 = " cfg/sound.scc"
        

The value of the entries in KERNEL_FEATURES are dependent on their location within the kernel Metadata itself. The examples here are taken from the meta branch of the linux-yocto-3.19 repository. Within that branch, "features" and "cfg" are subdirectories of the meta/cfg/kernel-cache directory. For more information, see the "Kernel Metadata Syntax" section.

Note

The processing of the these variables has evolved some between the 0.9 and 1.3 releases of the Yocto Project and associated kern-tools sources. The descriptions in this section are accurate for 1.3 and later releases of the Yocto Project.

14.3. Kernel Metadata Syntax

The kernel Metadata consists of three primary types of files: scc [1] description files, configuration fragments, and patches. The scc files define variables and include or otherwise reference any of the three file types. The description files are used to aggregate all types of kernel Metadata into what ultimately describes the sources and the configuration required to build a Linux kernel tailored to a specific machine.

The scc description files are used to define two fundamental types of kernel Metadata:

  • Features

  • Board Support Packages (BSPs)

Features aggregate sources in the form of patches and configuration fragments into a modular reusable unit. You can use features to implement conceptually separate kernel Metadata descriptions such as pure configuration fragments, simple patches, complex features, and kernel types. Kernel types define general kernel features and policy to be reused in the BSPs.

BSPs define hardware-specific features and aggregate them with kernel types to form the final description of what will be assembled and built.

While the kernel Metadata syntax does not enforce any logical separation of configuration fragments, patches, features or kernel types, best practices dictate a logical separation of these types of Metadata. The following Metadata file hierarchy is recommended:

     base/
        bsp/
        cfg/
        features/
        ktypes/
        patches/
        

The bsp directory contains the BSP descriptions. The remaining directories all contain "features". Separating bsp from the rest of the structure aids conceptualizing intended usage.

Use these guidelines to help place your scc description files within the structure:

  • If your file contains only configuration fragments, place the file in the cfg directory.

  • If your file contains only source-code fixes, place the file in the patches directory.

  • If your file encapsulates a major feature, often combining sources and configurations, place the file in features directory.

  • If your file aggregates non-hardware configuration and patches in order to define a base kernel policy or major kernel type to be reused across multiple BSPs, place the file in ktypes directory.

These distinctions can easily become blurred - especially as out-of-tree features slowly merge upstream over time. Also, remember that how the description files are placed is a purely logical organization and has no impact on the functionality of the kernel Metadata. There is no impact because all of cfg, features, patches, and ktypes, contain "features" as far as the kernel tools are concerned.

Paths used in kernel Metadata files are relative to <base>, which is either FILESEXTRAPATHS if you are creating Metadata in recipe-space, or meta/cfg/kernel-cache/ if you are creating Metadata outside of the recipe-space.

14.3.1. Configuration

The simplest unit of kernel Metadata is the configuration-only feature. This feature consists of one or more Linux kernel configuration parameters in a configuration fragment file (.cfg) and a .scc file that describes the fragment.

The Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) fragment included in the linux-yocto-3.19 Git repository consists of the following two files:

     cfg/smp.scc:
        define KFEATURE_DESCRIPTION "Enable SMP"
        define KFEATURE_COMPATIBILITY all

        kconf hardware smp.cfg

     cfg/smp.cfg:
        CONFIG_SMP=y
        CONFIG_SCHED_SMT=y
        # Increase default NR_CPUS from 8 to 64 so that platform with
        # more than 8 processors can be all activated at boot time
        CONFIG_NR_CPUS=64
            

You can find information on configuration fragment files in the "Creating Configuration Fragments" section of the Yocto Project Development Manual and in the "Generating Configuration Files" section earlier in this manual.

KFEATURE_DESCRIPTION provides a short description of the fragment. Higher level kernel tools use this description.

The kconf command is used to include the actual configuration fragment in an .scc file, and the "hardware" keyword identifies the fragment as being hardware enabling, as opposed to general policy, which would use the "non-hardware" keyword. The distinction is made for the benefit of the configuration validation tools, which warn you if a hardware fragment overrides a policy set by a non-hardware fragment.

Note

The description file can include multiple kconf statements, one per fragment.

As described in the "Generating Configuration Files" section, you can use the following BitBake command to audit your configuration:

     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c kernel_configcheck -f
            

14.3.2. Patches

Patch descriptions are very similar to configuration fragment descriptions, which are described in the previous section. However, instead of a .cfg file, these descriptions work with source patches.

A typical patch includes a description file and the patch itself:

     patches/mypatch.scc:
        patch mypatch.patch

     patches/mypatch.patch:
        typical-patch
            

You can create the typical .patch file using diff -Nurp or git format-patch.

The description file can include multiple patch statements, one per patch.

14.3.3. Features

Features are complex kernel Metadata types that consist of configuration fragments (kconf), patches (patch), and possibly other feature description files (include).

Here is an example that shows a feature description file:

     features/myfeature.scc
        define KFEATURE_DESCRIPTION "Enable myfeature"

        patch 0001-myfeature-core.patch
        patch 0002-myfeature-interface.patch

        include cfg/myfeature_dependency.scc
        kconf non-hardware myfeature.cfg
            

This example shows how the patch and kconf commands are used as well as how an additional feature description file is included.

Typically, features are less granular than configuration fragments and are more likely than configuration fragments and patches to be the types of things you want to specify in the KERNEL_FEATURES variable of the Linux kernel recipe. See the "Using Kernel Metadata in a Recipe" section earlier in the manual.

14.3.4. Kernel Types

A kernel type defines a high-level kernel policy by aggregating non-hardware configuration fragments with patches you want to use when building a Linux kernels of a specific type. Syntactically, kernel types are no different than features as described in the "Features" section. The LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE variable in the kernel recipe selects the kernel type. See the "Using Kernel Metadata in a Recipe" section for more information.

As an example, the linux-yocto-3.19 tree defines three kernel types: "standard", "tiny", and "preempt-rt":

  • "standard": Includes the generic Linux kernel policy of the Yocto Project linux-yocto kernel recipes. This policy includes, among other things, which file systems, networking options, core kernel features, and debugging and tracing options are supported.

  • "preempt-rt": Applies the PREEMPT_RT patches and the configuration options required to build a real-time Linux kernel. This kernel type inherits from the "standard" kernel type.

  • "tiny": Defines a bare minimum configuration meant to serve as a base for very small Linux kernels. The "tiny" kernel type is independent from the "standard" configuration. Although the "tiny" kernel type does not currently include any source changes, it might in the future.

The "standard" kernel type is defined by standard.scc:

     # Include this kernel type fragment to get the standard features and
     # configuration values.

     # Include all standard features
     include standard-nocfg.scc

     kconf non-hardware standard.cfg

     # individual cfg block section
     include cfg/fs/devtmpfs.scc
     include cfg/fs/debugfs.scc
     include cfg/fs/btrfs.scc
     include cfg/fs/ext2.scc
     include cfg/fs/ext3.scc
     include cfg/fs/ext4.scc

     include cfg/net/ipv6.scc
     include cfg/net/ip_nf.scc
     include cfg/net/ip6_nf.scc
     include cfg/net/bridge.scc
            

As with any .scc file, a kernel type definition can aggregate other .scc files with include commands. These definitions can also directly pull in configuration fragments and patches with the kconf and patch commands, respectively.

Note

It is not strictly necessary to create a kernel type .scc file. The Board Support Package (BSP) file can implicitly define the kernel type using a define KTYPE myktype line. See the "BSP Descriptions" section for more information.

14.3.5. BSP Descriptions

BSP descriptions (i.e. *.scc files) combine kernel types with hardware-specific features. The hardware-specific Metadata is typically defined independently in the BSP layer, and then aggregated with each supported kernel type.

Note

For BSPs supported by the Yocto Project, the BSP description files are located in the bsp directory of the yocto-kernel-cache repository organized under the "Yocto Linux Kernel" heading in the Yocto Project Source Repositories.

This section provides a BSP description structural overview along with aggregation concepts as well as a detailed example using a BSP supported by the Yocto Project (i.e. Minnow Board).

14.3.5.1. Overview

For simplicity, consider the following top-level BSP description file. Top-level BSP descriptions files employ both a structure and naming convention for consistency. The naming convention for the file is as follows:

     bsp_name-kernel_type.scc
                

Here are some example top-level BSP filenames for the Minnow Board BSP, which is supported by the Yocto Project:

     minnow-standard.scc
     minnow-preempt-rt.scc
     minnow-tiny.scc
                

Each file uses the BSP name followed by the kernel type.

is simple BSP description file whose name has the form mybsp-standard and supports the mybsp machine using a standard kernel:

     define KMACHINE mybsp
     define KTYPE standard
     define KARCH i386

     include ktypes/standard

     include mybsp.scc

     kconf hardware mybsp-extra.cfg
                

Every top-level BSP description file should define the KMACHINE, KTYPE, and KARCH variables. These variables allow the OpenEmbedded build system to identify the description as meeting the criteria set by the recipe being built. This simple example supports the "mybsp" machine for the "standard" kernel and the "i386" architecture.

Be aware that a hard link between the KTYPE variable and a kernel type description file does not exist. Thus, if you do not have kernel types defined in your kernel Metadata, you only need to ensure that the kernel recipe's LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE variable and the KTYPE variable in the BSP description file match.

Note

Future versions of the tooling make the specification of KTYPE in the BSP optional.

To separate your kernel policy from your hardware configuration, you include a kernel type (ktype), such as "standard". In the previous example, this is done using the following:

     include ktypes/standard
                

In the previous example, ktypes/standard.scc aggregates all the configuration fragments, patches, and features that make up your standard kernel policy. See the "Kernel Types" section for more information.

To aggregate common configurations and features specific to the kernel for mybsp, use the following:

     include mybsp.scc
                

For information on how to break a complete .config file into the various configuration fragments, see the "Generating Configuration Files" section.

Finally, if you have any configurations specific to the hardware that are not in a *.scc file, you can include them as follows:

     kconf hardware mybsp-extra.cfg
                

14.3.5.2. Example

Many real-world examples are more complex. Like any other .scc file, BSP descriptions can aggregate features. Consider the Minnow BSP definition from the linux-yocto-4.4 in the Yocto Project Source Repositories (i.e. yocto-kernel-cache/bsp/minnow):

     minnow.scc:
         include cfg/x86.scc
         include features/eg20t/eg20t.scc
         include cfg/dmaengine.scc
         include features/power/intel.scc
         include cfg/efi.scc
         include features/usb/ehci-hcd.scc
         include features/usb/ohci-hcd.scc
         include features/usb/usb-gadgets.scc
         include features/usb/touchscreen-composite.scc
         include cfg/timer/hpet.scc
         include features/leds/leds.scc
         include features/spi/spidev.scc
         include features/i2c/i2cdev.scc
         include features/mei/mei-txe.scc

         # Earlyprintk and port debug requires 8250
         kconf hardware cfg/8250.cfg

         kconf hardware minnow.cfg
         kconf hardware minnow-dev.cfg
                

The minnow.scc description file includes a hardware configuration fragment (minnow.cfg) specific to the Minnow BSP as well as several more general configuration fragments and features enabling hardware found on the machine. This minnow.scc description file is then included in each of the three "minnow" description files for the supported kernel types (i.e. "standard", "preempt-rt", and "tiny"). Consider the "minnow" description for the "standard" kernel type:

     minnow-standard.scc:
         define KMACHINE minnow
         define KTYPE standard
         define KARCH i386

         include ktypes/standard

         include minnow.scc

         # Extra minnow configs above the minimal defined in minnow.scc
         include cfg/efi-ext.scc
         include features/media/media-all.scc
         include features/sound/snd_hda_intel.scc

         # The following should really be in standard.scc
         # USB live-image support
         include cfg/usb-mass-storage.scc
         include cfg/boot-live.scc

         # Basic profiling
         include features/latencytop/latencytop.scc
         include features/profiling/profiling.scc

         # Requested drivers that don't have an existing scc
         kconf hardware minnow-drivers-extra.cfg
                

The include command midway through the file includes the minnow.scc description that defines all enabled hardware for the BSP that is common to all kernel types. Using this command significantly reduces duplication.

Now consider the "minnow" description for the "tiny" kernel type:

     minnow-tiny.scc:
        define KMACHINE minnow
        define KTYPE tiny
        define KARCH i386

        include ktypes/tiny

        include minnow.scc
                

As you might expect, the "tiny" description includes quite a bit less. In fact, it includes only the minimal policy defined by the "tiny" kernel type and the hardware-specific configuration required for booting the machine along with the most basic functionality of the system as defined in the base "minnow" description file.

Notice again the three critical variables: KMACHINE, KTYPE, and KARCH. Of these variables, only the KTYPE has changed. It is now set to "tiny".

14.4. Kernel Metadata Location

Kernel Metadata always exists outside of the kernel tree either defined in a kernel recipe (recipe-space) or outside of the recipe. Where you choose to define the Metadata depends on what you want to do and how you intend to work. Regardless of where you define the kernel Metadata, the syntax used applies equally.

If you are unfamiliar with the Linux kernel and only wish to apply a configuration and possibly a couple of patches provided to you by others, the recipe-space method is recommended. This method is also a good approach if you are working with Linux kernel sources you do not control or if you just do not want to maintain a Linux kernel Git repository on your own. For partial information on how you can define kernel Metadata in the recipe-space, see the "Modifying an Existing Recipe" section.

Conversely, if you are actively developing a kernel and are already maintaining a Linux kernel Git repository of your own, you might find it more convenient to work with kernel Metadata kept outside the recipe-space. Working with Metadata in this area can make iterative development of the Linux kernel more efficient outside of the BitBake environment.

14.4.1. Recipe-Space Metadata

When stored in recipe-space, the kernel Metadata files reside in a directory hierarchy below FILESEXTRAPATHS. For a linux-yocto recipe or for a Linux kernel recipe derived by copying and modifying oe-core/meta-skeleton/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto-custom.bb to a recipe in your layer, FILESEXTRAPATHS is typically set to ${THISDIR}/${PN}. See the "Modifying an Existing Recipe" section for more information.

Here is an example that shows a trivial tree of kernel Metadata stored in recipe-space within a BSP layer:

     meta-my_bsp_layer/
     `-- recipes-kernel
         `-- linux
             `-- linux-yocto
                 |-- bsp-standard.scc
                 |-- bsp.cfg
                 `-- standard.cfg
            

When the Metadata is stored in recipe-space, you must take steps to ensure BitBake has the necessary information to decide what files to fetch and when they need to be fetched again. It is only necessary to specify the .scc files on the SRC_URI. BitBake parses them and fetches any files referenced in the .scc files by the include, patch, or kconf commands. Because of this, it is necessary to bump the recipe PR value when changing the content of files not explicitly listed in the SRC_URI.

If the BSP description is in recipe space, you cannot simply list the *.scc in the SRC_URI statement. You need to use the following form from your kernel append file:

     SRC_URI_append_myplatform = " \
        file://myplatform;type=kmeta;destsuffix=myplatform \
        "
            

14.4.2. Metadata Outside the Recipe-Space

When stored outside of the recipe-space, the kernel Metadata files reside in a separate repository. The OpenEmbedded build system adds the Metadata to the build as a "ktype=meta" repository through the SRC_URI variable. As an example, consider the following SRC_URI statement from the linux-yocto_4.4.bb kernel recipe:

     SRC_URI = "git://git.yoctoproject.org/linux-yocto-4.4.git;name=machine;branch=${KBRANCH}; \
                git://git.yoctoproject.org/yocto-kernel-cache;type=kmeta;name=meta;branch=yocto-4.4;destsuffix=${KMETA}"
            

${KMETA}, in this context, is simply used to name the directory into which the Git fetcher places the Metadata. This behavior is no different than any multi-repository SRC_URI statement used in a recipe (e.g. see the previous section).

You can keep kernel Metadata in a "kernel-cache", which is a directory containing configuration fragments. As with any Metadata kept outside the recipe-space, you simply need to use the SRC_URI statement with the "type=kmeta" attribute. Doing so makes the kernel Metadata available during the configuration phase.

If you modify the Metadata, you must not forget to update the SRCREV statements in the kernel's recipe. In particular, you need to update the SRCREV_meta variable to match the commit in the KMETA branch you wish to use. Changing the data in these branches and not updating the SRCREV statements to match will cause the build to fetch an older commit.

14.5. Organizing Your Source

Many recipes based on the linux-yocto-custom.bb recipe use Linux kernel sources that have only a single branch - "master". This type of repository structure is fine for linear development supporting a single machine and architecture. However, if you work with multiple boards and architectures, a kernel source repository with multiple branches is more efficient. For example, suppose you need a series of patches for one board to boot. Sometimes, these patches are works-in-progress or fundamentally wrong, yet they are still necessary for specific boards. In these situations, you most likely do not want to include these patches in every kernel you build (i.e. have the patches as part of the lone "master" branch). It is situations like these that give rise to multiple branches used within a Linux kernel sources Git repository.

Repository organization strategies exist that maximize source reuse, remove redundancy, and logically order your changes. This section presents strategies for the following cases:

  • Encapsulating patches in a feature description and only including the patches in the BSP descriptions of the applicable boards.

  • Creating a machine branch in your kernel source repository and applying the patches on that branch only.

  • Creating a feature branch in your kernel source repository and merging that branch into your BSP when needed.

The approach you take is entirely up to you and depends on what works best for your development model.

14.5.1. Encapsulating Patches

if you are reusing patches from an external tree and are not working on the patches, you might find the encapsulated feature to be appropriate. Given this scenario, you do not need to create any branches in the source repository. Rather, you just take the static patches you need and encapsulate them within a feature description. Once you have the feature description, you simply include that into the BSP description as described in the "BSP Descriptions" section.

You can find information on how to create patches and BSP descriptions in the "Patches" and "BSP Descriptions" sections.

14.5.2. Machine Branches

When you have multiple machines and architectures to support, or you are actively working on board support, it is more efficient to create branches in the repository based on individual machines. Having machine branches allows common source to remain in the "master" branch with any features specific to a machine stored in the appropriate machine branch. This organization method frees you from continually reintegrating your patches into a feature.

Once you have a new branch, you can set up your kernel Metadata to use the branch a couple different ways. In the recipe, you can specify the new branch as the KBRANCH to use for the board as follows:

     KBRANCH = "mynewbranch"
            

Another method is to use the branch command in the BSP description:

     mybsp.scc:
        define KMACHINE mybsp
        define KTYPE standard
        define KARCH i386
        include standard.scc

        branch mynewbranch

        include mybsp-hw.scc
            

If you find yourself with numerous branches, you might consider using a hierarchical branching system similar to what the linux-yocto Linux kernel repositories use:

     common/kernel_type/machine
            

If you had two kernel types, "standard" and "small" for instance, three machines, and common as mydir, the branches in your Git repository might look like this:

     mydir/base
     mydir/standard/base
     mydir/standard/machine_a
     mydir/standard/machine_b
     mydir/standard/machine_c
     mydir/small/base
     mydir/small/machine_a
            

This organization can help clarify the branch relationships. In this case, mydir/standard/machine_a includes everything in mydir/base and mydir/standard/base. The "standard" and "small" branches add sources specific to those kernel types that for whatever reason are not appropriate for the other branches.

Note

The "base" branches are an artifact of the way Git manages its data internally on the filesystem: Git will not allow you to use mydir/standard and mydir/standard/machine_a because it would have to create a file and a directory named "standard".

14.5.3. Feature Branches

When you are actively developing new features, it can be more efficient to work with that feature as a branch, rather than as a set of patches that have to be regularly updated. The Yocto Project Linux kernel tools provide for this with the git merge command.

To merge a feature branch into a BSP, insert the git merge command after any branch commands:

     mybsp.scc:
        define KMACHINE mybsp
        define KTYPE standard
        define KARCH i386
        include standard.scc

        branch mynewbranch
        git merge myfeature

        include mybsp-hw.scc
            

14.6. SCC Description File Reference

This section provides a brief reference for the commands you can use within an SCC description file (.scc):

  • branch [ref]: Creates a new branch relative to the current branch (typically ${KTYPE}) using the currently checked-out branch, or "ref" if specified.

  • define: Defines variables, such as KMACHINE, KTYPE, KARCH, and KFEATURE_DESCRIPTION.

  • include SCC_FILE: Includes an SCC file in the current file. The file is parsed as if you had inserted it inline.

  • kconf [hardware|non-hardware] CFG_FILE: Queues a configuration fragment for merging into the final Linux .config file.

  • git merge GIT_BRANCH: Merges the feature branch into the current branch.

  • patch PATCH_FILE: Applies the patch to the current Git branch.



[1] scc stands for Series Configuration Control, but the naming has less significance in the current implementation of the tooling than it had in the past. Consider scc files to be description files.

Appendix E. Advanced Kernel Concepts

E.1. Yocto Project Kernel Development and Maintenance

Kernels available through the Yocto Project, like other kernels, are based off the Linux kernel releases from http://www.kernel.org. At the beginning of a major development cycle, the Yocto Project team chooses its kernel based on factors such as release timing, the anticipated release timing of final upstream kernel.org versions, and Yocto Project feature requirements. Typically, the kernel chosen is in the final stages of development by the community. In other words, the kernel is in the release candidate or "rc" phase and not yet a final release. But, by being in the final stages of external development, the team knows that the kernel.org final release will clearly be within the early stages of the Yocto Project development window.

This balance allows the team to deliver the most up-to-date kernel possible, while still ensuring that the team has a stable official release for the baseline Linux kernel version.

The ultimate source for kernels available through the Yocto Project are released kernels from kernel.org. In addition to a foundational kernel from kernel.org, the kernels available contain a mix of important new mainline developments, non-mainline developments (when there is no alternative), Board Support Package (BSP) developments, and custom features. These additions result in a commercially released Yocto Project Linux kernel that caters to specific embedded designer needs for targeted hardware.

Once a kernel is officially released, the Yocto Project team goes into their next development cycle, or upward revision (uprev) cycle, while still continuing maintenance on the released kernel. It is important to note that the most sustainable and stable way to include feature development upstream is through a kernel uprev process. Back-porting hundreds of individual fixes and minor features from various kernel versions is not sustainable and can easily compromise quality.

During the uprev cycle, the Yocto Project team uses an ongoing analysis of kernel development, BSP support, and release timing to select the best possible kernel.org version. The team continually monitors community kernel development to look for significant features of interest. The team does consider back-porting large features if they have a significant advantage. User or community demand can also trigger a back-port or creation of new functionality in the Yocto Project baseline kernel during the uprev cycle.

Generally speaking, every new kernel both adds features and introduces new bugs. These consequences are the basic properties of upstream kernel development and are managed by the Yocto Project team's kernel strategy. It is the Yocto Project team's policy to not back-port minor features to the released kernel. They only consider back-porting significant technological jumps - and, that is done after a complete gap analysis. The reason for this policy is that back-porting any small to medium sized change from an evolving kernel can easily create mismatches, incompatibilities and very subtle errors.

These policies result in both a stable and a cutting edge kernel that mixes forward ports of existing features and significant and critical new functionality. Forward porting functionality in the kernels available through the Yocto Project kernel can be thought of as a "micro uprev." The many “micro uprevs” produce a kernel version with a mix of important new mainline, non-mainline, BSP developments and feature integrations. This kernel gives insight into new features and allows focused amounts of testing to be done on the kernel, which prevents surprises when selecting the next major uprev. The quality of these cutting edge kernels is evolving and the kernels are used in leading edge feature and BSP development.

E.2. Kernel Architecture

This section describes the architecture of the kernels available through the Yocto Project and provides information on the mechanisms used to achieve that architecture.

E.2.1. Overview

As mentioned earlier, a key goal of the Yocto Project is to present the developer with a kernel that has a clear and continuous history that is visible to the user. The architecture and mechanisms used achieve that goal in a manner similar to the upstream kernel.org.

You can think of a Yocto Project kernel as consisting of a baseline Linux kernel with added features logically structured on top of the baseline. The features are tagged and organized by way of a branching strategy implemented by the source code manager (SCM) Git. For information on Git as applied to the Yocto Project, see the "Git" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

The result is that the user has the ability to see the added features and the commits that make up those features. In addition to being able to see added features, the user can also view the history of what made up the baseline kernel.

The following illustration shows the conceptual Yocto Project kernel.

In the illustration, the "Kernel.org Branch Point" marks the specific spot (or release) from which the Yocto Project kernel is created. From this point "up" in the tree, features and differences are organized and tagged.

The "Yocto Project Baseline Kernel" contains functionality that is common to every kernel type and BSP that is organized further up the tree. Placing these common features in the tree this way means features do not have to be duplicated along individual branches of the structure.

From the Yocto Project Baseline Kernel, branch points represent specific functionality for individual BSPs as well as real-time kernels. The illustration represents this through three BSP-specific branches and a real-time kernel branch. Each branch represents some unique functionality for the BSP or a real-time kernel.

In this example structure, the real-time kernel branch has common features for all real-time kernels and contains more branches for individual BSP-specific real-time kernels. The illustration shows three branches as an example. Each branch points the way to specific, unique features for a respective real-time kernel as they apply to a given BSP.

The resulting tree structure presents a clear path of markers (or branches) to the developer that, for all practical purposes, is the kernel needed for any given set of requirements.

E.2.2. Branching Strategy and Workflow

The Yocto Project team creates kernel branches at points where functionality is no longer shared and thus, needs to be isolated. For example, board-specific incompatibilities would require different functionality and would require a branch to separate the features. Likewise, for specific kernel features, the same branching strategy is used.

This branching strategy results in a tree that has features organized to be specific for particular functionality, single kernel types, or a subset of kernel types. This strategy also results in not having to store the same feature twice internally in the tree. Rather, the kernel team stores the unique differences required to apply the feature onto the kernel type in question.

Note

The Yocto Project team strives to place features in the tree such that they can be shared by all boards and kernel types where possible. However, during development cycles or when large features are merged, the team cannot always follow this practice. In those cases, the team uses isolated branches to merge features.

BSP-specific code additions are handled in a similar manner to kernel-specific additions. Some BSPs only make sense given certain kernel types. So, for these types, the team creates branches off the end of that kernel type for all of the BSPs that are supported on that kernel type. From the perspective of the tools that create the BSP branch, the BSP is really no different than a feature. Consequently, the same branching strategy applies to BSPs as it does to features. So again, rather than store the BSP twice, the team only stores the unique differences for the BSP across the supported multiple kernels.

While this strategy can result in a tree with a significant number of branches, it is important to realize that from the developer's point of view, there is a linear path that travels from the baseline kernel.org, through a select group of features and ends with their BSP-specific commits. In other words, the divisions of the kernel are transparent and are not relevant to the developer on a day-to-day basis. From the developer's perspective, this path is the "master" branch. The developer does not need to be aware of the existence of any other branches at all. Of course, there is value in the existence of these branches in the tree, should a person decide to explore them. For example, a comparison between two BSPs at either the commit level or at the line-by-line code diff level is now a trivial operation.

Working with the kernel as a structured tree follows recognized community best practices. In particular, the kernel as shipped with the product, should be considered an "upstream source" and viewed as a series of historical and documented modifications (commits). These modifications represent the development and stabilization done by the Yocto Project kernel development team.

Because commits only change at significant release points in the product life cycle, developers can work on a branch created from the last relevant commit in the shipped Yocto Project kernel. As mentioned previously, the structure is transparent to the developer because the kernel tree is left in this state after cloning and building the kernel.

E.2.3. Source Code Manager - Git

The Source Code Manager (SCM) is Git. This SCM is the obvious mechanism for meeting the previously mentioned goals. Not only is it the SCM for kernel.org but, Git continues to grow in popularity and supports many different work flows, front-ends and management techniques.

You can find documentation on Git at http://git-scm.com/documentation. You can also get an introduction to Git as it applies to the Yocto Project in the "Git" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual. These referenced sections overview Git and describe a minimal set of commands that allows you to be functional using Git.

Note

You can use as much, or as little, of what Git has to offer to accomplish what you need for your project. You do not have to be a "Git Master" in order to use it with the Yocto Project.

Appendix F. Kernel Maintenance

F.1. Tree Construction

This section describes construction of the Yocto Project kernel source repositories as accomplished by the Yocto Project team to create kernel repositories. These kernel repositories are found under the heading "Yocto Linux Kernel" at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi and can be shipped as part of a Yocto Project release. The team creates these repositories by compiling and executing the set of feature descriptions for every BSP and feature in the product. Those feature descriptions list all necessary patches, configuration, branching, tagging and feature divisions found in a kernel. Thus, the Yocto Project kernel repository (or tree) is built.

The existence of this tree allows you to access and clone a particular Yocto Project kernel repository and use it to build images based on their configurations and features.

You can find the files used to describe all the valid features and BSPs in the Yocto Project kernel in any clone of the Yocto Project kernel source repository Git tree. For example, the following command clones the Yocto Project baseline kernel that branched off of linux.org version 3.19:

     $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/linux-yocto-3.19
            

For another example of how to set up a local Git repository of the Yocto Project kernel files, see the "Yocto Project Kernel" bulleted item in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

Once you have cloned the kernel Git repository on your local machine, you can switch to the meta branch within the repository. Here is an example that assumes the local Git repository for the kernel is in a top-level directory named linux-yocto-3.19:

     $ cd linux-yocto-3.19
     $ git checkout -b meta origin/meta
            

Once you have checked out and switched to the meta branch, you can see a snapshot of all the kernel configuration and feature descriptions that are used to build that particular kernel repository. These descriptions are in the form of .scc files.

You should realize, however, that browsing your local kernel repository for feature descriptions and patches is not an effective way to determine what is in a particular kernel branch. Instead, you should use Git directly to discover the changes in a branch. Using Git is an efficient and flexible way to inspect changes to the kernel.

Note

Ground up reconstruction of the complete kernel tree is an action only taken by the Yocto Project team during an active development cycle. When you create a clone of the kernel Git repository, you are simply making it efficiently available for building and development.

The following steps describe what happens when the Yocto Project Team constructs the Yocto Project kernel source Git repository (or tree) found at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi given the introduction of a new top-level kernel feature or BSP. These are the actions that effectively create the tree that includes the new feature, patch or BSP:

  1. A top-level kernel feature is passed to the kernel build subsystem. Normally, this feature is a BSP for a particular kernel type.

  2. The file that describes the top-level feature is located by searching these system directories:

    • The in-tree kernel-cache directories, which are located in meta/cfg/kernel-cache

    • Areas pointed to by SRC_URI statements found in recipes

    For a typical build, the target of the search is a feature description in an .scc file whose name follows this format:

         bsp_name-kernel_type.scc
                        

  3. Once located, the feature description is either compiled into a simple script of actions, or into an existing equivalent script that is already part of the shipped kernel.

  4. Extra features are appended to the top-level feature description. These features can come from the KERNEL_FEATURES variable in recipes.

  5. Each extra feature is located, compiled and appended to the script as described in step three.

  6. The script is executed to produce a series of meta-* directories. These directories are descriptions of all the branches, tags, patches and configurations that need to be applied to the base Git repository to completely create the source (build) branch for the new BSP or feature.

  7. The base repository is cloned, and the actions listed in the meta-* directories are applied to the tree.

  8. The Git repository is left with the desired branch checked out and any required branching, patching and tagging has been performed.

The kernel tree is now ready for developer consumption to be locally cloned, configured, and built into a Yocto Project kernel specific to some target hardware.

Note

The generated meta-* directories add to the kernel as shipped with the Yocto Project release. Any add-ons and configuration data are applied to the end of an existing branch. The full repository generation that is found in the official Yocto Project kernel repositories at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi is the combination of all supported boards and configurations.

The technique the Yocto Project team uses is flexible and allows for seamless blending of an immutable history with additional patches specific to a deployment. Any additions to the kernel become an integrated part of the branches.

F.2. Build Strategy

Once a local Git repository of the Yocto Project kernel exists on a development system, you can consider the compilation phase of kernel development - building a kernel image. Some prerequisites exist that are validated by the build process before compilation starts:

  • The SRC_URI points to the kernel Git repository.

  • A BSP build branch exists. This branch has the following form:

         kernel_type/bsp_name
                    

The OpenEmbedded build system makes sure these conditions exist before attempting compilation. Other means, however, do exist, such as as bootstrapping a BSP.

Before building a kernel, the build process verifies the tree and configures the kernel by processing all of the configuration "fragments" specified by feature descriptions in the .scc files. As the features are compiled, associated kernel configuration fragments are noted and recorded in the meta-* series of directories in their compilation order. The fragments are migrated, pre-processed and passed to the Linux Kernel Configuration subsystem (lkc) as raw input in the form of a .config file. The lkc uses its own internal dependency constraints to do the final processing of that information and generates the final .config file that is used during compilation.

Using the board's architecture and other relevant values from the board's template, kernel compilation is started and a kernel image is produced.

The other thing that you notice once you configure a kernel is that the build process generates a build tree that is separate from your kernel's local Git source repository tree. This build tree has a name that uses the following form, where ${MACHINE} is the metadata name of the machine (BSP) and "kernel_type" is one of the Yocto Project supported kernel types (e.g. "standard"):

     linux-${MACHINE}-kernel_type-build
        

The existing support in the kernel.org tree achieves this default functionality.

This behavior means that all the generated files for a particular machine or BSP are now in the build tree directory. The files include the final .config file, all the .o files, the .a files, and so forth. Since each machine or BSP has its own separate Build Directory in its own separate branch of the Git repository, you can easily switch between different builds.

Chapter 15. Yocto Project Profiling and Tracing Manual

15.1. Introduction

Yocto bundles a number of tracing and profiling tools - this 'HOWTO' describes their basic usage and shows by example how to make use of them to examine application and system behavior.

The tools presented are for the most part completely open-ended and have quite good and/or extensive documentation of their own which can be used to solve just about any problem you might come across in Linux. Each section that describes a particular tool has links to that tool's documentation and website.

The purpose of this 'HOWTO' is to present a set of common and generally useful tracing and profiling idioms along with their application (as appropriate) to each tool, in the context of a general-purpose 'drill-down' methodology that can be applied to solving a large number (90%?) of problems. For help with more advanced usages and problems, please see the documentation and/or websites listed for each tool.

The final section of this 'HOWTO' is a collection of real-world examples which we'll be continually adding to as we solve more problems using the tools - feel free to add your own examples to the list!

15.2. General Setup

Most of the tools are available only in 'sdk' images or in images built after adding 'tools-profile' to your local.conf. So, in order to be able to access all of the tools described here, please first build and boot an 'sdk' image e.g.

     $ bitbake core-image-sato-sdk
            

or alternatively by adding 'tools-profile' to the EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES line in your local.conf:

      EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES = "debug-tweaks tools-profile"
            

If you use the 'tools-profile' method, you don't need to build an sdk image - the tracing and profiling tools will be included in non-sdk images as well e.g.:

     $ bitbake core-image-sato
            

Note

By default, the Yocto build system strips symbols from the binaries it packages, which makes it difficult to use some of the tools.

You can prevent that by setting the INHIBIT_PACKAGE_STRIP variable to "1" in your local.conf when you build the image:

     INHIBIT_PACKAGE_STRIP = "1"
            

The above setting will noticeably increase the size of your image.

If you've already built a stripped image, you can generate debug packages (xxx-dbg) which you can manually install as needed.

To generate debug info for packages, you can add dbg-pkgs to EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES in local.conf. For example:

     EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES = "debug-tweaks tools-profile dbg-pkgs"
            

Additionally, in order to generate the right type of debuginfo, we also need to add the following to local.conf:

     PACKAGE_DEBUG_SPLIT_STYLE = 'debug-file-directory'
            

Chapter 16. Overall Architecture of the Linux Tracing and Profiling Tools

16.1. Architecture of the Tracing and Profiling Tools

It may seem surprising to see a section covering an 'overall architecture' for what seems to be a random collection of tracing tools that together make up the Linux tracing and profiling space. The fact is, however, that in recent years this seemingly disparate set of tools has started to converge on a 'core' set of underlying mechanisms:

  • static tracepoints
  • dynamic tracepoints
    • kprobes
    • uprobes
  • the perf_events subsystem
  • debugfs

Tying it Together: Rather than enumerating here how each tool makes use of these common mechanisms, textboxes like this will make note of the specific usages in each tool as they come up in the course of the text.

Chapter 17. Basic Usage (with examples) for each of the Yocto Tracing Tools

This chapter presents basic usage examples for each of the tracing tools.

17.1. perf

The 'perf' tool is the profiling and tracing tool that comes bundled with the Linux kernel.

Don't let the fact that it's part of the kernel fool you into thinking that it's only for tracing and profiling the kernel - you can indeed use it to trace and profile just the kernel, but you can also use it to profile specific applications separately (with or without kernel context), and you can also use it to trace and profile the kernel and all applications on the system simultaneously to gain a system-wide view of what's going on.

In many ways, perf aims to be a superset of all the tracing and profiling tools available in Linux today, including all the other tools covered in this HOWTO. The past couple of years have seen perf subsume a lot of the functionality of those other tools and, at the same time, those other tools have removed large portions of their previous functionality and replaced it with calls to the equivalent functionality now implemented by the perf subsystem. Extrapolation suggests that at some point those other tools will simply become completely redundant and go away; until then, we'll cover those other tools in these pages and in many cases show how the same things can be accomplished in perf and the other tools when it seems useful to do so.

The coverage below details some of the most common ways you'll likely want to apply the tool; full documentation can be found either within the tool itself or in the man pages at perf(1).

17.1.1. Setup

For this section, we'll assume you've already performed the basic setup outlined in the General Setup section.

In particular, you'll get the most mileage out of perf if you profile an image built with the following in your local.conf file:

     INHIBIT_PACKAGE_STRIP = "1"
            

perf runs on the target system for the most part. You can archive profile data and copy it to the host for analysis, but for the rest of this document we assume you've ssh'ed to the host and will be running the perf commands on the target.

17.1.2. Basic Usage

The perf tool is pretty much self-documenting. To remind yourself of the available commands, simply type 'perf', which will show you basic usage along with the available perf subcommands:

     root@crownbay:~# perf

     usage: perf [--version] [--help] COMMAND [ARGS]

     The most commonly used perf commands are:
       annotate        Read perf.data (created by perf record) and display annotated code
       archive         Create archive with object files with build-ids found in perf.data file
       bench           General framework for benchmark suites
       buildid-cache   Manage build-id cache.
       buildid-list    List the buildids in a perf.data file
       diff            Read two perf.data files and display the differential profile
       evlist          List the event names in a perf.data file
       inject          Filter to augment the events stream with additional information
       kmem            Tool to trace/measure kernel memory(slab) properties
       kvm             Tool to trace/measure kvm guest os
       list            List all symbolic event types
       lock            Analyze lock events
       probe           Define new dynamic tracepoints
       record          Run a command and record its profile into perf.data
       report          Read perf.data (created by perf record) and display the profile
       sched           Tool to trace/measure scheduler properties (latencies)
       script          Read perf.data (created by perf record) and display trace output
       stat            Run a command and gather performance counter statistics
       test            Runs sanity tests.
       timechart       Tool to visualize total system behavior during a workload
       top             System profiling tool.

     See 'perf help COMMAND' for more information on a specific command.
            

17.1.2.1. Using perf to do Basic Profiling

As a simple test case, we'll profile the 'wget' of a fairly large file, which is a minimally interesting case because it has both file and network I/O aspects, and at least in the case of standard Yocto images, it's implemented as part of busybox, so the methods we use to analyze it can be used in a very similar way to the whole host of supported busybox applets in Yocto.

     root@crownbay:~# rm linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2; \
     wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2
                

The quickest and easiest way to get some basic overall data about what's going on for a particular workload is to profile it using 'perf stat'. 'perf stat' basically profiles using a few default counters and displays the summed counts at the end of the run:

     root@crownbay:~# perf stat wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2
     Connecting to downloads.yoctoproject.org (140.211.169.59:80)
     linux-2.6.19.2.tar.b 100% |***************************************************| 41727k  0:00:00 ETA

     Performance counter stats for 'wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2':

           4597.223902 task-clock                #    0.077 CPUs utilized
                 23568 context-switches          #    0.005 M/sec
                    68 CPU-migrations            #    0.015 K/sec
                   241 page-faults               #    0.052 K/sec
            3045817293 cycles                    #    0.663 GHz
       <not supported> stalled-cycles-frontend
       <not supported> stalled-cycles-backend
             858909167 instructions              #    0.28  insns per cycle
             165441165 branches                  #   35.987 M/sec
              19550329 branch-misses             #   11.82% of all branches

          59.836627620 seconds time elapsed
                

Many times such a simple-minded test doesn't yield much of interest, but sometimes it does (see Real-world Yocto bug (slow loop-mounted write speed)).

Also, note that 'perf stat' isn't restricted to a fixed set of counters - basically any event listed in the output of 'perf list' can be tallied by 'perf stat'. For example, suppose we wanted to see a summary of all the events related to kernel memory allocation/freeing along with cache hits and misses:

     root@crownbay:~# perf stat -e kmem:* -e cache-references -e cache-misses wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2
     Connecting to downloads.yoctoproject.org (140.211.169.59:80)
     linux-2.6.19.2.tar.b 100% |***************************************************| 41727k  0:00:00 ETA

     Performance counter stats for 'wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2':

                  5566 kmem:kmalloc
                125517 kmem:kmem_cache_alloc
                     0 kmem:kmalloc_node
                     0 kmem:kmem_cache_alloc_node
                 34401 kmem:kfree
                 69920 kmem:kmem_cache_free
                   133 kmem:mm_page_free
                    41 kmem:mm_page_free_batched
                 11502 kmem:mm_page_alloc
                 11375 kmem:mm_page_alloc_zone_locked
                     0 kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain
                     0 kmem:mm_page_alloc_extfrag
              66848602 cache-references
               2917740 cache-misses              #    4.365 % of all cache refs

          44.831023415 seconds time elapsed
                

So 'perf stat' gives us a nice easy way to get a quick overview of what might be happening for a set of events, but normally we'd need a little more detail in order to understand what's going on in a way that we can act on in a useful way.

To dive down into a next level of detail, we can use 'perf record'/'perf report' which will collect profiling data and present it to use using an interactive text-based UI (or simply as text if we specify --stdio to 'perf report').

As our first attempt at profiling this workload, we'll simply run 'perf record', handing it the workload we want to profile (everything after 'perf record' and any perf options we hand it - here none - will be executed in a new shell). perf collects samples until the process exits and records them in a file named 'perf.data' in the current working directory.

     root@crownbay:~# perf record wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2

     Connecting to downloads.yoctoproject.org (140.211.169.59:80)
     linux-2.6.19.2.tar.b 100% |************************************************| 41727k  0:00:00 ETA
     [ perf record: Woken up 1 times to write data ]
     [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.176 MB perf.data (~7700 samples) ]
            

To see the results in a 'text-based UI' (tui), simply run 'perf report', which will read the perf.data file in the current working directory and display the results in an interactive UI:

     root@crownbay:~# perf report
                

The above screenshot displays a 'flat' profile, one entry for each 'bucket' corresponding to the functions that were profiled during the profiling run, ordered from the most popular to the least (perf has options to sort in various orders and keys as well as display entries only above a certain threshold and so on - see the perf documentation for details). Note that this includes both userspace functions (entries containing a [.]) and kernel functions accounted to the process (entries containing a [k]). (perf has command-line modifiers that can be used to restrict the profiling to kernel or userspace, among others).

Notice also that the above report shows an entry for 'busybox', which is the executable that implements 'wget' in Yocto, but that instead of a useful function name in that entry, it displays a not-so-friendly hex value instead. The steps below will show how to fix that problem.

Before we do that, however, let's try running a different profile, one which shows something a little more interesting. The only difference between the new profile and the previous one is that we'll add the -g option, which will record not just the address of a sampled function, but the entire callchain to the sampled function as well:

     root@crownbay:~# perf record -g wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2
     Connecting to downloads.yoctoproject.org (140.211.169.59:80)
     linux-2.6.19.2.tar.b 100% |************************************************| 41727k  0:00:00 ETA
     [ perf record: Woken up 3 times to write data ]
     [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.652 MB perf.data (~28476 samples) ]


     root@crownbay:~# perf report
                

Using the callgraph view, we can actually see not only which functions took the most time, but we can also see a summary of how those functions were called and learn something about how the program interacts with the kernel in the process.

Notice that each entry in the above screenshot now contains a '+' on the left-hand side. This means that we can expand the entry and drill down into the callchains that feed into that entry. Pressing 'enter' on any one of them will expand the callchain (you can also press 'E' to expand them all at the same time or 'C' to collapse them all).

In the screenshot above, we've toggled the __copy_to_user_ll() entry and several subnodes all the way down. This lets us see which callchains contributed to the profiled __copy_to_user_ll() function which contributed 1.77% to the total profile.

As a bit of background explanation for these callchains, think about what happens at a high level when you run wget to get a file out on the network. Basically what happens is that the data comes into the kernel via the network connection (socket) and is passed to the userspace program 'wget' (which is actually a part of busybox, but that's not important for now), which takes the buffers the kernel passes to it and writes it to a disk file to save it.

The part of this process that we're looking at in the above call stacks is the part where the kernel passes the data it's read from the socket down to wget i.e. a copy-to-user.

Notice also that here there's also a case where the hex value is displayed in the callstack, here in the expanded sys_clock_gettime() function. Later we'll see it resolve to a userspace function call in busybox.

The above screenshot shows the other half of the journey for the data - from the wget program's userspace buffers to disk. To get the buffers to disk, the wget program issues a write(2), which does a copy-from-user to the kernel, which then takes care via some circuitous path (probably also present somewhere in the profile data), to get it safely to disk.

Now that we've seen the basic layout of the profile data and the basics of how to extract useful information out of it, let's get back to the task at hand and see if we can get some basic idea about where the time is spent in the program we're profiling, wget. Remember that wget is actually implemented as an applet in busybox, so while the process name is 'wget', the executable we're actually interested in is busybox. So let's expand the first entry containing busybox:

Again, before we expanded we saw that the function was labeled with a hex value instead of a symbol as with most of the kernel entries. Expanding the busybox entry doesn't make it any better.

The problem is that perf can't find the symbol information for the busybox binary, which is actually stripped out by the Yocto build system.

One way around that is to put the following in your local.conf file when you build the image:

     INHIBIT_PACKAGE_STRIP = "1"
                

However, we already have an image with the binaries stripped, so what can we do to get perf to resolve the symbols? Basically we need to install the debuginfo for the busybox package.

To generate the debug info for the packages in the image, we can add dbg-pkgs to EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES in local.conf. For example:

     EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES = "debug-tweaks tools-profile dbg-pkgs"
                

Additionally, in order to generate the type of debuginfo that perf understands, we also need to add the following to local.conf:

     PACKAGE_DEBUG_SPLIT_STYLE = 'debug-file-directory'
                

Once we've done that, we can install the debuginfo for busybox. The debug packages once built can be found in build/tmp/deploy/rpm/* on the host system. Find the busybox-dbg-...rpm file and copy it to the target. For example:

     [trz@empanada core2]$ scp /home/trz/yocto/crownbay-tracing-dbg/build/tmp/deploy/rpm/core2_32/busybox-dbg-1.20.2-r2.core2_32.rpm root@192.168.1.31:
     root@192.168.1.31's password:
     busybox-dbg-1.20.2-r2.core2_32.rpm                     100% 1826KB   1.8MB/s   00:01
                

Now install the debug rpm on the target:

     root@crownbay:~# rpm -i busybox-dbg-1.20.2-r2.core2_32.rpm
                

Now that the debuginfo is installed, we see that the busybox entries now display their functions symbolically:

If we expand one of the entries and press 'enter' on a leaf node, we're presented with a menu of actions we can take to get more information related to that entry:

One of these actions allows us to show a view that displays a busybox-centric view of the profiled functions (in this case we've also expanded all the nodes using the 'E' key):

Finally, we can see that now that the busybox debuginfo is installed, the previously unresolved symbol in the sys_clock_gettime() entry mentioned previously is now resolved, and shows that the sys_clock_gettime system call that was the source of 6.75% of the copy-to-user overhead was initiated by the handle_input() busybox function:

At the lowest level of detail, we can dive down to the assembly level and see which instructions caused the most overhead in a function. Pressing 'enter' on the 'udhcpc_main' function, we're again presented with a menu:

Selecting 'Annotate udhcpc_main', we get a detailed listing of percentages by instruction for the udhcpc_main function. From the display, we can see that over 50% of the time spent in this function is taken up by a couple tests and the move of a constant (1) to a register:

As a segue into tracing, let's try another profile using a different counter, something other than the default 'cycles'.

The tracing and profiling infrastructure in Linux has become unified in a way that allows us to use the same tool with a completely different set of counters, not just the standard hardware counters that traditional tools have had to restrict themselves to (of course the traditional tools can also make use of the expanded possibilities now available to them, and in some cases have, as mentioned previously).

We can get a list of the available events that can be used to profile a workload via 'perf list':

     root@crownbay:~# perf list

     List of pre-defined events (to be used in -e):
      cpu-cycles OR cycles                               [Hardware event]
      stalled-cycles-frontend OR idle-cycles-frontend    [Hardware event]
      stalled-cycles-backend OR idle-cycles-backend      [Hardware event]
      instructions                                       [Hardware event]
      cache-references                                   [Hardware event]
      cache-misses                                       [Hardware event]
      branch-instructions OR branches                    [Hardware event]
      branch-misses                                      [Hardware event]
      bus-cycles                                         [Hardware event]
      ref-cycles                                         [Hardware event]

      cpu-clock                                          [Software event]
      task-clock                                         [Software event]
      page-faults OR faults                              [Software event]
      minor-faults                                       [Software event]
      major-faults                                       [Software event]
      context-switches OR cs                             [Software event]
      cpu-migrations OR migrations                       [Software event]
      alignment-faults                                   [Software event]
      emulation-faults                                   [Software event]

      L1-dcache-loads                                    [Hardware cache event]
      L1-dcache-load-misses                              [Hardware cache event]
      L1-dcache-prefetch-misses                          [Hardware cache event]
      L1-icache-loads                                    [Hardware cache event]
      L1-icache-load-misses                              [Hardware cache event]
      .
      .
      .
      rNNN                                               [Raw hardware event descriptor]
      cpu/t1=v1[,t2=v2,t3 ...]/modifier                  [Raw hardware event descriptor]
       (see 'perf list --help' on how to encode it)

      mem:<addr>[:access]                                [Hardware breakpoint]

      sunrpc:rpc_call_status                             [Tracepoint event]
      sunrpc:rpc_bind_status                             [Tracepoint event]
      sunrpc:rpc_connect_status                          [Tracepoint event]
      sunrpc:rpc_task_begin                              [Tracepoint event]
      skb:kfree_skb                                      [Tracepoint event]
      skb:consume_skb                                    [Tracepoint event]
      skb:skb_copy_datagram_iovec                        [Tracepoint event]
      net:net_dev_xmit                                   [Tracepoint event]
      net:net_dev_queue                                  [Tracepoint event]
      net:netif_receive_skb                              [Tracepoint event]
      net:netif_rx                                       [Tracepoint event]
      napi:napi_poll                                     [Tracepoint event]
      sock:sock_rcvqueue_full                            [Tracepoint event]
      sock:sock_exceed_buf_limit                         [Tracepoint event]
      udp:udp_fail_queue_rcv_skb                         [Tracepoint event]
      hda:hda_send_cmd                                   [Tracepoint event]
      hda:hda_get_response                               [Tracepoint event]
      hda:hda_bus_reset                                  [Tracepoint event]
      scsi:scsi_dispatch_cmd_start                       [Tracepoint event]
      scsi:scsi_dispatch_cmd_error                       [Tracepoint event]
      scsi:scsi_eh_wakeup                                [Tracepoint event]
      drm:drm_vblank_event                               [Tracepoint event]
      drm:drm_vblank_event_queued                        [Tracepoint event]
      drm:drm_vblank_event_delivered                     [Tracepoint event]
      random:mix_pool_bytes                              [Tracepoint event]
      random:mix_pool_bytes_nolock                       [Tracepoint event]
      random:credit_entropy_bits                         [Tracepoint event]
      gpio:gpio_direction                                [Tracepoint event]
      gpio:gpio_value                                    [Tracepoint event]
      block:block_rq_abort                               [Tracepoint event]
      block:block_rq_requeue                             [Tracepoint event]
      block:block_rq_issue                               [Tracepoint event]
      block:block_bio_bounce                             [Tracepoint event]
      block:block_bio_complete                           [Tracepoint event]
      block:block_bio_backmerge                          [Tracepoint event]
      .
      .
      writeback:writeback_wake_thread                    [Tracepoint event]
      writeback:writeback_wake_forker_thread             [Tracepoint event]
      writeback:writeback_bdi_register                   [Tracepoint event]
      .
      .
      writeback:writeback_single_inode_requeue           [Tracepoint event]
      writeback:writeback_single_inode                   [Tracepoint event]
      kmem:kmalloc                                       [Tracepoint event]
      kmem:kmem_cache_alloc                              [Tracepoint event]
      kmem:mm_page_alloc                                 [Tracepoint event]
      kmem:mm_page_alloc_zone_locked                     [Tracepoint event]
      kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain                            [Tracepoint event]
      kmem:mm_page_alloc_extfrag                         [Tracepoint event]
      vmscan:mm_vmscan_kswapd_sleep                      [Tracepoint event]
      vmscan:mm_vmscan_kswapd_wake                       [Tracepoint event]
      vmscan:mm_vmscan_wakeup_kswapd                     [Tracepoint event]
      vmscan:mm_vmscan_direct_reclaim_begin              [Tracepoint event]
      .
      .
      module:module_get                                  [Tracepoint event]
      module:module_put                                  [Tracepoint event]
      module:module_request                              [Tracepoint event]
      sched:sched_kthread_stop                           [Tracepoint event]
      sched:sched_wakeup                                 [Tracepoint event]
      sched:sched_wakeup_new                             [Tracepoint event]
      sched:sched_process_fork                           [Tracepoint event]
      sched:sched_process_exec                           [Tracepoint event]
      sched:sched_stat_runtime                           [Tracepoint event]
      rcu:rcu_utilization                                [Tracepoint event]
      workqueue:workqueue_queue_work                     [Tracepoint event]
      workqueue:workqueue_execute_end                    [Tracepoint event]
      signal:signal_generate                             [Tracepoint event]
      signal:signal_deliver                              [Tracepoint event]
      timer:timer_init                                   [Tracepoint event]
      timer:timer_start                                  [Tracepoint event]
      timer:hrtimer_cancel                               [Tracepoint event]
      timer:itimer_state                                 [Tracepoint event]
      timer:itimer_expire                                [Tracepoint event]
      irq:irq_handler_entry                              [Tracepoint event]
      irq:irq_handler_exit                               [Tracepoint event]
      irq:softirq_entry                                  [Tracepoint event]
      irq:softirq_exit                                   [Tracepoint event]
      irq:softirq_raise                                  [Tracepoint event]
      printk:console                                     [Tracepoint event]
      task:task_newtask                                  [Tracepoint event]
      task:task_rename                                   [Tracepoint event]
      syscalls:sys_enter_socketcall                      [Tracepoint event]
      syscalls:sys_exit_socketcall                       [Tracepoint event]
      .
      .
      .
      syscalls:sys_enter_unshare                         [Tracepoint event]
      syscalls:sys_exit_unshare                          [Tracepoint event]
      raw_syscalls:sys_enter                             [Tracepoint event]
      raw_syscalls:sys_exit                              [Tracepoint event]
                

Tying it Together: These are exactly the same set of events defined by the trace event subsystem and exposed by ftrace/tracecmd/kernelshark as files in /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events, by SystemTap as kernel.trace("tracepoint_name") and (partially) accessed by LTTng.

Only a subset of these would be of interest to us when looking at this workload, so let's choose the most likely subsystems (identified by the string before the colon in the Tracepoint events) and do a 'perf stat' run using only those wildcarded subsystems:

     root@crownbay:~# perf stat -e skb:* -e net:* -e napi:* -e sched:* -e workqueue:* -e irq:* -e syscalls:* wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2
     Performance counter stats for 'wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2':

                 23323 skb:kfree_skb
                     0 skb:consume_skb
                 49897 skb:skb_copy_datagram_iovec
                  6217 net:net_dev_xmit
                  6217 net:net_dev_queue
                  7962 net:netif_receive_skb
                     2 net:netif_rx
                  8340 napi:napi_poll
                     0 sched:sched_kthread_stop
                     0 sched:sched_kthread_stop_ret
                  3749 sched:sched_wakeup
                     0 sched:sched_wakeup_new
                     0 sched:sched_switch
                    29 sched:sched_migrate_task
                     0 sched:sched_process_free
                     1 sched:sched_process_exit
                     0 sched:sched_wait_task
                     0 sched:sched_process_wait
                     0 sched:sched_process_fork
                     1 sched:sched_process_exec
                     0 sched:sched_stat_wait
         2106519415641 sched:sched_stat_sleep
                     0 sched:sched_stat_iowait
             147453613 sched:sched_stat_blocked
           12903026955 sched:sched_stat_runtime
                     0 sched:sched_pi_setprio
                  3574 workqueue:workqueue_queue_work
                  3574 workqueue:workqueue_activate_work
                     0 workqueue:workqueue_execute_start
                     0 workqueue:workqueue_execute_end
                 16631 irq:irq_handler_entry
                 16631 irq:irq_handler_exit
                 28521 irq:softirq_entry
                 28521 irq:softirq_exit
                 28728 irq:softirq_raise
                     1 syscalls:sys_enter_sendmmsg
                     1 syscalls:sys_exit_sendmmsg
                     0 syscalls:sys_enter_recvmmsg
                     0 syscalls:sys_exit_recvmmsg
                    14 syscalls:sys_enter_socketcall
                    14 syscalls:sys_exit_socketcall
                       .
                       .
                       .
                 16965 syscalls:sys_enter_read
                 16965 syscalls:sys_exit_read
                 12854 syscalls:sys_enter_write
                 12854 syscalls:sys_exit_write
                       .
                       .
                       .

          58.029710972 seconds time elapsed
                

Let's pick one of these tracepoints and tell perf to do a profile using it as the sampling event:

     root@crownbay:~# perf record -g -e sched:sched_wakeup wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2
                

The screenshot above shows the results of running a profile using sched:sched_switch tracepoint, which shows the relative costs of various paths to sched_wakeup (note that sched_wakeup is the name of the tracepoint - it's actually defined just inside ttwu_do_wakeup(), which accounts for the function name actually displayed in the profile:

     /*
      * Mark the task runnable and perform wakeup-preemption.
      */
     static void
     ttwu_do_wakeup(struct rq *rq, struct task_struct *p, int wake_flags)
     {
          trace_sched_wakeup(p, true);
          .
          .
          .
     }
                

A couple of the more interesting callchains are expanded and displayed above, basically some network receive paths that presumably end up waking up wget (busybox) when network data is ready.

Note that because tracepoints are normally used for tracing, the default sampling period for tracepoints is 1 i.e. for tracepoints perf will sample on every event occurrence (this can be changed using the -c option). This is in contrast to hardware counters such as for example the default 'cycles' hardware counter used for normal profiling, where sampling periods are much higher (in the thousands) because profiling should have as low an overhead as possible and sampling on every cycle would be prohibitively expensive.

17.1.2.2. Using perf to do Basic Tracing

Profiling is a great tool for solving many problems or for getting a high-level view of what's going on with a workload or across the system. It is however by definition an approximation, as suggested by the most prominent word associated with it, 'sampling'. On the one hand, it allows a representative picture of what's going on in the system to be cheaply taken, but on the other hand, that cheapness limits its utility when that data suggests a need to 'dive down' more deeply to discover what's really going on. In such cases, the only way to see what's really going on is to be able to look at (or summarize more intelligently) the individual steps that go into the higher-level behavior exposed by the coarse-grained profiling data.

As a concrete example, we can trace all the events we think might be applicable to our workload:

     root@crownbay:~# perf record -g -e skb:* -e net:* -e napi:* -e sched:sched_switch -e sched:sched_wakeup -e irq:*
      -e syscalls:sys_enter_read -e syscalls:sys_exit_read -e syscalls:sys_enter_write -e syscalls:sys_exit_write
      wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2
                

We can look at the raw trace output using 'perf script' with no arguments:

     root@crownbay:~# perf script

           perf  1262 [000] 11624.857082: sys_exit_read: 0x0
           perf  1262 [000] 11624.857193: sched_wakeup: comm=migration/0 pid=6 prio=0 success=1 target_cpu=000
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.858021: softirq_raise: vec=1 [action=TIMER]
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.858074: softirq_entry: vec=1 [action=TIMER]
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.858081: softirq_exit: vec=1 [action=TIMER]
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.858166: sys_enter_read: fd: 0x0003, buf: 0xbf82c940, count: 0x0200
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.858177: sys_exit_read: 0x200
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.858878: kfree_skb: skbaddr=0xeb248d80 protocol=0 location=0xc15a5308
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.858945: kfree_skb: skbaddr=0xeb248000 protocol=0 location=0xc15a5308
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859020: softirq_raise: vec=1 [action=TIMER]
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859076: softirq_entry: vec=1 [action=TIMER]
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859083: softirq_exit: vec=1 [action=TIMER]
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859167: sys_enter_read: fd: 0x0003, buf: 0xb7720000, count: 0x0400
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859192: sys_exit_read: 0x1d7
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859228: sys_enter_read: fd: 0x0003, buf: 0xb7720000, count: 0x0400
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859233: sys_exit_read: 0x0
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859573: sys_enter_read: fd: 0x0003, buf: 0xbf82c580, count: 0x0200
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859584: sys_exit_read: 0x200
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859864: sys_enter_read: fd: 0x0003, buf: 0xb7720000, count: 0x0400
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859888: sys_exit_read: 0x400
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859935: sys_enter_read: fd: 0x0003, buf: 0xb7720000, count: 0x0400
           wget  1262 [001] 11624.859944: sys_exit_read: 0x400
                

This gives us a detailed timestamped sequence of events that occurred within the workload with respect to those events.

In many ways, profiling can be viewed as a subset of tracing - theoretically, if you have a set of trace events that's sufficient to capture all the important aspects of a workload, you can derive any of the results or views that a profiling run can.

Another aspect of traditional profiling is that while powerful in many ways, it's limited by the granularity of the underlying data. Profiling tools offer various ways of sorting and presenting the sample data, which make it much more useful and amenable to user experimentation, but in the end it can't be used in an open-ended way to extract data that just isn't present as a consequence of the fact that conceptually, most of it has been thrown away.

Full-blown detailed tracing data does however offer the opportunity to manipulate and present the information collected during a tracing run in an infinite variety of ways.

Another way to look at it is that there are only so many ways that the 'primitive' counters can be used on their own to generate interesting output; to get anything more complicated than simple counts requires some amount of additional logic, which is typically very specific to the problem at hand. For example, if we wanted to make use of a 'counter' that maps to the value of the time difference between when a process was scheduled to run on a processor and the time it actually ran, we wouldn't expect such a counter to exist on its own, but we could derive one called say 'wakeup_latency' and use it to extract a useful view of that metric from trace data. Likewise, we really can't figure out from standard profiling tools how much data every process on the system reads and writes, along with how many of those reads and writes fail completely. If we have sufficient trace data, however, we could with the right tools easily extract and present that information, but we'd need something other than pre-canned profiling tools to do that.

Luckily, there is a general-purpose way to handle such needs, called 'programming languages'. Making programming languages easily available to apply to such problems given the specific format of data is called a 'programming language binding' for that data and language. Perf supports two programming language bindings, one for Python and one for Perl.

Tying it Together: Language bindings for manipulating and aggregating trace data are of course not a new idea. One of the first projects to do this was IBM's DProbes dpcc compiler, an ANSI C compiler which targeted a low-level assembly language running on an in-kernel interpreter on the target system. This is exactly analogous to what Sun's DTrace did, except that DTrace invented its own language for the purpose. Systemtap, heavily inspired by DTrace, also created its own one-off language, but rather than running the product on an in-kernel interpreter, created an elaborate compiler-based machinery to translate its language into kernel modules written in C.

Now that we have the trace data in perf.data, we can use 'perf script -g' to generate a skeleton script with handlers for the read/write entry/exit events we recorded:

     root@crownbay:~# perf script -g python
     generated Python script: perf-script.py
                

The skeleton script simply creates a python function for each event type in the perf.data file. The body of each function simply prints the event name along with its parameters. For example:

     def net__netif_rx(event_name, context, common_cpu,
            common_secs, common_nsecs, common_pid, common_comm,
            skbaddr, len, name):
                    print_header(event_name, common_cpu, common_secs, common_nsecs,
                            common_pid, common_comm)

		     print "skbaddr=%u, len=%u, name=%s\n" % (skbaddr, len, name),
                

We can run that script directly to print all of the events contained in the perf.data file:

     root@crownbay:~# perf script -s perf-script.py

     in trace_begin
     syscalls__sys_exit_read     0 11624.857082795     1262 perf                  nr=3, ret=0
     sched__sched_wakeup      0 11624.857193498     1262 perf                  comm=migration/0, pid=6, prio=0,      success=1, target_cpu=0
     irq__softirq_raise       1 11624.858021635     1262 wget                  vec=TIMER
     irq__softirq_entry       1 11624.858074075     1262 wget                  vec=TIMER
     irq__softirq_exit        1 11624.858081389     1262 wget                  vec=TIMER
     syscalls__sys_enter_read     1 11624.858166434     1262 wget                  nr=3, fd=3, buf=3213019456,      count=512
     syscalls__sys_exit_read     1 11624.858177924     1262 wget                  nr=3, ret=512
     skb__kfree_skb           1 11624.858878188     1262 wget                  skbaddr=3945041280,           location=3243922184, protocol=0
     skb__kfree_skb           1 11624.858945608     1262 wget                  skbaddr=3945037824,      location=3243922184, protocol=0
     irq__softirq_raise       1 11624.859020942     1262 wget                  vec=TIMER
     irq__softirq_entry       1 11624.859076935     1262 wget                  vec=TIMER
     irq__softirq_exit        1 11624.859083469     1262 wget                  vec=TIMER
     syscalls__sys_enter_read     1 11624.859167565     1262 wget                  nr=3, fd=3, buf=3077701632,      count=1024
     syscalls__sys_exit_read     1 11624.859192533     1262 wget                  nr=3, ret=471
     syscalls__sys_enter_read     1 11624.859228072     1262 wget                  nr=3, fd=3, buf=3077701632,      count=1024
     syscalls__sys_exit_read     1 11624.859233707     1262 wget                  nr=3, ret=0
     syscalls__sys_enter_read     1 11624.859573008     1262 wget                  nr=3, fd=3, buf=3213018496,      count=512
     syscalls__sys_exit_read     1 11624.859584818     1262 wget                  nr=3, ret=512
     syscalls__sys_enter_read     1 11624.859864562     1262 wget                  nr=3, fd=3, buf=3077701632,      count=1024
     syscalls__sys_exit_read     1 11624.859888770     1262 wget                  nr=3, ret=1024
     syscalls__sys_enter_read     1 11624.859935140     1262 wget                  nr=3, fd=3, buf=3077701632,      count=1024
     syscalls__sys_exit_read     1 11624.859944032     1262 wget                  nr=3, ret=1024
                

That in itself isn't very useful; after all, we can accomplish pretty much the same thing by simply running 'perf script' without arguments in the same directory as the perf.data file.

We can however replace the print statements in the generated function bodies with whatever we want, and thereby make it infinitely more useful.

As a simple example, let's just replace the print statements in the function bodies with a simple function that does nothing but increment a per-event count. When the program is run against a perf.data file, each time a particular event is encountered, a tally is incremented for that event. For example:

     def net__netif_rx(event_name, context, common_cpu,
            common_secs, common_nsecs, common_pid, common_comm,
            skbaddr, len, name):
		          inc_counts(event_name)
                

Each event handler function in the generated code is modified to do this. For convenience, we define a common function called inc_counts() that each handler calls; inc_counts() simply tallies a count for each event using the 'counts' hash, which is a specialized hash function that does Perl-like autovivification, a capability that's extremely useful for kinds of multi-level aggregation commonly used in processing traces (see perf's documentation on the Python language binding for details):

     counts = autodict()

     def inc_counts(event_name):
            try:
                    counts[event_name] += 1
            except TypeError:
                    counts[event_name] = 1
                

Finally, at the end of the trace processing run, we want to print the result of all the per-event tallies. For that, we use the special 'trace_end()' function:

     def trace_end():
            for event_name, count in counts.iteritems():
                    print "%-40s %10s\n" % (event_name, count)
                

The end result is a summary of all the events recorded in the trace:

     skb__skb_copy_datagram_iovec                  13148
     irq__softirq_entry                             4796
     irq__irq_handler_exit                          3805
     irq__softirq_exit                              4795
     syscalls__sys_enter_write                      8990
     net__net_dev_xmit                               652
     skb__kfree_skb                                 4047
     sched__sched_wakeup                            1155
     irq__irq_handler_entry                         3804
     irq__softirq_raise                             4799
     net__net_dev_queue                              652
     syscalls__sys_enter_read                      17599
     net__netif_receive_skb                         1743
     syscalls__sys_exit_read                       17598
     net__netif_rx                                     2
     napi__napi_poll                                1877
     syscalls__sys_exit_write                       8990
                

Note that this is pretty much exactly the same information we get from 'perf stat', which goes a little way to support the idea mentioned previously that given the right kind of trace data, higher-level profiling-type summaries can be derived from it.

Documentation on using the 'perf script' python binding.

17.1.2.3. System-Wide Tracing and Profiling

The examples so far have focused on tracing a particular program or workload - in other words, every profiling run has specified the program to profile in the command-line e.g. 'perf record wget ...'.

It's also possible, and more interesting in many cases, to run a system-wide profile or trace while running the workload in a separate shell.

To do system-wide profiling or tracing, you typically use the -a flag to 'perf record'.

To demonstrate this, open up one window and start the profile using the -a flag (press Ctrl-C to stop tracing):

     root@crownbay:~# perf record -g -a
     ^C[ perf record: Woken up 6 times to write data ]
     [ perf record: Captured and wrote 1.400 MB perf.data (~61172 samples) ]
                

In another window, run the wget test:

     root@crownbay:~# wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2
     Connecting to downloads.yoctoproject.org (140.211.169.59:80)
     linux-2.6.19.2.tar.b 100% |*******************************| 41727k  0:00:00 ETA
                

Here we see entries not only for our wget load, but for other processes running on the system as well:

In the snapshot above, we can see callchains that originate in libc, and a callchain from Xorg that demonstrates that we're using a proprietary X driver in userspace (notice the presence of 'PVR' and some other unresolvable symbols in the expanded Xorg callchain).

Note also that we have both kernel and userspace entries in the above snapshot. We can also tell perf to focus on userspace but providing a modifier, in this case 'u', to the 'cycles' hardware counter when we record a profile:

     root@crownbay:~# perf record -g -a -e cycles:u
     ^C[ perf record: Woken up 2 times to write data ]
     [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.376 MB perf.data (~16443 samples) ]
                

Notice in the screenshot above, we see only userspace entries ([.])

Finally, we can press 'enter' on a leaf node and select the 'Zoom into DSO' menu item to show only entries associated with a specific DSO. In the screenshot below, we've zoomed into the 'libc' DSO which shows all the entries associated with the libc-xxx.so DSO.

We can also use the system-wide -a switch to do system-wide tracing. Here we'll trace a couple of scheduler events:

     root@crownbay:~# perf record -a -e sched:sched_switch -e sched:sched_wakeup
     ^C[ perf record: Woken up 38 times to write data ]
     [ perf record: Captured and wrote 9.780 MB perf.data (~427299 samples) ]
                

We can look at the raw output using 'perf script' with no arguments:

     root@crownbay:~# perf script

                perf  1383 [001]  6171.460045: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/1:1 pid=21 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=001
                perf  1383 [001]  6171.460066: sched_switch: prev_comm=perf prev_pid=1383 prev_prio=120 prev_state=R+ ==> next_comm=kworker/1:1 next_pid=21 next_prio=120
         kworker/1:1    21 [001]  6171.460093: sched_switch: prev_comm=kworker/1:1 prev_pid=21 prev_prio=120 prev_state=S ==> next_comm=perf next_pid=1383 next_prio=120
             swapper     0 [000]  6171.468063: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/0:3 pid=1209 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=000
             swapper     0 [000]  6171.468107: sched_switch: prev_comm=swapper/0 prev_pid=0 prev_prio=120 prev_state=R ==> next_comm=kworker/0:3 next_pid=1209 next_prio=120
         kworker/0:3  1209 [000]  6171.468143: sched_switch: prev_comm=kworker/0:3 prev_pid=1209 prev_prio=120 prev_state=S ==> next_comm=swapper/0 next_pid=0 next_prio=120
                perf  1383 [001]  6171.470039: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/1:1 pid=21 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=001
                perf  1383 [001]  6171.470058: sched_switch: prev_comm=perf prev_pid=1383 prev_prio=120 prev_state=R+ ==> next_comm=kworker/1:1 next_pid=21 next_prio=120
         kworker/1:1    21 [001]  6171.470082: sched_switch: prev_comm=kworker/1:1 prev_pid=21 prev_prio=120 prev_state=S ==> next_comm=perf next_pid=1383 next_prio=120
                perf  1383 [001]  6171.480035: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/1:1 pid=21 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=001
                

17.1.2.3.1. Filtering

Notice that there are a lot of events that don't really have anything to do with what we're interested in, namely events that schedule 'perf' itself in and out or that wake perf up. We can get rid of those by using the '--filter' option - for each event we specify using -e, we can add a --filter after that to filter out trace events that contain fields with specific values:

     root@crownbay:~# perf record -a -e sched:sched_switch --filter 'next_comm != perf && prev_comm != perf' -e sched:sched_wakeup --filter 'comm != perf'
     ^C[ perf record: Woken up 38 times to write data ]
     [ perf record: Captured and wrote 9.688 MB perf.data (~423279 samples) ]


     root@crownbay:~# perf script

             swapper     0 [000]  7932.162180: sched_switch: prev_comm=swapper/0 prev_pid=0 prev_prio=120 prev_state=R ==> next_comm=kworker/0:3 next_pid=1209 next_prio=120
         kworker/0:3  1209 [000]  7932.162236: sched_switch: prev_comm=kworker/0:3 prev_pid=1209 prev_prio=120 prev_state=S ==> next_comm=swapper/0 next_pid=0 next_prio=120
                perf  1407 [001]  7932.170048: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/1:1 pid=21 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=001
                perf  1407 [001]  7932.180044: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/1:1 pid=21 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=001
                perf  1407 [001]  7932.190038: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/1:1 pid=21 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=001
                perf  1407 [001]  7932.200044: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/1:1 pid=21 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=001
                perf  1407 [001]  7932.210044: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/1:1 pid=21 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=001
                perf  1407 [001]  7932.220044: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/1:1 pid=21 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=001
             swapper     0 [001]  7932.230111: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/1:1 pid=21 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=001
             swapper     0 [001]  7932.230146: sched_switch: prev_comm=swapper/1 prev_pid=0 prev_prio=120 prev_state=R ==> next_comm=kworker/1:1 next_pid=21 next_prio=120
         kworker/1:1    21 [001]  7932.230205: sched_switch: prev_comm=kworker/1:1 prev_pid=21 prev_prio=120 prev_state=S ==> next_comm=swapper/1 next_pid=0 next_prio=120
             swapper     0 [000]  7932.326109: sched_wakeup: comm=kworker/0:3 pid=1209 prio=120 success=1 target_cpu=000
             swapper     0 [000]  7932.326171: sched_switch: prev_comm=swapper/0 prev_pid=0 prev_prio=120 prev_state=R ==> next_comm=kworker/0:3 next_pid=1209 next_prio=120
         kworker/0:3  1209 [000]  7932.326214: sched_switch: prev_comm=kworker/0:3 prev_pid=1209 prev_prio=120 prev_state=S ==> next_comm=swapper/0 next_pid=0 next_prio=120
                    

In this case, we've filtered out all events that have 'perf' in their 'comm' or 'comm_prev' or 'comm_next' fields. Notice that there are still events recorded for perf, but notice that those events don't have values of 'perf' for the filtered fields. To completely filter out anything from perf will require a bit more work, but for the purpose of demonstrating how to use filters, it's close enough.

Tying it Together: These are exactly the same set of event filters defined by the trace event subsystem. See the ftrace/tracecmd/kernelshark section for more discussion about these event filters.
Tying it Together: These event filters are implemented by a special-purpose pseudo-interpreter in the kernel and are an integral and indispensable part of the perf design as it relates to tracing. kernel-based event filters provide a mechanism to precisely throttle the event stream that appears in user space, where it makes sense to provide bindings to real programming languages for postprocessing the event stream. This architecture allows for the intelligent and flexible partitioning of processing between the kernel and user space. Contrast this with other tools such as SystemTap, which does all of its processing in the kernel and as such requires a special project-defined language in order to accommodate that design, or LTTng, where everything is sent to userspace and as such requires a super-efficient kernel-to-userspace transport mechanism in order to function properly. While perf certainly can benefit from for instance advances in the design of the transport, it doesn't fundamentally depend on them. Basically, if you find that your perf tracing application is causing buffer I/O overruns, it probably means that you aren't taking enough advantage of the kernel filtering engine.

17.1.2.4. Using Dynamic Tracepoints

perf isn't restricted to the fixed set of static tracepoints listed by 'perf list'. Users can also add their own 'dynamic' tracepoints anywhere in the kernel. For instance, suppose we want to define our own tracepoint on do_fork(). We can do that using the 'perf probe' perf subcommand:

     root@crownbay:~# perf probe do_fork
     Added new event:
       probe:do_fork        (on do_fork)

     You can now use it in all perf tools, such as:

	     perf record -e probe:do_fork -aR sleep 1
                

Adding a new tracepoint via 'perf probe' results in an event with all the expected files and format in /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events, just the same as for static tracepoints (as discussed in more detail in the trace events subsystem section:

     root@crownbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/probe/do_fork# ls -al
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Oct 28 11:42 .
     drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root             0 Oct 28 11:42 ..
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root             0 Oct 28 11:42 enable
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root             0 Oct 28 11:42 filter
     -r--r--r--    1 root     root             0 Oct 28 11:42 format
     -r--r--r--    1 root     root             0 Oct 28 11:42 id

     root@crownbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/probe/do_fork# cat format
     name: do_fork
     ID: 944
     format:
	     field:unsigned short common_type;	offset:0;	size:2;	signed:0;
	     field:unsigned char common_flags;	offset:2;	size:1;	signed:0;
	     field:unsigned char common_preempt_count;	offset:3;	size:1;	signed:0;
	     field:int common_pid;	offset:4;	size:4;	signed:1;
	     field:int common_padding;	offset:8;	size:4;	signed:1;

	     field:unsigned long __probe_ip;	offset:12;	size:4;	signed:0;

     print fmt: "(%lx)", REC->__probe_ip
                

We can list all dynamic tracepoints currently in existence:

     root@crownbay:~# perf probe -l
      probe:do_fork        (on do_fork)
      probe:schedule       (on schedule)
                

Let's record system-wide ('sleep 30' is a trick for recording system-wide but basically do nothing and then wake up after 30 seconds):

     root@crownbay:~# perf record -g -a -e probe:do_fork sleep 30
     [ perf record: Woken up 1 times to write data ]
     [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.087 MB perf.data (~3812 samples) ]
                

Using 'perf script' we can see each do_fork event that fired:

     root@crownbay:~# perf script

     # ========
     # captured on: Sun Oct 28 11:55:18 2012
     # hostname : crownbay
     # os release : 3.4.11-yocto-standard
     # perf version : 3.4.11
     # arch : i686
     # nrcpus online : 2
     # nrcpus avail : 2
     # cpudesc : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU E660 @ 1.30GHz
     # cpuid : GenuineIntel,6,38,1
     # total memory : 1017184 kB
     # cmdline : /usr/bin/perf record -g -a -e probe:do_fork sleep 30
     # event : name = probe:do_fork, type = 2, config = 0x3b0, config1 = 0x0, config2 = 0x0, excl_usr = 0, excl_kern
      = 0, id = { 5, 6 }
     # HEADER_CPU_TOPOLOGY info available, use -I to display
     # ========
     #
      matchbox-deskto  1197 [001] 34211.378318: do_fork: (c1028460)
      matchbox-deskto  1295 [001] 34211.380388: do_fork: (c1028460)
              pcmanfm  1296 [000] 34211.632350: do_fork: (c1028460)
              pcmanfm  1296 [000] 34211.639917: do_fork: (c1028460)
      matchbox-deskto  1197 [001] 34217.541603: do_fork: (c1028460)
      matchbox-deskto  1299 [001] 34217.543584: do_fork: (c1028460)
               gthumb  1300 [001] 34217.697451: do_fork: (c1028460)
               gthumb  1300 [001] 34219.085734: do_fork: (c1028460)
               gthumb  1300 [000] 34219.121351: do_fork: (c1028460)
               gthumb  1300 [001] 34219.264551: do_fork: (c1028460)
              pcmanfm  1296 [000] 34219.590380: do_fork: (c1028460)
      matchbox-deskto  1197 [001] 34224.955965: do_fork: (c1028460)
      matchbox-deskto  1306 [001] 34224.957972: do_fork: (c1028460)
      matchbox-termin  1307 [000] 34225.038214: do_fork: (c1028460)
      matchbox-termin  1307 [001] 34225.044218: do_fork: (c1028460)
      matchbox-termin  1307 [000] 34225.046442: do_fork: (c1028460)
      matchbox-deskto  1197 [001] 34237.112138: do_fork: (c1028460)
      matchbox-deskto  1311 [001] 34237.114106: do_fork: (c1028460)
                 gaku  1312 [000] 34237.202388: do_fork: (c1028460)
                

And using 'perf report' on the same file, we can see the callgraphs from starting a few programs during those 30 seconds:

Tying it Together: The trace events subsystem accommodate static and dynamic tracepoints in exactly the same way - there's no difference as far as the infrastructure is concerned. See the ftrace section for more details on the trace event subsystem.
Tying it Together: Dynamic tracepoints are implemented under the covers by kprobes and uprobes. kprobes and uprobes are also used by and in fact are the main focus of SystemTap.

17.1.3. Documentation

Online versions of the man pages for the commands discussed in this section can be found here:

Normally, you should be able to invoke the man pages via perf itself e.g. 'perf help' or 'perf help record'.

However, by default Yocto doesn't install man pages, but perf invokes the man pages for most help functionality. This is a bug and is being addressed by a Yocto bug: Bug 3388 - perf: enable man pages for basic 'help' functionality.

The man pages in text form, along with some other files, such as a set of examples, can be found in the 'perf' directory of the kernel tree:

     tools/perf/Documentation
            

There's also a nice perf tutorial on the perf wiki that goes into more detail than we do here in certain areas: Perf Tutorial

17.2. ftrace

'ftrace' literally refers to the 'ftrace function tracer' but in reality this encompasses a number of related tracers along with the infrastructure that they all make use of.

17.2.1. Setup

For this section, we'll assume you've already performed the basic setup outlined in the General Setup section.

ftrace, trace-cmd, and kernelshark run on the target system, and are ready to go out-of-the-box - no additional setup is necessary. For the rest of this section we assume you've ssh'ed to the host and will be running ftrace on the target. kernelshark is a GUI application and if you use the '-X' option to ssh you can have the kernelshark GUI run on the target but display remotely on the host if you want.

17.2.2. Basic ftrace usage

'ftrace' essentially refers to everything included in the /tracing directory of the mounted debugfs filesystem (Yocto follows the standard convention and mounts it at /sys/kernel/debug). Here's a listing of all the files found in /sys/kernel/debug/tracing on a Yocto system:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# ls
     README                      kprobe_events               trace
     available_events            kprobe_profile              trace_clock
     available_filter_functions  options                     trace_marker
     available_tracers           per_cpu                     trace_options
     buffer_size_kb              printk_formats              trace_pipe
     buffer_total_size_kb        saved_cmdlines              tracing_cpumask
     current_tracer              set_event                   tracing_enabled
     dyn_ftrace_total_info       set_ftrace_filter           tracing_on
     enabled_functions           set_ftrace_notrace          tracing_thresh
     events                      set_ftrace_pid
     free_buffer                 set_graph_function
            

The files listed above are used for various purposes - some relate directly to the tracers themselves, others are used to set tracing options, and yet others actually contain the tracing output when a tracer is in effect. Some of the functions can be guessed from their names, others need explanation; in any case, we'll cover some of the files we see here below but for an explanation of the others, please see the ftrace documentation.

We'll start by looking at some of the available built-in tracers.

cat'ing the 'available_tracers' file lists the set of available tracers:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cat available_tracers
     blk function_graph function nop
            

The 'current_tracer' file contains the tracer currently in effect:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cat current_tracer
     nop
            

The above listing of current_tracer shows that the 'nop' tracer is in effect, which is just another way of saying that there's actually no tracer currently in effect.

echo'ing one of the available_tracers into current_tracer makes the specified tracer the current tracer:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo function > current_tracer
     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cat current_tracer
     function
            

The above sets the current tracer to be the 'function tracer'. This tracer traces every function call in the kernel and makes it available as the contents of the 'trace' file. Reading the 'trace' file lists the currently buffered function calls that have been traced by the function tracer:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cat trace | less

     # tracer: function
     #
     # entries-in-buffer/entries-written: 310629/766471   #P:8
     #
     #                              _-----=> irqs-off
     #                             / _----=> need-resched
     #                            | / _---=> hardirq/softirq
     #                            || / _--=> preempt-depth
     #                            ||| /     delay
     #           TASK-PID   CPU#  ||||    TIMESTAMP  FUNCTION
     #              | |       |   ||||       |         |
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867169: ktime_get_real <-intel_idle
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867170: getnstimeofday <-ktime_get_real
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867171: ns_to_timeval <-intel_idle
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867171: ns_to_timespec <-ns_to_timeval
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867172: smp_apic_timer_interrupt <-apic_timer_interrupt
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867172: native_apic_mem_write <-smp_apic_timer_interrupt
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867172: irq_enter <-smp_apic_timer_interrupt
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867172: rcu_irq_enter <-irq_enter
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867173: rcu_idle_exit_common.isra.33 <-rcu_irq_enter
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867173: local_bh_disable <-irq_enter
              <idle>-0     [004] d..1   470.867173: add_preempt_count <-local_bh_disable
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s1   470.867174: tick_check_idle <-irq_enter
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s1   470.867174: tick_check_oneshot_broadcast <-tick_check_idle
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s1   470.867174: ktime_get <-tick_check_idle
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s1   470.867174: tick_nohz_stop_idle <-tick_check_idle
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s1   470.867175: update_ts_time_stats <-tick_nohz_stop_idle
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s1   470.867175: nr_iowait_cpu <-update_ts_time_stats
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s1   470.867175: tick_do_update_jiffies64 <-tick_check_idle
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s1   470.867175: _raw_spin_lock <-tick_do_update_jiffies64
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s1   470.867176: add_preempt_count <-_raw_spin_lock
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s2   470.867176: do_timer <-tick_do_update_jiffies64
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s2   470.867176: _raw_spin_lock <-do_timer
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s2   470.867176: add_preempt_count <-_raw_spin_lock
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s3   470.867177: ntp_tick_length <-do_timer
              <idle>-0     [004] d.s3   470.867177: _raw_spin_lock_irqsave <-ntp_tick_length
              .
              .
              .
            

Each line in the trace above shows what was happening in the kernel on a given cpu, to the level of detail of function calls. Each entry shows the function called, followed by its caller (after the arrow).

The function tracer gives you an extremely detailed idea of what the kernel was doing at the point in time the trace was taken, and is a great way to learn about how the kernel code works in a dynamic sense.

Tying it Together: The ftrace function tracer is also available from within perf, as the ftrace:function tracepoint.

It is a little more difficult to follow the call chains than it needs to be - luckily there's a variant of the function tracer that displays the callchains explicitly, called the 'function_graph' tracer:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo function_graph > current_tracer
     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cat trace | less

      tracer: function_graph

      CPU  DURATION                  FUNCTION CALLS
      |     |   |                     |   |   |   |
     7)   0.046 us    |      pick_next_task_fair();
     7)   0.043 us    |      pick_next_task_stop();
     7)   0.042 us    |      pick_next_task_rt();
     7)   0.032 us    |      pick_next_task_fair();
     7)   0.030 us    |      pick_next_task_idle();
     7)               |      _raw_spin_unlock_irq() {
     7)   0.033 us    |        sub_preempt_count();
     7)   0.258 us    |      }
     7)   0.032 us    |      sub_preempt_count();
     7) + 13.341 us   |    } /* __schedule */
     7)   0.095 us    |  } /* sub_preempt_count */
     7)               |  schedule() {
     7)               |    __schedule() {
     7)   0.060 us    |      add_preempt_count();
     7)   0.044 us    |      rcu_note_context_switch();
     7)               |      _raw_spin_lock_irq() {
     7)   0.033 us    |        add_preempt_count();
     7)   0.247 us    |      }
     7)               |      idle_balance() {
     7)               |        _raw_spin_unlock() {
     7)   0.031 us    |          sub_preempt_count();
     7)   0.246 us    |        }
     7)               |        update_shares() {
     7)   0.030 us    |          __rcu_read_lock();
     7)   0.029 us    |          __rcu_read_unlock();
     7)   0.484 us    |        }
     7)   0.030 us    |        __rcu_read_lock();
     7)               |        load_balance() {
     7)               |          find_busiest_group() {
     7)   0.031 us    |            idle_cpu();
     7)   0.029 us    |            idle_cpu();
     7)   0.035 us    |            idle_cpu();
     7)   0.906 us    |          }
     7)   1.141 us    |        }
     7)   0.022 us    |        msecs_to_jiffies();
     7)               |        load_balance() {
     7)               |          find_busiest_group() {
     7)   0.031 us    |            idle_cpu();
     .
     .
     .
     4)   0.062 us    |        msecs_to_jiffies();
     4)   0.062 us    |        __rcu_read_unlock();
     4)               |        _raw_spin_lock() {
     4)   0.073 us    |          add_preempt_count();
     4)   0.562 us    |        }
     4) + 17.452 us   |      }
     4)   0.108 us    |      put_prev_task_fair();
     4)   0.102 us    |      pick_next_task_fair();
     4)   0.084 us    |      pick_next_task_stop();
     4)   0.075 us    |      pick_next_task_rt();
     4)   0.062 us    |      pick_next_task_fair();
     4)   0.066 us    |      pick_next_task_idle();
     ------------------------------------------
     4)   kworker-74   =>    <idle>-0
     ------------------------------------------

     4)               |      finish_task_switch() {
     4)               |        _raw_spin_unlock_irq() {
     4)   0.100 us    |          sub_preempt_count();
     4)   0.582 us    |        }
     4)   1.105 us    |      }
     4)   0.088 us    |      sub_preempt_count();
     4) ! 100.066 us  |    }
     .
     .
     .
     3)               |  sys_ioctl() {
     3)   0.083 us    |    fget_light();
     3)               |    security_file_ioctl() {
     3)   0.066 us    |      cap_file_ioctl();
     3)   0.562 us    |    }
     3)               |    do_vfs_ioctl() {
     3)               |      drm_ioctl() {
     3)   0.075 us    |        drm_ut_debug_printk();
     3)               |        i915_gem_pwrite_ioctl() {
     3)               |          i915_mutex_lock_interruptible() {
     3)   0.070 us    |            mutex_lock_interruptible();
     3)   0.570 us    |          }
     3)               |          drm_gem_object_lookup() {
     3)               |            _raw_spin_lock() {
     3)   0.080 us    |              add_preempt_count();
     3)   0.620 us    |            }
     3)               |            _raw_spin_unlock() {
     3)   0.085 us    |              sub_preempt_count();
     3)   0.562 us    |            }
     3)   2.149 us    |          }
     3)   0.133 us    |          i915_gem_object_pin();
     3)               |          i915_gem_object_set_to_gtt_domain() {
     3)   0.065 us    |            i915_gem_object_flush_gpu_write_domain();
     3)   0.065 us    |            i915_gem_object_wait_rendering();
     3)   0.062 us    |            i915_gem_object_flush_cpu_write_domain();
     3)   1.612 us    |          }
     3)               |          i915_gem_object_put_fence() {
     3)   0.097 us    |            i915_gem_object_flush_fence.constprop.36();
     3)   0.645 us    |          }
     3)   0.070 us    |          add_preempt_count();
     3)   0.070 us    |          sub_preempt_count();
     3)   0.073 us    |          i915_gem_object_unpin();
     3)   0.068 us    |          mutex_unlock();
     3)   9.924 us    |        }
     3) + 11.236 us   |      }
     3) + 11.770 us   |    }
     3) + 13.784 us   |  }
     3)               |  sys_ioctl() {
            

As you can see, the function_graph display is much easier to follow. Also note that in addition to the function calls and associated braces, other events such as scheduler events are displayed in context. In fact, you can freely include any tracepoint available in the trace events subsystem described in the next section by simply enabling those events, and they'll appear in context in the function graph display. Quite a powerful tool for understanding kernel dynamics.

Also notice that there are various annotations on the left hand side of the display. For example if the total time it took for a given function to execute is above a certain threshold, an exclamation point or plus sign appears on the left hand side. Please see the ftrace documentation for details on all these fields.

17.2.3. The 'trace events' Subsystem

One especially important directory contained within the /sys/kernel/debug/tracing directory is the 'events' subdirectory, which contains representations of every tracepoint in the system. Listing out the contents of the 'events' subdirectory, we see mainly another set of subdirectories:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cd events
     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events# ls -al
     drwxr-xr-x   38 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 .
     drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 ..
     drwxr-xr-x   19 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 block
     drwxr-xr-x   32 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 btrfs
     drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 drm
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 enable
     drwxr-xr-x   40 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 ext3
     drwxr-xr-x   79 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 ext4
     drwxr-xr-x   14 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 ftrace
     drwxr-xr-x    8 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 hda
     -r--r--r--    1 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 header_event
     -r--r--r--    1 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 header_page
     drwxr-xr-x   25 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 i915
     drwxr-xr-x    7 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 irq
     drwxr-xr-x   12 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 jbd
     drwxr-xr-x   14 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 jbd2
     drwxr-xr-x   14 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 kmem
     drwxr-xr-x    7 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 module
     drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 napi
     drwxr-xr-x    6 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 net
     drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 oom
     drwxr-xr-x   12 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 power
     drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 printk
     drwxr-xr-x    8 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 random
     drwxr-xr-x    4 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 raw_syscalls
     drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 rcu
     drwxr-xr-x    6 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 rpm
     drwxr-xr-x   20 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 sched
     drwxr-xr-x    7 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 scsi
     drwxr-xr-x    4 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 signal
     drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 skb
     drwxr-xr-x    4 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 sock
     drwxr-xr-x   10 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 sunrpc
     drwxr-xr-x  538 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 syscalls
     drwxr-xr-x    4 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 task
     drwxr-xr-x   14 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 timer
     drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 udp
     drwxr-xr-x   21 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 vmscan
     drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 vsyscall
     drwxr-xr-x    6 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 workqueue
     drwxr-xr-x   26 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 writeback
            

Each one of these subdirectories corresponds to a 'subsystem' and contains yet again more subdirectories, each one of those finally corresponding to a tracepoint. For example, here are the contents of the 'kmem' subsystem:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events# cd kmem
     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kmem# ls -al
     drwxr-xr-x   14 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 .
     drwxr-xr-x   38 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 ..
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 enable
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 filter
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 kfree
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 kmalloc
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 kmalloc_node
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 kmem_cache_alloc
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 kmem_cache_alloc_node
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 kmem_cache_free
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 mm_page_alloc
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 mm_page_alloc_extfrag
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 mm_page_alloc_zone_locked
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 mm_page_free
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 mm_page_free_batched
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 mm_page_pcpu_drain
            

Let's see what's inside the subdirectory for a specific tracepoint, in this case the one for kmalloc:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kmem# cd kmalloc
     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kmem/kmalloc# ls -al
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 .
     drwxr-xr-x   14 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 ..
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 enable
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 filter
     -r--r--r--    1 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 format
     -r--r--r--    1 root     root             0 Nov 14 23:19 id
            

The 'format' file for the tracepoint describes the event in memory, which is used by the various tracing tools that now make use of these tracepoint to parse the event and make sense of it, along with a 'print fmt' field that allows tools like ftrace to display the event as text. Here's what the format of the kmalloc event looks like:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kmem/kmalloc# cat format
     name: kmalloc
     ID: 313
     format:
	     field:unsigned short common_type;	offset:0;	size:2;	signed:0;
	     field:unsigned char common_flags;	offset:2;	size:1;	signed:0;
	     field:unsigned char common_preempt_count;	offset:3;	size:1;	signed:0;
	     field:int common_pid;	offset:4;	size:4;	signed:1;
	     field:int common_padding;	offset:8;	size:4;	signed:1;

	     field:unsigned long call_site;	offset:16;	size:8;	signed:0;
	     field:const void * ptr;	offset:24;	size:8;	signed:0;
	     field:size_t bytes_req;	offset:32;	size:8;	signed:0;
	     field:size_t bytes_alloc;	offset:40;	size:8;	signed:0;
	     field:gfp_t gfp_flags;	offset:48;	size:4;	signed:0;

     print fmt: "call_site=%lx ptr=%p bytes_req=%zu bytes_alloc=%zu gfp_flags=%s", REC->call_site, REC->ptr, REC->bytes_req, REC->bytes_alloc,
     (REC->gfp_flags) ? __print_flags(REC->gfp_flags, "|", {(unsigned long)(((( gfp_t)0x10u) | (( gfp_t)0x40u) | (( gfp_t)0x80u) | ((
     gfp_t)0x20000u) | (( gfp_t)0x02u) | (( gfp_t)0x08u)) | (( gfp_t)0x4000u) | (( gfp_t)0x10000u) | (( gfp_t)0x1000u) | (( gfp_t)0x200u) | ((
     gfp_t)0x400000u)), "GFP_TRANSHUGE"}, {(unsigned long)((( gfp_t)0x10u) | (( gfp_t)0x40u) | (( gfp_t)0x80u) | (( gfp_t)0x20000u) | ((
     gfp_t)0x02u) | (( gfp_t)0x08u)), "GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE"}, {(unsigned long)((( gfp_t)0x10u) | (( gfp_t)0x40u) | (( gfp_t)0x80u) | ((
     gfp_t)0x20000u) | (( gfp_t)0x02u)), "GFP_HIGHUSER"}, {(unsigned long)((( gfp_t)0x10u) | (( gfp_t)0x40u) | (( gfp_t)0x80u) | ((
     gfp_t)0x20000u)), "GFP_USER"}, {(unsigned long)((( gfp_t)0x10u) | (( gfp_t)0x40u) | (( gfp_t)0x80u) | (( gfp_t)0x80000u)), GFP_TEMPORARY"},
     {(unsigned long)((( gfp_t)0x10u) | (( gfp_t)0x40u) | (( gfp_t)0x80u)), "GFP_KERNEL"}, {(unsigned long)((( gfp_t)0x10u) | (( gfp_t)0x40u)),
     "GFP_NOFS"}, {(unsigned long)((( gfp_t)0x20u)), "GFP_ATOMIC"}, {(unsigned long)((( gfp_t)0x10u)), "GFP_NOIO"}, {(unsigned long)((
     gfp_t)0x20u), "GFP_HIGH"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x10u), "GFP_WAIT"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x40u), "GFP_IO"}, {(unsigned long)((
     gfp_t)0x100u), "GFP_COLD"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x200u), "GFP_NOWARN"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x400u), "GFP_REPEAT"}, {(unsigned
     long)(( gfp_t)0x800u), "GFP_NOFAIL"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x1000u), "GFP_NORETRY"},      {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x4000u), "GFP_COMP"},
     {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x8000u), "GFP_ZERO"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x10000u), "GFP_NOMEMALLOC"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x20000u),
     "GFP_HARDWALL"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x40000u), "GFP_THISNODE"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x80000u), "GFP_RECLAIMABLE"}, {(unsigned
     long)(( gfp_t)0x08u), "GFP_MOVABLE"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0), "GFP_NOTRACK"}, {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x400000u), "GFP_NO_KSWAPD"},
     {(unsigned long)(( gfp_t)0x800000u), "GFP_OTHER_NODE"} ) : "GFP_NOWAIT"
            

The 'enable' file in the tracepoint directory is what allows the user (or tools such as trace-cmd) to actually turn the tracepoint on and off. When enabled, the corresponding tracepoint will start appearing in the ftrace 'trace' file described previously. For example, this turns on the kmalloc tracepoint:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kmem/kmalloc# echo 1 > enable
            

At the moment, we're not interested in the function tracer or some other tracer that might be in effect, so we first turn it off, but if we do that, we still need to turn tracing on in order to see the events in the output buffer:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo nop > current_tracer
     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo 1 > tracing_on
            

Now, if we look at the the 'trace' file, we see nothing but the kmalloc events we just turned on:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cat trace | less
     # tracer: nop
     #
     # entries-in-buffer/entries-written: 1897/1897   #P:8
     #
     #                              _-----=> irqs-off
     #                             / _----=> need-resched
     #                            | / _---=> hardirq/softirq
     #                            || / _--=> preempt-depth
     #                            ||| /     delay
     #           TASK-PID   CPU#  ||||    TIMESTAMP  FUNCTION
     #              | |       |   ||||       |         |
            dropbear-1465  [000] ...1 18154.620753: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff816650d4 ptr=ffff8800729c3000 bytes_req=2048 bytes_alloc=2048 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18154.621640: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d555800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18154.621656: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d555800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
     matchbox-termin-1361  [001] ...1 18154.755472: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81614050 ptr=ffff88006d5f0e00 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_REPEAT
                Xorg-1264  [002] ...1 18154.755581: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff8141abe8 ptr=ffff8800734f4cc0 bytes_req=168 bytes_alloc=192 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_NOWARN|GFP_NORETRY
                Xorg-1264  [002] ...1 18154.755583: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff814192a3 ptr=ffff88001f822520 bytes_req=24 bytes_alloc=32 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_ZERO
                Xorg-1264  [002] ...1 18154.755589: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81419edb ptr=ffff8800721a2f00 bytes_req=64 bytes_alloc=64 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_ZERO
     matchbox-termin-1361  [001] ...1 18155.354594: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81614050 ptr=ffff88006db35400 bytes_req=576 bytes_alloc=1024 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_REPEAT
                Xorg-1264  [002] ...1 18155.354703: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff8141abe8 ptr=ffff8800734f4cc0 bytes_req=168 bytes_alloc=192 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_NOWARN|GFP_NORETRY
                Xorg-1264  [002] ...1 18155.354705: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff814192a3 ptr=ffff88001f822520 bytes_req=24 bytes_alloc=32 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_ZERO
                Xorg-1264  [002] ...1 18155.354711: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81419edb ptr=ffff8800721a2f00 bytes_req=64 bytes_alloc=64 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_ZERO
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18155.673319: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d555800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
            dropbear-1465  [000] ...1 18155.673525: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff816650d4 ptr=ffff8800729c3000 bytes_req=2048 bytes_alloc=2048 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18155.674821: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d554800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18155.793014: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d554800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
            dropbear-1465  [000] ...1 18155.793219: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff816650d4 ptr=ffff8800729c3000 bytes_req=2048 bytes_alloc=2048 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18155.794147: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d555800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18155.936705: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d555800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
            dropbear-1465  [000] ...1 18155.936910: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff816650d4 ptr=ffff8800729c3000 bytes_req=2048 bytes_alloc=2048 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18155.937869: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d554800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
     matchbox-termin-1361  [001] ...1 18155.953667: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81614050 ptr=ffff88006d5f2000 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_REPEAT
                Xorg-1264  [002] ...1 18155.953775: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff8141abe8 ptr=ffff8800734f4cc0 bytes_req=168 bytes_alloc=192 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_NOWARN|GFP_NORETRY
                Xorg-1264  [002] ...1 18155.953777: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff814192a3 ptr=ffff88001f822520 bytes_req=24 bytes_alloc=32 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_ZERO
                Xorg-1264  [002] ...1 18155.953783: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81419edb ptr=ffff8800721a2f00 bytes_req=64 bytes_alloc=64 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_ZERO
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18156.176053: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d554800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
            dropbear-1465  [000] ...1 18156.176257: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff816650d4 ptr=ffff8800729c3000 bytes_req=2048 bytes_alloc=2048 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18156.177717: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d555800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18156.399229: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d555800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
            dropbear-1465  [000] ...1 18156.399434: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff816650d4 ptr=ffff8800729c3000 bytes_http://rostedt.homelinux.com/kernelshark/req=2048 bytes_alloc=2048 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL
              <idle>-0     [000] ..s3 18156.400660: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81619b36 ptr=ffff88006d554800 bytes_req=512 bytes_alloc=512 gfp_flags=GFP_ATOMIC
     matchbox-termin-1361  [001] ...1 18156.552800: kmalloc: call_site=ffffffff81614050 ptr=ffff88006db34800 bytes_req=576 bytes_alloc=1024 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_REPEAT
            

To again disable the kmalloc event, we need to send 0 to the enable file:

     root@sugarbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kmem/kmalloc# echo 0 > enable
            

You can enable any number of events or complete subsystems (by using the 'enable' file in the subsystem directory) and get an arbitrarily fine-grained idea of what's going on in the system by enabling as many of the appropriate tracepoints as applicable.

A number of the tools described in this HOWTO do just that, including trace-cmd and kernelshark in the next section.

Tying it Together: These tracepoints and their representation are used not only by ftrace, but by many of the other tools covered in this document and they form a central point of integration for the various tracers available in Linux. They form a central part of the instrumentation for the following tools: perf, lttng, ftrace, blktrace and SystemTap
Tying it Together: Eventually all the special-purpose tracers currently available in /sys/kernel/debug/tracing will be removed and replaced with equivalent tracers based on the 'trace events' subsystem.

17.2.4. trace-cmd/kernelshark

trace-cmd is essentially an extensive command-line 'wrapper' interface that hides the details of all the individual files in /sys/kernel/debug/tracing, allowing users to specify specific particular events within the /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/ subdirectory and to collect traces and avoid having to deal with those details directly.

As yet another layer on top of that, kernelshark provides a GUI that allows users to start and stop traces and specify sets of events using an intuitive interface, and view the output as both trace events and as a per-CPU graphical display. It directly uses 'trace-cmd' as the plumbing that accomplishes all that underneath the covers (and actually displays the trace-cmd command it uses, as we'll see).

To start a trace using kernelshark, first start kernelshark:

     root@sugarbay:~# kernelshark
            

Then bring up the 'Capture' dialog by choosing from the kernelshark menu:

     Capture | Record
            

That will display the following dialog, which allows you to choose one or more events (or even one or more complete subsystems) to trace:

Note that these are exactly the same sets of events described in the previous trace events subsystem section, and in fact is where trace-cmd gets them for kernelshark.

In the above screenshot, we've decided to explore the graphics subsystem a bit and so have chosen to trace all the tracepoints contained within the 'i915' and 'drm' subsystems.

After doing that, we can start and stop the trace using the 'Run' and 'Stop' button on the lower right corner of the dialog (the same button will turn into the 'Stop' button after the trace has started):

Notice that the right-hand pane shows the exact trace-cmd command-line that's used to run the trace, along with the results of the trace-cmd run.

Once the 'Stop' button is pressed, the graphical view magically fills up with a colorful per-cpu display of the trace data, along with the detailed event listing below that:

Here's another example, this time a display resulting from tracing 'all events':

The tool is pretty self-explanatory, but for more detailed information on navigating through the data, see the kernelshark website.

17.2.5. Documentation

The documentation for ftrace can be found in the kernel Documentation directory:

     Documentation/trace/ftrace.txt
            

The documentation for the trace event subsystem can also be found in the kernel Documentation directory:

     Documentation/trace/events.txt
            

There is a nice series of articles on using ftrace and trace-cmd at LWN:

There's more detailed documentation kernelshark usage here: KernelShark

An amusing yet useful README (a tracing mini-HOWTO) can be found in /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/README.

17.3. systemtap

SystemTap is a system-wide script-based tracing and profiling tool.

SystemTap scripts are C-like programs that are executed in the kernel to gather/print/aggregate data extracted from the context they end up being invoked under.

For example, this probe from the SystemTap tutorial simply prints a line every time any process on the system open()s a file. For each line, it prints the executable name of the program that opened the file, along with its PID, and the name of the file it opened (or tried to open), which it extracts from the open syscall's argstr.

     probe syscall.open
     {
             printf ("%s(%d) open (%s)\n", execname(), pid(), argstr)
     }

     probe timer.ms(4000) # after 4 seconds
     {
             exit ()
     }
        

Normally, to execute this probe, you'd simply install systemtap on the system you want to probe, and directly run the probe on that system e.g. assuming the name of the file containing the above text is trace_open.stp:

     # stap trace_open.stp
        

What systemtap does under the covers to run this probe is 1) parse and convert the probe to an equivalent 'C' form, 2) compile the 'C' form into a kernel module, 3) insert the module into the kernel, which arms it, and 4) collect the data generated by the probe and display it to the user.

In order to accomplish steps 1 and 2, the 'stap' program needs access to the kernel build system that produced the kernel that the probed system is running. In the case of a typical embedded system (the 'target'), the kernel build system unfortunately isn't typically part of the image running on the target. It is normally available on the 'host' system that produced the target image however; in such cases, steps 1 and 2 are executed on the host system, and steps 3 and 4 are executed on the target system, using only the systemtap 'runtime'.

The systemtap support in Yocto assumes that only steps 3 and 4 are run on the target; it is possible to do everything on the target, but this section assumes only the typical embedded use-case.

So basically what you need to do in order to run a systemtap script on the target is to 1) on the host system, compile the probe into a kernel module that makes sense to the target, 2) copy the module onto the target system and 3) insert the module into the target kernel, which arms it, and 4) collect the data generated by the probe and display it to the user.

17.3.1. Setup

Those are a lot of steps and a lot of details, but fortunately Yocto includes a script called 'crosstap' that will take care of those details, allowing you to simply execute a systemtap script on the remote target, with arguments if necessary.

In order to do this from a remote host, however, you need to have access to the build for the image you booted. The 'crosstap' script provides details on how to do this if you run the script on the host without having done a build:

Note

SystemTap, which uses 'crosstap', assumes you can establish an ssh connection to the remote target. Please refer to the crosstap wiki page for details on verifying ssh connections at https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/Tracing_and_Profiling#systemtap. Also, the ability to ssh into the target system is not enabled by default in *-minimal images.

     $ crosstap root@192.168.1.88 trace_open.stp

     Error: No target kernel build found.
     Did you forget to create a local build of your image?

     'crosstap' requires a local sdk build of the target system
     (or a build that includes 'tools-profile') in order to build
     kernel modules that can probe the target system.

     Practically speaking, that means you need to do the following:
      - If you're running a pre-built image, download the release
        and/or BSP tarballs used to build the image.
      - If you're working from git sources, just clone the metadata
        and BSP layers needed to build the image you'll be booting.
      - Make sure you're properly set up to build a new image (see
        the BSP README and/or the widely available basic documentation
        that discusses how to build images).
      - Build an -sdk version of the image e.g.:
          $ bitbake core-image-sato-sdk
      OR
      - Build a non-sdk image but include the profiling tools:
          [ edit local.conf and add 'tools-profile' to the end of
            the EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES variable ]
          $ bitbake core-image-sato

     Once you've build the image on the host system, you're ready to
     boot it (or the equivalent pre-built image) and use 'crosstap'
     to probe it (you need to source the environment as usual first):

        $ source oe-init-build-env
        $ cd ~/my/systemtap/scripts
        $ crosstap root@192.168.1.xxx myscript.stp
            

So essentially what you need to do is build an SDK image or image with 'tools-profile' as detailed in the "General Setup" section of this manual, and boot the resulting target image.

Note

If you have a build directory containing multiple machines, you need to have the MACHINE you're connecting to selected in local.conf, and the kernel in that machine's build directory must match the kernel on the booted system exactly, or you'll get the above 'crosstap' message when you try to invoke a script.

17.3.2. Running a Script on a Target

Once you've done that, you should be able to run a systemtap script on the target:

     $ cd /path/to/yocto
     $ source oe-init-build-env

     ### Shell environment set up for builds. ###

     You can now run 'bitbake <target>'

     Common targets are:
              core-image-minimal
              core-image-sato
              meta-toolchain
              meta-ide-support

     You can also run generated qemu images with a command like 'runqemu qemux86'

            

Once you've done that, you can cd to whatever directory contains your scripts and use 'crosstap' to run the script:

     $ cd /path/to/my/systemap/script
     $ crosstap root@192.168.7.2 trace_open.stp
            

If you get an error connecting to the target e.g.:

     $ crosstap root@192.168.7.2 trace_open.stp
     error establishing ssh connection on remote 'root@192.168.7.2'
            

Try ssh'ing to the target and see what happens:

     $ ssh root@192.168.7.2
            

A lot of the time, connection problems are due specifying a wrong IP address or having a 'host key verification error'.

If everything worked as planned, you should see something like this (enter the password when prompted, or press enter if it's set up to use no password):

     $ crosstap root@192.168.7.2 trace_open.stp
     root@192.168.7.2's password:
     matchbox-termin(1036) open ("/tmp/vte3FS2LW", O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_EXCL|O_LARGEFILE, 0600)
     matchbox-termin(1036) open ("/tmp/vteJMC7LW", O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_EXCL|O_LARGEFILE, 0600)
            

17.3.3. Documentation

The SystemTap language reference can be found here: SystemTap Language Reference

Links to other SystemTap documents, tutorials, and examples can be found here: SystemTap documentation page

17.4. Sysprof

Sysprof is a very easy to use system-wide profiler that consists of a single window with three panes and a few buttons which allow you to start, stop, and view the profile from one place.

17.4.1. Setup

For this section, we'll assume you've already performed the basic setup outlined in the General Setup section.

Sysprof is a GUI-based application that runs on the target system. For the rest of this document we assume you've ssh'ed to the host and will be running Sysprof on the target (you can use the '-X' option to ssh and have the Sysprof GUI run on the target but display remotely on the host if you want).

17.4.2. Basic Usage

To start profiling the system, you simply press the 'Start' button. To stop profiling and to start viewing the profile data in one easy step, press the 'Profile' button.

Once you've pressed the profile button, the three panes will fill up with profiling data:

The left pane shows a list of functions and processes. Selecting one of those expands that function in the right pane, showing all its callees. Note that this caller-oriented display is essentially the inverse of perf's default callee-oriented callchain display.

In the screenshot above, we're focusing on __copy_to_user_ll() and looking up the callchain we can see that one of the callers of __copy_to_user_ll is sys_read() and the complete callpath between them. Notice that this is essentially a portion of the same information we saw in the perf display shown in the perf section of this page.

Similarly, the above is a snapshot of the Sysprof display of a copy-from-user callchain.

Finally, looking at the third Sysprof pane in the lower left, we can see a list of all the callers of a particular function selected in the top left pane. In this case, the lower pane is showing all the callers of __mark_inode_dirty:

Double-clicking on one of those functions will in turn change the focus to the selected function, and so on.

Tying it Together: If you like sysprof's 'caller-oriented' display, you may be able to approximate it in other tools as well. For example, 'perf report' has the -g (--call-graph) option that you can experiment with; one of the options is 'caller' for an inverted caller-based callgraph display.

17.4.3. Documentation

There doesn't seem to be any documentation for Sysprof, but maybe that's because it's pretty self-explanatory. The Sysprof website, however, is here: Sysprof, System-wide Performance Profiler for Linux

17.5. LTTng (Linux Trace Toolkit, next generation)

17.5.1. Setup

For this section, we'll assume you've already performed the basic setup outlined in the General Setup section.

LTTng is run on the target system by ssh'ing to it. However, if you want to see the traces graphically, install Eclipse as described in section "Manually copying a trace to the host and viewing it in Eclipse (i.e. using Eclipse without network support)" and follow the directions to manually copy traces to the host and view them in Eclipse (i.e. using Eclipse without network support).

17.5.2. Collecting and Viewing Traces

Once you've applied the above commits and built and booted your image (you need to build the core-image-sato-sdk image or use one of the other methods described in the General Setup section), you're ready to start tracing.

17.5.2.1. Collecting and viewing a trace on the target (inside a shell)

First, from the host, ssh to the target:

     $ ssh -l root 192.168.1.47
     The authenticity of host '192.168.1.47 (192.168.1.47)' can't be established.
     RSA key fingerprint is 23:bd:c8:b1:a8:71:52:00:ee:00:4f:64:9e:10:b9:7e.
     Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
     Warning: Permanently added '192.168.1.47' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
     root@192.168.1.47's password:
                

Once on the target, use these steps to create a trace:

     root@crownbay:~# lttng create
     Spawning a session daemon
     Session auto-20121015-232120 created.
     Traces will be written in /home/root/lttng-traces/auto-20121015-232120
                

Enable the events you want to trace (in this case all kernel events):

     root@crownbay:~# lttng enable-event --kernel --all
     All kernel events are enabled in channel channel0
                

Start the trace:

     root@crownbay:~# lttng start
     Tracing started for session auto-20121015-232120
                

And then stop the trace after awhile or after running a particular workload that you want to trace:

     root@crownbay:~# lttng stop
     Tracing stopped for session auto-20121015-232120
                

You can now view the trace in text form on the target:

     root@crownbay:~# lttng view
     [23:21:56.989270399] (+?.?????????) sys_geteuid: { 1 }, { }
     [23:21:56.989278081] (+0.000007682) exit_syscall: { 1 }, { ret = 0 }
     [23:21:56.989286043] (+0.000007962) sys_pipe: { 1 }, { fildes = 0xB77B9E8C }
     [23:21:56.989321802] (+0.000035759) exit_syscall: { 1 }, { ret = 0 }
     [23:21:56.989329345] (+0.000007543) sys_mmap_pgoff: { 1 }, { addr = 0x0, len = 10485760, prot = 3, flags = 131362, fd = 4294967295, pgoff = 0 }
     [23:21:56.989351694] (+0.000022349) exit_syscall: { 1 }, { ret = -1247805440 }
     [23:21:56.989432989] (+0.000081295) sys_clone: { 1 }, { clone_flags = 0x411, newsp = 0xB5EFFFE4, parent_tid = 0xFFFFFFFF, child_tid = 0x0 }
     [23:21:56.989477129] (+0.000044140) sched_stat_runtime: { 1 }, { comm = "lttng-consumerd", tid = 1193, runtime = 681660, vruntime = 43367983388 }
     [23:21:56.989486697] (+0.000009568) sched_migrate_task: { 1 }, { comm = "lttng-consumerd", tid = 1193, prio = 20, orig_cpu = 1, dest_cpu = 1 }
     [23:21:56.989508418] (+0.000021721) hrtimer_init: { 1 }, { hrtimer = 3970832076, clockid = 1, mode = 1 }
     [23:21:56.989770462] (+0.000262044) hrtimer_cancel: { 1 }, { hrtimer = 3993865440 }
     [23:21:56.989771580] (+0.000001118) hrtimer_cancel: { 0 }, { hrtimer = 3993812192 }
     [23:21:56.989776957] (+0.000005377) hrtimer_expire_entry: { 1 }, { hrtimer = 3993865440, now = 79815980007057, function = 3238465232 }
     [23:21:56.989778145] (+0.000001188) hrtimer_expire_entry: { 0 }, { hrtimer = 3993812192, now = 79815980008174, function = 3238465232 }
     [23:21:56.989791695] (+0.000013550) softirq_raise: { 1 }, { vec = 1 }
     [23:21:56.989795396] (+0.000003701) softirq_raise: { 0 }, { vec = 1 }
     [23:21:56.989800635] (+0.000005239) softirq_raise: { 0 }, { vec = 9 }
     [23:21:56.989807130] (+0.000006495) sched_stat_runtime: { 1 }, { comm = "lttng-consumerd", tid = 1193, runtime = 330710, vruntime = 43368314098 }
     [23:21:56.989809993] (+0.000002863) sched_stat_runtime: { 0 }, { comm = "lttng-sessiond", tid = 1181, runtime = 1015313, vruntime = 36976733240 }
     [23:21:56.989818514] (+0.000008521) hrtimer_expire_exit: { 0 }, { hrtimer = 3993812192 }
     [23:21:56.989819631] (+0.000001117) hrtimer_expire_exit: { 1 }, { hrtimer = 3993865440 }
     [23:21:56.989821866] (+0.000002235) hrtimer_start: { 0 }, { hrtimer = 3993812192, function = 3238465232, expires = 79815981000000, softexpires = 79815981000000 }
     [23:21:56.989822984] (+0.000001118) hrtimer_start: { 1 }, { hrtimer = 3993865440, function = 3238465232, expires = 79815981000000, softexpires = 79815981000000 }
     [23:21:56.989832762] (+0.000009778) softirq_entry: { 1 }, { vec = 1 }
     [23:21:56.989833879] (+0.000001117) softirq_entry: { 0 }, { vec = 1 }
     [23:21:56.989838069] (+0.000004190) timer_cancel: { 1 }, { timer = 3993871956 }
     [23:21:56.989839187] (+0.000001118) timer_cancel: { 0 }, { timer = 3993818708 }
     [23:21:56.989841492] (+0.000002305) timer_expire_entry: { 1 }, { timer = 3993871956, now = 79515980, function = 3238277552 }
     [23:21:56.989842819] (+0.000001327) timer_expire_entry: { 0 }, { timer = 3993818708, now = 79515980, function = 3238277552 }
     [23:21:56.989854831] (+0.000012012) sched_stat_runtime: { 1 }, { comm = "lttng-consumerd", tid = 1193, runtime = 49237, vruntime = 43368363335 }
     [23:21:56.989855949] (+0.000001118) sched_stat_runtime: { 0 }, { comm = "lttng-sessiond", tid = 1181, runtime = 45121, vruntime = 36976778361 }
     [23:21:56.989861257] (+0.000005308) sched_stat_sleep: { 1 }, { comm = "kworker/1:1", tid = 21, delay = 9451318 }
     [23:21:56.989862374] (+0.000001117) sched_stat_sleep: { 0 }, { comm = "kworker/0:0", tid = 4, delay = 9958820 }
     [23:21:56.989868241] (+0.000005867) sched_wakeup: { 0 }, { comm = "kworker/0:0", tid = 4, prio = 120, success = 1, target_cpu = 0 }
     [23:21:56.989869358] (+0.000001117) sched_wakeup: { 1 }, { comm = "kworker/1:1", tid = 21, prio = 120, success = 1, target_cpu = 1 }
     [23:21:56.989877460] (+0.000008102) timer_expire_exit: { 1 }, { timer = 3993871956 }
     [23:21:56.989878577] (+0.000001117) timer_expire_exit: { 0 }, { timer = 3993818708 }
     .
     .
     .
                

You can now safely destroy the trace session (note that this doesn't delete the trace - it's still there in ~/lttng-traces):

     root@crownbay:~# lttng destroy
     Session auto-20121015-232120 destroyed at /home/root
                

Note that the trace is saved in a directory of the same name as returned by 'lttng create', under the ~/lttng-traces directory (note that you can change this by supplying your own name to 'lttng create'):

     root@crownbay:~# ls -al ~/lttng-traces
     drwxrwx---    3 root     root          1024 Oct 15 23:21 .
     drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root          1024 Oct 15 23:57 ..
     drwxrwx---    3 root     root          1024 Oct 15 23:21 auto-20121015-232120
                

17.5.2.2. Collecting and viewing a userspace trace on the target (inside a shell)

For LTTng userspace tracing, you need to have a properly instrumented userspace program. For this example, we'll use the 'hello' test program generated by the lttng-ust build.

The 'hello' test program isn't installed on the rootfs by the lttng-ust build, so we need to copy it over manually. First cd into the build directory that contains the hello executable:

     $ cd build/tmp/work/core2_32-poky-linux/lttng-ust/2.0.5-r0/git/tests/hello/.libs
                

Copy that over to the target machine:

     $ scp hello root@192.168.1.20:
                

You now have the instrumented lttng 'hello world' test program on the target, ready to test.

First, from the host, ssh to the target:

     $ ssh -l root 192.168.1.47
     The authenticity of host '192.168.1.47 (192.168.1.47)' can't be established.
     RSA key fingerprint is 23:bd:c8:b1:a8:71:52:00:ee:00:4f:64:9e:10:b9:7e.
     Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
     Warning: Permanently added '192.168.1.47' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
     root@192.168.1.47's password:
                

Once on the target, use these steps to create a trace:

     root@crownbay:~# lttng create
     Session auto-20190303-021943 created.
     Traces will be written in /home/root/lttng-traces/auto-20190303-021943
                

Enable the events you want to trace (in this case all userspace events):

     root@crownbay:~# lttng enable-event --userspace --all
     All UST events are enabled in channel channel0
                

Start the trace:

     root@crownbay:~# lttng start
     Tracing started for session auto-20190303-021943
                

Run the instrumented hello world program:

     root@crownbay:~# ./hello
     Hello, World!
     Tracing...  done.
                

And then stop the trace after awhile or after running a particular workload that you want to trace:

     root@crownbay:~# lttng stop
     Tracing stopped for session auto-20190303-021943
                

You can now view the trace in text form on the target:

     root@crownbay:~# lttng view
     [02:31:14.906146544] (+?.?????????) hello:1424 ust_tests_hello:tptest: { cpu_id = 1 }, { intfield = 0, intfield2 = 0x0, longfield = 0, netintfield = 0, netintfieldhex = 0x0, arrfield1 = [ [0] = 1, [1] = 2, [2] = 3 ], arrfield2 = "test", _seqfield1_length = 4, seqfield1 = [ [0] = 116, [1] = 101, [2] = 115, [3] = 116 ], _seqfield2_length = 4,  seqfield2 = "test", stringfield = "test", floatfield = 2222, doublefield = 2, boolfield = 1 }
     [02:31:14.906170360] (+0.000023816) hello:1424 ust_tests_hello:tptest: { cpu_id = 1 }, { intfield = 1, intfield2 = 0x1, longfield = 1, netintfield = 1, netintfieldhex = 0x1, arrfield1 = [ [0] = 1, [1] = 2, [2] = 3 ], arrfield2 = "test", _seqfield1_length = 4, seqfield1 = [ [0] = 116, [1] = 101, [2] = 115, [3] = 116 ], _seqfield2_length = 4, seqfield2 = "test", stringfield = "test", floatfield = 2222, doublefield = 2, boolfield = 1 }
     [02:31:14.906183140] (+0.000012780) hello:1424 ust_tests_hello:tptest: { cpu_id = 1 }, { intfield = 2, intfield2 = 0x2, longfield = 2, netintfield = 2, netintfieldhex = 0x2, arrfield1 = [ [0] = 1, [1] = 2, [2] = 3 ], arrfield2 = "test", _seqfield1_length = 4, seqfield1 = [ [0] = 116, [1] = 101, [2] = 115, [3] = 116 ], _seqfield2_length = 4, seqfield2 = "test", stringfield = "test", floatfield = 2222, doublefield = 2, boolfield = 1 }
     [02:31:14.906194385] (+0.000011245) hello:1424 ust_tests_hello:tptest: { cpu_id = 1 }, { intfield = 3, intfield2 = 0x3, longfield = 3, netintfield = 3, netintfieldhex = 0x3, arrfield1 = [ [0] = 1, [1] = 2, [2] = 3 ], arrfield2 = "test", _seqfield1_length = 4, seqfield1 = [ [0] = 116, [1] = 101, [2] = 115, [3] = 116 ], _seqfield2_length = 4, seqfield2 = "test", stringfield = "test", floatfield = 2222, doublefield = 2, boolfield = 1 }
     .
     .
     .
                

You can now safely destroy the trace session (note that this doesn't delete the trace - it's still there in ~/lttng-traces):

     root@crownbay:~# lttng destroy
     Session auto-20190303-021943 destroyed at /home/root
                

17.5.2.3. Manually copying a trace to the host and viewing it in Eclipse (i.e. using Eclipse without network support)

If you already have an LTTng trace on a remote target and would like to view it in Eclipse on the host, you can easily copy it from the target to the host and import it into Eclipse to view it using the LTTng Eclipse plug-in already bundled in the Eclipse (Juno SR1 or greater).

Using the trace we created in the previous section, archive it and copy it to your host system:

     root@crownbay:~/lttng-traces# tar zcvf auto-20121015-232120.tar.gz auto-20121015-232120
     auto-20121015-232120/
     auto-20121015-232120/kernel/
     auto-20121015-232120/kernel/metadata
     auto-20121015-232120/kernel/channel0_1
     auto-20121015-232120/kernel/channel0_0

     $ scp root@192.168.1.47:lttng-traces/auto-20121015-232120.tar.gz .
     root@192.168.1.47's password:
     auto-20121015-232120.tar.gz                                             100% 1566KB   1.5MB/s   00:01
                

Unarchive it on the host:

     $ gunzip -c auto-20121015-232120.tar.gz | tar xvf -
     auto-20121015-232120/
     auto-20121015-232120/kernel/
     auto-20121015-232120/kernel/metadata
     auto-20121015-232120/kernel/channel0_1
     auto-20121015-232120/kernel/channel0_0
                

We can now import the trace into Eclipse and view it:

  1. First, start eclipse and open the 'LTTng Kernel' perspective by selecting the following menu item:

         Window | Open Perspective | Other...
                            
  2. In the dialog box that opens, select 'LTTng Kernel' from the list.

  3. Back at the main menu, select the following menu item:

         File | New | Project...
                            
  4. In the dialog box that opens, select the 'Tracing | Tracing Project' wizard and press 'Next>'.

  5. Give the project a name and press 'Finish'.

  6. In the 'Project Explorer' pane under the project you created, right click on the 'Traces' item.

  7. Select 'Import..." and in the dialog that's displayed:

  8. Browse the filesystem and find the select the 'kernel' directory containing the trace you copied from the target e.g. auto-20121015-232120/kernel

  9. 'Checkmark' the directory in the tree that's displayed for the trace

  10. Below that, select 'Common Trace Format: Kernel Trace' for the 'Trace Type'

  11. Press 'Finish' to close the dialog

  12. Back in the 'Project Explorer' pane, double-click on the 'kernel' item for the trace you just imported under 'Traces'

You should now see your trace data displayed graphically in several different views in Eclipse:

You can access extensive help information on how to use the LTTng plug-in to search and analyze captured traces via the Eclipse help system:

     Help | Help Contents | LTTng Plug-in User Guide
                

17.5.2.4. Collecting and viewing a trace in Eclipse

Note

This section on collecting traces remotely doesn't currently work because of Eclipse 'RSE' connectivity problems. Manually tracing on the target, copying the trace files to the host, and viewing the trace in Eclipse on the host as outlined in previous steps does work however - please use the manual steps outlined above to view traces in Eclipse.

In order to trace a remote target, you also need to add a 'tracing' group on the target and connect as a user who's part of that group e.g:

     # adduser tomz
     # groupadd -r tracing
     # usermod -a -G tracing tomz
                

  1. First, start eclipse and open the 'LTTng Kernel' perspective by selecting the following menu item:

         Window | Open Perspective | Other...
                             
  2. In the dialog box that opens, select 'LTTng Kernel' from the list.

  3. Back at the main menu, select the following menu item:

         File | New | Project...
                            
  4. In the dialog box that opens, select the 'Tracing | Tracing Project' wizard and press 'Next>'.

  5. Give the project a name and press 'Finish'. That should result in an entry in the 'Project' subwindow.

  6. In the 'Control' subwindow just below it, press 'New Connection'.

  7. Add a new connection, giving it the hostname or IP address of the target system.

  8. Provide the username and password of a qualified user (a member of the 'tracing' group) or root account on the target system.

  9. Provide appropriate answers to whatever else is asked for e.g. 'secure storage password' can be anything you want. If you get an 'RSE Error' it may be due to proxies. It may be possible to get around the problem by changing the following setting:

         Window | Preferences | Network Connections
                            

    Switch 'Active Provider' to 'Direct'

17.5.3. Documentation

You can find the primary LTTng Documentation on the LTTng Documentation site. The documentation on this site is appropriate for intermediate to advanced software developers who are working in a Linux environment and are interested in efficient software tracing.

For information on LTTng in general, visit the LTTng Project site. You can find a "Getting Started" link on this site that takes you to an LTTng Quick Start.

Finally, you can access extensive help information on how to use the LTTng plug-in to search and analyze captured traces via the Eclipse help system:

     Help | Help Contents | LTTng Plug-in User Guide
            

17.6. blktrace

blktrace is a tool for tracing and reporting low-level disk I/O. blktrace provides the tracing half of the equation; its output can be piped into the blkparse program, which renders the data in a human-readable form and does some basic analysis:

17.6.1. Setup

For this section, we'll assume you've already performed the basic setup outlined in the "General Setup" section.

blktrace is an application that runs on the target system. You can run the entire blktrace and blkparse pipeline on the target, or you can run blktrace in 'listen' mode on the target and have blktrace and blkparse collect and analyze the data on the host (see the "Using blktrace Remotely" section below). For the rest of this section we assume you've ssh'ed to the host and will be running blkrace on the target.

17.6.2. Basic Usage

To record a trace, simply run the 'blktrace' command, giving it the name of the block device you want to trace activity on:

     root@crownbay:~# blktrace /dev/sdc
            

In another shell, execute a workload you want to trace.

     root@crownbay:/media/sdc# rm linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2; wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2; sync
     Connecting to downloads.yoctoproject.org (140.211.169.59:80)
     linux-2.6.19.2.tar.b 100% |*******************************| 41727k  0:00:00 ETA
            

Press Ctrl-C in the blktrace shell to stop the trace. It will display how many events were logged, along with the per-cpu file sizes (blktrace records traces in per-cpu kernel buffers and simply dumps them to userspace for blkparse to merge and sort later).

     ^C=== sdc ===
      CPU  0:                 7082 events,      332 KiB data
      CPU  1:                 1578 events,       74 KiB data
      Total:                  8660 events (dropped 0),      406 KiB data
            

If you examine the files saved to disk, you see multiple files, one per CPU and with the device name as the first part of the filename:

     root@crownbay:~# ls -al
     drwxr-xr-x    6 root     root          1024 Oct 27 22:39 .
     drwxr-sr-x    4 root     root          1024 Oct 26 18:24 ..
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root        339938 Oct 27 22:40 sdc.blktrace.0
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root         75753 Oct 27 22:40 sdc.blktrace.1
            

To view the trace events, simply invoke 'blkparse' in the directory containing the trace files, giving it the device name that forms the first part of the filenames:

     root@crownbay:~# blkparse sdc

      8,32   1        1     0.000000000  1225  Q  WS 3417048 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1        2     0.000025213  1225  G  WS 3417048 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1        3     0.000033384  1225  P   N [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1        4     0.000043301  1225  I  WS 3417048 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1        0     0.000057270     0  m   N cfq1225 insert_request
      8,32   1        0     0.000064813     0  m   N cfq1225 add_to_rr
      8,32   1        5     0.000076336  1225  U   N [jbd2/sdc-8] 1
      8,32   1        0     0.000088559     0  m   N cfq workload slice:150
      8,32   1        0     0.000097359     0  m   N cfq1225 set_active wl_prio:0 wl_type:1
      8,32   1        0     0.000104063     0  m   N cfq1225 Not idling. st->count:1
      8,32   1        0     0.000112584     0  m   N cfq1225 fifo=  (null)
      8,32   1        0     0.000118730     0  m   N cfq1225 dispatch_insert
      8,32   1        0     0.000127390     0  m   N cfq1225 dispatched a request
      8,32   1        0     0.000133536     0  m   N cfq1225 activate rq, drv=1
      8,32   1        6     0.000136889  1225  D  WS 3417048 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1        7     0.000360381  1225  Q  WS 3417056 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1        8     0.000377422  1225  G  WS 3417056 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1        9     0.000388876  1225  P   N [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       10     0.000397886  1225  Q  WS 3417064 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       11     0.000404800  1225  M  WS 3417064 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       12     0.000412343  1225  Q  WS 3417072 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       13     0.000416533  1225  M  WS 3417072 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       14     0.000422121  1225  Q  WS 3417080 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       15     0.000425194  1225  M  WS 3417080 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       16     0.000431968  1225  Q  WS 3417088 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       17     0.000435251  1225  M  WS 3417088 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       18     0.000440279  1225  Q  WS 3417096 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       19     0.000443911  1225  M  WS 3417096 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       20     0.000450336  1225  Q  WS 3417104 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       21     0.000454038  1225  M  WS 3417104 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       22     0.000462070  1225  Q  WS 3417112 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       23     0.000465422  1225  M  WS 3417112 + 8 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1       24     0.000474222  1225  I  WS 3417056 + 64 [jbd2/sdc-8]
      8,32   1        0     0.000483022     0  m   N cfq1225 insert_request
      8,32   1       25     0.000489727  1225  U   N [jbd2/sdc-8] 1
      8,32   1        0     0.000498457     0  m   N cfq1225 Not idling. st->count:1
      8,32   1        0     0.000503765     0  m   N cfq1225 dispatch_insert
      8,32   1        0     0.000512914     0  m   N cfq1225 dispatched a request
      8,32   1        0     0.000518851     0  m   N cfq1225 activate rq, drv=2
      .
      .
      .
      8,32   0        0    58.515006138     0  m   N cfq3551 complete rqnoidle 1
      8,32   0     2024    58.516603269     3  C  WS 3156992 + 16 [0]
      8,32   0        0    58.516626736     0  m   N cfq3551 complete rqnoidle 1
      8,32   0        0    58.516634558     0  m   N cfq3551 arm_idle: 8 group_idle: 0
      8,32   0        0    58.516636933     0  m   N cfq schedule dispatch
      8,32   1        0    58.516971613     0  m   N cfq3551 slice expired t=0
      8,32   1        0    58.516982089     0  m   N cfq3551 sl_used=13 disp=6 charge=13 iops=0 sect=80
      8,32   1        0    58.516985511     0  m   N cfq3551 del_from_rr
      8,32   1        0    58.516990819     0  m   N cfq3551 put_queue

     CPU0 (sdc):
      Reads Queued:           0,        0KiB	 Writes Queued:         331,   26,284KiB
      Read Dispatches:        0,        0KiB	 Write Dispatches:      485,   40,484KiB
      Reads Requeued:         0		 Writes Requeued:         0
      Reads Completed:        0,        0KiB	 Writes Completed:      511,   41,000KiB
      Read Merges:            0,        0KiB	 Write Merges:           13,      160KiB
      Read depth:             0        	 Write depth:             2
      IO unplugs:            23        	 Timer unplugs:           0
     CPU1 (sdc):
      Reads Queued:           0,        0KiB	 Writes Queued:         249,   15,800KiB
      Read Dispatches:        0,        0KiB	 Write Dispatches:       42,    1,600KiB
      Reads Requeued:         0		 Writes Requeued:         0
      Reads Completed:        0,        0KiB	 Writes Completed:       16,    1,084KiB
      Read Merges:            0,        0KiB	 Write Merges:           40,      276KiB
      Read depth:             0        	 Write depth:             2
      IO unplugs:            30        	 Timer unplugs:           1

     Total (sdc):
      Reads Queued:           0,        0KiB	 Writes Queued:         580,   42,084KiB
      Read Dispatches:        0,        0KiB	 Write Dispatches:      527,   42,084KiB
      Reads Requeued:         0		 Writes Requeued:         0
      Reads Completed:        0,        0KiB	 Writes Completed:      527,   42,084KiB
      Read Merges:            0,        0KiB	 Write Merges:           53,      436KiB
      IO unplugs:            53        	 Timer unplugs:           1

     Throughput (R/W): 0KiB/s / 719KiB/s
     Events (sdc): 6,592 entries
     Skips: 0 forward (0 -   0.0%)
     Input file sdc.blktrace.0 added
     Input file sdc.blktrace.1 added
            

The report shows each event that was found in the blktrace data, along with a summary of the overall block I/O traffic during the run. You can look at the blkparse manpage to learn the meaning of each field displayed in the trace listing.

17.6.2.1. Live Mode

blktrace and blkparse are designed from the ground up to be able to operate together in a 'pipe mode' where the stdout of blktrace can be fed directly into the stdin of blkparse:

     root@crownbay:~# blktrace /dev/sdc -o - | blkparse -i -
                

This enables long-lived tracing sessions to run without writing anything to disk, and allows the user to look for certain conditions in the trace data in 'real-time' by viewing the trace output as it scrolls by on the screen or by passing it along to yet another program in the pipeline such as grep which can be used to identify and capture conditions of interest.

There's actually another blktrace command that implements the above pipeline as a single command, so the user doesn't have to bother typing in the above command sequence:

     root@crownbay:~# btrace /dev/sdc
                

17.6.2.2. Using blktrace Remotely

Because blktrace traces block I/O and at the same time normally writes its trace data to a block device, and in general because it's not really a great idea to make the device being traced the same as the device the tracer writes to, blktrace provides a way to trace without perturbing the traced device at all by providing native support for sending all trace data over the network.

To have blktrace operate in this mode, start blktrace on the target system being traced with the -l option, along with the device to trace:

     root@crownbay:~# blktrace -l /dev/sdc
     server: waiting for connections...
                

On the host system, use the -h option to connect to the target system, also passing it the device to trace:

     $ blktrace -d /dev/sdc -h 192.168.1.43
     blktrace: connecting to 192.168.1.43
     blktrace: connected!
                

On the target system, you should see this:

     server: connection from 192.168.1.43
                

In another shell, execute a workload you want to trace.

     root@crownbay:/media/sdc# rm linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2; wget http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/mirror/sources/linux-2.6.19.2.tar.bz2; sync
     Connecting to downloads.yoctoproject.org (140.211.169.59:80)
     linux-2.6.19.2.tar.b 100% |*******************************| 41727k  0:00:00 ETA
                

When it's done, do a Ctrl-C on the host system to stop the trace:

     ^C=== sdc ===
      CPU  0:                 7691 events,      361 KiB data
      CPU  1:                 4109 events,      193 KiB data
      Total:                 11800 events (dropped 0),      554 KiB data
                

On the target system, you should also see a trace summary for the trace just ended:

     server: end of run for 192.168.1.43:sdc
     === sdc ===
      CPU  0:                 7691 events,      361 KiB data
      CPU  1:                 4109 events,      193 KiB data
      Total:                 11800 events (dropped 0),      554 KiB data
                

The blktrace instance on the host will save the target output inside a hostname-timestamp directory:

     $ ls -al
     drwxr-xr-x   10 root     root          1024 Oct 28 02:40 .
     drwxr-sr-x    4 root     root          1024 Oct 26 18:24 ..
     drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          1024 Oct 28 02:40 192.168.1.43-2012-10-28-02:40:56
                

cd into that directory to see the output files:

     $ ls -l
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root        369193 Oct 28 02:44 sdc.blktrace.0
     -rw-r--r--    1 root     root        197278 Oct 28 02:44 sdc.blktrace.1
                

And run blkparse on the host system using the device name:

     $ blkparse sdc

      8,32   1        1     0.000000000  1263  Q  RM 6016 + 8 [ls]
      8,32   1        0     0.000036038     0  m   N cfq1263 alloced
      8,32   1        2     0.000039390  1263  G  RM 6016 + 8 [ls]
      8,32   1        3     0.000049168  1263  I  RM 6016 + 8 [ls]
      8,32   1        0     0.000056152     0  m   N cfq1263 insert_request
      8,32   1        0     0.000061600     0  m   N cfq1263 add_to_rr
      8,32   1        0     0.000075498     0  m   N cfq workload slice:300
      .
      .
      .
      8,32   0        0   177.266385696     0  m   N cfq1267 arm_idle: 8 group_idle: 0
      8,32   0        0   177.266388140     0  m   N cfq schedule dispatch
      8,32   1        0   177.266679239     0  m   N cfq1267 slice expired t=0
      8,32   1        0   177.266689297     0  m   N cfq1267 sl_used=9 disp=6 charge=9 iops=0 sect=56
      8,32   1        0   177.266692649     0  m   N cfq1267 del_from_rr
      8,32   1        0   177.266696560     0  m   N cfq1267 put_queue

     CPU0 (sdc):
      Reads Queued:           0,        0KiB	 Writes Queued:         270,   21,708KiB
      Read Dispatches:       59,    2,628KiB	 Write Dispatches:      495,   39,964KiB
      Reads Requeued:         0		 Writes Requeued:         0
      Reads Completed:       90,    2,752KiB	 Writes Completed:      543,   41,596KiB
      Read Merges:            0,        0KiB	 Write Merges:            9,      344KiB
      Read depth:             2        	 Write depth:             2
      IO unplugs:            20        	 Timer unplugs:           1
     CPU1 (sdc):
      Reads Queued:         688,    2,752KiB	 Writes Queued:         381,   20,652KiB
      Read Dispatches:       31,      124KiB	 Write Dispatches:       59,    2,396KiB
      Reads Requeued:         0		 Writes Requeued:         0
      Reads Completed:        0,        0KiB	 Writes Completed:       11,      764KiB
      Read Merges:          598,    2,392KiB	 Write Merges:           88,      448KiB
      Read depth:             2        	 Write depth:             2
      IO unplugs:            52        	 Timer unplugs:           0

     Total (sdc):
      Reads Queued:         688,    2,752KiB	 Writes Queued:         651,   42,360KiB
      Read Dispatches:       90,    2,752KiB	 Write Dispatches:      554,   42,360KiB
      Reads Requeued:         0		 Writes Requeued:         0
      Reads Completed:       90,    2,752KiB	 Writes Completed:      554,   42,360KiB
      Read Merges:          598,    2,392KiB	 Write Merges:           97,      792KiB
      IO unplugs:            72        	 Timer unplugs:           1

     Throughput (R/W): 15KiB/s / 238KiB/s
     Events (sdc): 9,301 entries
     Skips: 0 forward (0 -   0.0%)
                

You should see the trace events and summary just as you would have if you'd run the same command on the target.

17.6.2.3. Tracing Block I/O via 'ftrace'

It's also possible to trace block I/O using only trace events subsystem, which can be useful for casual tracing if you don't want to bother dealing with the userspace tools.

To enable tracing for a given device, use /sys/block/xxx/trace/enable, where xxx is the device name. This for example enables tracing for /dev/sdc:

     root@crownbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo 1 > /sys/block/sdc/trace/enable
                

Once you've selected the device(s) you want to trace, selecting the 'blk' tracer will turn the blk tracer on:

     root@crownbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cat available_tracers
     blk function_graph function nop

     root@crownbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo blk > current_tracer
                

Execute the workload you're interested in:

     root@crownbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cat /media/sdc/testfile.txt
                

And look at the output (note here that we're using 'trace_pipe' instead of trace to capture this trace - this allows us to wait around on the pipe for data to appear):

     root@crownbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cat trace_pipe
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276361:   8,32   Q   R 1699848 + 8 [cat]
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276410:   8,32   m   N cfq3587 alloced
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276415:   8,32   G   R 1699848 + 8 [cat]
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276424:   8,32   P   N [cat]
                 cat-3587  [001] d..2  3023.276432:   8,32   I   R 1699848 + 8 [cat]
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276439:   8,32   m   N cfq3587 insert_request
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276445:   8,32   m   N cfq3587 add_to_rr
                 cat-3587  [001] d..2  3023.276454:   8,32   U   N [cat] 1
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276464:   8,32   m   N cfq workload slice:150
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276471:   8,32   m   N cfq3587 set_active wl_prio:0 wl_type:2
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276478:   8,32   m   N cfq3587 fifo=  (null)
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276483:   8,32   m   N cfq3587 dispatch_insert
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276490:   8,32   m   N cfq3587 dispatched a request
                 cat-3587  [001] d..1  3023.276497:   8,32   m   N cfq3587 activate rq, drv=1
                 cat-3587  [001] d..2  3023.276500:   8,32   D   R 1699848 + 8 [cat]
                

And this turns off tracing for the specified device:

     root@crownbay:/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo 0 > /sys/block/sdc/trace/enable
                

17.6.3. Documentation

Online versions of the man pages for the commands discussed in this section can be found here:

The above manpages, along with manpages for the other blktrace utilities (btt, blkiomon, etc) can be found in the /doc directory of the blktrace tools git repo:

     $ git clone git://git.kernel.dk/blktrace.git
            

Chapter 18. Real-World Examples

This chapter contains real-world examples.

18.1. Slow Write Speed on Live Images

In one of our previous releases (denzil), users noticed that booting off of a live image and writing to disk was noticeably slower. This included the boot itself, especially the first one, since first boots tend to do a significant amount of writing due to certain post-install scripts.

The problem (and solution) was discovered by using the Yocto tracing tools, in this case 'perf stat', 'perf script', 'perf record' and 'perf report'.

See all the unvarnished details of how this bug was diagnosed and solved here: Yocto Bug #3049

Chapter 19. Introduction

19.1. Introduction

This manual provides reference information for the current release of the Yocto Project. The Yocto Project is an open-source collaboration project focused on embedded Linux developers. Amongst other things, the Yocto Project uses the OpenEmbedded build system, which is based on the Poky project, to construct complete Linux images. You can find complete introductory and getting started information on the Yocto Project by reading the Yocto Project Quick Start.

For task-based information using the Yocto Project, see the Yocto Project Development Manual and the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual. For Board Support Package (BSP) structure information, see the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide. For information on how to use a Software Development Kit, (SDK), see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide. You can find information on tracing and profiling in the Yocto Project Profiling and Tracing Manual. For information on BitBake, which is the task execution tool the OpenEmbedded build system is based on, see the BitBake User Manual. Finally, you can also find lots of Yocto Project information on the Yocto Project website.

19.2. Documentation Overview

This reference manual consists of the following:

  • Using the Yocto Project: Provides an overview of the components that make up the Yocto Project followed by information about debugging images created in the Yocto Project.

  • A Closer Look at the Yocto Project Development Environment: Provides a more detailed look at the Yocto Project development environment within the context of development.

  • Technical Details: Describes fundamental Yocto Project components as well as an explanation behind how the Yocto Project uses shared state (sstate) cache to speed build time.

  • Migrating to a Newer Yocto Project Release: Describes release-specific information that helps you move from one Yocto Project Release to another.

  • Directory Structure: Describes the Source Directory created either by unpacking a released Yocto Project tarball on your host development system, or by cloning the upstream Poky Git repository.

  • Classes: Describes the classes used in the Yocto Project.

  • Tasks: Describes the tasks defined by the OpenEmbedded build system.

  • devtool Quick Reference: Provides a quick reference for the devtool command.

  • QA Error and Warning Messages: Lists and describes QA warning and error messages.

  • Images: Describes the standard images that the Yocto Project supports.

  • Features: Describes mechanisms for creating distribution, machine, and image features during the build process using the OpenEmbedded build system.

  • Variables Glossary: Presents most variables used by the OpenEmbedded build system, which uses BitBake. Entries describe the function of the variable and how to apply them.

  • Variable Context: Provides variable locality or context.

  • FAQ: Provides answers for commonly asked questions in the Yocto Project development environment.

  • Contributing to the Yocto Project: Provides guidance on how you can contribute back to the Yocto Project.

19.3. System Requirements

For general Yocto Project system requirements, see the "Setting Up to Use the Yocto Project" section in the Yocto Project Quick Start. The remainder of this section provides details on system requirements not covered in the Yocto Project Quick Start.

19.3.1. Supported Linux Distributions

Currently, the Yocto Project is supported on the following distributions:

Note

Yocto Project releases are tested against the stable Linux distributions in the following list. The Yocto Project should work on other distributions but validation is not performed against them.

In particular, the Yocto Project does not support and currently has no plans to support rolling-releases or development distributions due to their constantly changing nature. We welcome patches and bug reports, but keep in mind that our priority is on the supported platforms listed below.

If you encounter problems, please go to Yocto Project Bugzilla and submit a bug. We are interested in hearing about your experience.

  • Ubuntu 14.04 (LTS)

  • Ubuntu 14.10

  • Ubuntu 15.04

  • Ubuntu 15.10

  • Ubuntu 16.04

  • Fedora release 22

  • Fedora release 23

  • Fedora release 24

  • CentOS release 7.x

  • Debian GNU/Linux 8.x (Jessie)

  • openSUSE 13.2

  • openSUSE 42.1

Note

While the Yocto Project Team attempts to ensure all Yocto Project releases are one hundred percent compatible with each officially supported Linux distribution, instances might exist where you encounter a problem while using the Yocto Project on a specific distribution.

19.3.2. Required Packages for the Host Development System

The list of packages you need on the host development system can be large when covering all build scenarios using the Yocto Project. This section provides required packages according to Linux distribution and function.

19.3.2.1. Ubuntu and Debian

The following list shows the required packages by function given a supported Ubuntu or Debian Linux distribution:

Note

If your build system has the oss4-dev package installed, you might experience QEMU build failures due to the package installing its own custom /usr/include/linux/soundcard.h on the Debian system. If you run into this situation, either of the following solutions exist:
     $ sudo apt-get build-dep qemu
     $ sudo apt-get remove oss4-dev
                    

  • Essentials: Packages needed to build an image on a headless system:

         $ sudo apt-get install gawk wget git-core diffstat unzip texinfo gcc-multilib \
         build-essential chrpath socat cpio python python3 python3-pip python3-pexpect \
         xz-utils debianutils iputils-ping
                            
  • Graphical and Eclipse Plug-In Extras: Packages recommended if the host system has graphics support or if you are going to use the Eclipse IDE:

         $ sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev xterm
                            
  • Documentation: Packages needed if you are going to build out the Yocto Project documentation manuals:

         $ sudo apt-get install make xsltproc docbook-utils fop dblatex xmlto
                            
  • OpenEmbedded Self-Test (oe-selftest): Packages needed if you are going to run oe-selftest:

         $ sudo apt-get install python-git
                            

19.3.2.2. Fedora Packages

The following list shows the required packages by function given a supported Fedora Linux distribution:

  • Essentials: Packages needed to build an image for a headless system:

         $ sudo dnf install gawk make wget tar bzip2 gzip python3 unzip perl patch \
         diffutils diffstat git cpp gcc gcc-c++ glibc-devel texinfo chrpath \
         ccache perl-Data-Dumper perl-Text-ParseWords perl-Thread-Queue perl-bignum socat \
         python3-pexpect findutils which file cpio python python3-pip xz
                            
  • Graphical and Eclipse Plug-In Extras: Packages recommended if the host system has graphics support or if you are going to use the Eclipse IDE:

         $ sudo dnf install SDL-devel xterm
                            
  • Documentation: Packages needed if you are going to build out the Yocto Project documentation manuals:

         $ sudo dnf install make docbook-style-dsssl docbook-style-xsl \
         docbook-dtds docbook-utils fop libxslt dblatex xmlto
                            
  • OpenEmbedded Self-Test (oe-selftest): Packages needed if you are going to run oe-selftest:

         $ sudo dnf install python3-GitPython
                            

19.3.2.3. openSUSE Packages

The following list shows the required packages by function given a supported openSUSE Linux distribution:

  • Essentials: Packages needed to build an image for a headless system:

         $ sudo zypper install python gcc gcc-c++ git chrpath make wget python-xml \
         diffstat makeinfo python-curses patch socat python3 python3-curses tar python3-pip \
         python3-pexpect xz which
                            
  • Graphical and Eclipse Plug-In Extras: Packages recommended if the host system has graphics support or if you are going to use the Eclipse IDE:

         $ sudo zypper install libSDL-devel xterm
                            
  • Documentation: Packages needed if you are going to build out the Yocto Project documentation manuals:

         $ sudo zypper install make dblatex xmlto
                            
  • OpenEmbedded Self-Test (oe-selftest): Packages needed if you are going to run oe-selftest:

         $ sudo zypper install python-GitPython
                            

19.3.2.4. CentOS Packages

The following list shows the required packages by function given a supported CentOS Linux distribution:

  • Essentials: Packages needed to build an image for a headless system:

         $ sudo yum install -y epel-release
         $ sudo yum makecache
         $ sudo yum install gawk make wget tar bzip2 gzip python unzip perl patch \
         diffutils diffstat git cpp gcc gcc-c++ glibc-devel texinfo chrpath socat \
         perl-Data-Dumper perl-Text-ParseWords perl-Thread-Queue python34-pip xz \
         which SDL-devel xterm
                            

    Notes

    • Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (i.e. epel-release) is a collection of packages from Fedora built on RHEL/CentOS for easy installation of packages not included in enterprise Linux by default. You need to install these packages separately.

    • The makecache command consumes additional Metadata from epel-release.

  • Graphical and Eclipse Plug-In Extras: Packages recommended if the host system has graphics support or if you are going to use the Eclipse IDE:

         $ sudo yum install SDL-devel xterm
                            
  • Documentation: Packages needed if you are going to build out the Yocto Project documentation manuals:

         $ sudo yum install make docbook-style-dsssl docbook-style-xsl \
         docbook-dtds docbook-utils fop libxslt dblatex xmlto
                            
  • OpenEmbedded Self-Test (oe-selftest): Packages needed if you are going to run oe-selftest:

         $ sudo yum install GitPython
                            

19.3.3. Required Git, tar, and Python Versions

In order to use the build system, your host development system must meet the following version requirements for Git, tar, and Python:

  • Git 1.8.3.1 or greater

  • tar 1.24 or greater

  • Python 3.4.0 or greater

If your host development system does not meet all these requirements, you can resolve this by installing a buildtools tarball that contains these tools. You can get the tarball one of two ways: download a pre-built tarball or use BitBake to build the tarball.

19.3.3.1. Downloading a Pre-Built buildtools Tarball

Downloading and running a pre-built buildtools installer is the easiest of the two methods by which you can get these tools:

  1. Locate and download the *.sh at http://downloads.yoctoproject.org/releases/yocto/yocto-2.3.3/buildtools/.

  2. Execute the installation script. Here is an example:

         $ sh poky-glibc-x86_64-buildtools-tarball-x86_64-buildtools-nativesdk-standalone-2.3.3.sh
                            

    During execution, a prompt appears that allows you to choose the installation directory. For example, you could choose the following:

         /home/your-username/buildtools
                            

  3. Source the tools environment setup script by using a command like the following:

         $ source /home/your_username/buildtools/environment-setup-i586-poky-linux
                            

    Of course, you need to supply your installation directory and be sure to use the right file (i.e. i585 or x86-64).

    After you have sourced the setup script, the tools are added to PATH and any other environment variables required to run the tools are initialized. The results are working versions versions of Git, tar, Python and chrpath.

19.3.3.2. Building Your Own buildtools Tarball

Building and running your own buildtools installer applies only when you have a build host that can already run BitBake. In this case, you use that machine to build the .sh file and then take steps to transfer and run it on a machine that does not meet the minimal Git, tar, and Python requirements.

Here are the steps to take to build and run your own buildtools installer:

  1. On the machine that is able to run BitBake, be sure you have set up your build environment with the setup script (oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres).

  2. Run the BitBake command to build the tarball:

         $ bitbake buildtools-tarball
                            

    Note

    The SDKMACHINE variable in your local.conf file determines whether you build tools for a 32-bit or 64-bit system.

    Once the build completes, you can find the .sh file that installs the tools in the tmp/deploy/sdk subdirectory of the Build Directory. The installer file has the string "buildtools" in the name.

  3. Transfer the .sh file from the build host to the machine that does not meet the Git, tar, or Python requirements.

  4. On the machine that does not meet the requirements, run the .sh file to install the tools. Here is an example:

         $ sh poky-glibc-x86_64-buildtools-tarball-x86_64-buildtools-nativesdk-standalone-2.3.3.sh
                           

    During execution, a prompt appears that allows you to choose the installation directory. For example, you could choose the following:

         /home/your_username/buildtools
                           

  5. Source the tools environment setup script by using a command like the following:

         $ source /home/your_username/buildtools/environment-setup-i586-poky-linux
                            

    Of course, you need to supply your installation directory and be sure to use the right file (i.e. i585 or x86-64).

    After you have sourced the setup script, the tools are added to PATH and any other environment variables required to run the tools are initialized. The results are working versions versions of Git, tar, Python and chrpath.

19.4. Obtaining the Yocto Project

The Yocto Project development team makes the Yocto Project available through a number of methods:

19.5. Development Checkouts

Development using the Yocto Project requires a local Source Directory. You can set up the Source Directory by cloning a copy of the upstream poky Git repository. For information on how to do this, see the "Getting Set Up" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

Chapter 20. Using the Yocto Project

This chapter describes common usage for the Yocto Project. The information is introductory in nature as other manuals in the Yocto Project documentation set provide more details on how to use the Yocto Project.

20.1. Running a Build

This section provides a summary of the build process and provides information for less obvious aspects of the build process. For general information on how to build an image using the OpenEmbedded build system, see the "Building Images" section of the Yocto Project Quick Start.

20.1.1. Build Overview

In the development environment you will need to build an image whenever you change hardware support, add or change system libraries, or add or change services that have dependencies.

Building an Image

The first thing you need to do is set up the OpenEmbedded build environment by sourcing an environment setup script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres). Here is an example:

     $ source oe-init-build-env [build_dir]
            

The build_dir argument is optional and specifies the directory the OpenEmbedded build system uses for the build - the Build Directory. If you do not specify a Build Directory, it defaults to a directory named build in your current working directory. A common practice is to use a different Build Directory for different targets. For example, ~/build/x86 for a qemux86 target, and ~/build/arm for a qemuarm target.

Once the build environment is set up, you can build a target using:

     $ bitbake target
            

Note

If you experience a build error due to resources temporarily being unavailable and it appears you should not be having this issue, it might be due to the combination of a 4.3+ Linux kernel and systemd version 228+ (i.e. see this link for information).

To work around this issue, you can try either of the following:

  • Try the build again.

  • Modify the "DefaultTasksMax" systemd parameter by uncommenting it and setting it to "infinity". You can find this parameter in the system.conf file located in /etc/systemd on most systems.

The target is the name of the recipe you want to build. Common targets are the images in meta/recipes-core/images, meta/recipes-sato/images, etc. all found in the Source Directory. Or, the target can be the name of a recipe for a specific piece of software such as BusyBox. For more details about the images the OpenEmbedded build system supports, see the "Images" chapter.

Note

Building an image without GNU General Public License Version 3 (GPLv3), or similarly licensed, components is supported for only minimal and base images. See the "Images" chapter for more information.

20.1.2. Building an Image Using GPL Components

When building an image using GPL components, you need to maintain your original settings and not switch back and forth applying different versions of the GNU General Public License. If you rebuild using different versions of GPL, dependency errors might occur due to some components not being rebuilt.

20.2. Installing and Using the Result

Once an image has been built, it often needs to be installed. The images and kernels built by the OpenEmbedded build system are placed in the Build Directory in tmp/deploy/images. For information on how to run pre-built images such as qemux86 and qemuarm, see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide. For information about how to install these images, see the documentation for your particular board or machine.

20.3. Debugging Tools and Techniques

The exact method for debugging build failures depends on the nature of the problem and on the system's area from which the bug originates. Standard debugging practices such as comparison against the last known working version with examination of the changes and the re-application of steps to identify the one causing the problem are valid for the Yocto Project just as they are for any other system. Even though it is impossible to detail every possible potential failure, this section provides some general tips to aid in debugging.

A useful feature for debugging is the error reporting tool. Configuring the Yocto Project to use this tool causes the OpenEmbedded build system to produce error reporting commands as part of the console output. You can enter the commands after the build completes to log error information into a common database, that can help you figure out what might be going wrong. For information on how to enable and use this feature, see the "Using the Error Reporting Tool" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

For discussions on debugging, see the "Debugging With the GNU Project Debugger (GDB) Remotely" section in the Yocto Project Developer's Manual and the "Working within Eclipse" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

Note

The remainder of this section presents many examples of the bitbake command. You can learn about BitBake by reading the BitBake User Manual.

20.3.1. Viewing Logs from Failed Tasks

You can find the log for a task in the file ${WORKDIR}/temp/log.do_taskname. For example, the log for the do_compile task of the QEMU minimal image for the x86 machine (qemux86) might be in tmp/work/qemux86-poky-linux/core-image-minimal/1.0-r0/temp/log.do_compile. To see the commands BitBake ran to generate a log, look at the corresponding run.do_taskname file in the same directory.

log.do_taskname and run.do_taskname are actually symbolic links to log.do_taskname.pid and log.run_taskname.pid, where pid is the PID the task had when it ran. The symlinks always point to the files corresponding to the most recent run.

20.3.2. Viewing Variable Values

BitBake's -e option is used to display variable values after parsing. The following command displays the variable values after the configuration files (i.e. local.conf, bblayers.conf, bitbake.conf and so forth) have been parsed:

     $ bitbake -e
            

The following command displays variable values after a specific recipe has been parsed. The variables include those from the configuration as well:

     $ bitbake -e recipename
            

Note

Each recipe has its own private set of variables (datastore). Internally, after parsing the configuration, a copy of the resulting datastore is made prior to parsing each recipe. This copying implies that variables set in one recipe will not be visible to other recipes.

Likewise, each task within a recipe gets a private datastore based on the recipe datastore, which means that variables set within one task will not be visible to other tasks.

In the output of bitbake -e, each variable is preceded by a description of how the variable got its value, including temporary values that were later overriden. This description also includes variable flags (varflags) set on the variable. The output can be very helpful during debugging.

Variables that are exported to the environment are preceded by export in the output of bitbake -e. See the following example:

     export CC="i586-poky-linux-gcc -m32 -march=i586 --sysroot=/home/ulf/poky/build/tmp/sysroots/qemux86"
            

In addition to variable values, the output of the bitbake -e and bitbake -e recipe commands includes the following information:

  • The output starts with a tree listing all configuration files and classes included globally, recursively listing the files they include or inherit in turn. Much of the behavior of the OpenEmbedded build system (including the behavior of the normal recipe build tasks) is implemented in the base class and the classes it inherits, rather than being built into BitBake itself.

  • After the variable values, all functions appear in the output. For shell functions, variables referenced within the function body are expanded. If a function has been modified using overrides or using override-style operators like _append and _prepend, then the final assembled function body appears in the output.

20.3.3. Viewing Package Information with oe-pkgdata-util

You can use the oe-pkgdata-util command-line utility to query PKGDATA_DIR and display various package-related information. When you use the utility, you must use it to view information on packages that have already been built.

Following are a few of the available oe-pkgdata-util subcommands.

Note

You can use the standard * and ? globbing wildcards as part of package names and paths.

  • oe-pkgdata-util list-pkgs [pattern]: Lists all packages that have been built, optionally limiting the match to packages that match pattern.

  • oe-pkgdata-util list-pkg-files package ...: Lists the files and directories contained in the given packages.

    Note

    A different way to view the contents of a package is to look at the ${WORKDIR}/packages-split directory of the recipe that generates the package. This directory is created by the do_package task and has one subdirectory for each package the recipe generates, which contains the files stored in that package.

    If you want to inspect the ${WORKDIR}/packages-split directory, make sure that rm_work is not enabled when you build the recipe.

  • oe-pkgdata-util find-path path ...: Lists the names of the packages that contain the given paths. For example, the following tells us that /usr/share/man/man1/make.1 is contained in the make-doc package:

         $ oe-pkgdata-util find-path /usr/share/man/man1/make.1
         make-doc: /usr/share/man/man1/make.1
                        

  • oe-pkgdata-util lookup-recipe package ...: Lists the name of the recipes that produce the given packages.

For more information on the oe-pkgdata-util command, use the help facility:

     $ oe-pkgdata-util ‐‐help
     $ oe-pkgdata-util subcommand --help
            

20.3.4. Viewing Dependencies Between Recipes and Tasks

Sometimes it can be hard to see why BitBake wants to build other recipes before the one you have specified. Dependency information can help you understand why a recipe is built.

To generate dependency information for a recipe, run the following command:

     $ bitbake -g recipename
            

This command writes the following files in the current directory:

  • pn-buildlist: A list of recipes/targets involved in building recipename. "Involved" here means that at least one task from the recipe needs to run when building recipename from scratch. Targets that are in ASSUME_PROVIDED are not listed.

  • task-depends.dot: A graph showing dependencies between tasks.

The graphs are in DOT format and can be converted to images (e.g. using the dot tool from Graphviz).

Notes

  • DOT files use a plain text format. The graphs generated using the bitbake -g command are often so large as to be difficult to read without special pruning (e.g. with Bitbake's -I option) and processing. Despite the form and size of the graphs, the corresponding .dot files can still be possible to read and provide useful information.

    As an example, the task-depends.dot file contains lines such as the following:

         "libxslt.do_configure" -> "libxml2.do_populate_sysroot"
                            

    The above example line reveals that the do_configure task in libxslt depends on the do_populate_sysroot task in libxml2, which is a normal DEPENDS dependency between the two recipes.

  • For an example of how .dot files can be processed, see the scripts/contrib/graph-tool Python script, which finds and displays paths between graph nodes.

You can use a different method to view dependency information by using the following command:

     $ bitbake -g -u taskexp recipename
            

This command displays a GUI window from which you can view build-time and runtime dependencies for the recipes involved in building recipename.

20.3.5. Viewing Task Variable Dependencies

As mentioned in the "Checksums (Signatures)" section of the BitBake User Manual, BitBake tries to automatically determine what variables a task depends on so that it can rerun the task if any values of the variables change. This determination is usually reliable. However, if you do things like construct variable names at runtime, then you might have to manually declare dependencies on those variables using vardeps as described in the "Variable Flags" section of the BitBake User Manual.

If you are unsure whether a variable dependency is being picked up automatically for a given task, you can list the variable dependencies BitBake has determined by doing the following:

  1. Build the recipe containing the task:

         $ bitbake recipename
                        

  2. Inside the STAMPS_DIR directory, find the signature data (sigdata) file that corresponds to the task. The sigdata files contain a pickled Python database of all the metadata that went into creating the input checksum for the task. As an example, for the do_fetch task of the db recipe, the sigdata file might be found in the following location:

         ${BUILDDIR}/tmp/stamps/i586-poky-linux/db/6.0.30-r1.do_fetch.sigdata.7c048c18222b16ff0bcee2000ef648b1
                        

    For tasks that are accelerated through the shared state (sstate) cache, an additional siginfo file is written into SSTATE_DIR along with the cached task output. The siginfo files contain exactly the same information as sigdata files.

  3. Run bitbake-dumpsig on the sigdata or siginfo file. Here is an example:

         $ bitbake-dumpsig ${BUILDDIR}/tmp/stamps/i586-poky-linux/db/6.0.30-r1.do_fetch.sigdata.7c048c18222b16ff0bcee2000ef648b1
                        

    In the output of the above command, you will find a line like the following, which lists all the (inferred) variable dependencies for the task. This list also includes indirect dependencies from variables depending on other variables, recursively.

         Task dependencies: ['PV', 'SRCREV', 'SRC_URI', 'SRC_URI[md5sum]', 'SRC_URI[sha256sum]', 'base_do_fetch']
                        

    Note

    Functions (e.g. base_do_fetch) also count as variable dependencies. These functions in turn depend on the variables they reference.

    The output of bitbake-dumpsig also includes the value each variable had, a list of dependencies for each variable, and BB_HASHBASE_WHITELIST information.

There is also a bitbake-diffsigs command for comparing two siginfo or sigdata files. This command can be helpful when trying to figure out what changed between two versions of a task. If you call bitbake-diffsigs with just one file, the command behaves like bitbake-dumpsig.

You can also use BitBake to dump out the signature construction information without executing tasks by using either of the following BitBake command-line options:

     ‐‐dump-signatures=SIGNATURE_HANDLER
     -S SIGNATURE_HANDLER
            

Note

Two common values for SIGNATURE_HANDLER are "none" and "printdiff", which dump only the signature or compare the dumped signature with the cached one, respectively.

Using BitBake with either of these options causes BitBake to dump out sigdata files in the stamps directory for every task it would have executed instead of building the specified target package.

20.3.6. Running Specific Tasks

Any given recipe consists of a set of tasks. The standard BitBake behavior in most cases is: do_fetch, do_unpack, do_patch, do_configure, do_compile, do_install, do_package, do_package_write_*, and do_build. The default task is do_build and any tasks on which it depends build first. Some tasks, such as do_devshell, are not part of the default build chain. If you wish to run a task that is not part of the default build chain, you can use the -c option in BitBake. Here is an example:

     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop -c devshell
            

The -c option respects task dependencies, which means that all other tasks (including tasks from other recipes) that the specified task depends on will be run before the task. Even when you manually specify a task to run with -c, BitBake will only run the task if it considers it "out of date". See the "Stamp Files and the Rerunning of Tasks" section for how BitBake determines whether a task is "out of date".

If you want to force an up-to-date task to be rerun (e.g. because you made manual modifications to the recipe's WORKDIR that you want to try out), then you can use the -f option.

Note

The reason -f is never required when running the do_devshell task is because the [nostamp] variable flag is already set for the task.

The following example shows one way you can use the -f option:

     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop
               .
               .
     make some changes to the source code in the work directory
               .
               .
     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop -c compile -f
     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop
            

This sequence first builds and then recompiles matchbox-desktop. The last command reruns all tasks (basically the packaging tasks) after the compile. BitBake recognizes that the do_compile task was rerun and therefore understands that the other tasks also need to be run again.

Another, shorter way to rerun a task and all normal recipe build tasks that depend on it is to use the -C option.

Note

This option is upper-cased and is separate from the -c option, which is lower-cased.

Using this option invalidates the given task and then runs the do_build task, which is the default task if no task is given, and the tasks on which it depends. You could replace the final two commands in the previous example with the following single command:

     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop -C compile
            

Internally, the -f and -C options work by tainting (modifying) the input checksum of the specified task. This tainting indirectly causes the task and its dependent tasks to be rerun through the normal task dependency mechanisms.

Note

BitBake explicitly keeps track of which tasks have been tainted in this fashion, and will print warnings such as the following for builds involving such tasks:
     WARNING: /home/ulf/poky/meta/recipes-sato/matchbox-desktop/matchbox-desktop_2.1.bb.do_compile is tainted from a forced run
                
The purpose of the warning is to let you know that the work directory and build output might not be in the clean state they would be in for a "normal" build, depending on what actions you took. To get rid of such warnings, you can remove the work directory and rebuild the recipe, as follows:
     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop -c clean
     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop
                

You can view a list of tasks in a given package by running the do_listtasks task as follows:

     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop -c listtasks
            

The results appear as output to the console and are also in the file ${WORKDIR}/temp/log.do_listtasks.

20.3.7. General BitBake Problems

You can see debug output from BitBake by using the -D option. The debug output gives more information about what BitBake is doing and the reason behind it. Each -D option you use increases the logging level. The most common usage is -DDD.

The output from bitbake -DDD -v targetname can reveal why BitBake chose a certain version of a package or why BitBake picked a certain provider. This command could also help you in a situation where you think BitBake did something unexpected.

20.3.8. Development Host System Issues

Sometimes issues on the host development system can cause your build to fail. Following are known, host-specific problems. Be sure to always consult the Release Notes for a look at all release-related issues.

  • glibc-initial fails to build: If your development host system has the unpatched GNU Make 3.82, the do_install task fails for glibc-initial during the build.

    Typically, every distribution that ships GNU Make 3.82 as the default already has the patched version. However, some distributions, such as Debian, have GNU Make 3.82 as an option, which is unpatched. You will see this error on these types of distributions. Switch to GNU Make 3.81 or patch your make to solve the problem.

20.3.9. Building with No Dependencies

To build a specific recipe (.bb file), you can use the following command form:

     $ bitbake -b somepath/somerecipe.bb
            

This command form does not check for dependencies. Consequently, you should use it only when you know existing dependencies have been met.

Note

You can also specify fragments of the filename. In this case, BitBake checks for a unique match.

20.3.10. Recipe Logging Mechanisms

The Yocto Project provides several logging functions for producing debugging output and reporting errors and warnings. For Python functions, the following logging functions exist. All of these functions log to ${T}/log.do_task, and can also log to standard output (stdout) with the right settings:

  • bb.plain(msg): Writes msg as is to the log while also logging to stdout.

  • bb.note(msg): Writes "NOTE: msg" to the log. Also logs to stdout if BitBake is called with "-v".

  • bb.debug(levelmsg): Writes "DEBUG: msg" to the log. Also logs to stdout if the log level is greater than or equal to level. See the "-D" option in the BitBake User Manual for more information.

  • bb.warn(msg): Writes "WARNING: msg" to the log while also logging to stdout.

  • bb.error(msg): Writes "ERROR: msg" to the log while also logging to stdout.

    Note

    Calling this function does not cause the task to fail.

  • bb.fatal(msg): This logging function is similar to bb.error(msg) but also causes the calling task to fail.

    Note

    bb.fatal() raises an exception, which means you do not need to put a "return" statement after the function.

The same logging functions are also available in shell functions, under the names bbplain, bbnote, bbdebug, bbwarn, bberror, and bbfatal. The logging class implements these functions. See that class in the meta/classes folder of the Source Directory for information.

20.3.10.1. Logging With Python

When creating recipes using Python and inserting code that handles build logs, keep in mind the goal is to have informative logs while keeping the console as "silent" as possible. Also, if you want status messages in the log, use the "debug" loglevel.

Following is an example written in Python. The code handles logging for a function that determines the number of tasks needed to be run. See the "do_listtasks" section for additional information:

     python do_listtasks() {
         bb.debug(2, "Starting to figure out the task list")
         if noteworthy_condition:
             bb.note("There are 47 tasks to run")
         bb.debug(2, "Got to point xyz")
         if warning_trigger:
             bb.warn("Detected warning_trigger, this might be a problem later.")
         if recoverable_error:
             bb.error("Hit recoverable_error, you really need to fix this!")
         if fatal_error:
             bb.fatal("fatal_error detected, unable to print the task list")
         bb.plain("The tasks present are abc")
         bb.debug(2, "Finished figuring out the tasklist")
     }
                

20.3.10.2. Logging With Bash

When creating recipes using Bash and inserting code that handles build logs, you have the same goals - informative with minimal console output. The syntax you use for recipes written in Bash is similar to that of recipes written in Python described in the previous section.

Following is an example written in Bash. The code logs the progress of the do_my_function function.

     do_my_function() {
         bbdebug 2 "Running do_my_function"
         if [ exceptional_condition ]; then
             bbnote "Hit exceptional_condition"
         fi
         bbdebug 2  "Got to point xyz"
         if [ warning_trigger ]; then
             bbwarn "Detected warning_trigger, this might cause a problem later."
         fi
         if [ recoverable_error ]; then
             bberror "Hit recoverable_error, correcting"
         fi
         if [ fatal_error ]; then
             bbfatal "fatal_error detected"
         fi
         bbdebug 2 "Completed do_my_function"
     }
                

20.3.11. Other Tips

Here are some other tips that you might find useful:

  • When adding new packages, it is worth watching for undesirable items making their way into compiler command lines. For example, you do not want references to local system files like /usr/lib/ or /usr/include/.

  • If you want to remove the psplash boot splashscreen, add psplash=false to the kernel command line. Doing so prevents psplash from loading and thus allows you to see the console. It is also possible to switch out of the splashscreen by switching the virtual console (e.g. Fn+Left or Fn+Right on a Zaurus).

  • Removing TMPDIR (usually tmp/, within the Build Directory) can often fix temporary build issues. Removing TMPDIR is usually a relatively cheap operation, because task output will be cached in SSTATE_DIR (usually sstate-cache/, which is also in the Build Directory).

    Note

    Removing TMPDIR might be a workaround rather than a fix. Consequently, trying to determine the underlying cause of an issue before removing the directory is a good idea.

  • Understanding how a feature is used in practice within existing recipes can be very helpful. It is recommended that you configure some method that allows you to quickly search through files.

    Using GNU Grep, you can use the following shell function to recursively search through common recipe-related files, skipping binary files, .git directories, and the Build Directory (assuming its name starts with "build"):

         g() {
             grep -Ir \
                  --exclude-dir=.git \
                  --exclude-dir='build*' \
                  --include='*.bb*' \
                  --include='*.inc*' \
                  --include='*.conf*' \
                  --include='*.py*' \
                  "$@"
         }
                        

    Following are some usage examples:

         $ g FOO    # Search recursively for "FOO"
         $ g -i foo # Search recursively for "foo", ignoring case
         $ g -w FOO # Search recursively for "FOO" as a word, ignoring e.g. "FOOBAR"
                        

    If figuring out how some feature works requires a lot of searching, it might indicate that the documentation should be extended or improved. In such cases, consider filing a documentation bug using the Yocto Project implementation of Bugzilla. For general information on how to submit a bug against the Yocto Project, see the "Tracking Bugs" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

    Note

    The manuals might not be the right place to document variables that are purely internal and have a limited scope (e.g. internal variables used to implement a single .bbclass file).

20.4. Maintaining Build Output Quality

Many factors can influence the quality of a build. For example, if you upgrade a recipe to use a new version of an upstream software package or you experiment with some new configuration options, subtle changes can occur that you might not detect until later. Consider the case where your recipe is using a newer version of an upstream package. In this case, a new version of a piece of software might introduce an optional dependency on another library, which is auto-detected. If that library has already been built when the software is building, the software will link to the built library and that library will be pulled into your image along with the new software even if you did not want the library.

The buildhistory class exists to help you maintain the quality of your build output. You can use the class to highlight unexpected and possibly unwanted changes in the build output. When you enable build history, it records information about the contents of each package and image and then commits that information to a local Git repository where you can examine the information.

The remainder of this section describes the following:

  • How you can enable and disable build history

  • How to understand what the build history contains

  • How to limit the information used for build history

  • How to examine the build history from both a command-line and web interface

20.4.1. Enabling and Disabling Build History

Build history is disabled by default. To enable it, add the following INHERIT statement and set the BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT variable to "1" at the end of your conf/local.conf file found in the Build Directory:

     INHERIT += "buildhistory"
     BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT = "1"
            

Enabling build history as previously described causes the build process to collect build output information and commit it to a local Git repository.

Note

Enabling build history increases your build times slightly, particularly for images, and increases the amount of disk space used during the build.

You can disable build history by removing the previous statements from your conf/local.conf file.

20.4.2. Understanding What the Build History Contains

Build history information is kept in ${TOPDIR}/buildhistory in the Build Directory as defined by the BUILDHISTORY_DIR variable. The following is an example abbreviated listing:

At the top level, there is a metadata-revs file that lists the revisions of the repositories for the layers enabled when the build was produced. The rest of the data splits into separate packages, images and sdk directories, the contents of which are described below.

20.4.2.1. Build History Package Information

The history for each package contains a text file that has name-value pairs with information about the package. For example, buildhistory/packages/i586-poky-linux/busybox/busybox/latest contains the following:

     PV = 1.22.1
     PR = r32
     RPROVIDES =
     RDEPENDS = glibc (>= 2.20) update-alternatives-opkg
     RRECOMMENDS = busybox-syslog busybox-udhcpc update-rc.d
     PKGSIZE = 540168
     FILES = /usr/bin/* /usr/sbin/* /usr/lib/busybox/* /usr/lib/lib*.so.* \
        /etc /com /var /bin/* /sbin/* /lib/*.so.* /lib/udev/rules.d \
        /usr/lib/udev/rules.d /usr/share/busybox /usr/lib/busybox/* \
        /usr/share/pixmaps /usr/share/applications /usr/share/idl \
        /usr/share/omf /usr/share/sounds /usr/lib/bonobo/servers
     FILELIST = /bin/busybox /bin/busybox.nosuid /bin/busybox.suid /bin/sh \
        /etc/busybox.links.nosuid /etc/busybox.links.suid
                

Most of these name-value pairs correspond to variables used to produce the package. The exceptions are FILELIST, which is the actual list of files in the package, and PKGSIZE, which is the total size of files in the package in bytes.

There is also a file corresponding to the recipe from which the package came (e.g. buildhistory/packages/i586-poky-linux/busybox/latest):

     PV = 1.22.1
     PR = r32
     DEPENDS = initscripts kern-tools-native update-rc.d-native \
        virtual/i586-poky-linux-compilerlibs virtual/i586-poky-linux-gcc \
        virtual/libc virtual/update-alternatives
     PACKAGES = busybox-ptest busybox-httpd busybox-udhcpd busybox-udhcpc \
        busybox-syslog busybox-mdev busybox-hwclock busybox-dbg \
        busybox-staticdev busybox-dev busybox-doc busybox-locale busybox
                

Finally, for those recipes fetched from a version control system (e.g., Git), a file exists that lists source revisions that are specified in the recipe and lists the actual revisions used during the build. Listed and actual revisions might differ when SRCREV is set to ${AUTOREV}. Here is an example assuming buildhistory/packages/qemux86-poky-linux/linux-yocto/latest_srcrev):

     # SRCREV_machine = "38cd560d5022ed2dbd1ab0dca9642e47c98a0aa1"
     SRCREV_machine = "38cd560d5022ed2dbd1ab0dca9642e47c98a0aa1"
     # SRCREV_meta = "a227f20eff056e511d504b2e490f3774ab260d6f"
     SRCREV_meta = "a227f20eff056e511d504b2e490f3774ab260d6f"
                

You can use the buildhistory-collect-srcrevs command with the -a option to collect the stored SRCREV values from build history and report them in a format suitable for use in global configuration (e.g., local.conf or a distro include file) to override floating AUTOREV values to a fixed set of revisions. Here is some example output from this command:

     $ buildhistory-collect-srcrevs -a
     # i586-poky-linux
     SRCREV_pn-glibc = "b8079dd0d360648e4e8de48656c5c38972621072"
     SRCREV_pn-glibc-initial = "b8079dd0d360648e4e8de48656c5c38972621072"
     SRCREV_pn-opkg-utils = "53274f087565fd45d8452c5367997ba6a682a37a"
     SRCREV_pn-kmod = "fd56638aed3fe147015bfa10ed4a5f7491303cb4"
     # x86_64-linux
     SRCREV_pn-gtk-doc-stub-native = "1dea266593edb766d6d898c79451ef193eb17cfa"
     SRCREV_pn-dtc-native = "65cc4d2748a2c2e6f27f1cf39e07a5dbabd80ebf"
     SRCREV_pn-update-rc.d-native = "eca680ddf28d024954895f59a241a622dd575c11"
     SRCREV_glibc_pn-cross-localedef-native = "b8079dd0d360648e4e8de48656c5c38972621072"
     SRCREV_localedef_pn-cross-localedef-native = "c833367348d39dad7ba018990bfdaffaec8e9ed3"
     SRCREV_pn-prelink-native = "faa069deec99bf61418d0bab831c83d7c1b797ca"
     SRCREV_pn-opkg-utils-native = "53274f087565fd45d8452c5367997ba6a682a37a"
     SRCREV_pn-kern-tools-native = "23345b8846fe4bd167efdf1bd8a1224b2ba9a5ff"
     SRCREV_pn-kmod-native = "fd56638aed3fe147015bfa10ed4a5f7491303cb4"
     # qemux86-poky-linux
     SRCREV_machine_pn-linux-yocto = "38cd560d5022ed2dbd1ab0dca9642e47c98a0aa1"
     SRCREV_meta_pn-linux-yocto = "a227f20eff056e511d504b2e490f3774ab260d6f"
     # all-poky-linux
     SRCREV_pn-update-rc.d = "eca680ddf28d024954895f59a241a622dd575c11"
                

Note

Here are some notes on using the buildhistory-collect-srcrevs command:
  • By default, only values where the SRCREV was not hardcoded (usually when AUTOREV was used) are reported. Use the -a option to see all SRCREV values.

  • The output statements might not have any effect if overrides are applied elsewhere in the build system configuration. Use the -f option to add the forcevariable override to each output line if you need to work around this restriction.

  • The script does apply special handling when building for multiple machines. However, the script does place a comment before each set of values that specifies which triplet to which they belong as shown above (e.g., i586-poky-linux).

20.4.2.2. Build History Image Information

The files produced for each image are as follows:

  • image-files: A directory containing selected files from the root filesystem. The files are defined by BUILDHISTORY_IMAGE_FILES.

  • build-id.txt: Human-readable information about the build configuration and metadata source revisions. This file contains the full build header as printed by BitBake.

  • *.dot: Dependency graphs for the image that are compatible with graphviz.

  • files-in-image.txt: A list of files in the image with permissions, owner, group, size, and symlink information.

  • image-info.txt: A text file containing name-value pairs with information about the image. See the following listing example for more information.

  • installed-package-names.txt: A list of installed packages by name only.

  • installed-package-sizes.txt: A list of installed packages ordered by size.

  • installed-packages.txt: A list of installed packages with full package filenames.

Note

Installed package information is able to be gathered and produced even if package management is disabled for the final image.

Here is an example of image-info.txt:

     DISTRO = poky
     DISTRO_VERSION = 1.7
     USER_CLASSES = buildstats image-mklibs image-prelink
     IMAGE_CLASSES = image_types
     IMAGE_FEATURES = debug-tweaks
     IMAGE_LINGUAS =
     IMAGE_INSTALL = packagegroup-core-boot run-postinsts
     BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS =
     NO_RECOMMENDATIONS =
     PACKAGE_EXCLUDE =
     ROOTFS_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND = write_package_manifest; license_create_manifest; \
        write_image_manifest ; buildhistory_list_installed_image ; \
        buildhistory_get_image_installed ; ssh_allow_empty_password;  \
        postinst_enable_logging; rootfs_update_timestamp ; ssh_disable_dns_lookup ;
     IMAGE_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND =   buildhistory_get_imageinfo ;
     IMAGESIZE = 6900
                

Other than IMAGESIZE, which is the total size of the files in the image in Kbytes, the name-value pairs are variables that may have influenced the content of the image. This information is often useful when you are trying to determine why a change in the package or file listings has occurred.

20.4.2.3. Using Build History to Gather Image Information Only

As you can see, build history produces image information, including dependency graphs, so you can see why something was pulled into the image. If you are just interested in this information and not interested in collecting specific package or SDK information, you can enable writing only image information without any history by adding the following to your conf/local.conf file found in the Build Directory:

     INHERIT += "buildhistory"
     BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT = "0"
     BUILDHISTORY_FEATURES = "image"
                

Here, you set the BUILDHISTORY_FEATURES variable to use the image feature only.

20.4.2.4. Build History SDK Information

Build history collects similar information on the contents of SDKs (e.g. bitbake -c populate_sdk imagename) as compared to information it collects for images. Furthermore, this information differs depending on whether an extensible or standard SDK is being produced.

The following list shows the files produced for SDKs:

  • files-in-sdk.txt: A list of files in the SDK with permissions, owner, group, size, and symlink information. This list includes both the host and target parts of the SDK.

  • sdk-info.txt: A text file containing name-value pairs with information about the SDK. See the following listing example for more information.

  • sstate-task-sizes.txt: A text file containing name-value pairs with information about task group sizes (e.g. do_populate_sysroot tasks have a total size). The sstate-task-sizes.txt file exists only when an extensible SDK is created.

  • sstate-package-sizes.txt: A text file containing name-value pairs with information for the shared-state packages and sizes in the SDK. The sstate-package-sizes.txt file exists only when an extensible SDK is created.

  • sdk-files: A folder that contains copies of the files mentioned in BUILDHISTORY_SDK_FILES if the files are present in the output. Additionally, the default value of BUILDHISTORY_SDK_FILES is specific to the extensible SDK although you can set it differently if you would like to pull in specific files from the standard SDK.

    The default files are conf/local.conf, conf/bblayers.conf, conf/auto.conf, conf/locked-sigs.inc, and conf/devtool.conf. Thus, for an extensible SDK, these files get copied into the sdk-files directory.

  • The following information appears under each of the host and target directories for the portions of the SDK that run on the host and on the target, respectively:

    Note

    The following files for the most part are empty when producing an extensible SDK because this type of SDK is not constructed from packages as is the standard SDK.

    • depends.dot: Dependency graph for the SDK that is compatible with graphviz.

    • installed-package-names.txt: A list of installed packages by name only.

    • installed-package-sizes.txt: A list of installed packages ordered by size.

    • installed-packages.txt: A list of installed packages with full package filenames.

Here is an example of sdk-info.txt:

     DISTRO = poky
     DISTRO_VERSION = 1.3+snapshot-20130327
     SDK_NAME = poky-glibc-i686-arm
     SDK_VERSION = 1.3+snapshot
     SDKMACHINE =
     SDKIMAGE_FEATURES = dev-pkgs dbg-pkgs
     BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS =
     SDKSIZE = 352712
                

Other than SDKSIZE, which is the total size of the files in the SDK in Kbytes, the name-value pairs are variables that might have influenced the content of the SDK. This information is often useful when you are trying to determine why a change in the package or file listings has occurred.

20.4.2.5. Examining Build History Information

You can examine build history output from the command line or from a web interface.

To see any changes that have occurred (assuming you have BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT = "1"), you can simply use any Git command that allows you to view the history of a repository. Here is one method:

      $ git log -p
                

You need to realize, however, that this method does show changes that are not significant (e.g. a package's size changing by a few bytes).

A command-line tool called buildhistory-diff does exist, though, that queries the Git repository and prints just the differences that might be significant in human-readable form. Here is an example:

     $ ~/poky/poky/scripts/buildhistory-diff . HEAD^
     Changes to images/qemux86_64/glibc/core-image-minimal (files-in-image.txt):
        /etc/anotherpkg.conf was added
        /sbin/anotherpkg was added
        * (installed-package-names.txt):
        *   anotherpkg was added
     Changes to images/qemux86_64/glibc/core-image-minimal (installed-package-names.txt):
        anotherpkg was added
     packages/qemux86_64-poky-linux/v86d: PACKAGES: added "v86d-extras"
        * PR changed from "r0" to "r1"
        * PV changed from "0.1.10" to "0.1.12"
     packages/qemux86_64-poky-linux/v86d/v86d: PKGSIZE changed from 110579 to 144381 (+30%)
        * PR changed from "r0" to "r1"
        * PV changed from "0.1.10" to "0.1.12"
                

Note

The buildhistory-diff tool requires the GitPython package. Be sure to install it using Pip3 as follows:
   $ pip3 install GitPython --user
                    
Alternatively, you can install python3-git using the appropriate distribution package manager (e.g. apt-get, dnf, or zipper).

To see changes to the build history using a web interface, follow the instruction in the README file here. http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/buildhistory-web/.

Here is a sample screenshot of the interface:

20.5. Speeding Up the Build

Build time can be an issue. By default, the build system uses simple controls to try and maximize build efficiency. In general, the default settings for all the following variables result in the most efficient build times when dealing with single socket systems (i.e. a single CPU). If you have multiple CPUs, you might try increasing the default values to gain more speed. See the descriptions in the glossary for each variable for more information:

As mentioned, these variables all scale to the number of processor cores available on the build system. For single socket systems, this auto-scaling ensures that the build system fundamentally takes advantage of potential parallel operations during the build based on the build machine's capabilities.

Following are additional factors that can affect build speed:

  • File system type: The file system type that the build is being performed on can also influence performance. Using ext4 is recommended as compared to ext2 and ext3 due to ext4 improved features such as extents.

  • Disabling the updating of access time using noatime: The noatime mount option prevents the build system from updating file and directory access times.

  • Setting a longer commit: Using the "commit=" mount option increases the interval in seconds between disk cache writes. Changing this interval from the five second default to something longer increases the risk of data loss but decreases the need to write to the disk, thus increasing the build performance.

  • Choosing the packaging backend: Of the available packaging backends, IPK is the fastest. Additionally, selecting a singular packaging backend also helps.

  • Using tmpfs for TMPDIR as a temporary file system: While this can help speed up the build, the benefits are limited due to the compiler using -pipe. The build system goes to some lengths to avoid sync() calls into the file system on the principle that if there was a significant failure, the Build Directory contents could easily be rebuilt.

  • Inheriting the rm_work class: Inheriting this class has shown to speed up builds due to significantly lower amounts of data stored in the data cache as well as on disk. Inheriting this class also makes cleanup of TMPDIR faster, at the expense of being easily able to dive into the source code. File system maintainers have recommended that the fastest way to clean up large numbers of files is to reformat partitions rather than delete files due to the linear nature of partitions. This, of course, assumes you structure the disk partitions and file systems in a way that this is practical.

Aside from the previous list, you should keep some trade offs in mind that can help you speed up the build:

  • Remove items from DISTRO_FEATURES that you might not need.

  • Exclude debug symbols and other debug information: If you do not need these symbols and other debug information, disabling the *-dbg package generation can speed up the build. You can disable this generation by setting the INHIBIT_PACKAGE_DEBUG_SPLIT variable to "1".

  • Disable static library generation for recipes derived from autoconf or libtool: Following is an example showing how to disable static libraries and still provide an override to handle exceptions:

         STATICLIBCONF = "--disable-static"
         STATICLIBCONF_sqlite3-native = ""
         EXTRA_OECONF += "${STATICLIBCONF}"
                    

    Notes

    • Some recipes need static libraries in order to work correctly (e.g. pseudo-native needs sqlite3-native). Overrides, as in the previous example, account for these kinds of exceptions.

    • Some packages have packaging code that assumes the presence of the static libraries. If so, you might need to exclude them as well.

Chapter 21. A Closer Look at the Yocto Project Development Environment

This chapter takes a more detailed look at the Yocto Project development environment. The following diagram represents the development environment at a high level. The remainder of this chapter expands on the fundamental input, output, process, and Metadata) blocks in the Yocto Project development environment.

The generalized Yocto Project Development Environment consists of several functional areas:

  • User Configuration: Metadata you can use to control the build process.

  • Metadata Layers: Various layers that provide software, machine, and distro Metadata.

  • Source Files: Upstream releases, local projects, and SCMs.

  • Build System: Processes under the control of BitBake. This block expands on how BitBake fetches source, applies patches, completes compilation, analyzes output for package generation, creates and tests packages, generates images, and generates cross-development tools.

  • Package Feeds: Directories containing output packages (RPM, DEB or IPK), which are subsequently used in the construction of an image or SDK, produced by the build system. These feeds can also be copied and shared using a web server or other means to facilitate extending or updating existing images on devices at runtime if runtime package management is enabled.

  • Images: Images produced by the development process.

  • Application Development SDK: Cross-development tools that are produced along with an image or separately with BitBake.

21.1. User Configuration

User configuration helps define the build. Through user configuration, you can tell BitBake the target architecture for which you are building the image, where to store downloaded source, and other build properties.

The following figure shows an expanded representation of the "User Configuration" box of the general Yocto Project Development Environment figure:

BitBake needs some basic configuration files in order to complete a build. These files are *.conf files. The minimally necessary ones reside as example files in the Source Directory. For simplicity, this section refers to the Source Directory as the "Poky Directory."

When you clone the poky Git repository or you download and unpack a Yocto Project release, you can set up the Source Directory to be named anything you want. For this discussion, the cloned repository uses the default name poky.

Note

The Poky repository is primarily an aggregation of existing repositories. It is not a canonical upstream source.

The meta-poky layer inside Poky contains a conf directory that has example configuration files. These example files are used as a basis for creating actual configuration files when you source the build environment script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres).

Sourcing the build environment script creates a Build Directory if one does not already exist. BitBake uses the Build Directory for all its work during builds. The Build Directory has a conf directory that contains default versions of your local.conf and bblayers.conf configuration files. These default configuration files are created only if versions do not already exist in the Build Directory at the time you source the build environment setup script.

Because the Poky repository is fundamentally an aggregation of existing repositories, some users might be familiar with running the oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres script in the context of separate OpenEmbedded-Core and BitBake repositories rather than a single Poky repository. This discussion assumes the script is executed from within a cloned or unpacked version of Poky.

Depending on where the script is sourced, different sub-scripts are called to set up the Build Directory (Yocto or OpenEmbedded). Specifically, the script scripts/oe-setup-builddir inside the poky directory sets up the Build Directory and seeds the directory (if necessary) with configuration files appropriate for the Yocto Project development environment.

Note

The scripts/oe-setup-builddir script uses the $TEMPLATECONF variable to determine which sample configuration files to locate.

The local.conf file provides many basic variables that define a build environment. Here is a list of a few. To see the default configurations in a local.conf file created by the build environment script, see the local.conf.sample in the meta-poky layer:

Note

Configurations set in the conf/local.conf file can also be set in the conf/site.conf and conf/auto.conf configuration files.

The bblayers.conf file tells BitBake what layers you want considered during the build. By default, the layers listed in this file include layers minimally needed by the build system. However, you must manually add any custom layers you have created. You can find more information on working with the bblayers.conf file in the "Enabling Your Layer" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

The files site.conf and auto.conf are not created by the environment initialization script. If you want the site.conf file, you need to create that yourself. The auto.conf file is typically created by an autobuilder:

  • site.conf: You can use the conf/site.conf configuration file to configure multiple build directories. For example, suppose you had several build environments and they shared some common features. You can set these default build properties here. A good example is perhaps the packaging format to use through the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable.

    One useful scenario for using the conf/site.conf file is to extend your BBPATH variable to include the path to a conf/site.conf. Then, when BitBake looks for Metadata using BBPATH, it finds the conf/site.conf file and applies your common configurations found in the file. To override configurations in a particular build directory, alter the similar configurations within that build directory's conf/local.conf file.

  • auto.conf: The file is usually created and written to by an autobuilder. The settings put into the file are typically the same as you would find in the conf/local.conf or the conf/site.conf files.

You can edit all configuration files to further define any particular build environment. This process is represented by the "User Configuration Edits" box in the figure.

When you launch your build with the bitbake target command, BitBake sorts out the configurations to ultimately define your build environment. It is important to understand that the OpenEmbedded build system reads the configuration files in a specific order: site.conf, auto.conf, and local.conf. And, the build system applies the normal assignment statement rules. Because the files are parsed in a specific order, variable assignments for the same variable could be affected. For example, if the auto.conf file and the local.conf set variable1 to different values, because the build system parses local.conf after auto.conf, variable1 is assigned the value from the local.conf file.

21.2. Metadata, Machine Configuration, and Policy Configuration

The previous section described the user configurations that define BitBake's global behavior. This section takes a closer look at the layers the build system uses to further control the build. These layers provide Metadata for the software, machine, and policy.

In general, three types of layer input exist:

  • Policy Configuration: Distribution Layers provide top-level or general policies for the image or SDK being built. For example, this layer would dictate whether BitBake produces RPM or IPK packages.

  • Machine Configuration: Board Support Package (BSP) layers provide machine configurations. This type of information is specific to a particular target architecture.

  • Metadata: Software layers contain user-supplied recipe files, patches, and append files.

The following figure shows an expanded representation of the Metadata, Machine Configuration, and Policy Configuration input (layers) boxes of the general Yocto Project Development Environment figure:

In general, all layers have a similar structure. They all contain a licensing file (e.g. COPYING) if the layer is to be distributed, a README file as good practice and especially if the layer is to be distributed, a configuration directory, and recipe directories.

The Yocto Project has many layers that can be used. You can see a web-interface listing of them on the Source Repositories page. The layers are shown at the bottom categorized under "Yocto Metadata Layers." These layers are fundamentally a subset of the OpenEmbedded Metadata Index, which lists all layers provided by the OpenEmbedded community.

Note

Layers exist in the Yocto Project Source Repositories that cannot be found in the OpenEmbedded Metadata Index. These layers are either deprecated or experimental in nature.

BitBake uses the conf/bblayers.conf file, which is part of the user configuration, to find what layers it should be using as part of the build.

For more information on layers, see the "Understanding and Creating Layers" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

21.2.1. Distro Layer

The distribution layer provides policy configurations for your distribution. Best practices dictate that you isolate these types of configurations into their own layer. Settings you provide in conf/distro/distro.conf override similar settings that BitBake finds in your conf/local.conf file in the Build Directory.

The following list provides some explanation and references for what you typically find in the distribution layer:

  • classes: Class files (.bbclass) hold common functionality that can be shared among recipes in the distribution. When your recipes inherit a class, they take on the settings and functions for that class. You can read more about class files in the "Classes" section.

  • conf: This area holds configuration files for the layer (conf/layer.conf), the distribution (conf/distro/distro.conf), and any distribution-wide include files.

  • recipes-*: Recipes and append files that affect common functionality across the distribution. This area could include recipes and append files to add distribution-specific configuration, initialization scripts, custom image recipes, and so forth.

21.2.2. BSP Layer

The BSP Layer provides machine configurations. Everything in this layer is specific to the machine for which you are building the image or the SDK. A common structure or form is defined for BSP layers. You can learn more about this structure in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide.

Note

In order for a BSP layer to be considered compliant with the Yocto Project, it must meet some structural requirements.

The BSP Layer's configuration directory contains configuration files for the machine (conf/machine/machine.conf) and, of course, the layer (conf/layer.conf).

The remainder of the layer is dedicated to specific recipes by function: recipes-bsp, recipes-core, recipes-graphics, and recipes-kernel. Metadata can exist for multiple formfactors, graphics support systems, and so forth.

Note

While the figure shows several recipes-* directories, not all these directories appear in all BSP layers.

21.2.3. Software Layer

The software layer provides the Metadata for additional software packages used during the build. This layer does not include Metadata that is specific to the distribution or the machine, which are found in their respective layers.

This layer contains any new recipes that your project needs in the form of recipe files.

21.3. Sources

In order for the OpenEmbedded build system to create an image or any target, it must be able to access source files. The general Yocto Project Development Environment figure represents source files using the "Upstream Project Releases", "Local Projects", and "SCMs (optional)" boxes. The figure represents mirrors, which also play a role in locating source files, with the "Source Mirror(s)" box.

The method by which source files are ultimately organized is a function of the project. For example, for released software, projects tend to use tarballs or other archived files that can capture the state of a release guaranteeing that it is statically represented. On the other hand, for a project that is more dynamic or experimental in nature, a project might keep source files in a repository controlled by a Source Control Manager (SCM) such as Git. Pulling source from a repository allows you to control the point in the repository (the revision) from which you want to build software. Finally, a combination of the two might exist, which would give the consumer a choice when deciding where to get source files.

BitBake uses the SRC_URI variable to point to source files regardless of their location. Each recipe must have a SRC_URI variable that points to the source.

Another area that plays a significant role in where source files come from is pointed to by the DL_DIR variable. This area is a cache that can hold previously downloaded source. You can also instruct the OpenEmbedded build system to create tarballs from Git repositories, which is not the default behavior, and store them in the DL_DIR by using the BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS variable.

Judicious use of a DL_DIR directory can save the build system a trip across the Internet when looking for files. A good method for using a download directory is to have DL_DIR point to an area outside of your Build Directory. Doing so allows you to safely delete the Build Directory if needed without fear of removing any downloaded source file.

The remainder of this section provides a deeper look into the source files and the mirrors. Here is a more detailed look at the source file area of the base figure:

21.3.1. Upstream Project Releases

Upstream project releases exist anywhere in the form of an archived file (e.g. tarball or zip file). These files correspond to individual recipes. For example, the figure uses specific releases each for BusyBox, Qt, and Dbus. An archive file can be for any released product that can be built using a recipe.

21.3.2. Local Projects

Local projects are custom bits of software the user provides. These bits reside somewhere local to a project - perhaps a directory into which the user checks in items (e.g. a local directory containing a development source tree used by the group).

The canonical method through which to include a local project is to use the externalsrc class to include that local project. You use either the local.conf or a recipe's append file to override or set the recipe to point to the local directory on your disk to pull in the whole source tree.

For information on how to use the externalsrc class, see the "externalsrc.bbclass" section.

21.3.3. Source Control Managers (Optional)

Another place the build system can get source files from is through an SCM such as Git or Subversion. In this case, a repository is cloned or checked out. The do_fetch task inside BitBake uses the SRC_URI variable and the argument's prefix to determine the correct fetcher module.

Note

For information on how to have the OpenEmbedded build system generate tarballs for Git repositories and place them in the DL_DIR directory, see the BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS variable.

When fetching a repository, BitBake uses the SRCREV variable to determine the specific revision from which to build.

21.3.4. Source Mirror(s)

Two kinds of mirrors exist: pre-mirrors and regular mirrors. The PREMIRRORS and MIRRORS variables point to these, respectively. BitBake checks pre-mirrors before looking upstream for any source files. Pre-mirrors are appropriate when you have a shared directory that is not a directory defined by the DL_DIR variable. A Pre-mirror typically points to a shared directory that is local to your organization.

Regular mirrors can be any site across the Internet that is used as an alternative location for source code should the primary site not be functioning for some reason or another.

21.4. Package Feeds

When the OpenEmbedded build system generates an image or an SDK, it gets the packages from a package feed area located in the Build Directory. The general Yocto Project Development Environment figure shows this package feeds area in the upper-right corner.

This section looks a little closer into the package feeds area used by the build system. Here is a more detailed look at the area:

Package feeds are an intermediary step in the build process. The OpenEmbedded build system provides classes to generate different package types, and you specify which classes to enable through the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable. Before placing the packages into package feeds, the build process validates them with generated output quality assurance checks through the insane class.

The package feed area resides in the Build Directory. The directory the build system uses to temporarily store packages is determined by a combination of variables and the particular package manager in use. See the "Package Feeds" box in the illustration and note the information to the right of that area. In particular, the following defines where package files are kept:

  • DEPLOY_DIR: Defined as tmp/deploy in the Build Directory.

  • DEPLOY_DIR_*: Depending on the package manager used, the package type sub-folder. Given RPM, IPK, or DEB packaging and tarball creation, the DEPLOY_DIR_RPM, DEPLOY_DIR_IPK, DEPLOY_DIR_DEB, or DEPLOY_DIR_TAR, variables are used, respectively.

  • PACKAGE_ARCH: Defines architecture-specific sub-folders. For example, packages could exist for the i586 or qemux86 architectures.

BitBake uses the do_package_write_* tasks to generate packages and place them into the package holding area (e.g. do_package_write_ipk for IPK packages). See the "do_package_write_deb", "do_package_write_ipk", "do_package_write_rpm", and "do_package_write_tar" sections for additional information. As an example, consider a scenario where an IPK packaging manager is being used and package architecture support for both i586 and qemux86 exist. Packages for the i586 architecture are placed in build/tmp/deploy/ipk/i586, while packages for the qemux86 architecture are placed in build/tmp/deploy/ipk/qemux86.

21.5. BitBake

The OpenEmbedded build system uses BitBake to produce images. You can see from the general Yocto Project Development Environment figure, the BitBake area consists of several functional areas. This section takes a closer look at each of those areas.

Separate documentation exists for the BitBake tool. See the BitBake User Manual for reference material on BitBake.

21.5.1. Source Fetching

The first stages of building a recipe are to fetch and unpack the source code:

The do_fetch and do_unpack tasks fetch the source files and unpack them into the work directory.

Note

For every local file (e.g. file://) that is part of a recipe's SRC_URI statement, the OpenEmbedded build system takes a checksum of the file for the recipe and inserts the checksum into the signature for the do_fetch. If any local file has been modified, the do_fetch task and all tasks that depend on it are re-executed.

By default, everything is accomplished in the Build Directory, which has a defined structure. For additional general information on the Build Directory, see the "build/" section.

Unpacked source files are pointed to by the S variable. Each recipe has an area in the Build Directory where the unpacked source code resides. The name of that directory for any given recipe is defined from several different variables. You can see the variables that define these directories by looking at the figure:

  • TMPDIR - The base directory where the OpenEmbedded build system performs all its work during the build.

  • PACKAGE_ARCH - The architecture of the built package or packages.

  • TARGET_OS - The operating system of the target device.

  • PN - The name of the built package.

  • PV - The version of the recipe used to build the package.

  • PR - The revision of the recipe used to build the package.

  • WORKDIR - The location within TMPDIR where a specific package is built.

  • S - Contains the unpacked source files for a given recipe.

21.5.2. Patching

Once source code is fetched and unpacked, BitBake locates patch files and applies them to the source files:

The do_patch task processes recipes by using the SRC_URI variable to locate applicable patch files, which by default are *.patch or *.diff files, or any file if "apply=yes" is specified for the file in SRC_URI.

BitBake finds and applies multiple patches for a single recipe in the order in which it finds the patches. Patches are applied to the recipe's source files located in the S directory.

For more information on how the source directories are created, see the "Source Fetching" section.

21.5.3. Configuration and Compilation

After source code is patched, BitBake executes tasks that configure and compile the source code:

This step in the build process consists of three tasks:

  • do_prepare_recipe_sysroot: This task sets up the two sysroots in ${WORKDIR} (i.e. recipe-sysroot and recipe-sysroot-native) so that the sysroots contain the contents of the do_populate_sysroot tasks of the recipes on which the recipe containing the tasks depends. A sysroot exists for both the target and for the native binaries, which run on the host system.

  • do_configure: This task configures the source by enabling and disabling any build-time and configuration options for the software being built. Configurations can come from the recipe itself as well as from an inherited class. Additionally, the software itself might configure itself depending on the target for which it is being built.

    The configurations handled by the do_configure task are specific to source code configuration for the source code being built by the recipe.

    If you are using the autotools class, you can add additional configuration options by using the EXTRA_OECONF or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS variables. For information on how this variable works within that class, see the meta/classes/autotools.bbclass file.

  • do_compile: Once a configuration task has been satisfied, BitBake compiles the source using the do_compile task. Compilation occurs in the directory pointed to by the B variable. Realize that the B directory is, by default, the same as the S directory.

  • do_install: Once compilation is done, BitBake executes the do_install task. This task copies files from the B directory and places them in a holding area pointed to by the D variable.

21.5.4. Package Splitting

After source code is configured and compiled, the OpenEmbedded build system analyzes the results and splits the output into packages:

The do_package and do_packagedata tasks combine to analyze the files found in the D directory and split them into subsets based on available packages and files. The analyzing process involves the following as well as other items: splitting out debugging symbols, looking at shared library dependencies between packages, and looking at package relationships. The do_packagedata task creates package metadata based on the analysis such that the OpenEmbedded build system can generate the final packages. Working, staged, and intermediate results of the analysis and package splitting process use these areas:

  • PKGD - The destination directory for packages before they are split.

  • PKGDATA_DIR - A shared, global-state directory that holds data generated during the packaging process.

  • PKGDESTWORK - A temporary work area used by the do_package task.

  • PKGDEST - The parent directory for packages after they have been split.

The FILES variable defines the files that go into each package in PACKAGES. If you want details on how this is accomplished, you can look at the package class.

Depending on the type of packages being created (RPM, DEB, or IPK), the do_package_write_* task creates the actual packages and places them in the Package Feed area, which is ${TMPDIR}/deploy. You can see the "Package Feeds" section for more detail on that part of the build process.

Note

Support for creating feeds directly from the deploy/* directories does not exist. Creating such feeds usually requires some kind of feed maintenance mechanism that would upload the new packages into an official package feed (e.g. the Ångström distribution). This functionality is highly distribution-specific and thus is not provided out of the box.

21.5.5. Image Generation

Once packages are split and stored in the Package Feeds area, the OpenEmbedded build system uses BitBake to generate the root filesystem image:

The image generation process consists of several stages and depends on several tasks and variables. The do_rootfs task creates the root filesystem (file and directory structure) for an image. This task uses several key variables to help create the list of packages to actually install:

  • IMAGE_INSTALL: Lists out the base set of packages to install from the Package Feeds area.

  • PACKAGE_EXCLUDE: Specifies packages that should not be installed.

  • IMAGE_FEATURES: Specifies features to include in the image. Most of these features map to additional packages for installation.

  • PACKAGE_CLASSES: Specifies the package backend to use and consequently helps determine where to locate packages within the Package Feeds area.

  • IMAGE_LINGUAS: Determines the language(s) for which additional language support packages are installed.

  • PACKAGE_INSTALL: The final list of packages passed to the package manager for installation into the image.

With IMAGE_ROOTFS pointing to the location of the filesystem under construction and the PACKAGE_INSTALL variable providing the final list of packages to install, the root file system is created.

Package installation is under control of the package manager (e.g. dnf/rpm, opkg, or apt/dpkg) regardless of whether or not package management is enabled for the target. At the end of the process, if package management is not enabled for the target, the package manager's data files are deleted from the root filesystem. As part of the final stage of package installation, postinstall scripts that are part of the packages are run. Any scripts that fail to run on the build host are run on the target when the target system is first booted. If you are using a read-only root filesystem, all the post installation scripts must succeed during the package installation phase since the root filesystem is read-only.

The final stages of the do_rootfs task handle post processing. Post processing includes creation of a manifest file and optimizations.

The manifest file (.manifest) resides in the same directory as the root filesystem image. This file lists out, line-by-line, the installed packages. The manifest file is useful for the testimage class, for example, to determine whether or not to run specific tests. See the IMAGE_MANIFEST variable for additional information.

Optimizing processes run across the image include mklibs, prelink, and any other post-processing commands as defined by the ROOTFS_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND variable. The mklibs process optimizes the size of the libraries, while the prelink process optimizes the dynamic linking of shared libraries to reduce start up time of executables.

After the root filesystem is built, processing begins on the image through the do_image task. The build system runs any pre-processing commands as defined by the IMAGE_PREPROCESS_COMMAND variable. This variable specifies a list of functions to call before the OpenEmbedded build system creates the final image output files.

The do_image task dynamically creates other do_image_* tasks as needed, which include compressing the root filesystem image to reduce the overall size of the image. The process turns everything into an image file or a set of image files. The formats used for the root filesystem depend on the IMAGE_FSTYPES variable.

The final task involved in image creation is the do_image_complete task. This task completes the image by applying any image post processing as defined through the IMAGE_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND variable. The variable specifies a list of functions to call once the OpenEmbedded build system has created the final image output files.

Note

The entire image generation process is run under Pseudo. Running under Pseudo ensures that the files in the root filesystem have correct ownership.

21.5.6. SDK Generation

The OpenEmbedded build system uses BitBake to generate the Software Development Kit (SDK) installer script for both the standard and extensible SDKs:

Note

For more information on the cross-development toolchain generation, see the "Cross-Development Toolchain Generation" section. For information on advantages gained when building a cross-development toolchain using the do_populate_sdk task, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

Like image generation, the SDK script process consists of several stages and depends on many variables. The do_populate_sdk and do_populate_sdk_ext tasks use these key variables to help create the list of packages to actually install. For information on the variables listed in the figure, see the "Application Development SDK" section.

The do_populate_sdk task helps create the standard SDK and handles two parts: a target part and a host part. The target part is the part built for the target hardware and includes libraries and headers. The host part is the part of the SDK that runs on the SDKMACHINE.

The do_populate_sdk_ext task helps create the extensible SDK and handles host and target parts differently than its counter part does for the standard SDK. For the extensible SDK, the task encapsulates the build system, which includes everything needed (host and target) for the SDK.

Regardless of the type of SDK being constructed, the tasks perform some cleanup after which a cross-development environment setup script and any needed configuration files are created. The final output is the Cross-development toolchain installation script (.sh file), which includes the environment setup script.

21.5.7. Stamp Files and the Rerunning of Tasks

For each task that completes successfully, BitBake writes a stamp file into the STAMPS_DIR directory. The beginning of the stamp file's filename is determined by the STAMP variable, and the end of the name consists of the task's name and current input checksum.

Note

This naming scheme assumes that BB_SIGNATURE_HANDLER is "OEBasicHash", which is almost always the case in current OpenEmbedded.

To determine if a task needs to be rerun, BitBake checks if a stamp file with a matching input checksum exists for the task. If such a stamp file exists, the task's output is assumed to exist and still be valid. If the file does not exist, the task is rerun.

Note

The stamp mechanism is more general than the shared state (sstate) cache mechanism described in the "Setscene Tasks and Shared State" section. BitBake avoids rerunning any task that has a valid stamp file, not just tasks that can be accelerated through the sstate cache.

However, you should realize that stamp files only serve as a marker that some work has been done and that these files do not record task output. The actual task output would usually be somewhere in TMPDIR (e.g. in some recipe's WORKDIR.) What the sstate cache mechanism adds is a way to cache task output that can then be shared between build machines.

Since STAMPS_DIR is usually a subdirectory of TMPDIR, removing TMPDIR will also remove STAMPS_DIR, which means tasks will properly be rerun to repopulate TMPDIR.

If you want some task to always be considered "out of date", you can mark it with the nostamp varflag. If some other task depends on such a task, then that task will also always be considered out of date, which might not be what you want.

For details on how to view information about a task's signature, see the "Viewing Task Variable Dependencies" section.

21.5.8. Setscene Tasks and Shared State

The description of tasks so far assumes that BitBake needs to build everything and there are no prebuilt objects available. BitBake does support skipping tasks if prebuilt objects are available. These objects are usually made available in the form of a shared state (sstate) cache.

Note

For information on variables affecting sstate, see the SSTATE_DIR and SSTATE_MIRRORS variables.

The idea of a setscene task (i.e do_taskname_setscene) is a version of the task where instead of building something, BitBake can skip to the end result and simply place a set of files into specific locations as needed. In some cases, it makes sense to have a setscene task variant (e.g. generating package files in the do_package_write_* task). In other cases, it does not make sense, (e.g. a do_patch task or do_unpack task) since the work involved would be equal to or greater than the underlying task.

In the OpenEmbedded build system, the common tasks that have setscene variants are do_package, do_package_write_*, do_deploy, do_packagedata, and do_populate_sysroot. Notice that these are most of the tasks whose output is an end result.

The OpenEmbedded build system has knowledge of the relationship between these tasks and other tasks that precede them. For example, if BitBake runs do_populate_sysroot_setscene for something, there is little point in running any of the do_fetch, do_unpack, do_patch, do_configure, do_compile, and do_install tasks. However, if do_package needs to be run, BitBake would need to run those other tasks.

It becomes more complicated if everything can come from an sstate cache because some objects are simply not required at all. For example, you do not need a compiler or native tools, such as quilt, if there is nothing to compile or patch. If the do_package_write_* packages are available from sstate, BitBake does not need the do_package task data.

To handle all these complexities, BitBake runs in two phases. The first is the "setscene" stage. During this stage, BitBake first checks the sstate cache for any targets it is planning to build. BitBake does a fast check to see if the object exists rather than a complete download. If nothing exists, the second phase, which is the setscene stage, completes and the main build proceeds.

If objects are found in the sstate cache, the OpenEmbedded build system works backwards from the end targets specified by the user. For example, if an image is being built, the OpenEmbedded build system first looks for the packages needed for that image and the tools needed to construct an image. If those are available, the compiler is not needed. Thus, the compiler is not even downloaded. If something was found to be unavailable, or the download or setscene task fails, the OpenEmbedded build system then tries to install dependencies, such as the compiler, from the cache.

The availability of objects in the sstate cache is handled by the function specified by the BB_HASHCHECK_FUNCTION variable and returns a list of the objects that are available. The function specified by the BB_SETSCENE_DEPVALID variable is the function that determines whether a given dependency needs to be followed, and whether for any given relationship the function needs to be passed. The function returns a True or False value.

21.6. Images

The images produced by the OpenEmbedded build system are compressed forms of the root filesystem that are ready to boot on a target device. You can see from the general Yocto Project Development Environment figure that BitBake output, in part, consists of images. This section is going to look more closely at this output:

For a list of example images that the Yocto Project provides, see the "Images" chapter.

Images are written out to the Build Directory inside the tmp/deploy/images/machine/ folder as shown in the figure. This folder contains any files expected to be loaded on the target device. The DEPLOY_DIR variable points to the deploy directory, while the DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE variable points to the appropriate directory containing images for the current configuration.

  • kernel-image: A kernel binary file. The KERNEL_IMAGETYPE variable setting determines the naming scheme for the kernel image file. Depending on that variable, the file could begin with a variety of naming strings. The deploy/images/machine directory can contain multiple image files for the machine.

  • root-filesystem-image: Root filesystems for the target device (e.g. *.ext3 or *.bz2 files). The IMAGE_FSTYPES variable setting determines the root filesystem image type. The deploy/images/machine directory can contain multiple root filesystems for the machine.

  • kernel-modules: Tarballs that contain all the modules built for the kernel. Kernel module tarballs exist for legacy purposes and can be suppressed by setting the MODULE_TARBALL_DEPLOY variable to "0". The deploy/images/machine directory can contain multiple kernel module tarballs for the machine.

  • bootloaders: Bootloaders supporting the image, if applicable to the target machine. The deploy/images/machine directory can contain multiple bootloaders for the machine.

  • symlinks: The deploy/images/machine folder contains a symbolic link that points to the most recently built file for each machine. These links might be useful for external scripts that need to obtain the latest version of each file.

21.7. Application Development SDK

In the general Yocto Project Development Environment figure, the output labeled "Application Development SDK" represents an SDK. The SDK generation process differs depending on whether you build a standard SDK (e.g. bitbake -c populate_sdk imagename) or an extensible SDK (e.g. bitbake -c populate_sdk_ext imagename). This section is going to take a closer look at this output:

The specific form of this output is a self-extracting SDK installer (*.sh) that, when run, installs the SDK, which consists of a cross-development toolchain, a set of libraries and headers, and an SDK environment setup script. Running this installer essentially sets up your cross-development environment. You can think of the cross-toolchain as the "host" part because it runs on the SDK machine. You can think of the libraries and headers as the "target" part because they are built for the target hardware. The environment setup script is added so that you can initialize the environment before using the tools.

Notes

  • The Yocto Project supports several methods by which you can set up this cross-development environment. These methods include downloading pre-built SDK installers or building and installing your own SDK installer.

  • For background information on cross-development toolchains in the Yocto Project development environment, see the "Cross-Development Toolchain Generation" section.

  • For information on setting up a cross-development environment, see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

Once built, the SDK installers are written out to the deploy/sdk folder inside the Build Directory as shown in the figure at the beginning of this section. Depending on the type of SDK, several variables exist that help configure these files. The following list shows the variables associated with a standard SDK:

  • DEPLOY_DIR: Points to the deploy directory.

  • SDKMACHINE: Specifies the architecture of the machine on which the cross-development tools are run to create packages for the target hardware.

  • SDKIMAGE_FEATURES: Lists the features to include in the "target" part of the SDK.

  • TOOLCHAIN_HOST_TASK: Lists packages that make up the host part of the SDK (i.e. the part that runs on the SDKMACHINE). When you use bitbake -c populate_sdk imagename to create the SDK, a set of default packages apply. This variable allows you to add more packages.

  • TOOLCHAIN_TARGET_TASK: Lists packages that make up the target part of the SDK (i.e. the part built for the target hardware).

  • SDKPATH: Defines the default SDK installation path offered by the installation script.

This next list, shows the variables associated with an extensible SDK:

  • DEPLOY_DIR: Points to the deploy directory.

  • SDK_EXT_TYPE: Controls whether or not shared state artifacts are copied into the extensible SDK. By default, all required shared state artifacts are copied into the SDK.

  • SDK_INCLUDE_PKGDATA: Specifies whether or not packagedata will be included in the extensible SDK for all recipes in the "world" target.

  • SDK_INCLUDE_TOOLCHAIN: Specifies whether or not the toolchain will be included when building the extensible SDK.

  • SDK_LOCAL_CONF_WHITELIST: A list of variables allowed through from the build system configuration into the extensible SDK configuration.

  • SDK_LOCAL_CONF_BLACKLIST: A list of variables not allowed through from the build system configuration into the extensible SDK configuration.

  • SDK_INHERIT_BLACKLIST: A list of classes to remove from the INHERIT value globally within the extensible SDK configuration.

Chapter 22. Technical Details

This chapter provides technical details for various parts of the Yocto Project. Currently, topics include Yocto Project components, cross-toolchain generation, shared state (sstate) cache, x32, Wayland support, and Licenses.

22.1. Yocto Project Components

The BitBake task executor together with various types of configuration files form the OpenEmbedded Core. This section overviews these components by describing their use and how they interact.

BitBake handles the parsing and execution of the data files. The data itself is of various types:

  • Recipes: Provides details about particular pieces of software.

  • Class Data: Abstracts common build information (e.g. how to build a Linux kernel).

  • Configuration Data: Defines machine-specific settings, policy decisions, and so forth. Configuration data acts as the glue to bind everything together.

BitBake knows how to combine multiple data sources together and refers to each data source as a layer. For information on layers, see the "Understanding and Creating Layers" section of the Yocto Project Development Manual.

Following are some brief details on these core components. For additional information on how these components interact during a build, see the "A Closer Look at the Yocto Project Development Environment" Chapter.

22.1.1. BitBake

BitBake is the tool at the heart of the OpenEmbedded build system and is responsible for parsing the Metadata, generating a list of tasks from it, and then executing those tasks.

This section briefly introduces BitBake. If you want more information on BitBake, see the BitBake User Manual.

To see a list of the options BitBake supports, use either of the following commands:

     $ bitbake -h
     $ bitbake --help
            

The most common usage for BitBake is bitbake packagename, where packagename is the name of the package you want to build (referred to as the "target" in this manual). The target often equates to the first part of a recipe's filename (e.g. "foo" for a recipe named foo_1.3.0-r0.bb). So, to process the matchbox-desktop_1.2.3.bb recipe file, you might type the following:

     $ bitbake matchbox-desktop
            

Several different versions of matchbox-desktop might exist. BitBake chooses the one selected by the distribution configuration. You can get more details about how BitBake chooses between different target versions and providers in the "Preferences" section of the BitBake User Manual.

BitBake also tries to execute any dependent tasks first. So for example, before building matchbox-desktop, BitBake would build a cross compiler and glibc if they had not already been built.

A useful BitBake option to consider is the -k or --continue option. This option instructs BitBake to try and continue processing the job as long as possible even after encountering an error. When an error occurs, the target that failed and those that depend on it cannot be remade. However, when you use this option other dependencies can still be processed.

22.1.2. Metadata (Recipes)

Files that have the .bb suffix are "recipes" files. In general, a recipe contains information about a single piece of software. This information includes the location from which to download the unaltered source, any source patches to be applied to that source (if needed), which special configuration options to apply, how to compile the source files, and how to package the compiled output.

The term "package" is sometimes used to refer to recipes. However, since the word "package" is used for the packaged output from the OpenEmbedded build system (i.e. .ipk or .deb files), this document avoids using the term "package" when referring to recipes.

22.1.3. Classes

Class files (.bbclass) contain information that is useful to share between Metadata files. An example is the autotools class, which contains common settings for any application that Autotools uses. The "Classes" chapter provides details about classes and how to use them.

22.1.4. Configuration

The configuration files (.conf) define various configuration variables that govern the OpenEmbedded build process. These files fall into several areas that define machine configuration options, distribution configuration options, compiler tuning options, general common configuration options, and user configuration options in local.conf, which is found in the Build Directory.

22.2. Cross-Development Toolchain Generation

The Yocto Project does most of the work for you when it comes to creating cross-development toolchains. This section provides some technical background on how cross-development toolchains are created and used. For more information on toolchains, you can also see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

In the Yocto Project development environment, cross-development toolchains are used to build the image and applications that run on the target hardware. With just a few commands, the OpenEmbedded build system creates these necessary toolchains for you.

The following figure shows a high-level build environment regarding toolchain construction and use.

Most of the work occurs on the Build Host. This is the machine used to build images and generally work within the the Yocto Project environment. When you run BitBake to create an image, the OpenEmbedded build system uses the host gcc compiler to bootstrap a cross-compiler named gcc-cross. The gcc-cross compiler is what BitBake uses to compile source files when creating the target image. You can think of gcc-cross simply as an automatically generated cross-compiler that is used internally within BitBake only.

Note

The extensible SDK does not use gcc-cross-canadian since this SDK ships a copy of the OpenEmbedded build system and the sysroot within it contains gcc-cross.

The chain of events that occurs when gcc-cross is bootstrapped is as follows:

     gcc -> binutils-cross -> gcc-cross-initial -> linux-libc-headers -> glibc-initial -> glibc -> gcc-cross -> gcc-runtime
        

  • gcc: The build host's GNU Compiler Collection (GCC).

  • binutils-cross: The bare minimum binary utilities needed in order to run the gcc-cross-initial phase of the bootstrap operation.

  • gcc-cross-initial: An early stage of the bootstrap process for creating the cross-compiler. This stage builds enough of the gcc-cross, the C library, and other pieces needed to finish building the final cross-compiler in later stages. This tool is a "native" package (i.e. it is designed to run on the build host).

  • linux-libc-headers: Headers needed for the cross-compiler.

  • glibc-initial: An initial version of the Embedded GLIBC needed to bootstrap glibc.

  • gcc-cross: The final stage of the bootstrap process for the cross-compiler. This stage results in the actual cross-compiler that BitBake uses when it builds an image for a targeted device.

    Note

    If you are replacing this cross compiler toolchain with a custom version, you must replace gcc-cross.

    This tool is also a "native" package (i.e. it is designed to run on the build host).

  • gcc-runtime: Runtime libraries resulting from the toolchain bootstrapping process. This tool produces a binary that consists of the runtime libraries need for the targeted device.

You can use the OpenEmbedded build system to build an installer for the relocatable SDK used to develop applications. When you run the installer, it installs the toolchain, which contains the development tools (e.g., the gcc-cross-canadian), binutils-cross-canadian, and other nativesdk-* tools, which are tools native to the SDK (i.e. native to SDK_ARCH), you need to cross-compile and test your software. The figure shows the commands you use to easily build out this toolchain. This cross-development toolchain is built to execute on the SDKMACHINE, which might or might not be the same machine as the Build Host.

Note

If your target architecture is supported by the Yocto Project, you can take advantage of pre-built images that ship with the Yocto Project and already contain cross-development toolchain installers.

Here is the bootstrap process for the relocatable toolchain:

     gcc -> binutils-crosssdk -> gcc-crosssdk-initial -> linux-libc-headers ->
        glibc-initial -> nativesdk-glibc -> gcc-crosssdk -> gcc-cross-canadian
        

  • gcc: The build host's GNU Compiler Collection (GCC).

  • binutils-crosssdk: The bare minimum binary utilities needed in order to run the gcc-crosssdk-initial phase of the bootstrap operation.

  • gcc-crosssdk-initial: An early stage of the bootstrap process for creating the cross-compiler. This stage builds enough of the gcc-crosssdk and supporting pieces so that the final stage of the bootstrap process can produce the finished cross-compiler. This tool is a "native" binary that runs on the build host.

  • linux-libc-headers: Headers needed for the cross-compiler.

  • glibc-initial: An initial version of the Embedded GLIBC needed to bootstrap nativesdk-glibc.

  • nativesdk-glibc: The Embedded GLIBC needed to bootstrap the gcc-crosssdk.

  • gcc-crosssdk: The final stage of the bootstrap process for the relocatable cross-compiler. The gcc-crosssdk is a transitory compiler and never leaves the build host. Its purpose is to help in the bootstrap process to create the eventual relocatable gcc-cross-canadian compiler, which is relocatable. This tool is also a "native" package (i.e. it is designed to run on the build host).

  • gcc-cross-canadian: The final relocatable cross-compiler. When run on the SDKMACHINE, this tool produces executable code that runs on the target device. Only one cross-canadian compiler is produced per architecture since they can be targeted at different processor optimizations using configurations passed to the compiler through the compile commands. This circumvents the need for multiple compilers and thus reduces the size of the toolchains.

Note

For information on advantages gained when building a cross-development toolchain installer, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

22.3. Shared State Cache

By design, the OpenEmbedded build system builds everything from scratch unless BitBake can determine that parts do not need to be rebuilt. Fundamentally, building from scratch is attractive as it means all parts are built fresh and there is no possibility of stale data causing problems. When developers hit problems, they typically default back to building from scratch so they know the state of things from the start.

Building an image from scratch is both an advantage and a disadvantage to the process. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, building from scratch ensures that everything is current and starts from a known state. However, building from scratch also takes much longer as it generally means rebuilding things that do not necessarily need to be rebuilt.

The Yocto Project implements shared state code that supports incremental builds. The implementation of the shared state code answers the following questions that were fundamental roadblocks within the OpenEmbedded incremental build support system:

  • What pieces of the system have changed and what pieces have not changed?

  • How are changed pieces of software removed and replaced?

  • How are pre-built components that do not need to be rebuilt from scratch used when they are available?

For the first question, the build system detects changes in the "inputs" to a given task by creating a checksum (or signature) of the task's inputs. If the checksum changes, the system assumes the inputs have changed and the task needs to be rerun. For the second question, the shared state (sstate) code tracks which tasks add which output to the build process. This means the output from a given task can be removed, upgraded or otherwise manipulated. The third question is partly addressed by the solution for the second question assuming the build system can fetch the sstate objects from remote locations and install them if they are deemed to be valid.

Note

The OpenEmbedded build system does not maintain PR information as part of the shared state packages. Consequently, considerations exist that affect maintaining shared state feeds. For information on how the OpenEmbedded build system works with packages and can track incrementing PR information, see the "Automatically Incrementing a Binary Package Revision Number" section.

The rest of this section goes into detail about the overall incremental build architecture, the checksums (signatures), shared state, and some tips and tricks.

22.3.1. Overall Architecture

When determining what parts of the system need to be built, BitBake works on a per-task basis rather than a per-recipe basis. You might wonder why using a per-task basis is preferred over a per-recipe basis. To help explain, consider having the IPK packaging backend enabled and then switching to DEB. In this case, the do_install and do_package task outputs are still valid. However, with a per-recipe approach, the build would not include the .deb files. Consequently, you would have to invalidate the whole build and rerun it. Rerunning everything is not the best solution. Also, in this case, the core must be "taught" much about specific tasks. This methodology does not scale well and does not allow users to easily add new tasks in layers or as external recipes without touching the packaged-staging core.

22.3.2. Checksums (Signatures)

The shared state code uses a checksum, which is a unique signature of a task's inputs, to determine if a task needs to be run again. Because it is a change in a task's inputs that triggers a rerun, the process needs to detect all the inputs to a given task. For shell tasks, this turns out to be fairly easy because the build process generates a "run" shell script for each task and it is possible to create a checksum that gives you a good idea of when the task's data changes.

To complicate the problem, there are things that should not be included in the checksum. First, there is the actual specific build path of a given task - the WORKDIR. It does not matter if the work directory changes because it should not affect the output for target packages. Also, the build process has the objective of making native or cross packages relocatable.

Note

Both native and cross packages run on the build host. However, cross packages generate output for the target architecture.

The checksum therefore needs to exclude WORKDIR. The simplistic approach for excluding the work directory is to set WORKDIR to some fixed value and create the checksum for the "run" script.

Another problem results from the "run" scripts containing functions that might or might not get called. The incremental build solution contains code that figures out dependencies between shell functions. This code is used to prune the "run" scripts down to the minimum set, thereby alleviating this problem and making the "run" scripts much more readable as a bonus.

So far we have solutions for shell scripts. What about Python tasks? The same approach applies even though these tasks are more difficult. The process needs to figure out what variables a Python function accesses and what functions it calls. Again, the incremental build solution contains code that first figures out the variable and function dependencies, and then creates a checksum for the data used as the input to the task.

Like the WORKDIR case, situations exist where dependencies should be ignored. For these cases, you can instruct the build process to ignore a dependency by using a line like the following:

     PACKAGE_ARCHS[vardepsexclude] = "MACHINE"
            

This example ensures that the PACKAGE_ARCHS variable does not depend on the value of MACHINE, even if it does reference it.

Equally, there are cases where we need to add dependencies BitBake is not able to find. You can accomplish this by using a line like the following:

      PACKAGE_ARCHS[vardeps] = "MACHINE"
            

This example explicitly adds the MACHINE variable as a dependency for PACKAGE_ARCHS.

Consider a case with in-line Python, for example, where BitBake is not able to figure out dependencies. When running in debug mode (i.e. using -DDD), BitBake produces output when it discovers something for which it cannot figure out dependencies. The Yocto Project team has currently not managed to cover those dependencies in detail and is aware of the need to fix this situation.

Thus far, this section has limited discussion to the direct inputs into a task. Information based on direct inputs is referred to as the "basehash" in the code. However, there is still the question of a task's indirect inputs - the things that were already built and present in the Build Directory. The checksum (or signature) for a particular task needs to add the hashes of all the tasks on which the particular task depends. Choosing which dependencies to add is a policy decision. However, the effect is to generate a master checksum that combines the basehash and the hashes of the task's dependencies.

At the code level, there are a variety of ways both the basehash and the dependent task hashes can be influenced. Within the BitBake configuration file, we can give BitBake some extra information to help it construct the basehash. The following statement effectively results in a list of global variable dependency excludes - variables never included in any checksum:

     BB_HASHBASE_WHITELIST ?= "TMPDIR FILE PATH PWD BB_TASKHASH BBPATH DL_DIR \
         SSTATE_DIR THISDIR FILESEXTRAPATHS FILE_DIRNAME HOME LOGNAME SHELL TERM \
         USER FILESPATH STAGING_DIR_HOST STAGING_DIR_TARGET COREBASE PRSERV_HOST \
         PRSERV_DUMPDIR PRSERV_DUMPFILE PRSERV_LOCKDOWN PARALLEL_MAKE \
         CCACHE_DIR EXTERNAL_TOOLCHAIN CCACHE CCACHE_DISABLE LICENSE_PATH SDKPKGSUFFIX"
            

The previous example excludes WORKDIR since that variable is actually constructed as a path within TMPDIR, which is on the whitelist.

The rules for deciding which hashes of dependent tasks to include through dependency chains are more complex and are generally accomplished with a Python function. The code in meta/lib/oe/sstatesig.py shows two examples of this and also illustrates how you can insert your own policy into the system if so desired. This file defines the two basic signature generators OE-Core uses: "OEBasic" and "OEBasicHash". By default, there is a dummy "noop" signature handler enabled in BitBake. This means that behavior is unchanged from previous versions. OE-Core uses the "OEBasicHash" signature handler by default through this setting in the bitbake.conf file:

     BB_SIGNATURE_HANDLER ?= "OEBasicHash"
            

The "OEBasicHash" BB_SIGNATURE_HANDLER is the same as the "OEBasic" version but adds the task hash to the stamp files. This results in any Metadata change that changes the task hash, automatically causing the task to be run again. This removes the need to bump PR values, and changes to Metadata automatically ripple across the build.

It is also worth noting that the end result of these signature generators is to make some dependency and hash information available to the build. This information includes:

  • BB_BASEHASH_task-taskname: The base hashes for each task in the recipe.

  • BB_BASEHASH_filename:taskname: The base hashes for each dependent task.

  • BBHASHDEPS_filename:taskname: The task dependencies for each task.

  • BB_TASKHASH: The hash of the currently running task.

22.3.3. Shared State

Checksums and dependencies, as discussed in the previous section, solve half the problem of supporting a shared state. The other part of the problem is being able to use checksum information during the build and being able to reuse or rebuild specific components.

The sstate class is a relatively generic implementation of how to "capture" a snapshot of a given task. The idea is that the build process does not care about the source of a task's output. Output could be freshly built or it could be downloaded and unpacked from somewhere - the build process does not need to worry about its origin.

There are two types of output, one is just about creating a directory in WORKDIR. A good example is the output of either do_install or do_package. The other type of output occurs when a set of data is merged into a shared directory tree such as the sysroot.

The Yocto Project team has tried to keep the details of the implementation hidden in sstate class. From a user's perspective, adding shared state wrapping to a task is as simple as this do_deploy example taken from the deploy class:

     DEPLOYDIR = "${WORKDIR}/deploy-${PN}"
     SSTATETASKS += "do_deploy"
     do_deploy[sstate-inputdirs] = "${DEPLOYDIR}"
     do_deploy[sstate-outputdirs] = "${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE}"

     python do_deploy_setscene () {
         sstate_setscene(d)
     }
     addtask do_deploy_setscene
     do_deploy[dirs] = "${DEPLOYDIR} ${B}"
            

The following list explains the previous example:

  • Adding "do_deploy" to SSTATETASKS adds some required sstate-related processing, which is implemented in the sstate class, to before and after the do_deploy task.

  • The do_deploy[sstate-inputdirs] = "${DEPLOYDIR}" declares that do_deploy places its output in ${DEPLOYDIR} when run normally (i.e. when not using the sstate cache). This output becomes the input to the shared state cache.

  • The do_deploy[sstate-outputdirs] = "${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE}" line causes the contents of the shared state cache to be copied to ${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE}.

    Note

    If do_deploy is not already in the shared state cache or if its input checksum (signature) has changed from when the output was cached, the task will be run to populate the shared state cache, after which the contents of the shared state cache is copied to ${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE}. If do_deploy is in the shared state cache and its signature indicates that the cached output is still valid (i.e. if no relevant task inputs have changed), then the contents of the shared state cache will be copied directly to ${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE} by the do_deploy_setscene task instead, skipping the do_deploy task.

  • The following task definition is glue logic needed to make the previous settings effective:

         python do_deploy_setscene () {
             sstate_setscene(d)
         }
         addtask do_deploy_setscene
                        

    sstate_setscene() takes the flags above as input and accelerates the do_deploy task through the shared state cache if possible. If the task was accelerated, sstate_setscene() returns True. Otherwise, it returns False, and the normal do_deploy task runs. For more information, see the "setscene" section in the BitBake User Manual.

  • The do_deploy[dirs] = "${DEPLOYDIR} ${B}" line creates ${DEPLOYDIR} and ${B} before the do_deploy task runs, and also sets the current working directory of do_deploy to ${B}. For more information, see the "Variable Flags" section in the BitBake User Manual.

    Note

    In cases where sstate-inputdirs and sstate-outputdirs would be the same, you can use sstate-plaindirs. For example, to preserve the ${PKGD} and ${PKGDEST} output from the do_package task, use the following:
         do_package[sstate-plaindirs] = "${PKGD} ${PKGDEST}"
                            

  • sstate-inputdirs and sstate-outputdirs can also be used with multiple directories. For example, the following declares PKGDESTWORK and SHLIBWORK as shared state input directories, which populates the shared state cache, and PKGDATA_DIR and SHLIBSDIR as the corresponding shared state output directories:

         do_package[sstate-inputdirs] = "${PKGDESTWORK} ${SHLIBSWORKDIR}"
         do_package[sstate-outputdirs] = "${PKGDATA_DIR} ${SHLIBSDIR}"
                         

  • These methods also include the ability to take a lockfile when manipulating shared state directory structures, for cases where file additions or removals are sensitive:

         do_package[sstate-lockfile] = "${PACKAGELOCK}"
                         

Behind the scenes, the shared state code works by looking in SSTATE_DIR and SSTATE_MIRRORS for shared state files. Here is an example:

     SSTATE_MIRRORS ?= "\
     file://.* http://someserver.tld/share/sstate/PATH;downloadfilename=PATH \n \
     file://.* file:///some/local/dir/sstate/PATH"
            

Note

The shared state directory (SSTATE_DIR) is organized into two-character subdirectories, where the subdirectory names are based on the first two characters of the hash. If the shared state directory structure for a mirror has the same structure as SSTATE_DIR, you must specify "PATH" as part of the URI to enable the build system to map to the appropriate subdirectory.

The shared state package validity can be detected just by looking at the filename since the filename contains the task checksum (or signature) as described earlier in this section. If a valid shared state package is found, the build process downloads it and uses it to accelerate the task.

The build processes use the *_setscene tasks for the task acceleration phase. BitBake goes through this phase before the main execution code and tries to accelerate any tasks for which it can find shared state packages. If a shared state package for a task is available, the shared state package is used. This means the task and any tasks on which it is dependent are not executed.

As a real world example, the aim is when building an IPK-based image, only the do_package_write_ipk tasks would have their shared state packages fetched and extracted. Since the sysroot is not used, it would never get extracted. This is another reason why a task-based approach is preferred over a recipe-based approach, which would have to install the output from every task.

22.3.4. Tips and Tricks

The code in the build system that supports incremental builds is not simple code. This section presents some tips and tricks that help you work around issues related to shared state code.

22.3.4.1. Debugging

Seeing what metadata went into creating the input signature of a shared state (sstate) task can be a useful debugging aid. This information is available in signature information (siginfo) files in SSTATE_DIR. For information on how to view and interpret information in siginfo files, see the "Viewing Task Variable Dependencies" section.

22.3.4.2. Invalidating Shared State

The OpenEmbedded build system uses checksums and shared state cache to avoid unnecessarily rebuilding tasks. Collectively, this scheme is known as "shared state code."

As with all schemes, this one has some drawbacks. It is possible that you could make implicit changes to your code that the checksum calculations do not take into account. These implicit changes affect a task's output but do not trigger the shared state code into rebuilding a recipe. Consider an example during which a tool changes its output. Assume that the output of rpmdeps changes. The result of the change should be that all the package and package_write_rpm shared state cache items become invalid. However, because the change to the output is external to the code and therefore implicit, the associated shared state cache items do not become invalidated. In this case, the build process uses the cached items rather than running the task again. Obviously, these types of implicit changes can cause problems.

To avoid these problems during the build, you need to understand the effects of any changes you make. Realize that changes you make directly to a function are automatically factored into the checksum calculation. Thus, these explicit changes invalidate the associated area of shared state cache. However, you need to be aware of any implicit changes that are not obvious changes to the code and could affect the output of a given task.

When you identify an implicit change, you can easily take steps to invalidate the cache and force the tasks to run. The steps you can take are as simple as changing a function's comments in the source code. For example, to invalidate package shared state files, change the comment statements of do_package or the comments of one of the functions it calls. Even though the change is purely cosmetic, it causes the checksum to be recalculated and forces the OpenEmbedded build system to run the task again.

Note

For an example of a commit that makes a cosmetic change to invalidate shared state, see this commit.

22.4. Automatically Added Runtime Dependencies

The OpenEmbedded build system automatically adds common types of runtime dependencies between packages, which means that you do not need to explicitly declare the packages using RDEPENDS. Three automatic mechanisms exist (shlibdeps, pcdeps, and depchains) that handle shared libraries, package configuration (pkg-config) modules, and -dev and -dbg packages, respectively. For other types of runtime dependencies, you must manually declare the dependencies.

  • shlibdeps: During the do_package task of each recipe, all shared libraries installed by the recipe are located. For each shared library, the package that contains the shared library is registered as providing the shared library. More specifically, the package is registered as providing the soname of the library. The resulting shared-library-to-package mapping is saved globally in PKGDATA_DIR by the do_packagedata task.

    Simultaneously, all executables and shared libraries installed by the recipe are inspected to see what shared libraries they link against. For each shared library dependency that is found, PKGDATA_DIR is queried to see if some package (likely from a different recipe) contains the shared library. If such a package is found, a runtime dependency is added from the package that depends on the shared library to the package that contains the library.

    The automatically added runtime dependency also includes a version restriction. This version restriction specifies that at least the current version of the package that provides the shared library must be used, as if "package (>= version)" had been added to RDEPENDS. This forces an upgrade of the package containing the shared library when installing the package that depends on the library, if needed.

    If you want to avoid a package being registered as providing a particular shared library (e.g. because the library is for internal use only), then add the library to PRIVATE_LIBS inside the package's recipe.

  • pcdeps: During the do_package task of each recipe, all pkg-config modules (*.pc files) installed by the recipe are located. For each module, the package that contains the module is registered as providing the module. The resulting module-to-package mapping is saved globally in PKGDATA_DIR by the do_packagedata task.

    Simultaneously, all pkg-config modules installed by the recipe are inspected to see what other pkg-config modules they depend on. A module is seen as depending on another module if it contains a "Requires:" line that specifies the other module. For each module dependency, PKGDATA_DIR is queried to see if some package contains the module. If such a package is found, a runtime dependency is added from the package that depends on the module to the package that contains the module.

    Note

    The pcdeps mechanism most often infers dependencies between -dev packages.

  • depchains: If a package foo depends on a package bar, then foo-dev and foo-dbg are also made to depend on bar-dev and bar-dbg, respectively. Taking the -dev packages as an example, the bar-dev package might provide headers and shared library symlinks needed by foo-dev, which shows the need for a dependency between the packages.

    The dependencies added by depchains are in the form of RRECOMMENDS.

    Note

    By default, foo-dev also has an RDEPENDS-style dependency on foo, because the default value of RDEPENDS_${PN}-dev (set in bitbake.conf) includes "${PN}".

    To ensure that the dependency chain is never broken, -dev and -dbg packages are always generated by default, even if the packages turn out to be empty. See the ALLOW_EMPTY variable for more information.

The do_package task depends on the do_packagedata task of each recipe in DEPENDS through use of a [deptask] declaration, which guarantees that the required shared-library/module-to-package mapping information will be available when needed as long as DEPENDS has been correctly set.

22.5. Fakeroot and Pseudo

Some tasks are easier to implement when allowed to perform certain operations that are normally reserved for the root user. For example, the do_install task benefits from being able to set the UID and GID of installed files to arbitrary values.

One approach to allowing tasks to perform root-only operations would be to require BitBake to run as root. However, this method is cumbersome and has security issues. The approach that is actually used is to run tasks that benefit from root privileges in a "fake" root environment. Within this environment, the task and its child processes believe that they are running as the root user, and see an internally consistent view of the filesystem. As long as generating the final output (e.g. a package or an image) does not require root privileges, the fact that some earlier steps ran in a fake root environment does not cause problems.

The capability to run tasks in a fake root environment is known as "fakeroot", which is derived from the BitBake keyword/variable flag that requests a fake root environment for a task. In current versions of the OpenEmbedded build system, the program that implements fakeroot is known as Pseudo.

Pseudo overrides system calls through the LD_PRELOAD mechanism to give the illusion of running as root. To keep track of "fake" file ownership and permissions resulting from operations that require root permissions, an sqlite3 database is used. This database is stored in ${WORKDIR}/pseudo/files.db for individual recipes. Storing the database in a file as opposed to in memory gives persistence between tasks, and even between builds.

Caution

If you add your own task that manipulates the same files or directories as a fakeroot task, then that task should also run under fakeroot. Otherwise, the task will not be able to run root-only operations, and will not see the fake file ownership and permissions set by the other task. You should also add a dependency on virtual/fakeroot-native:do_populate_sysroot, giving the following:
       fakeroot do_mytask () {
           ...
       }
       do_mytask[depends] += "virtual/fakeroot-native:do_populate_sysroot"
            

For more information, see the FAKEROOT* variables in the BitBake User Manual. You can also reference this Pseudo article.

22.6. x32

x32 is a processor-specific Application Binary Interface (psABI) for x86_64. An ABI defines the calling conventions between functions in a processing environment. The interface determines what registers are used and what the sizes are for various C data types.

Some processing environments prefer using 32-bit applications even when running on Intel 64-bit platforms. Consider the i386 psABI, which is a very old 32-bit ABI for Intel 64-bit platforms. The i386 psABI does not provide efficient use and access of the Intel 64-bit processor resources, leaving the system underutilized. Now consider the x86_64 psABI. This ABI is newer and uses 64-bits for data sizes and program pointers. The extra bits increase the footprint size of the programs, libraries, and also increases the memory and file system size requirements. Executing under the x32 psABI enables user programs to utilize CPU and system resources more efficiently while keeping the memory footprint of the applications low. Extra bits are used for registers but not for addressing mechanisms.

22.6.1. Support

This Yocto Project release supports the final specifications of x32 psABI. Support for x32 psABI exists as follows:

  • You can create packages and images in x32 psABI format on x86_64 architecture targets.

  • You can successfully build many recipes with the x32 toolchain.

  • You can create and boot core-image-minimal and core-image-sato images.

22.6.2. Completing x32

Future Plans for the x32 psABI in the Yocto Project include the following:

  • Enhance and fix the few remaining recipes so they work with and support x32 toolchains.

  • Enhance RPM Package Manager (RPM) support for x32 binaries.

  • Support larger images.

22.6.3. Using x32 Right Now

Follow these steps to use the x32 spABI:

  • Enable the x32 psABI tuning file for x86_64 machines by editing the conf/local.conf like this:

          MACHINE = "qemux86-64"
          DEFAULTTUNE = "x86-64-x32"
          baselib = "${@d.getVar('BASE_LIB_tune-' + (d.getVar('DEFAULTTUNE', True) \
             or 'INVALID'), True) or 'lib'}"
          #MACHINE = "genericx86"
          #DEFAULTTUNE = "core2-64-x32"
                        
  • As usual, use BitBake to build an image that supports the x32 psABI. Here is an example:

         $ bitbake core-image-sato
                        
  • As usual, run your image using QEMU:

         $ runqemu qemux86-64 core-image-sato
                        

22.7. Wayland

Wayland is a computer display server protocol that provides a method for compositing window managers to communicate directly with applications and video hardware and expects them to communicate with input hardware using other libraries. Using Wayland with supporting targets can result in better control over graphics frame rendering than an application might otherwise achieve.

The Yocto Project provides the Wayland protocol libraries and the reference Weston compositor as part of its release. This section describes what you need to do to implement Wayland and use the compositor when building an image for a supporting target.

22.7.1. Support

The Wayland protocol libraries and the reference Weston compositor ship as integrated packages in the meta layer of the Source Directory. Specifically, you can find the recipes that build both Wayland and Weston at meta/recipes-graphics/wayland.

You can build both the Wayland and Weston packages for use only with targets that accept the Mesa 3D and Direct Rendering Infrastructure, which is also known as Mesa DRI. This implies that you cannot build and use the packages if your target uses, for example, the Intel® Embedded Media and Graphics Driver (Intel® EMGD) that overrides Mesa DRI.

Note

Due to lack of EGL support, Weston 1.0.3 will not run directly on the emulated QEMU hardware. However, this version of Weston will run under X emulation without issues.

22.7.2. Enabling Wayland in an Image

To enable Wayland, you need to enable it to be built and enable it to be included in the image.

22.7.2.1. Building

To cause Mesa to build the wayland-egl platform and Weston to build Wayland with Kernel Mode Setting (KMS) support, include the "wayland" flag in the DISTRO_FEATURES statement in your local.conf file:

     DISTRO_FEATURES_append = " wayland"
                

Note

If X11 has been enabled elsewhere, Weston will build Wayland with X11 support

22.7.2.2. Installing

To install the Wayland feature into an image, you must include the following CORE_IMAGE_EXTRA_INSTALL statement in your local.conf file:

     CORE_IMAGE_EXTRA_INSTALL += "wayland weston"
                

22.7.3. Running Weston

To run Weston inside X11, enabling it as described earlier and building a Sato image is sufficient. If you are running your image under Sato, a Weston Launcher appears in the "Utility" category.

Alternatively, you can run Weston through the command-line interpretor (CLI), which is better suited for development work. To run Weston under the CLI, you need to do the following after your image is built:

  1. Run these commands to export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR:

         mkdir -p /tmp/$USER-weston
         chmod 0700 /tmp/$USER-weston
         export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/tmp/$USER-weston
                        
  2. Launch Weston in the shell:

         weston
                        

22.8. Licenses

This section describes the mechanism by which the OpenEmbedded build system tracks changes to licensing text. The section also describes how to enable commercially licensed recipes, which by default are disabled.

For information that can help you maintain compliance with various open source licensing during the lifecycle of the product, see the "Maintaining Open Source License Compliance During Your Project's Lifecycle" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

22.8.1. Tracking License Changes

The license of an upstream project might change in the future. In order to prevent these changes going unnoticed, the LIC_FILES_CHKSUM variable tracks changes to the license text. The checksums are validated at the end of the configure step, and if the checksums do not match, the build will fail.

22.8.1.1. Specifying the LIC_FILES_CHKSUM Variable

The LIC_FILES_CHKSUM variable contains checksums of the license text in the source code for the recipe. Following is an example of how to specify LIC_FILES_CHKSUM:

     LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://COPYING;md5=xxxx \
                         file://licfile1.txt;beginline=5;endline=29;md5=yyyy \
                         file://licfile2.txt;endline=50;md5=zzzz \
                         ..."
                

Notes

  • When using "beginline" and "endline", realize that line numbering begins with one and not zero. Also, the included lines are inclusive (i.e. lines five through and including 29 in the previous example for licfile1.txt).

  • When a license check fails, the selected license text is included as part of the QA message. Using this output, you can determine the exact start and finish for the needed license text.

The build system uses the S variable as the default directory when searching files listed in LIC_FILES_CHKSUM. The previous example employs the default directory.

Consider this next example:

     LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://src/ls.c;beginline=5;endline=16;\
                                         md5=bb14ed3c4cda583abc85401304b5cd4e"
     LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://${WORKDIR}/license.html;md5=5c94767cedb5d6987c902ac850ded2c6"
                

The first line locates a file in ${S}/src/ls.c and isolates lines five through 16 as license text. The second line refers to a file in WORKDIR.

Note that LIC_FILES_CHKSUM variable is mandatory for all recipes, unless the LICENSE variable is set to "CLOSED".

22.8.1.2. Explanation of Syntax

As mentioned in the previous section, the LIC_FILES_CHKSUM variable lists all the important files that contain the license text for the source code. It is possible to specify a checksum for an entire file, or a specific section of a file (specified by beginning and ending line numbers with the "beginline" and "endline" parameters, respectively). The latter is useful for source files with a license notice header, README documents, and so forth. If you do not use the "beginline" parameter, then it is assumed that the text begins on the first line of the file. Similarly, if you do not use the "endline" parameter, it is assumed that the license text ends with the last line of the file.

The "md5" parameter stores the md5 checksum of the license text. If the license text changes in any way as compared to this parameter then a mismatch occurs. This mismatch triggers a build failure and notifies the developer. Notification allows the developer to review and address the license text changes. Also note that if a mismatch occurs during the build, the correct md5 checksum is placed in the build log and can be easily copied to the recipe.

There is no limit to how many files you can specify using the LIC_FILES_CHKSUM variable. Generally, however, every project requires a few specifications for license tracking. Many projects have a "COPYING" file that stores the license information for all the source code files. This practice allows you to just track the "COPYING" file as long as it is kept up to date.

Tip

If you specify an empty or invalid "md5" parameter, BitBake returns an md5 mis-match error and displays the correct "md5" parameter value during the build. The correct parameter is also captured in the build log.

Tip

If the whole file contains only license text, you do not need to use the "beginline" and "endline" parameters.

22.8.2. Enabling Commercially Licensed Recipes

By default, the OpenEmbedded build system disables components that have commercial or other special licensing requirements. Such requirements are defined on a recipe-by-recipe basis through the LICENSE_FLAGS variable definition in the affected recipe. For instance, the poky/meta/recipes-multimedia/gstreamer/gst-plugins-ugly recipe contains the following statement:

     LICENSE_FLAGS = "commercial"
            

Here is a slightly more complicated example that contains both an explicit recipe name and version (after variable expansion):

     LICENSE_FLAGS = "license_${PN}_${PV}"
            

In order for a component restricted by a LICENSE_FLAGS definition to be enabled and included in an image, it needs to have a matching entry in the global LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST variable, which is a variable typically defined in your local.conf file. For example, to enable the poky/meta/recipes-multimedia/gstreamer/gst-plugins-ugly package, you could add either the string "commercial_gst-plugins-ugly" or the more general string "commercial" to LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST. See the "License Flag Matching" section for a full explanation of how LICENSE_FLAGS matching works. Here is the example:

     LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST = "commercial_gst-plugins-ugly"
            

Likewise, to additionally enable the package built from the recipe containing LICENSE_FLAGS = "license_${PN}_${PV}", and assuming that the actual recipe name was emgd_1.10.bb, the following string would enable that package as well as the original gst-plugins-ugly package:

     LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST = "commercial_gst-plugins-ugly license_emgd_1.10"
            

As a convenience, you do not need to specify the complete license string in the whitelist for every package. You can use an abbreviated form, which consists of just the first portion or portions of the license string before the initial underscore character or characters. A partial string will match any license that contains the given string as the first portion of its license. For example, the following whitelist string will also match both of the packages previously mentioned as well as any other packages that have licenses starting with "commercial" or "license".

     LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST = "commercial license"
            

22.8.2.1. License Flag Matching

License flag matching allows you to control what recipes the OpenEmbedded build system includes in the build. Fundamentally, the build system attempts to match LICENSE_FLAGS strings found in recipes against LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST strings found in the whitelist. A match causes the build system to include a recipe in the build, while failure to find a match causes the build system to exclude a recipe.

In general, license flag matching is simple. However, understanding some concepts will help you correctly and effectively use matching.

Before a flag defined by a particular recipe is tested against the contents of the whitelist, the expanded string _${PN} is appended to the flag. This expansion makes each LICENSE_FLAGS value recipe-specific. After expansion, the string is then matched against the whitelist. Thus, specifying LICENSE_FLAGS = "commercial" in recipe "foo", for example, results in the string "commercial_foo". And, to create a match, that string must appear in the whitelist.

Judicious use of the LICENSE_FLAGS strings and the contents of the LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST variable allows you a lot of flexibility for including or excluding recipes based on licensing. For example, you can broaden the matching capabilities by using license flags string subsets in the whitelist.

Note

When using a string subset, be sure to use the part of the expanded string that precedes the appended underscore character (e.g. usethispart_1.3, usethispart_1.4, and so forth).

For example, simply specifying the string "commercial" in the whitelist matches any expanded LICENSE_FLAGS definition that starts with the string "commercial" such as "commercial_foo" and "commercial_bar", which are the strings the build system automatically generates for hypothetical recipes named "foo" and "bar" assuming those recipes simply specify the following:

     LICENSE_FLAGS = "commercial"
                

Thus, you can choose to exhaustively enumerate each license flag in the whitelist and allow only specific recipes into the image, or you can use a string subset that causes a broader range of matches to allow a range of recipes into the image.

This scheme works even if the LICENSE_FLAGS string already has _${PN} appended. For example, the build system turns the license flag "commercial_1.2_foo" into "commercial_1.2_foo_foo" and would match both the general "commercial" and the specific "commercial_1.2_foo" strings found in the whitelist, as expected.

Here are some other scenarios:

  • You can specify a versioned string in the recipe such as "commercial_foo_1.2" in a "foo" recipe. The build system expands this string to "commercial_foo_1.2_foo". Combine this license flag with a whitelist that has the string "commercial" and you match the flag along with any other flag that starts with the string "commercial".

  • Under the same circumstances, you can use "commercial_foo" in the whitelist and the build system not only matches "commercial_foo_1.2" but also matches any license flag with the string "commercial_foo", regardless of the version.

  • You can be very specific and use both the package and version parts in the whitelist (e.g. "commercial_foo_1.2") to specifically match a versioned recipe.

Other helpful variables related to commercial license handling exist and are defined in the poky/meta/conf/distro/include/default-distrovars.inc file:

     COMMERCIAL_AUDIO_PLUGINS ?= ""
     COMMERCIAL_VIDEO_PLUGINS ?= ""
                

If you want to enable these components, you can do so by making sure you have statements similar to the following in your local.conf configuration file:

     COMMERCIAL_AUDIO_PLUGINS = "gst-plugins-ugly-mad \
        gst-plugins-ugly-mpegaudioparse"
     COMMERCIAL_VIDEO_PLUGINS = "gst-plugins-ugly-mpeg2dec \
        gst-plugins-ugly-mpegstream gst-plugins-bad-mpegvideoparse"
     LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST = "commercial_gst-plugins-ugly commercial_gst-plugins-bad commercial_qmmp"
                

Of course, you could also create a matching whitelist for those components using the more general "commercial" in the whitelist, but that would also enable all the other packages with LICENSE_FLAGS containing "commercial", which you may or may not want:

     LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST = "commercial"
                

Specifying audio and video plug-ins as part of the COMMERCIAL_AUDIO_PLUGINS and COMMERCIAL_VIDEO_PLUGINS statements (along with the enabling LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST) includes the plug-ins or components into built images, thus adding support for media formats or components.

Chapter 23. Yocto Project Releases and the Stable Release Process

The Yocto Project release process is predictable and consists of both major and minor (point) releases. This brief chapter provides information on how releases are named, their life cycle, and their stability.

23.1. Major and Minor Release Cadence

The Yocto Project delivers major releases (e.g. 2.3.3) using a six month cadence roughly timed each April and October of the year. Following are examples of some major YP releases with their codenames also shown. See the "Major Release Codenames" section for information on codenames used with major releases.

    2.2 (Morty)
    2.1 (Krogoth)
    2.0 (Jethro)
        

While the cadence is never perfect, this timescale facilitates regular releases that have strong QA cycles while not overwhelming users with too many new releases. The cadence is predictable and avoids many major holidays in various geographies.

The Yocto project delivers minor (point) releases on an unscheduled basis and are usually driven by the accumulation of enough significant fixes or enhancements to the associated major release. Following are some example past point releases:

    2.1.1
    2.1.2
    2.2.1
        

The point release indicates a point in the major release branch where a full QA cycle and release process validates the content of the new branch.

Note

Realize that there can be patches merged onto the stable release branches as and when they become available.

23.2. Major Release Codenames

Each major release receives a codename that identifies the release in the Yocto Project Source Repositories. The concept is that branches of Metadata with the same codename are likely to be compatible and thus work together.

Note

Codenames are associated with major releases because a Yocto Project release number (e.g. 2.3.3) could conflict with a given layer or company versioning scheme. Codenames are unique, interesting, and easily identifiable.

Releases are given a nominal release version as well but the codename is used in repositories for this reason. You can find information on Yocto Project releases and codenames at https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/Releases.

23.3. Stable Release Process

Once released, the release enters the stable release process at which time a person is assigned as the maintainer for that stable release. This maintainer monitors activity for the release by investigating and handling nominated patches and backport activity. Only fixes and enhancements that have first been applied on the "master" branch (i.e. the current, in-development branch) are considered for backporting to a stable release.

Note

The current Yocto Project policy regarding backporting is to consider bug fixes and security fixes only. Policy dictates that features are not backported to a stable release. This policy means generic recipe version upgrades are unlikely to be accepted for backporting. The exception to this policy occurs when a strong reason exists such as the fix happens to also be the preferred upstream approach.

Stable release branches have strong maintenance for about a year after their initial release. Should significant issues be found for any release regardless of its age, fixes could be backported to older releases. For issues that are not backported given an older release, Community LTS trees and branches exist where community members share patches for older releases. However, these types of patches do not go through the same release process as do point releases. You can find more information about stable branch maintenance at https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/Stable_branch_maintenance.

23.4. Testing and Quality Assurance

Part of the Yocto Project development and release process is quality assurance through the execution of test strategies. Test strategies provide the Yocto Project team a way to ensure a release is validated. Additionally, because the test strategies are visible to you as a developer, you can validate your projects. This section overviews the available test infrastructure used in the Yocto Project. For information on how to run available tests on your projects, see the "Performing Automated Runtime Testing" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

The QA/testing infrastructure is woven into the project to the point where core developers take some of it for granted. The infrastructure consists of the following pieces:

  • bitbake-selftest: A standalone command that runs unit tests on key pieces of BitBake and its fetchers.

  • sanity.bbclass: This automatically included class checks the build environment for missing tools (e.g. gcc) or common misconfigurations such as MACHINE set incorrectly.

  • insane.bbclass: This class checks the generated output from builds for sanity. For example, if building for an ARM target, did the build produce ARM binaries. If, for example, the build produced PPC binaries then there is a problem.

  • testimage.bbclass: This class performs runtime testing of images after they are built. The tests are usually used with QEMU to boot the images and check the combined runtime result boot operation and functions. However, the test can also use the IP address of a machine to test.

  • ptest: Runs tests against packages produced during the build for a given piece of software. The test allows the packages to be be run within a target image.

  • oe-selftest: Tests combination BitBake invocations. These tests operate outside the OpenEmbedded build system itself. The oe-selftest can run all tests by default or can run selected tests or test suites.

    Note

    Running oe-selftest requires host packages beyond the "Essential" grouping. See the "Required Packages for the Host Development System" section for more information.

Originally, much of this testing was done manually. However, significant effort has been made to automate the tests so that more people can use them and the Yocto Project development team can run them faster and more efficiently.

The Yocto Project's main Autobuilder (autobuilder.yoctoproject.org) publicly tests each Yocto Project release's code in the OE-Core, Poky, and BitBake repositories. The testing occurs for both the current state of the "master" branch and also for submitted patches. Testing for submitted patches usually occurs in the "ross/mut" branch in the poky-contrib repository (i.e. the master-under-test branch) or in the "master-next" branch in the poky repository.

Note

You can find all these branches in the Yocto Project Source Repositories.

Testing within these public branches ensures in a publicly visible way that all of the main supposed architectures and recipes in OE-Core successfully build and behave properly.

Various features such as multilib, sub architectures (e.g. x32, poky-tiny, musl, no-x11 and and so forth), bitbake-selftest, and oe-selftest are tested as part of the QA process of a release. Complete testing and validation for a release takes the Autobuilder workers several hours.

Note

The Autobuilder workers are non-homogeneous, which means regular testing across a variety of Linux distributions occurs. The Autobuilder is limited to only testing QEMU-based setups and not real hardware.

Finally, in addition to the Autobuilder's tests, the Yocto Project QA team also performs testing on a variety of platforms, which includes actual hardware, to ensure expected results.

Chapter 24. Migrating to a Newer Yocto Project Release

24.1. General Migration Considerations
24.2. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.3 Release
24.2.1. Local Configuration
24.2.2. Recipes
24.2.3. Linux Kernel Naming
24.3. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.4 Release
24.3.1. BitBake
24.3.2. Build Behavior
24.3.3. Proxies and Fetching Source
24.3.4. Custom Interfaces File (netbase change)
24.3.5. Remote Debugging
24.3.6. Variables
24.3.7. Target Package Management with RPM
24.3.8. Recipes Moved
24.3.9. Removals and Renames
24.4. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.5 Release
24.4.1. Host Dependency Changes
24.4.2. atom-pc Board Support Package (BSP)
24.4.3. BitBake
24.4.4. QA Warnings
24.4.5. Directory Layout Changes
24.4.6. Shortened Git SRCREV Values
24.4.7. IMAGE_FEATURES
24.4.8. /run
24.4.9. Removal of Package Manager Database Within Image Recipes
24.4.10. Images Now Rebuild Only on Changes Instead of Every Time
24.4.11. Task Recipes
24.4.12. BusyBox
24.4.13. Automated Image Testing
24.4.14. Build History
24.4.15. udev
24.4.16. Removed and Renamed Recipes
24.4.17. Other Changes
24.5. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.6 Release
24.5.1. archiver Class
24.5.2. Packaging Changes
24.5.3. BitBake
24.5.4. Changes to Variables
24.5.5. Package Test (ptest)
24.5.6. Build Changes
24.5.7. qemu-native
24.5.8. core-image-basic
24.5.9. Licensing
24.5.10. CFLAGS Options
24.5.11. Custom Image Output Types
24.5.12. Tasks
24.5.13. update-alternative Provider
24.5.14. virtclass Overrides
24.5.15. Removed and Renamed Recipes
24.5.16. Removed Classes
24.5.17. Reference Board Support Packages (BSPs)
24.6. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.7 Release
24.6.1. Changes to Setting QEMU PACKAGECONFIG Options in local.conf
24.6.2. Minimum Git version
24.6.3. Autotools Class Changes
24.6.4. Binary Configuration Scripts Disabled
24.6.5. eglibc 2.19 Replaced with glibc 2.20
24.6.6. Kernel Module Autoloading
24.6.7. QA Check Changes
24.6.8. Removed Recipes
24.6.9. Miscellaneous Changes
24.7. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.8 Release
24.7.1. Removed Recipes
24.7.2. BlueZ 4.x / 5.x Selection
24.7.3. Kernel Build Changes
24.7.4. SSL 3.0 is Now Disabled in OpenSSL
24.7.5. Default Sysroot Poisoning
24.7.6. Rebuild Improvements
24.7.7. QA Check and Validation Changes
24.7.8. Miscellaneous Changes
24.8. Moving to the Yocto Project 2.0 Release
24.8.1. GCC 5
24.8.2. Gstreamer 0.10 Removed
24.8.3. Removed Recipes
24.8.4. BitBake datastore improvements
24.8.5. Shell Message Function Changes
24.8.6. Extra Development/Debug Package Cleanup
24.8.7. Recipe Maintenance Tracking Data Moved to OE-Core
24.8.8. Automatic Stale Sysroot File Cleanup
24.8.9. linux-yocto Kernel Metadata Repository Now Split from Source
24.8.10. Additional QA checks
24.8.11. Miscellaneous Changes
24.9. Moving to the Yocto Project 2.1 Release
24.9.1. Variable Expansion in Python Functions
24.9.2. Overrides Must Now be Lower-Case
24.9.3. Expand Parameter to getVar() and getVarFlag() is Now Mandatory
24.9.4. Makefile Environment Changes
24.9.5. libexecdir Reverted to ${prefix}/libexec
24.9.6. ac_cv_sizeof_off_t is No Longer Cached in Site Files
24.9.7. Image Generation is Now Split Out from Filesystem Generation
24.9.8. Removed Recipes
24.9.9. Class Changes
24.9.10. Build System User Interface Changes
24.9.11. ADT Removed
24.9.12. Poky Reference Distribution Changes
24.9.13. Packaging Changes
24.9.14. Tuning File Changes
24.9.15. Supporting GObject Introspection
24.9.16. Miscellaneous Changes
24.10. Moving to the Yocto Project 2.2 Release
24.10.1. Minimum Kernel Version
24.10.2. Staging Directories in Sysroot Has Been Simplified
24.10.3. Removal of Old Images and Other Files in tmp/deploy Now Enabled
24.10.4. Python Changes
24.10.5. uClibc Replaced by musl
24.10.6. ${B} No Longer Default Working Directory for Tasks
24.10.7. runqemu Ported to Python
24.10.8. Default Linker Hash Style Changed
24.10.9. KERNEL_IMAGE_BASE_NAME no Longer Uses KERNEL_IMAGETYPE
24.10.10. BitBake Changes
24.10.11. Swabber has Been Removed
24.10.12. Removed Recipes
24.10.13. Removed Classes
24.10.14. Minor Packaging Changes
24.10.15. Miscellaneous Changes
24.11. Moving to the Yocto Project 2.3 Release
24.11.1. Recipe-specific Sysroots
24.11.2. PATH Variable
24.11.3. Changes to Scripts
24.11.4. Changes to Functions
24.11.5. BitBake Changes
24.11.6. Absolute Symbolic Links
24.11.7. GPLv2 Versions of GPLv3 Recipes Moved
24.11.8. Package Management Changes
24.11.9. Removed Recipes
24.11.10. Wic Changes
24.11.11. QA Changes
24.11.12. Miscellaneous Changes

This chapter provides information you can use to migrate work to a newer Yocto Project release. You can find the same information in the release notes for a given release.

24.1. General Migration Considerations

Some considerations are not tied to a specific Yocto Project release. This section presents information you should consider when migrating to any new Yocto Project release.

  • Dealing with Customized Recipes: Issues could arise if you take older recipes that contain customizations and simply copy them forward expecting them to work after you migrate to new Yocto Project metadata. For example, suppose you have a recipe in your layer that is a customized version of a core recipe copied from the earlier release, rather than through the use of an append file. When you migrate to a newer version of Yocto Project, the metadata (e.g. perhaps an include file used by the recipe) could have changed in a way that would break the build. Say, for example, a function is removed from an include file and the customized recipe tries to call that function.

    You could "forward-port" all your customizations in your recipe so that everything works for the new release. However, this is not the optimal solution as you would have to repeat this process with each new release if changes occur that give rise to problems.

    The better solution (where practical) is to use append files (*.bbappend) to capture any customizations you want to make to a recipe. Doing so, isolates your changes from the main recipe making them much more manageable. However, sometimes it is not practical to use an append file. A good example of this is when introducing a newer or older version of a recipe in another layer.

  • Updating Append Files: Since append files generally only contain your customizations, they often do not need to be adjusted for new releases. However, if the .bbappend file is specific to a particular version of the recipe (i.e. its name does not use the % wildcard) and the version of the recipe to which it is appending has changed, then you will at a minimum need to rename the append file to match the name of the recipe file. A mismatch between an append file and its corresponding recipe file (.bb) will trigger an error during parsing.

    Depending on the type of customization the append file applies, other incompatibilities might occur when you upgrade. For example, if your append file applies a patch and the recipe to which it is appending is updated to a newer version, the patch might no longer apply. If this is the case and assuming the patch is still needed, you must modify the patch file so that it does apply.

24.2. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.3 Release

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 1.3 Release from the prior release.

24.2.1. Local Configuration

Differences include changes for SSTATE_MIRRORS and bblayers.conf.

24.2.1.1. SSTATE_MIRRORS

The shared state cache (sstate-cache), as pointed to by SSTATE_DIR, by default now has two-character subdirectories to prevent issues arising from too many files in the same directory. Also, native sstate-cache packages, which are built to run on the host system, will go into a subdirectory named using the distro ID string. If you copy the newly structured sstate-cache to a mirror location (either local or remote) and then point to it in SSTATE_MIRRORS, you need to append "PATH" to the end of the mirror URL so that the path used by BitBake before the mirror substitution is appended to the path used to access the mirror. Here is an example:

     SSTATE_MIRRORS = "file://.* http://someserver.tld/share/sstate/PATH"
                

24.2.1.2. bblayers.conf

The meta-yocto layer consists of two parts that correspond to the Poky reference distribution and the reference hardware Board Support Packages (BSPs), respectively: meta-yocto and meta-yocto-bsp. When running BitBake for the first time after upgrading, your conf/bblayers.conf file will be updated to handle this change and you will be asked to re-run or restart for the changes to take effect.

24.2.2. Recipes

Differences include changes for the following:

  • Python function whitespace

  • proto= in SRC_URI

  • nativesdk

  • Task recipes

  • IMAGE_FEATURES

  • Removed recipes

24.2.2.1. Python Function Whitespace

All Python functions must now use four spaces for indentation. Previously, an inconsistent mix of spaces and tabs existed, which made extending these functions using _append or _prepend complicated given that Python treats whitespace as syntactically significant. If you are defining or extending any Python functions (e.g. populate_packages, do_unpack, do_patch and so forth) in custom recipes or classes, you need to ensure you are using consistent four-space indentation.

24.2.2.2. proto= in SRC_URI

Any use of proto= in SRC_URI needs to be changed to protocol=. In particular, this applies to the following URIs:

  • svn://

  • bzr://

  • hg://

  • osc://

Other URIs were already using protocol=. This change improves consistency.

24.2.2.3. nativesdk

The suffix nativesdk is now implemented as a prefix, which simplifies a lot of the packaging code for nativesdk recipes. All custom nativesdk recipes, which are relocatable packages that are native to SDK_ARCH, and any references need to be updated to use nativesdk-* instead of *-nativesdk.

24.2.2.4. Task Recipes

"Task" recipes are now known as "Package groups" and have been renamed from task-*.bb to packagegroup-*.bb. Existing references to the previous task-* names should work in most cases as there is an automatic upgrade path for most packages. However, you should update references in your own recipes and configurations as they could be removed in future releases. You should also rename any custom task-* recipes to packagegroup-*, and change them to inherit packagegroup instead of task, as well as taking the opportunity to remove anything now handled by packagegroup.bbclass, such as providing -dev and -dbg packages, setting LIC_FILES_CHKSUM, and so forth. See the "packagegroup.bbclass" section for further details.

24.2.2.5. IMAGE_FEATURES

Image recipes that previously included "apps-console-core" in IMAGE_FEATURES should now include "splash" instead to enable the boot-up splash screen. Retaining "apps-console-core" will still include the splash screen but generates a warning. The "apps-x11-core" and "apps-x11-games" IMAGE_FEATURES features have been removed.

24.2.2.6. Removed Recipes

The following recipes have been removed. For most of them, it is unlikely that you would have any references to them in your own Metadata. However, you should check your metadata against this list to be sure:

  • libx11-trim: Replaced by libx11, which has a negligible size difference with modern Xorg.

  • xserver-xorg-lite: Use xserver-xorg, which has a negligible size difference when DRI and GLX modules are not installed.

  • xserver-kdrive: Effectively unmaintained for many years.

  • mesa-xlib: No longer serves any purpose.

  • galago: Replaced by telepathy.

  • gail: Functionality was integrated into GTK+ 2.13.

  • eggdbus: No longer needed.

  • gcc-*-intermediate: The build has been restructured to avoid the need for this step.

  • libgsmd: Unmaintained for many years. Functionality now provided by ofono instead.

  • contacts, dates, tasks, eds-tools: Largely unmaintained PIM application suite. It has been moved to meta-gnome in meta-openembedded.

In addition to the previously listed changes, the meta-demoapps directory has also been removed because the recipes in it were not being maintained and many had become obsolete or broken. Additionally, these recipes were not parsed in the default configuration. Many of these recipes are already provided in an updated and maintained form within the OpenEmbedded community layers such as meta-oe and meta-gnome. For the remainder, you can now find them in the meta-extras repository, which is in the Yocto Project Source Repositories.

24.2.3. Linux Kernel Naming

The naming scheme for kernel output binaries has been changed to now include PE as part of the filename:

     KERNEL_IMAGE_BASE_NAME ?= "${KERNEL_IMAGETYPE}-${PE}-${PV}-${PR}-${MACHINE}-${DATETIME}"
            

Because the PE variable is not set by default, these binary files could result with names that include two dash characters. Here is an example:

     bzImage--3.10.9+git0+cd502a8814_7144bcc4b8-r0-qemux86-64-20130830085431.bin
            

24.3. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.4 Release

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 1.4 Release from the prior release.

24.3.1. BitBake

Differences include the following:

  • Comment Continuation: If a comment ends with a line continuation (\) character, then the next line must also be a comment. Any instance where this is not the case, now triggers a warning. You must either remove the continuation character, or be sure the next line is a comment.

  • Package Name Overrides: The runtime package specific variables RDEPENDS, RRECOMMENDS, RSUGGESTS, RPROVIDES, RCONFLICTS, RREPLACES, FILES, ALLOW_EMPTY, and the pre, post, install, and uninstall script functions pkg_preinst, pkg_postinst, pkg_prerm, and pkg_postrm should always have a package name override. For example, use RDEPENDS_${PN} for the main package instead of RDEPENDS. BitBake uses more strict checks when it parses recipes.

24.3.2. Build Behavior

Differences include the following:

  • Shared State Code: The shared state code has been optimized to avoid running unnecessary tasks. For example, the following no longer populates the target sysroot since that is not necessary:

         $ bitbake -c rootfs some-image
                        

    Instead, the system just needs to extract the output package contents, re-create the packages, and construct the root filesystem. This change is unlikely to cause any problems unless you have missing declared dependencies.

  • Scanning Directory Names: When scanning for files in SRC_URI, the build system now uses FILESOVERRIDES instead of OVERRIDES for the directory names. In general, the values previously in OVERRIDES are now in FILESOVERRIDES as well. However, if you relied upon an additional value you previously added to OVERRIDES, you might now need to add it to FILESOVERRIDES unless you are already adding it through the MACHINEOVERRIDES or DISTROOVERRIDES variables, as appropriate. For more related changes, see the "Variables" section.

24.3.3. Proxies and Fetching Source

A new oe-git-proxy script has been added to replace previous methods of handling proxies and fetching source from Git. See the meta-yocto/conf/site.conf.sample file for information on how to use this script.

24.3.4. Custom Interfaces File (netbase change)

If you have created your own custom etc/network/interfaces file by creating an append file for the netbase recipe, you now need to create an append file for the init-ifupdown recipe instead, which you can find in the Source Directory at meta/recipes-core/init-ifupdown. For information on how to use append files, see the "Using .bbappend Files" in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

24.3.5. Remote Debugging

Support for remote debugging with the Eclipse IDE is now separated into an image feature (eclipse-debug) that corresponds to the packagegroup-core-eclipse-debug package group. Previously, the debugging feature was included through the tools-debug image feature, which corresponds to the packagegroup-core-tools-debug package group.

24.3.6. Variables

The following variables have changed:

  • SANITY_TESTED_DISTROS: This variable now uses a distribution ID, which is composed of the host distributor ID followed by the release. Previously, SANITY_TESTED_DISTROS was composed of the description field. For example, "Ubuntu 12.10" becomes "Ubuntu-12.10". You do not need to worry about this change if you are not specifically setting this variable, or if you are specifically setting it to "".

  • SRC_URI: The ${PN}, ${PF}, ${P}, and FILE_DIRNAME directories have been dropped from the default value of the FILESPATH variable, which is used as the search path for finding files referred to in SRC_URI. If you have a recipe that relied upon these directories, which would be unusual, then you will need to add the appropriate paths within the recipe or, alternatively, rearrange the files. The most common locations are still covered by ${BP}, ${BPN}, and "files", which all remain in the default value of FILESPATH.

24.3.7. Target Package Management with RPM

If runtime package management is enabled and the RPM backend is selected, Smart is now installed for package download, dependency resolution, and upgrades instead of Zypper. For more information on how to use Smart, run the following command on the target:

     smart --help
            

24.3.8. Recipes Moved

The following recipes were moved from their previous locations because they are no longer used by anything in the OpenEmbedded-Core:

  • clutter-box2d: Now resides in the meta-oe layer.

  • evolution-data-server: Now resides in the meta-gnome layer.

  • gthumb: Now resides in the meta-gnome layer.

  • gtkhtml2: Now resides in the meta-oe layer.

  • gupnp: Now resides in the meta-multimedia layer.

  • gypsy: Now resides in the meta-oe layer.

  • libcanberra: Now resides in the meta-gnome layer.

  • libgdata: Now resides in the meta-gnome layer.

  • libmusicbrainz: Now resides in the meta-multimedia layer.

  • metacity: Now resides in the meta-gnome layer.

  • polkit: Now resides in the meta-oe layer.

  • zeroconf: Now resides in the meta-networking layer.

24.3.9. Removals and Renames

The following list shows what has been removed or renamed:

  • evieext: Removed because it has been removed from xserver since 2008.

  • Gtk+ DirectFB: Removed support because upstream Gtk+ no longer supports it as of version 2.18.

  • libxfontcache / xfontcacheproto: Removed because they were removed from the Xorg server in 2008.

  • libxp / libxprintapputil / libxprintutil / printproto: Removed because the XPrint server was removed from Xorg in 2008.

  • libxtrap / xtrapproto: Removed because their functionality was broken upstream.

  • linux-yocto 3.0 kernel: Removed with linux-yocto 3.8 kernel being added. The linux-yocto 3.2 and linux-yocto 3.4 kernels remain as part of the release.

  • lsbsetup: Removed with functionality now provided by lsbtest.

  • matchbox-stroke: Removed because it was never more than a proof-of-concept.

  • matchbox-wm-2 / matchbox-theme-sato-2: Removed because they are not maintained. However, matchbox-wm and matchbox-theme-sato are still provided.

  • mesa-dri: Renamed to mesa.

  • mesa-xlib: Removed because it was no longer useful.

  • mutter: Removed because nothing ever uses it and the recipe is very old.

  • orinoco-conf: Removed because it has become obsolete.

  • update-modules: Removed because it is no longer used. The kernel module postinstall and postrm scripts can now do the same task without the use of this script.

  • web: Removed because it is not maintained. Superseded by web-webkit.

  • xf86bigfontproto: Removed because upstream it has been disabled by default since 2007. Nothing uses xf86bigfontproto.

  • xf86rushproto: Removed because its dependency in xserver was spurious and it was removed in 2005.

  • zypper / libzypp / sat-solver: Removed and been functionally replaced with Smart (python-smartpm) when RPM packaging is used and package management is enabled on the target.

24.4. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.5 Release

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 1.5 Release from the prior release.

24.4.1. Host Dependency Changes

The OpenEmbedded build system now has some additional requirements on the host system:

  • Python 2.7.3+

  • Tar 1.24+

  • Git 1.7.8+

  • Patched version of Make if you are using 3.82. Most distributions that provide Make 3.82 use the patched version.

If the Linux distribution you are using on your build host does not provide packages for these, you can install and use the Buildtools tarball, which provides an SDK-like environment containing them.

For more information on this requirement, see the "Required Git, tar, and Python Versions" section.

24.4.2. atom-pc Board Support Package (BSP)

The atom-pc hardware reference BSP has been replaced by a genericx86 BSP. This BSP is not necessarily guaranteed to work on all x86 hardware, but it will run on a wider range of systems than the atom-pc did.

Note

Additionally, a genericx86-64 BSP has been added for 64-bit Atom systems.

24.4.3. BitBake

The following changes have been made that relate to BitBake:

  • BitBake now supports a _remove operator. The addition of this operator means you will have to rename any items in recipe space (functions, variables) whose names currently contain _remove_ or end with _remove to avoid unexpected behavior.

  • BitBake's global method pool has been removed. This method is not particularly useful and led to clashes between recipes containing functions that had the same name.

  • The "none" server backend has been removed. The "process" server backend has been serving well as the default for a long time now.

  • The bitbake-runtask script has been removed.

  • ${P} and ${PF} are no longer added to PROVIDES by default in bitbake.conf. These version-specific PROVIDES items were seldom used. Attempting to use them could result in two versions being built simultaneously rather than just one version due to the way BitBake resolves dependencies.

24.4.4. QA Warnings

The following changes have been made to the package QA checks:

  • If you have customized ERROR_QA or WARN_QA values in your configuration, check that they contain all of the issues that you wish to be reported. Previous Yocto Project versions contained a bug that meant that any item not mentioned in ERROR_QA or WARN_QA would be treated as a warning. Consequently, several important items were not already in the default value of WARN_QA. All of the possible QA checks are now documented in the "insane.bbclass" section.

  • An additional QA check has been added to check if /usr/share/info/dir is being installed. Your recipe should delete this file within do_install if "make install" is installing it.

  • If you are using the buildhistory class, the check for the package version going backwards is now controlled using a standard QA check. Thus, if you have customized your ERROR_QA or WARN_QA values and still wish to have this check performed, you should add "version-going-backwards" to your value for one or the other variables depending on how you wish it to be handled. See the documented QA checks in the "insane.bbclass" section.

24.4.5. Directory Layout Changes

The following directory changes exist:

  • Output SDK installer files are now named to include the image name and tuning architecture through the SDK_NAME variable.

  • Images and related files are now installed into a directory that is specific to the machine, instead of a parent directory containing output files for multiple machines. The DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE variable continues to point to the directory containing images for the current MACHINE and should be used anywhere there is a need to refer to this directory. The runqemu script now uses this variable to find images and kernel binaries and will use BitBake to determine the directory. Alternatively, you can set the DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE variable in the external environment.

  • When buildhistory is enabled, its output is now written under the Build Directory rather than TMPDIR. Doing so makes it easier to delete TMPDIR and preserve the build history. Additionally, data for produced SDKs is now split by IMAGE_NAME.

  • The pkgdata directory produced as part of the packaging process has been collapsed into a single machine-specific directory. This directory is located under sysroots and uses a machine-specific name (i.e. tmp/sysroots/machine/pkgdata).

24.4.6. Shortened Git SRCREV Values

BitBake will now shorten revisions from Git repositories from the normal 40 characters down to 10 characters within SRCPV for improved usability in path and file names. This change should be safe within contexts where these revisions are used because the chances of spatially close collisions is very low. Distant collisions are not a major issue in the way the values are used.

24.4.7. IMAGE_FEATURES

The following changes have been made that relate to IMAGE_FEATURES:

  • The value of IMAGE_FEATURES is now validated to ensure invalid feature items are not added. Some users mistakenly add package names to this variable instead of using IMAGE_INSTALL in order to have the package added to the image, which does not work. This change is intended to catch those kinds of situations. Valid IMAGE_FEATURES are drawn from PACKAGE_GROUP definitions, COMPLEMENTARY_GLOB and a new "validitems" varflag on IMAGE_FEATURES. The "validitems" varflag change allows additional features to be added if they are not provided using the previous two mechanisms.

  • The previously deprecated "apps-console-core" IMAGE_FEATURES item is no longer supported. Add "splash" to IMAGE_FEATURES if you wish to have the splash screen enabled, since this is all that apps-console-core was doing.

24.4.8. /run

The /run directory from the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard 3.0 has been introduced. You can find some of the implications for this change here. The change also means that recipes that install files to /var/run must be changed. You can find a guide on how to make these changes here.

24.4.9. Removal of Package Manager Database Within Image Recipes

The image core-image-minimal no longer adds remove_packaging_data_files to ROOTFS_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND. This addition is now handled automatically when "package-management" is not in IMAGE_FEATURES. If you have custom image recipes that make this addition, you should remove the lines, as they are not needed and might interfere with correct operation of postinstall scripts.

24.4.10. Images Now Rebuild Only on Changes Instead of Every Time

The do_rootfs and other related image construction tasks are no longer marked as "nostamp". Consequently, they will only be re-executed when their inputs have changed. Previous versions of the OpenEmbedded build system always rebuilt the image when requested rather when necessary.

24.4.11. Task Recipes

The previously deprecated task.bbclass has now been dropped. For recipes that previously inherited from this class, you should rename them from task-* to packagegroup-* and inherit packagegroup instead.

For more information, see the "packagegroup.bbclass" section.

24.4.12. BusyBox

By default, we now split BusyBox into two binaries: one that is suid root for those components that need it, and another for the rest of the components. Splitting BusyBox allows for optimization that eliminates the tinylogin recipe as recommended by upstream. You can disable this split by setting BUSYBOX_SPLIT_SUID to "0".

24.4.13. Automated Image Testing

A new automated image testing framework has been added through the testimage.bbclass class. This framework replaces the older imagetest-qemu framework.

You can learn more about performing automated image tests in the "Performing Automated Runtime Testing" section.

24.4.14. Build History

Following are changes to Build History:

  • Installed package sizes: installed-package-sizes.txt for an image now records the size of the files installed by each package instead of the size of each compressed package archive file.

  • The dependency graphs (depends*.dot) now use the actual package names instead of replacing dashes, dots and plus signs with underscores.

  • The buildhistory-diff and buildhistory-collect-srcrevs utilities have improved command-line handling. Use the --help option for each utility for more information on the new syntax.

For more information on Build History, see the "Maintaining Build Output Quality" section.

24.4.15. udev

Following are changes to udev:

  • udev no longer brings in udev-extraconf automatically through RRECOMMENDS, since this was originally intended to be optional. If you need the extra rules, then add udev-extraconf to your image.

  • udev no longer brings in pciutils-ids or usbutils-ids through RRECOMMENDS. These are not needed by udev itself and removing them saves around 350KB.

24.4.16. Removed and Renamed Recipes

  • The linux-yocto 3.2 kernel has been removed.

  • libtool-nativesdk has been renamed to nativesdk-libtool.

  • tinylogin has been removed. It has been replaced by a suid portion of Busybox. See the "BusyBox" section for more information.

  • external-python-tarball has been renamed to buildtools-tarball.

  • web-webkit has been removed. It has been functionally replaced by midori.

  • imake has been removed. It is no longer needed by any other recipe.

  • transfig-native has been removed. It is no longer needed by any other recipe.

  • anjuta-remote-run has been removed. Anjuta IDE integration has not been officially supported for several releases.

24.4.17. Other Changes

Following is a list of short entries describing other changes:

  • run-postinsts: Make this generic.

  • base-files: Remove the unnecessary media/xxx directories.

  • alsa-state: Provide an empty asound.conf by default.

  • classes/image: Ensure BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS supports pre-renamed package names.

  • classes/rootfs_rpm: Implement BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS for RPM.

  • systemd: Remove systemd_unitdir if systemd is not in DISTRO_FEATURES.

  • systemd: Remove init.d dir if systemd unit file is present and sysvinit is not a distro feature.

  • libpam: Deny all services for the OTHER entries.

  • image.bbclass: Move runtime_mapping_rename to avoid conflict with multilib. See YOCTO #4993 in Bugzilla for more information.

  • linux-dtb: Use kernel build system to generate the dtb files.

  • kern-tools: Switch from guilt to new kgit-s2q tool.

24.5. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.6 Release

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 1.6 Release from the prior release.

24.5.1. archiver Class

The archiver class has been rewritten and its configuration has been simplified. For more details on the source archiver, see the "Maintaining Open Source License Compliance During Your Product's Lifecycle" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

24.5.2. Packaging Changes

The following packaging changes have been made:

  • The binutils recipe no longer produces a binutils-symlinks package. update-alternatives is now used to handle the preferred binutils variant on the target instead.

  • The tc (traffic control) utilities have been split out of the main iproute2 package and put into the iproute2-tc package.

  • The gtk-engines schemas have been moved to a dedicated gtk-engines-schemas package.

  • The armv7a with thumb package architecture suffix has changed. The suffix for these packages with the thumb optimization enabled is "t2" as it should be. Use of this suffix was not the case in the 1.5 release. Architecture names will change within package feeds as a result.

24.5.3. BitBake

The following changes have been made to BitBake.

24.5.3.1. Matching Branch Requirement for Git Fetching

When fetching source from a Git repository using SRC_URI, BitBake will now validate the SRCREV value against the branch. You can specify the branch using the following form:

     SRC_URI = "git://server.name/repository;branch=branchname"
                

If you do not specify a branch, BitBake looks in the default "master" branch.

Alternatively, if you need to bypass this check (e.g. if you are fetching a revision corresponding to a tag that is not on any branch), you can add ";nobranch=1" to the end of the URL within SRC_URI.

24.5.3.2. Python Definition substitutions

BitBake had some previously deprecated Python definitions within its bb module removed. You should use their sub-module counterparts instead:

  • bb.MalformedUrl: Use bb.fetch.MalformedUrl.

  • bb.encodeurl: Use bb.fetch.encodeurl.

  • bb.decodeurl: Use bb.fetch.decodeurl

  • bb.mkdirhier: Use bb.utils.mkdirhier.

  • bb.movefile: Use bb.utils.movefile.

  • bb.copyfile: Use bb.utils.copyfile.

  • bb.which: Use bb.utils.which.

  • bb.vercmp_string: Use bb.utils.vercmp_string.

  • bb.vercmp: Use bb.utils.vercmp.

24.5.3.3. SVK Fetcher

The SVK fetcher has been removed from BitBake.

24.5.3.4. Console Output Error Redirection

The BitBake console UI will now output errors to stderr instead of stdout. Consequently, if you are piping or redirecting the output of bitbake to somewhere else, and you wish to retain the errors, you will need to add 2>&1 (or something similar) to the end of your bitbake command line.

24.5.3.5. task-taskname Overrides

task-taskname overrides have been adjusted so that tasks whose names contain underscores have the underscores replaced by hyphens for the override so that they now function properly. For example, the task override for do_populate_sdk is task-populate-sdk.

24.5.4. Changes to Variables

The following variables have changed. For information on the OpenEmbedded build system variables, see the "Variables Glossary" Chapter.

24.5.4.1. TMPDIR

TMPDIR can no longer be on an NFS mount. NFS does not offer full POSIX locking and inode consistency and can cause unexpected issues if used to store TMPDIR.

The check for this occurs on startup. If TMPDIR is detected on an NFS mount, an error occurs.

24.5.4.2. PRINC

The PRINC variable has been deprecated and triggers a warning if detected during a build. For PR increments on changes, use the PR service instead. You can find out more about this service in the "Working With a PR Service" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

24.5.4.3. IMAGE_TYPES

The "sum.jffs2" option for IMAGE_TYPES has been replaced by the "jffs2.sum" option, which fits the processing order.

24.5.4.4. COPY_LIC_MANIFEST

The COPY_LIC_MANIFEST variable must now be set to "1" rather than any value in order to enable it.

24.5.4.5. COPY_LIC_DIRS

The COPY_LIC_DIRS variable must now be set to "1" rather than any value in order to enable it.

24.5.4.6. PACKAGE_GROUP

The PACKAGE_GROUP variable has been renamed to FEATURE_PACKAGES to more accurately reflect its purpose. You can still use PACKAGE_GROUP but the OpenEmbedded build system produces a warning message when it encounters the variable.

24.5.4.7. Preprocess and Post Process Command Variable Behavior

The following variables now expect a semicolon separated list of functions to call and not arbitrary shell commands:

     ROOTFS_PREPROCESS_COMMAND
     ROOTFS_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND
     SDK_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND
     POPULATE_SDK_POST_TARGET_COMMAND
     POPULATE_SDK_POST_HOST_COMMAND
     IMAGE_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND
     IMAGE_PREPROCESS_COMMAND
     ROOTFS_POSTUNINSTALL_COMMAND
     ROOTFS_POSTINSTALL_COMMAND
                

For migration purposes, you can simply wrap shell commands in a shell function and then call the function. Here is an example:

     my_postprocess_function() {
        echo "hello" > ${IMAGE_ROOTFS}/hello.txt
     }
     ROOTFS_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND += "my_postprocess_function; "
                

24.5.5. Package Test (ptest)

Package Tests (ptest) are built but not installed by default. For information on using Package Tests, see the "Setting up and running package test (ptest)" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual. For information on the ptest class, see the "ptest.bbclass" section.

24.5.6. Build Changes

Separate build and source directories have been enabled by default for selected recipes where it is known to work (a whitelist) and for all recipes that inherit the cmake class. In future releases the autotools class will enable a separate build directory by default as well. Recipes building Autotools-based software that fails to build with a separate build directory should be changed to inherit from the autotools-brokensep class instead of the autotools or autotools_stageclasses.

24.5.7. qemu-native

qemu-native now builds without SDL-based graphical output support by default. The following additional lines are needed in your local.conf to enable it:

     PACKAGECONFIG_pn-qemu-native = "sdl"
     ASSUME_PROVIDED += "libsdl-native"
            

Note

The default local.conf contains these statements. Consequently, if you are building a headless system and using a default local.conf file, you will need comment these two lines out.

24.5.8. core-image-basic

core-image-basic has been renamed to core-image-full-cmdline.

In addition to core-image-basic being renamed, packagegroup-core-basic has been renamed to packagegroup-core-full-cmdline to match.

24.5.9. Licensing

The top-level LICENSE file has been changed to better describe the license of the various components of OE-Core. However, the licensing itself remains unchanged.

Normally, this change would not cause any side-effects. However, some recipes point to this file within LIC_FILES_CHKSUM (as ${COREBASE}/LICENSE) and thus the accompanying checksum must be changed from 3f40d7994397109285ec7b81fdeb3b58 to 4d92cd373abda3937c2bc47fbc49d690. A better alternative is to have LIC_FILES_CHKSUM point to a file describing the license that is distributed with the source that the recipe is building, if possible, rather than pointing to ${COREBASE}/LICENSE.

24.5.10. CFLAGS Options

The "-fpermissive" option has been removed from the default CFLAGS value. You need to take action on individual recipes that fail when building with this option. You need to either patch the recipes to fix the issues reported by the compiler, or you need to add "-fpermissive" to CFLAGS in the recipes.

24.5.11. Custom Image Output Types

Custom image output types, as selected using IMAGE_FSTYPES, must declare their dependencies on other image types (if any) using a new IMAGE_TYPEDEP variable.

24.5.12. Tasks

The do_package_write task has been removed. The task is no longer needed.

24.5.13. update-alternative Provider

The default update-alternatives provider has been changed from opkg to opkg-utils. This change resolves some troublesome circular dependencies. The runtime package has also been renamed from update-alternatives-cworth to update-alternatives-opkg.

24.5.14. virtclass Overrides

The virtclass overrides are now deprecated. Use the equivalent class overrides instead (e.g. virtclass-native becomes class-native.)

24.5.15. Removed and Renamed Recipes

The following recipes have been removed:

  • packagegroup-toolset-native - This recipe is largely unused.

  • linux-yocto-3.8 - Support for the Linux yocto 3.8 kernel has been dropped. Support for the 3.10 and 3.14 kernels have been added with the linux-yocto-3.10 and linux-yocto-3.14 recipes.

  • ocf-linux - This recipe has been functionally replaced using cryptodev-linux.

  • genext2fs - genext2fs is no longer used by the build system and is unmaintained upstream.

  • js - This provided an ancient version of Mozilla's javascript engine that is no longer needed.

  • zaurusd - The recipe has been moved to the meta-handheld layer.

  • eglibc 2.17 - Replaced by the eglibc 2.19 recipe.

  • gcc 4.7.2 - Replaced by the now stable gcc 4.8.2.

  • external-sourcery-toolchain - this recipe is now maintained in the meta-sourcery layer.

  • linux-libc-headers-yocto 3.4+git - Now using version 3.10 of the linux-libc-headers by default.

  • meta-toolchain-gmae - This recipe is obsolete.

  • packagegroup-core-sdk-gmae - This recipe is obsolete.

  • packagegroup-core-standalone-gmae-sdk-target - This recipe is obsolete.

24.5.16. Removed Classes

The following classes have become obsolete and have been removed:

  • module_strip

  • pkg_metainfo

  • pkg_distribute

  • image-empty

24.5.17. Reference Board Support Packages (BSPs)

The following reference BSPs changes occurred:

  • The BeagleBoard (beagleboard) ARM reference hardware has been replaced by the BeagleBone (beaglebone) hardware.

  • The RouterStation Pro (routerstationpro) MIPS reference hardware has been replaced by the EdgeRouter Lite (edgerouter) hardware.

The previous reference BSPs for the beagleboard and routerstationpro machines are still available in a new meta-yocto-bsp-old layer in the Source Repositories at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/meta-yocto-bsp-old/.

24.6. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.7 Release

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 1.7 Release from the prior release.

24.6.1. Changes to Setting QEMU PACKAGECONFIG Options in local.conf

The QEMU recipe now uses a number of PACKAGECONFIG options to enable various optional features. The method used to set defaults for these options means that existing local.conf files will need to be be modified to append to PACKAGECONFIG for qemu-native and nativesdk-qemu instead of setting it. In other words, to enable graphical output for QEMU, you should now have these lines in local.conf:

     PACKAGECONFIG_append_pn-qemu-native = " sdl"
     PACKAGECONFIG_append_pn-nativesdk-qemu = " sdl"
            

24.6.2. Minimum Git version

The minimum Git version required on the build host is now 1.7.8 because the --list option is now required by BitBake's Git fetcher. As always, if your host distribution does not provide a version of Git that meets this requirement, you can use the buildtools-tarball that does. See the "Required Git, tar, and Python Versions" section for more information.

24.6.3. Autotools Class Changes

The following autotools class changes occurred:

  • A separate build directory is now used by default: The autotools class has been changed to use a directory for building (B), which is separate from the source directory (S). This is commonly referred to as B != S, or an out-of-tree build.

    If the software being built is already capable of building in a directory separate from the source, you do not need to do anything. However, if the software is not capable of being built in this manner, you will need to either patch the software so that it can build separately, or you will need to change the recipe to inherit the autotools-brokensep class instead of the autotools or autotools_stage classes.

  • The --foreign option is no longer passed to automake when running autoconf: This option tells automake that a particular software package does not follow the GNU standards and therefore should not be expected to distribute certain files such as ChangeLog, AUTHORS, and so forth. Because the majority of upstream software packages already tell automake to enable foreign mode themselves, the option is mostly superfluous. However, some recipes will need patches for this change. You can easily make the change by patching configure.ac so that it passes "foreign" to AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(). See this commit for an example showing how to make the patch.

24.6.4. Binary Configuration Scripts Disabled

Some of the core recipes that package binary configuration scripts now disable the scripts due to the scripts previously requiring error-prone path substitution. Software that links against these libraries using these scripts should use the much more robust pkg-config instead. The list of recipes changed in this version (and their configuration scripts) is as follows:

     directfb (directfb-config)
     freetype (freetype-config)
     gpgme (gpgme-config)
     libassuan (libassuan-config)
     libcroco (croco-6.0-config)
     libgcrypt (libgcrypt-config)
     libgpg-error (gpg-error-config)
     libksba (ksba-config)
     libpcap (pcap-config)
     libpcre (pcre-config)
     libpng (libpng-config, libpng16-config)
     libsdl (sdl-config)
     libusb-compat (libusb-config)
     libxml2 (xml2-config)
     libxslt (xslt-config)
     ncurses (ncurses-config)
     neon (neon-config)
     npth (npth-config)
     pth (pth-config)
     taglib (taglib-config)
            

Additionally, support for pkg-config has been added to some recipes in the previous list in the rare cases where the upstream software package does not already provide it.

24.6.5. eglibc 2.19 Replaced with glibc 2.20

Because eglibc and glibc were already fairly close, this replacement should not require any significant changes to other software that links to eglibc. However, there were a number of minor changes in glibc 2.20 upstream that could require patching some software (e.g. the removal of the _BSD_SOURCE feature test macro).

glibc 2.20 requires version 2.6.32 or greater of the Linux kernel. Thus, older kernels will no longer be usable in conjunction with it.

For full details on the changes in glibc 2.20, see the upstream release notes here.

24.6.6. Kernel Module Autoloading

The module_autoload_* variable is now deprecated and a new KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD variable should be used instead. Also, module_conf_* must now be used in conjunction with a new KERNEL_MODULE_PROBECONF variable. The new variables no longer require you to specify the module name as part of the variable name. This change not only simplifies usage but also allows the values of these variables to be appropriately incorporated into task signatures and thus trigger the appropriate tasks to re-execute when changed. You should replace any references to module_autoload_* with KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD, and add any modules for which module_conf_* is specified to KERNEL_MODULE_PROBECONF.

For more information, see the KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD and KERNEL_MODULE_PROBECONF variables.

24.6.7. QA Check Changes

The following changes have occurred to the QA check process:

  • Additional QA checks file-rdeps and build-deps have been added in order to verify that file dependencies are satisfied (e.g. package contains a script requiring /bin/bash) and build-time dependencies are declared, respectively. For more information, please see the "QA Error and Warning Messages" chapter.

  • Package QA checks are now performed during a new do_package_qa task rather than being part of the do_package task. This allows more parallel execution. This change is unlikely to be an issue except for highly customized recipes that disable packaging tasks themselves by marking them as noexec. For those packages, you will need to disable the do_package_qa task as well.

  • Files being overwritten during the do_populate_sysroot task now trigger an error instead of a warning. Recipes should not be overwriting files written to the sysroot by other recipes. If you have these types of recipes, you need to alter them so that they do not overwrite these files.

    You might now receive this error after changes in configuration or metadata resulting in orphaned files being left in the sysroot. If you do receive this error, the way to resolve the issue is to delete your TMPDIR or to move it out of the way and then re-start the build. Anything that has been fully built up to that point and does not need rebuilding will be restored from the shared state cache and the rest of the build will be able to proceed as normal.

24.6.8. Removed Recipes

The following recipes have been removed:

  • x-load: This recipe has been superseded by U-boot SPL for all Cortex-based TI SoCs. For legacy boards, the meta-ti layer, which contains a maintained recipe, should be used instead.

  • ubootchart: This recipe is obsolete. A bootchart2 recipe has been added to functionally replace it.

  • linux-yocto 3.4: Support for the linux-yocto 3.4 kernel has been dropped. Support for the 3.10 and 3.14 kernels remains, while support for version 3.17 has been added.

  • eglibc has been removed in favor of glibc. See the "eglibc 2.19 Replaced with glibc 2.20" section for more information.

24.6.9. Miscellaneous Changes

The following miscellaneous change occurred:

  • The build history feature now writes build-id.txt instead of build-id. Additionally, build-id.txt now contains the full build header as printed by BitBake upon starting the build. You should manually remove old "build-id" files from your existing build history repositories to avoid confusion. For information on the build history feature, see the "Maintaining Build Output Quality" section.

24.7. Moving to the Yocto Project 1.8 Release

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 1.8 Release from the prior release.

24.7.1. Removed Recipes

The following recipes have been removed:

  • owl-video: Functionality replaced by gst-player.

  • gaku: Functionality replaced by gst-player.

  • gnome-desktop: This recipe is now available in meta-gnome and is no longer needed.

  • gsettings-desktop-schemas: This recipe is now available in meta-gnome and is no longer needed.

  • python-argparse: The argparse module is already provided in the default Python distribution in a package named python-argparse. Consequently, the separate python-argparse recipe is no longer needed.

  • telepathy-python, libtelepathy, telepathy-glib, telepathy-idle, telepathy-mission-control: All these recipes have moved to meta-oe and are consequently no longer needed by any recipes in OpenEmbedded-Core.

  • linux-yocto_3.10 and linux-yocto_3.17: Support for the linux-yocto 3.10 and 3.17 kernels has been dropped. Support for the 3.14 kernel remains, while support for 3.19 kernel has been added.

  • poky-feed-config-opkg: This recipe has become obsolete and is no longer needed. Use distro-feed-config from meta-oe instead.

  • libav 0.8.x: libav 9.x is now used.

  • sed-native: No longer needed. A working version of sed is expected to be provided by the host distribution.

24.7.2. BlueZ 4.x / 5.x Selection

Proper built-in support for selecting BlueZ 5.x in preference to the default of 4.x now exists. To use BlueZ 5.x, simply add "bluez5" to your DISTRO_FEATURES value. If you had previously added append files (*.bbappend) to make this selection, you can now remove them.

Additionally, a bluetooth class has been added to make selection of the appropriate bluetooth support within a recipe a little easier. If you wish to make use of this class in a recipe, add something such as the following:

     inherit bluetooth
     PACKAGECONFIG ??= "${@bb.utils.contains('DISTRO_FEATURES', 'bluetooth', '${BLUEZ}', '', d)}
     PACKAGECONFIG[bluez4] = "--enable-bluetooth,--disable-bluetooth,bluez4"
     PACKAGECONFIG[bluez5] = "--enable-bluez5,--disable-bluez5,bluez5"
            

24.7.3. Kernel Build Changes

The kernel build process was changed to place the source in a common shared work area and to place build artifacts separately in the source code tree. In theory, migration paths have been provided for most common usages in kernel recipes but this might not work in all cases. In particular, users need to ensure that ${S} (source files) and ${B} (build artifacts) are used correctly in functions such as do_configure and do_install. For kernel recipes that do not inherit from kernel-yocto or include linux-yocto.inc, you might wish to refer to the linux.inc file in the meta-oe layer for the kinds of changes you need to make. For reference, here is the commit where the linux.inc file in meta-oe was updated.

Recipes that rely on the kernel source code and do not inherit the module classes might need to add explicit dependencies on the do_shared_workdir kernel task, for example:

     do_configure[depends] += "virtual/kernel:do_shared_workdir"
            

24.7.4. SSL 3.0 is Now Disabled in OpenSSL

SSL 3.0 is now disabled when building OpenSSL. Disabling SSL 3.0 avoids any lingering instances of the POODLE vulnerability. If you feel you must re-enable SSL 3.0, then you can add an append file (*.bbappend) for the openssl recipe to remove "-no-ssl3" from EXTRA_OECONF.

24.7.5. Default Sysroot Poisoning

gcc's default sysroot and include directories are now "poisoned". In other words, the sysroot and include directories are being redirected to a non-existent location in order to catch when host directories are being used due to the correct options not being passed. This poisoning applies both to the cross-compiler used within the build and to the cross-compiler produced in the SDK.

If this change causes something in the build to fail, it almost certainly means the various compiler flags and commands are not being passed correctly to the underlying piece of software. In such cases, you need to take corrective steps.

24.7.6. Rebuild Improvements

Changes have been made to the base, autotools, and cmake classes to clean out generated files when the do_configure task needs to be re-executed.

One of the improvements is to attempt to run "make clean" during the do_configure task if a Makefile exists. Some software packages do not provide a working clean target within their make files. If you have such recipes, you need to set CLEANBROKEN to "1" within the recipe, for example:

     CLEANBROKEN = "1"
            

24.7.7. QA Check and Validation Changes

The following QA Check and Validation Changes have occurred:

  • Usage of PRINC previously triggered a warning. It now triggers an error. You should remove any remaining usage of PRINC in any recipe or append file.

  • An additional QA check has been added to detect usage of ${D} in FILES values where D values should not be used at all. The same check ensures that $D is used in pkg_preinst/pkg_postinst/pkg_prerm/pkg_postrm functions instead of ${D}.

  • S now needs to be set to a valid value within a recipe. If S is not set in the recipe, the directory is not automatically created. If S does not point to a directory that exists at the time the do_unpack task finishes, a warning will be shown.

  • LICENSE is now validated for correct formatting of multiple licenses. If the format is invalid (e.g. multiple licenses are specified with no operators to specify how the multiple licenses interact), then a warning will be shown.

24.7.8. Miscellaneous Changes

The following miscellaneous changes have occurred:

  • The send-error-report script now expects a "-s" option to be specified before the server address. This assumes a server address is being specified.

  • The oe-pkgdata-util script now expects a "-p" option to be specified before the pkgdata directory, which is now optional. If the pkgdata directory is not specified, the script will run BitBake to query PKGDATA_DIR from the build environment.

24.8. Moving to the Yocto Project 2.0 Release

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 2.0 Release from the prior release.

24.8.1. GCC 5

The default compiler is now GCC 5.2. This change has required fixes for compilation errors in a number of other recipes.

One important example is a fix for when the Linux kernel freezes at boot time on ARM when built with GCC 5. If you are using your own kernel recipe or source tree and building for ARM, you will likely need to apply this patch. The standard linux-yocto kernel source tree already has a workaround for the same issue.

For further details, see https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-5/changes.html and the porting guide at https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-5/porting_to.html.

Alternatively, you can switch back to GCC 4.9 or 4.8 by setting GCCVERSION in your configuration, as follows:

     GCCVERSION = "4.9%"
            

24.8.2. Gstreamer 0.10 Removed

Gstreamer 0.10 has been removed in favor of Gstreamer 1.x. As part of the change, recipes for Gstreamer 0.10 and related software are now located in meta-multimedia. This change results in Qt4 having Phonon and Gstreamer support in QtWebkit disabled by default.

24.8.3. Removed Recipes

The following recipes have been moved or removed:

  • bluez4: The recipe is obsolete and has been moved due to bluez5 becoming fully integrated. The bluez4 recipe now resides in meta-oe.

  • gamin: The recipe is obsolete and has been removed.

  • gnome-icon-theme: The recipe's functionally has been replaced by adwaita-icon-theme.

  • Gstreamer 0.10 Recipes: Recipes for Gstreamer 0.10 have been removed in favor of the recipes for Gstreamer 1.x.

  • insserv: The recipe is obsolete and has been removed.

  • libunique: The recipe is no longer used and has been moved to meta-oe.

  • midori: The recipe's functionally has been replaced by epiphany.

  • python-gst: The recipe is obsolete and has been removed since it only contains bindings for Gstreamer 0.10.

  • qt-mobility: The recipe is obsolete and has been removed since it requires Gstreamer 0.10, which has been replaced.

  • subversion: All 1.6.x versions of this recipe have been removed.

  • webkit-gtk: The older 1.8.3 version of this recipe has been removed in favor of webkitgtk.

24.8.4. BitBake datastore improvements

The method by which BitBake's datastore handles overrides has changed. Overrides are now applied dynamically and bb.data.update_data() is now a no-op. Thus, bb.data.update_data() is no longer required in order to apply the correct overrides. In practice, this change is unlikely to require any changes to Metadata. However, these minor changes in behavior exist:

  • All potential overrides are now visible in the variable history as seen when you run the following:

         $ bitbake -e
                        

  • d.delVar('VARNAME') and d.setVar('VARNAME', None) result in the variable and all of its overrides being cleared out. Before the change, only the non-overridden values were cleared.

24.8.5. Shell Message Function Changes

The shell versions of the BitBake message functions (i.e. bbdebug, bbnote, bbwarn, bbplain, bberror, and bbfatal) are now connected through to their BitBake equivalents bb.debug(), bb.note(), bb.warn(), bb.plain(), bb.error(), and bb.fatal(), respectively. Thus, those message functions that you would expect to be printed by the BitBake UI are now actually printed. In practice, this change means two things:

  • If you now see messages on the console that you did not previously see as a result of this change, you might need to clean up the calls to bbwarn, bberror, and so forth. Or, you might want to simply remove the calls.

  • The bbfatal message function now suppresses the full error log in the UI, which means any calls to bbfatal where you still wish to see the full error log should be replaced by die or bbfatal_log.

24.8.6. Extra Development/Debug Package Cleanup

The following recipes have had extra dev/dbg packages removed:

  • acl

  • apmd

  • aspell

  • attr

  • augeas

  • bzip2

  • cogl

  • curl

  • elfutils

  • gcc-target

  • libgcc

  • libtool

  • libxmu

  • opkg

  • pciutils

  • rpm

  • sysfsutils

  • tiff

  • xz

All of the above recipes now conform to the standard packaging scheme where a single -dev, -dbg, and -staticdev package exists per recipe.

24.8.7. Recipe Maintenance Tracking Data Moved to OE-Core

Maintenance tracking data for recipes that was previously part of meta-yocto has been moved to OE-Core. The change includes package_regex.inc and distro_alias.inc, which are typically enabled when using the distrodata class. Additionally, the contents of upstream_tracking.inc has now been split out to the relevant recipes.

24.8.8. Automatic Stale Sysroot File Cleanup

Stale files from recipes that no longer exist in the current configuration are now automatically removed from sysroot as well as removed from any other place managed by shared state. This automatic cleanup means that the build system now properly handles situations such as renaming the build system side of recipes, removal of layers from bblayers.conf, and DISTRO_FEATURES changes.

Additionally, work directories for old versions of recipes are now pruned. If you wish to disable pruning old work directories, you can set the following variable in your configuration:

     SSTATE_PRUNE_OBSOLETEWORKDIR = "0"
            

24.8.9. linux-yocto Kernel Metadata Repository Now Split from Source

The linux-yocto tree has up to now been a combined set of kernel changes and configuration (meta) data carried in a single tree. While this format is effective at keeping kernel configuration and source modifications synchronized, it is not always obvious to developers how to manipulate the Metadata as compared to the source.

Metadata processing has now been removed from the kernel-yocto class and the external Metadata repository yocto-kernel-cache, which has always been used to seed the linux-yocto "meta" branch. This separate linux-yocto cache repository is now the primary location for this data. Due to this change, linux-yocto is no longer able to process combined trees. Thus, if you need to have your own combined kernel repository, you must do the split there as well and update your recipes accordingly. See the meta/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto_4.1.bb recipe for an example.

24.8.10. Additional QA checks

The following QA checks have been added:

  • Added a "host-user-contaminated" check for ownership issues for packaged files outside of /home. The check looks for files that are incorrectly owned by the user that ran BitBake instead of owned by a valid user in the target system.

  • Added an "invalid-chars" check for invalid (non-UTF8) characters in recipe metadata variable values (i.e. DESCRIPTION, SUMMARY, LICENSE, and SECTION). Some package managers do not support these characters.

  • Added an "invalid-packageconfig" check for any options specified in PACKAGECONFIG that do not match any PACKAGECONFIG option defined for the recipe.

24.8.11. Miscellaneous Changes

These additional changes exist:

  • gtk-update-icon-cache has been renamed to gtk-icon-utils.

  • The tools-profile IMAGE_FEATURES item as well as its corresponding packagegroup and packagegroup-core-tools-profile no longer bring in oprofile. Bringing in oprofile was originally added to aid compilation on resource-constrained targets. However, this aid has not been widely used and is not likely to be used going forward due to the more powerful target platforms and the existence of better cross-compilation tools.

  • The IMAGE_FSTYPES variable's default value now specifies ext4 instead of ext3.

  • All support for the PRINC variable has been removed.

  • The packagegroup-core-full-cmdline packagegroup no longer brings in lighttpd due to the fact that bringing in lighttpd is not really in line with the packagegroup's purpose, which is to add full versions of command-line tools that by default are provided by busybox.

24.9. Moving to the Yocto Project 2.1 Release

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 2.1 Release from the prior release.

24.9.1. Variable Expansion in Python Functions

Variable expressions, such as ${VARNAME} no longer expand automatically within Python functions. Suppressing expansion was done to allow Python functions to construct shell scripts or other code for situations in which you do not want such expressions expanded. For any existing code that relies on these expansions, you need to change the expansions to expand the value of individual variables through d.getVar(). To alternatively expand more complex expressions, use d.expand().

24.9.2. Overrides Must Now be Lower-Case

The convention for overrides has always been for them to be lower-case characters. This practice is now a requirement as BitBake's datastore now assumes lower-case characters in order to give a slight performance boost during parsing. In practical terms, this requirement means that anything that ends up in OVERRIDES must now appear in lower-case characters (e.g. values for MACHINE, TARGET_ARCH, DISTRO, and also recipe names if _pn-recipename overrides are to be effective).

24.9.3. Expand Parameter to getVar() and getVarFlag() is Now Mandatory

The expand parameter to getVar() and getVarFlag() previously defaulted to False if not specified. Now, however, no default exists so one must be specified. You must change any getVar() calls that do not specify the final expand parameter to calls that do specify the parameter. You can run the following sed command at the base of a layer to make this change:

     sed -e 's:\(\.getVar([^,()]*\)):\1, False):g' -i `grep -ril getVar *`
     sed -e 's:\(\.getVarFlag([^,()]*, [^,()]*\)):\1, False):g' -i `grep -ril getVarFlag *`
            

Note

The reason for this change is that it prepares the way for changing the default to True in a future Yocto Project release. This future change is a much more sensible default than False. However, the change needs to be made gradually as a sudden change of the default would potentially cause side-effects that would be difficult to detect.

24.9.4. Makefile Environment Changes

EXTRA_OEMAKE now defaults to "" instead of "-e MAKEFLAGS=". Setting EXTRA_OEMAKE to "-e MAKEFLAGS=" by default was a historical accident that has required many classes (e.g. autotools, module) and recipes to override this default in order to work with sensible build systems. When upgrading to the release, you must edit any recipe that relies upon this old default by either setting EXTRA_OEMAKE back to "-e MAKEFLAGS=" or by explicitly setting any required variable value overrides using EXTRA_OEMAKE, which is typically only needed when a Makefile sets a default value for a variable that is inappropriate for cross-compilation using the "=" operator rather than the "?=" operator.

24.9.5. libexecdir Reverted to ${prefix}/libexec

The use of ${libdir}/${BPN} as libexecdir is different as compared to all other mainstream distributions, which either uses ${prefix}/libexec or ${libdir}. The use is also contrary to the GNU Coding Standards (i.e. https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Directory-Variables.html) that suggest ${prefix}/libexec and also notes that any package-specific nesting should be done by the package itself. Finally, having libexecdir change between recipes makes it very difficult for different recipes to invoke binaries that have been installed into libexecdir. The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (i.e. http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch04s07.html) now recognizes the use of ${prefix}/libexec/, giving distributions the choice between ${prefix}/lib or ${prefix}/libexec without breaking FHS.

24.9.6. ac_cv_sizeof_off_t is No Longer Cached in Site Files

For recipes inheriting the autotools class, ac_cv_sizeof_off_t is no longer cached in the site files for autoconf. The reason for this change is because the ac_cv_sizeof_off_t value is not necessarily static per architecture as was previously assumed. Rather, the value changes based on whether large file support is enabled. For most software that uses autoconf, this change should not be a problem. However, if you have a recipe that bypasses the standard do_configure task from the autotools class and the software the recipe is building uses a very old version of autoconf, the recipe might be incapable of determining the correct size of off_t during do_configure.

The best course of action is to patch the software as necessary to allow the default implementation from the autotools class to work such that autoreconf succeeds and produces a working configure script, and to remove the overridden do_configure task such that the default implementation does get used.

24.9.7. Image Generation is Now Split Out from Filesystem Generation

Previously, for image recipes the do_rootfs task assembled the filesystem and then from that filesystem generated images. With this Yocto Project release, image generation is split into separate do_image_* tasks for clarity both in operation and in the code.

For most cases, this change does not present any problems. However, if you have made customizations that directly modify the do_rootfs task or that mention do_rootfs, you might need to update those changes. In particular, if you had added any tasks after do_rootfs, you should make edits so that those tasks are after the do_image_complete task rather than after do_rootfs so that the your added tasks run at the correct time.

A minor part of this restructuring is that the post-processing definitions and functions have been moved from the image class to the rootfs-postcommands class. Functionally, however, they remain unchanged.

24.9.8. Removed Recipes

The following recipes have been removed in the 2.1 release:

  • gcc version 4.8: Versions 4.9 and 5.3 remain.

  • qt4: All support for Qt 4.x has been moved out to a separate meta-qt4 layer because Qt 4 is no longer supported upstream.

  • x11vnc: Moved to the meta-oe layer.

  • linux-yocto-3.14: No longer supported.

  • linux-yocto-3.19: No longer supported.

  • libjpeg: Replaced by the libjpeg-turbo recipe.

  • pth: Became obsolete.

  • liboil: Recipe is no longer needed and has been moved to the meta-multimedia layer.

  • gtk-theme-torturer: Recipe is no longer needed and has been moved to the meta-gnome layer.

  • gnome-mime-data: Recipe is no longer needed and has been moved to the meta-gnome layer.

  • udev: Replaced by the eudev recipe for compatibility when using sysvinit with newer kernels.

  • python-pygtk: Recipe became obsolete.

  • adt-installer: Recipe became obsolete. See the "ADT Removed" section for more information.

24.9.9. Class Changes

The following classes have changed:

  • autotools_stage: Removed because the autotools class now provides its functionality. Recipes that inherited from autotools_stage should now inherit from autotools instead.

  • boot-directdisk: Merged into the image-vm class. The boot-directdisk class was rarely directly used. Consequently, this change should not cause any issues.

  • bootimg: Merged into the image-live class. The bootimg class was rarely directly used. Consequently, this change should not cause any issues.

  • packageinfo: Removed due to its limited use by the Hob UI, which has itself been removed.

24.9.10. Build System User Interface Changes

The following changes have been made to the build system user interface:

  • Hob GTK+-based UI: Removed because it is unmaintained and based on the outdated GTK+ 2 library. The Toaster web-based UI is much more capable and is actively maintained. See the "Using the Toaster Web Interface" section in the Yocto Project Toaster User Manual for more information on this interface.

  • "puccho" BitBake UI: Removed because is unmaintained and no longer useful.

24.9.11. ADT Removed

The Application Development Toolkit (ADT) has been removed because its functionality almost completely overlapped with the standard SDK and the extensible SDK. For information on these SDKs and how to build and use them, see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

Note

The Yocto Project Eclipse IDE Plug-in is still supported and is not affected by this change.

24.9.12. Poky Reference Distribution Changes

The following changes have been made for the Poky distribution:

  • The meta-yocto layer has been renamed to meta-poky to better match its purpose, which is to provide the Poky reference distribution. The meta-yocto-bsp layer retains its original name since it provides reference machines for the Yocto Project and it is otherwise unrelated to Poky. References to meta-yocto in your conf/bblayers.conf should automatically be updated, so you should not need to change anything unless you are relying on this naming elsewhere.

  • The uninative class is now enabled by default in Poky. This class attempts to isolate the build system from the host distribution's C library and makes re-use of native shared state artifacts across different host distributions practical. With this class enabled, a tarball containing a pre-built C library is downloaded at the start of the build.

    The uninative class is enabled through the meta/conf/distro/include/yocto-uninative.inc file, which for those not using the Poky distribution, can include to easily enable the same functionality.

    Alternatively, if you wish to build your own uninative tarball, you can do so by building the uninative-tarball recipe, making it available to your build machines (e.g. over HTTP/HTTPS) and setting a similar configuration as the one set by yocto-uninative.inc.

  • Static library generation, for most cases, is now disabled by default in the Poky distribution. Disabling this generation saves some build time as well as the size used for build output artifacts.

    Disabling this library generation is accomplished through a meta/conf/distro/include/no-static-libs.inc, which for those not using the Poky distribution can easily include to enable the same functionality.

    Any recipe that needs to opt-out of having the "--disable-static" option specified on the configure command line either because it is not a supported option for the configure script or because static libraries are needed should set the following variable:

         DISABLE_STATIC = ""
                        

  • The separate poky-tiny distribution now uses the musl C library instead of a heavily pared down glibc. Using musl results in a smaller distribution and facilitates much greater maintainability because musl is designed to have a small footprint.

    If you have used poky-tiny and have customized the glibc configuration you will need to redo those customizations with musl when upgrading to the new release.

24.9.13. Packaging Changes

The following changes have been made to packaging:

  • The runuser and mountpoint binaries, which were previously in the main util-linux package, have been split out into the util-linux-runuser and util-linux-mountpoint packages, respectively.

  • The python-elementtree package has been merged into the python-xml package.

24.9.14. Tuning File Changes

The following changes have been made to the tuning files:

  • The "no-thumb-interwork" tuning feature has been dropped from the ARM tune include files. Because interworking is required for ARM EABI, attempting to disable it through a tuning feature no longer makes sense.

    Note

    Support for ARM OABI was deprecated in gcc 4.7.

  • The tune-cortexm*.inc and tune-cortexr4.inc files have been removed because they are poorly tested. Until the OpenEmbedded build system officially gains support for CPUs without an MMU, these tuning files would probably be better maintained in a separate layer if needed.

24.9.15. Supporting GObject Introspection

This release supports generation of GLib Introspective Repository (GIR) files through GObject introspection, which is the standard mechanism for accessing GObject-based software from runtime environments. You can enable, disable, and test the generation of this data. See the "Enabling GObject Introspection Support" section for more information.

24.9.16. Miscellaneous Changes

These additional changes exist:

  • The minimum Git version has been increased to 1.8.3.1. If your host distribution does not provide a sufficiently recent version, you can install the buildtools, which will provide it. See the "Required Git, tar, and Python Versions" section for more information on the buildtools tarball.

  • The buggy and incomplete support for the RPM version 4 package manager has been removed. The well-tested and maintained support for RPM version 5 remains.

  • Previously, the following list of packages were removed if package-management was not in IMAGE_FEATURES, regardless of any dependencies:

         update-rc.d
         base-passwd
         shadow
         update-alternatives
         run-postinsts
                        

    With the Yocto Project 2.1 release, these packages are only removed if "read-only-rootfs" is in IMAGE_FEATURES, since they might still be needed for a read-write image even in the absence of a package manager (e.g. if users need to be added, modified, or removed at runtime).

  • The devtool modify command now defaults to extracting the source since that is most commonly expected. The "-x" or "--extract" options are now no-ops. If you wish to provide your own existing source tree, you will now need to specify either the "-n" or "--no-extract" options when running devtool modify.

  • If the formfactor for a machine is either not supplied or does not specify whether a keyboard is attached, then the default is to assume a keyboard is attached rather than assume no keyboard. This change primarily affects the Sato UI.

  • The .debug directory packaging is now automatic. If your recipe builds software that installs binaries into directories other than the standard ones, you no longer need to take care of setting FILES_${PN}-dbg to pick up the resulting .debug directories as these directories are automatically found and added.

  • Inaccurate disk and CPU percentage data has been dropped from buildstats output. This data has been replaced with getrusage() data and corrected IO statistics. You will probably need to update any custom code that reads the buildstats data.

  • The meta/conf/distro/include/package_regex.inc is now deprecated. The contents of this file have been moved to individual recipes.

    Tip

    Because this file will likely be removed in a future Yocto Project release, it is suggested that you remove any references to the file that might be in your configuration.

  • The v86d/uvesafb has been removed from the genericx86 and genericx86-64 reference machines, which are provided by the meta-yocto-bsp layer. Most modern x86 boards do not rely on this file and it only adds kernel error messages during startup. If you do still need to support uvesafb, you can simply add v86d to your image.

  • Build sysroot paths are now removed from debug symbol files. Removing these paths means that remote GDB using an unstripped build system sysroot will no longer work (although this was never documented to work). The supported method to accomplish something similar is to set IMAGE_GEN_DEBUGFS to "1", which will generate a companion debug image containing unstripped binaries and associated debug sources alongside the image.

24.10. Moving to the Yocto Project 2.2 Release

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 2.2 Release from the prior release.

24.10.1. Minimum Kernel Version

The minimum kernel version for the target system and for SDK is now 3.2.0, due to the upgrade to glibc 2.24. Specifically, for AArch64-based targets the version is 3.14. For Nios II-based targets, the minimum kernel version is 3.19.

Note

For x86 and x86_64, you can reset OLDEST_KERNEL to anything down to 2.6.32 if desired.

24.10.2. Staging Directories in Sysroot Has Been Simplified

The way directories are staged in sysroot has been simplified and introduces the new SYSROOT_DIRS, SYSROOT_DIRS_NATIVE, and SYSROOT_DIRS_BLACKLIST. See the v2 patch series on the OE-Core Mailing List for additional information.

24.10.3. Removal of Old Images and Other Files in tmp/deploy Now Enabled

Removal of old images and other files in tmp/deploy/ is now enabled by default due to a new staging method used for those files. As a result of this change, the RM_OLD_IMAGE variable is now redundant.

24.10.4. Python Changes

The following changes for Python occurred:

24.10.4.1. BitBake Now Requires Python 3.4+

BitBake requires Python 3.4 or greater.

24.10.4.2. UTF-8 Locale Required on Build Host

A UTF-8 locale is required on the build host due to Python 3. Since C.UTF-8 is not a standard, the default is en_US.UTF-8.

24.10.4.3. Metadata Must Now Use Python 3 Syntax

The metadata is now required to use Python 3 syntax. For help preparing metadata, see any of the many Python 3 porting guides available. Alternatively, you can reference the conversion commits for Bitbake and you can use OE-Core as a guide for changes. Following are particular areas of interest:

     * subprocess command-line pipes needing locale decoding
     * the syntax for octal values changed
     * the iter*() functions changed name
     * iterators now return views, not lists
     * changed names for Python modules
                

24.10.4.4. Target Python Recipes Switched to Python 3

Most target Python recipes have now been switched to Python 3. Unfortunately, systems using RPM as a package manager and providing online package-manager support through SMART still require Python 2.

Note

Python 2 and recipes that use it can still be built for the target as with previous versions.

24.10.4.5. buildtools-tarball Includes Python 3

buildtools-tarball now includes Python 3.

24.10.5. uClibc Replaced by musl

uClibc has been removed in favor of musl. Musl has matured, is better maintained, and is compatible with a wider range of applications as compared to uClibc.

24.10.6. ${B} No Longer Default Working Directory for Tasks

${B} is no longer the default working directory for tasks. Consequently, any custom tasks you define now need to either have the [dirs] flag set, or the task needs to change into the appropriate working directory manually (e.g using cd for a shell task).

Note

The preferred method is to use the [dirs] flag.

24.10.7. runqemu Ported to Python

runqemu has been ported to Python and has changed behavior in some cases. Previous usage patterns continue to be supported.

The new runqemu is a Python script. Machine knowledge is no longer hardcoded into runqemu. You can choose to use the qemuboot configuration file to define the BSP's own arguments and to make it bootable with runqemu. If you use a configuration file, use the following form:

     image-name-machine.qemuboot.conf
            

The configuration file enables fine-grained tuning of options passed to QEMU without the runqemu script hard-coding any knowledge about different machines. Using a configuration file is particularly convenient when trying to use QEMU with machines other than the qemu* machines in OE-Core. The qemuboot.conf file is generated by the qemuboot class when the root filesystem is being build (i.e. build rootfs). QEMU boot arguments can be set in BSP's configuration file and the qemuboot class will save them to qemuboot.conf.

If you want to use runqemu without a configuration file, use the following command form:

     $ runqemu machine rootfs kernel [options]
            

Supported machines are as follows:

     qemuarm
     qemuarm64
     qemux86
     qemux86-64
     qemuppc
     qemumips
     qemumips64
     qemumipsel
     qemumips64el
            

Consider the following example, which uses the qemux86-64 machine, provides a root filesystem, provides an image, and uses the nographic option:

$ runqemu qemux86-64 tmp/deploy/images/qemux86-64/core-image-minimal-qemux86-64.ext4 tmp/deploy/images/qemux86-64/bzImage nographic
            

Following is a list of variables that can be set in configuration files such as bsp.conf to enable the BSP to be booted by runqemu:

Note

"QB" means "QEMU Boot".

     QB_SYSTEM_NAME: QEMU name (e.g. "qemu-system-i386")
     QB_OPT_APPEND: Options to append to QEMU (e.g. "-show-cursor")
     QB_DEFAULT_KERNEL: Default kernel to boot (e.g. "bzImage")
     QB_DEFAULT_FSTYPE: Default FSTYPE to boot (e.g. "ext4")
     QB_MEM: Memory (e.g. "-m 512")
     QB_MACHINE: QEMU machine (e.g. "-machine virt")
     QB_CPU: QEMU cpu (e.g. "-cpu qemu32")
     QB_CPU_KVM: Similar to QB_CPU except used for kvm support (e.g. "-cpu kvm64")
     QB_KERNEL_CMDLINE_APPEND: Options to append to the kernel's -append
                               option (e.g. "console=ttyS0 console=tty")
     QB_DTB: QEMU dtb name
     QB_AUDIO_DRV: QEMU audio driver (e.g. "alsa", set it when support audio)
     QB_AUDIO_OPT: QEMU audio option (e.g. "-soundhw ac97,es1370"), which is used
                   when QB_AUDIO_DRV is set.
     QB_KERNEL_ROOT: Kernel's root (e.g. /dev/vda)
     QB_TAP_OPT: Network option for 'tap' mode (e.g.
                 "-netdev tap,id=net0,ifname=@TAP@,script=no,downscript=no -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0").
                  runqemu will replace "@TAP@" with the one that is used, such as tap0, tap1 ...
     QB_SLIRP_OPT: Network option for SLIRP mode (e.g. "-netdev user,id=net0 -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0")
     QB_ROOTFS_OPT: Used as rootfs (e.g.
                    "-drive id=disk0,file=@ROOTFS@,if=none,format=raw -device virtio-blk-device,drive=disk0").
                    runqemu will replace "@ROOTFS@" with the one which is used, such as
                    core-image-minimal-qemuarm64.ext4.
     QB_SERIAL_OPT: Serial port (e.g. "-serial mon:stdio")
     QB_TCPSERIAL_OPT: tcp serial port option (e.g.
                       " -device virtio-serial-device -chardev socket,id=virtcon,port=@PORT@,host=127.0.0.1 -device      virtconsole,chardev=virtcon"
                       runqemu will replace "@PORT@" with the port number which is used.
            

To use runqemu, set IMAGE_CLASSES as follows and run runqemu:

Note

For command-line syntax, use runqemu help.

     IMAGE_CLASSES += "qemuboot"
            

24.10.8. Default Linker Hash Style Changed

The default linker hash style for gcc-cross is now "sysv" in order to catch recipes that are building software without using the OpenEmbedded LDFLAGS. This change could result in seeing some "No GNU_HASH in the elf binary" QA issues when building such recipes. You need to fix these recipes so that they use the expected LDFLAGS. Depending on how the software is built, the build system used by the software (e.g. a Makefile) might need to be patched. However, sometimes making this fix is as simple as adding the following to the recipe:

     TARGET_CC_ARCH += "${LDFLAGS}"
            

24.10.9. KERNEL_IMAGE_BASE_NAME no Longer Uses KERNEL_IMAGETYPE

The KERNEL_IMAGE_BASE_NAME variable no longer uses the KERNEL_IMAGETYPE variable to create the image's base name. Because the OpenEmbedded build system can now build multiple kernel image types, this part of the kernel image base name as been removed leaving only the following:

     KERNEL_IMAGE_BASE_NAME ?= "${PKGE}-${PKGV}-${PKGR}-${MACHINE}-${DATETIME}
            

If you have recipes or classes that use KERNEL_IMAGE_BASE_NAME directly, you might need to update the references to ensure they continue to work.

24.10.10. BitBake Changes

The following changes took place for BitBake:

  • The "goggle" UI and standalone image-writer tool have been removed as they both require GTK+ 2.0 and were not being maintained.

  • The Perforce fetcher now supports SRCREV for specifying the source revision to use, be it ${AUTOREV}, changelist number, p4date, or label, in preference to separate SRC_URI parameters to specify these. This change is more in-line with how the other fetchers work for source control systems. Recipes that fetch from Perforce will need to be updated to use SRCREV in place of specifying the source revision within SRC_URI.

  • Some of BitBake's internal code structures for accessing the recipe cache needed to be changed to support the new multi-configuration functionality. These changes will affect external tools that use BitBake's tinfoil module. For information on these changes, see the changes made to the scripts supplied with OpenEmbedded-Core: 1 and 2.

  • The task management code has been rewritten to avoid using ID indirection in order to improve performance. This change is unlikely to cause any problems for most users. However, the setscene verification function as pointed to by BB_SETSCENE_VERIFY_FUNCTION needed to change signature. Consequently, a new variable named BB_SETSCENE_VERIFY_FUNCTION2 has been added allowing multiple versions of BitBake to work with suitably written metadata, which includes OpenEmbedded-Core and Poky. Anyone with custom BitBake task scheduler code might also need to update the code to handle the new structure.

24.10.11. Swabber has Been Removed

Swabber, a tool that was intended to detect host contamination in the build process, has been removed, as it has been unmaintained and unused for some time and was never particularly effective. The OpenEmbedded build system has since incorporated a number of mechanisms including enhanced QA checks that mean that there is less of a need for such a tool.

24.10.12. Removed Recipes

The following recipes have been removed:

  • augeas: No longer needed and has been moved to meta-oe.

  • directfb: Unmaintained and has been moved to meta-oe.

  • gcc: Removed 4.9 version. Versions 5.4 and 6.2 are still present.

  • gnome-doc-utils: No longer needed.

  • gtk-doc-stub: Replaced by gtk-doc.

  • gtk-engines: No longer needed and has been moved to meta-gnome.

  • gtk-sato-engine: Became obsolete.

  • libglade: No longer needed and has been moved to meta-oe.

  • libmad: Unmaintained and functionally replaced by libmpg123. libmad has been moved to meta-oe.

  • libowl: Became obsolete.

  • libxsettings-client: No longer needed.

  • oh-puzzles: Functionally replaced by puzzles.

  • oprofileui: Became obsolete. OProfile has been largely supplanted by perf.

  • packagegroup-core-directfb.bb: Removed.

  • core-image-directfb.bb: Removed.

  • pointercal: No longer needed and has been moved to meta-oe.

  • python-imaging: No longer needed and moved to meta-python

  • python-pyrex: No longer needed and moved to meta-python.

  • sato-icon-theme: Became obsolete.

  • swabber-native: Swabber has been removed. See the entry on Swabber.

  • tslib: No longer needed and has been moved to meta-oe.

  • uclibc: Removed in favor of musl.

  • xtscal: No longer needed and moved to meta-oe

24.10.13. Removed Classes

The following classes have been removed:

  • distutils-native-base: No longer needed.

  • distutils3-native-base: No longer needed.

  • sdl: Only set DEPENDS and SECTION, which are better set within the recipe instead.

  • sip: Mostly unused.

  • swabber: See the entry on Swabber.

24.10.14. Minor Packaging Changes

The following minor packaging changes have occurred:

  • grub: Split grub-editenv into its own package.

  • systemd: Split container and vm related units into a new package, systemd-container.

  • util-linux: Moved prlimit to a separate util-linux-prlimit package.

24.10.15. Miscellaneous Changes

The following miscellaneous changes have occurred:

  • package_regex.inc: Removed because the definitions package_regex.inc previously contained have been moved to their respective recipes.

  • Both devtool add and recipetool create now use a fixed SRCREV by default when fetching from a Git repository. You can override this in either case to use ${AUTOREV} instead by using the -a or ‐‐autorev command-line option

  • distcc: GTK+ UI is now disabled by default.

  • packagegroup-core-tools-testapps: Removed Piglit.

  • image.bbclass: Renamed COMPRESS(ION) to CONVERSION. This change means that COMPRESSIONTYPES, COMPRESS_DEPENDS and COMPRESS_CMD are deprecated in favor of CONVERSIONTYPES, CONVERSION_DEPENDS and CONVERSION_CMD. The COMPRESS* variable names will still work in the 2.2 release but metadata that does not need to be backwards-compatible should be changed to use the new names as the COMPRESS* ones will be removed in a future release.

  • gtk-doc: A full version of gtk-doc is now made available. However, some old software might not be capable of using the current version of gtk-doc to build documentation. You need to change recipes that build such software so that they explicitly disable building documentation with gtk-doc.

24.11. Moving to the Yocto Project 2.3 Release

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 2.3 Release from the prior release.

24.11.1. Recipe-specific Sysroots

The OpenEmbedded build system now uses one sysroot per recipe to resolve long-standing issues with configuration script auto-detection of undeclared dependencies. Consequently, you might find that some of your previously written custom recipes are missing declared dependencies, particularly those dependencies that are incidentally built earlier in a typical build process and thus are already likely to be present in the shared sysroot in previous releases.

Consider the following:

  • Declare Build-Time Dependencies: Because of this new feature, you must explicitly declare all build-time dependencies for your recipe. If you do not declare these dependencies, they are not populated into the sysroot for the recipe.

  • Specify Pre-Installation and Post-Installation Native Tool Dependencies: You must specifically specify any special native tool dependencies of pkg_preinst and pkg_postinst scripts by using the PACKAGE_WRITE_DEPS variable. Specifying these dependencies ensures that these tools are available if these scripts need to be run on the build host during the do_rootfs task.

    As an example, see the dbus recipe. You will see that this recipe has a pkg_postinst that calls systemctl if "systemd" is in DISTRO_FEATURES. In the example, systemd-systemctl-native is added to PACKAGE_WRITE_DEPS, which is also conditional on "systemd" being in DISTRO_FEATURES.

  • Examine Recipes that Use SSTATEPOSTINSTFUNCS: You need to examine any recipe that uses SSTATEPOSTINSTFUNCS and determine steps to take.

    Functions added to SSTATEPOSTINSTFUNCS are still called as they were in previous Yocto Project releases. However, since a separate sysroot is now being populated for every recipe and if existing functions being called through SSTATEPOSTINSTFUNCS are doing relocation, then you will need to change these to use a post-installation script that is installed by a function added to SYSROOT_PREPROCESS_FUNCS.

    For an example, see the pixbufcache class in meta/classes/ in the Yocto Project Source Repositories.

    Note

    The SSTATEPOSTINSTFUNCS variable itself is now deprecated in favor of the do_populate_sysroot[postfuncs] task. Consequently, if you do still have any function or functions that need to be called after the sysroot component is created for a recipe, then you would be well advised to take steps to use a post installation script as described previously. Taking these steps prepares your code for when SSTATEPOSTINSTFUNCS is removed in a future Yocto Project release.

  • Specify the Sysroot when Using Certain External Scripts: Because the shared sysroot is now gone, the scripts oe-find-native-sysroot and oe-run-native have been changed such that you need to specify which recipe's STAGING_DIR_NATIVE is used.

Note

You can find more information on how recipe-specific sysroots work in the "staging.bbclass" section.

24.11.2. PATH Variable

Within the environment used to run build tasks, the environment variable PATH is now sanitized such that the normal native binary paths (/bin, /sbin, /usr/bin and so forth) are removed and a directory containing symbolic links linking only to the binaries from the host mentioned in the HOSTTOOLS and HOSTTOOLS_NONFATAL variables is added to PATH.

Consequently, any native binaries provided by the host that you need to call needs to be in one of these two variables at the configuration level.

Alternatively, you can add a native recipe (i.e. -native) that provides the binary to the recipe's DEPENDS value.

Note

PATH is not sanitized in the same way within devshell. If it were, you would have difficulty running host tools for development and debugging within the shell.

24.11.3. Changes to Scripts

The following changes to scripts took place:

  • oe-find-native-sysroot: The usage for the oe-find-native-sysroot script has changed to the following:

         $ . oe-find-native-sysroot recipe
                        

    You must now supply a recipe for recipe as part of the command. Prior to the Yocto Project 2.3.3 release, it was not necessary to provide the script with the command.

  • oe-run-native: The usage for the oe-run-native script has changed to the following:

         $ oe-run-native native_recipe tool
                        

    You must supply the name of the native recipe and the tool you want to run as part of the command. Prior to the Yocto Project 2.3.3 release, it was not necessary to provide the native recipe with the command.

  • cleanup-workdir: The cleanup-workdir script has been removed because the script was found to be deleting files it should not have, which lead to broken build trees. Rather than trying to delete portions of TMPDIR and getting it wrong, it is recommended that you delete TMPDIR and have it restored from shared state (sstate) on subsequent builds.

  • wipe-sysroot: The wipe-sysroot script has been removed as it is no longer needed with recipe-specific sysroots.

24.11.4. Changes to Functions

The previously deprecated bb.data.getVar(), bb.data.setVar(), and related functions have been removed in favor of d.getVar(), d.setVar(), and so forth.

You need to fix any references to these old functions.

24.11.5. BitBake Changes

The following changes took place for BitBake:

  • BitBake's Graphical Dependency Explorer UI Replaced: BitBake's graphical dependency explorer UI depexp was replaced by taskexp ("Task Explorer"), which provides a graphical way of exploring the task-depends.dot file. The data presented by Task Explorer is much more accurate than the data that was presented by depexp. Being able to visualize the data is an often requested feature as standard *.dot file viewers cannot usual cope with the size of the task-depends.dot file.

  • BitBake "-g" Output Changes: The package-depends.dot and pn-depends.dot files as previously generated using the bitbake -g command have been removed. A recipe-depends.dot file is now generated as a collapsed version of task-depends.dot instead.

    The reason for this change is because package-depends.dot and pn-depends.dot largely date back to a time before task-based execution and do not take into account task-level dependencies between recipes, which could be misleading.

  • Mirror Variable Splitting Changes: Mirror variables including MIRRORS, PREMIRRORS, and SSTATE_MIRRORS can now separate values entirely with spaces. Consequently, you no longer need "\\n". BitBake looks for pairs of values, which simplifies usage. There should be no change required to existing mirror variable values themselves.

  • The Subversion (SVN) Fetcher Uses an "ssh" Parameter and Not an "rsh" Parameter: The SVN fetcher now takes an "ssh" parameter instead of an "rsh" parameter. This new optional parameter is used when the "protocol" parameter is set to "svn+ssh". You can only use the new parameter to specify the ssh program used by SVN. The SVN fetcher passes the new parameter through the SVN_SSH environment variable during the do_fetch task.

    See the "Subversion (SVN) Fetcher (svn://)" section in the Yocto Project BitBake User Manual for additional information.

  • BB_SETSCENE_VERIFY_FUNCTION and BB_SETSCENE_VERIFY_FUNCTION2 Removed: Because the mechanism they were part of is no longer necessary with recipe-specific sysroots, the BB_SETSCENE_VERIFY_FUNCTION and BB_SETSCENE_VERIFY_FUNCTION2 variables have been removed.

Absolute symbolic links (symlinks) within staged files are no longer permitted and now trigger an error. Any explicit creation of symlinks can use the lnr script, which is a replacement for ln -r.

If the build scripts in the software that the recipe is building are creating a number of absolute symlinks that need to be corrected, you can inherit relative_symlinks within the recipe to turn those absolute symlinks into relative symlinks.

24.11.7. GPLv2 Versions of GPLv3 Recipes Moved

Older GPLv2 versions of GPLv3 recipes have moved to a separate meta-gplv2 layer.

If you use INCOMPATIBLE_LICENSE to exclude GPLv3 or set PREFERRED_VERSION to substitute a GPLv2 version of a GPLv3 recipe, then you must add the meta-gplv2 layer to your configuration.

Note

You can find meta-gplv2 layer in the OpenEmbedded layer index at https://layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/branch/master/layer/meta-gplv2/.

These relocated GPLv2 recipes do not receive the same level of maintenance as other core recipes. The recipes do not get security fixes and upstream no longer maintains them. In fact, the upstream community is actively hostile towards people that use the old versions of the recipes. Moving these recipes into a separate layer both makes the different needs of the recipes clearer and clearly identifies the number of these recipes.

Note

The long-term solution might be to move to BSD-licensed replacements of the GPLv3 components for those that need to exclude GPLv3-licensed components from the target system. This solution will be investigated for future Yocto Project releases.

24.11.8. Package Management Changes

The following package management changes took place:

  • Smart package manager is replaced by DNF package manager. Smart has become unmaintained upstream, is not ported to Python 3.x. Consequently, Smart needed to be replaced. DNF is the only feasible candidate.

    The change in functionality is that the on-target runtime package management from remote package feeds is now done with a different tool that has a different set of command-line options. If you have scripts that call the tool directly, or use its API, they need to be fixed.

    For more information, see the DNF Documentation.

  • Rpm 5.x is replaced with Rpm 4.x. This is done for two major reasons:

    • DNF is API-incompatible with Rpm 5.x and porting it and maintaining the port is non-trivial.

    • Rpm 5.x itself has limited maintenance upstream, and the Yocto Project is one of the very few remaining users.

  • Berkeley DB 6.x is removed and Berkeley DB 5.x becomes the default:

    • Version 6.x of Berkeley DB has largely been rejected by the open source community due to its AGPLv3 license. As a result, most mainstream open source projects that require DB are still developed and tested with DB 5.x.

    • In OE-core, the only thing that was requiring DB 6.x was Rpm 5.x. Thus, no reason exists to continue carrying DB 6.x in OE-core.

  • createrepo is replaced with createrepo_c.

    createrepo_c is the current incarnation of the tool that generates remote repository metadata. It is written in C as compared to createrepo, which is written in Python. createrepo_c is faster and is maintained.

  • Architecture-independent RPM packages are "noarch" instead of "all".

    This change was made because too many places in DNF/RPM4 stack already make that assumption. Only the filenames and the architecture tag has changed. Nothing else has changed in OE-core system, particularly in the allarch.bbclass class.

  • Signing of remote package feeds using PACKAGE_FEED_SIGN is not currently supported. This issue will be fully addressed in a future Yocto Project release. See defect 11209 for more information on a solution to package feed signing with RPM in the Yocto Project 2.3 release.

  • OPKG now uses the libsolv backend for resolving package dependencies by default. This is vastly superior to OPKG's internal ad-hoc solver that was previously used. This change does have a small impact on disk (around 500 KB) and memory footprint.

    Note

    For further details on this change, see the commit message.

24.11.9. Removed Recipes

The following recipes have been removed:

  • linux-yocto 4.8: Version 4.8 has been removed. Versions 4.1 (LTSI), 4.4 (LTS), 4.9 (LTS/LTSI) and 4.10 are now present.

  • python-smartpm: Functionally replaced by dnf.

  • createrepo: Replaced by the createrepo-c recipe.

  • rpmresolve: No longer needed with the move to RPM 4 as RPM itself is used instead.

  • gstreamer: Removed the GStreamer Git version recipes as they have been stale. 1.10.x recipes are still present.

  • alsa-conf-base: Merged into alsa-conf since libasound depended on both. Essentially, no way existed to install only one of these.

  • tremor: Moved to meta-multimedia. Fixed-integer Vorbis decoding is not needed by current hardware. Thus, GStreamer's ivorbis plugin has been disabled by default eliminating the need for the tremor recipe in OE-Core.

  • gummiboot: Replaced by systemd-boot.

24.11.10. Wic Changes

The following changes have been made to Wic:

Note

For more information on Wic, see the "Creating Partitioned Images" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

  • Default Output Directory Changed: Wic's default output directory is now the current directory by default instead of the unusual /var/tmp/wic.

    The "-o" and "--outdir" options remain unchanged and are used to specify your preferred output directory if you do not want to use the default directory.

  • fsimage Plug-in Removed: The Wic fsimage plug-in has been removed as it duplicates functionality of the rawcopy plug-in.

24.11.11. QA Changes

The following QA checks have changed:

  • unsafe-references-in-binaries: The unsafe-references-in-binaries QA check, which was disabled by default, has now been removed. This check was intended to detect binaries in /bin that link to libraries in /usr/lib and have the case where the user has /usr on a separate filesystem to /.

    The removed QA check was buggy. Additionally, /usr residing on a separate partition from / is now a rare configuration. Consequently, unsafe-references-in-binaries was removed.

  • file-rdeps: The file-rdeps QA check is now an error by default instead of a warning. Because it is an error instead of a warning, you need to address missing runtime dependencies.

    For additional information, see the insane class and the "Errors and Warnings" section.

24.11.12. Miscellaneous Changes

The following miscellaneous changes have occurred:

  • In this release, a number of recipes have been changed to ignore the largefile DISTRO_FEATURES item, enabling large file support unconditionally. This feature has always been enabled by default. Disabling the feature has not been widely tested.

    Note

    Future releases of the Yocto Project will remove entirely the ability to disable the largefile feature, which would make it unconditionally enabled everywhere.

  • If the DISTRO_VERSION value contains the value of the DATE variable, which is the default between Poky releases, the DATE value is explicitly excluded from /etc/issue and /etc/issue.net, which is displayed at the login prompt, in order to avoid conflicts with Multilib enabled. Regardless, the DATE value is inaccurate if the base-files recipe is restored from shared state (sstate) rather than rebuilt.

    If you need the build date recorded in /etc/issue* or anywhere else in your image, a better method is to define a post-processing function to do it and have the function called from ROOTFS_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND. Doing so ensures the value is always up-to-date with the created image.

  • Dropbear's init script now disables DSA host keys by default. This change is in line with the systemd service file, which supports RSA keys only, and with recent versions of OpenSSH, which deprecates DSA host keys.

  • The buildhistory class now correctly uses tabs as separators between all columns in installed-package-sizes.txt in order to aid import into other tools.

  • The USE_LDCONFIG variable has been replaced with the "ldconfig" DISTRO_FEATURES feature. Distributions that previously set:

         USE_LDCONFIG = "0"
                        

    should now instead use the following:

         DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED_append = " ldconfig"
                        

  • The default value of COPYLEFT_LICENSE_INCLUDE now includes all versions of AGPL licenses in addition to GPL and LGPL.

    Note

    The default list is not intended to be guaranteed as a complete safe list. You should seek legal advice based on what you are distributing if you are unsure.

  • Kernel module packages are now suffixed with the kernel version in order to allow module packages from multiple kernel versions to co-exist on a target system. If you wish to return to the previous naming scheme that does not include the version suffix, use the following:

         KERNEL_MODULE_PACKAGE_SUFFIX to ""
                        

  • Removal of libtool *.la files is now enabled by default. The *.la files are not actually needed on Linux and relocating them is an unnecessary burden.

    If you need to preserve these .la files (e.g. in a custom distribution), you must change INHERIT_DISTRO such that "remove-libtool" is not included in the value.

  • Extensible SDKs built for GCC 5+ now refuse to install on a distribution where the host GCC version is 4.8 or 4.9. This change resulted from the fact that the installation is known to fail due to the way the uninative shared state (sstate) package is built. See the uninative class for additional information.

  • All native and nativesdk recipes now use a separate DISTRO_FEATURES value instead of sharing the value used by recipes for the target, in order to avoid unnecessary rebuilds.

    The DISTRO_FEATURES for native recipes is DISTRO_FEATURES_NATIVE added to an intersection of DISTRO_FEATURES and DISTRO_FEATURES_FILTER_NATIVE.

    For nativesdk recipes, the corresponding variables are DISTRO_FEATURES_NATIVESDK and DISTRO_FEATURES_FILTER_NATIVESDK.

  • The FILESDIR variable, which was previously deprecated and rarely used, has now been removed. You should change any recipes that set FILESDIR to set FILESPATH instead.

  • The MULTIMACH_HOST_SYS variable has been removed as it is no longer needed with recipe-specific sysroots.

Chapter 25. Source Directory Structure

25.1. Top-Level Core Components
25.1.1. bitbake/
25.1.2. build/
25.1.3. documentation/
25.1.4. meta/
25.1.5. meta-poky/
25.1.6. meta-yocto-bsp/
25.1.7. meta-selftest/
25.1.8. meta-skeleton/
25.1.9. scripts/
25.1.10. oe-init-build-env
25.1.11. oe-init-build-env-memres
25.1.12. LICENSE, README, and README.hardware
25.2. The Build Directory - build/
25.2.1. build/buildhistory
25.2.2. build/conf/local.conf
25.2.3. build/conf/bblayers.conf
25.2.4. build/conf/sanity_info
25.2.5. build/downloads/
25.2.6. build/sstate-cache/
25.2.7. build/tmp/
25.2.8. build/tmp/buildstats/
25.2.9. build/tmp/cache/
25.2.10. build/tmp/deploy/
25.2.11. build/tmp/deploy/deb/
25.2.12. build/tmp/deploy/rpm/
25.2.13. build/tmp/deploy/ipk/
25.2.14. build/tmp/deploy/licenses/
25.2.15. build/tmp/deploy/images/
25.2.16. build/tmp/deploy/sdk/
25.2.17. build/tmp/sstate-control/
25.2.18. build/tmp/sysroots-components/
25.2.19. build/tmp/sysroots/
25.2.20. build/tmp/stamps/
25.2.21. build/tmp/log/
25.2.22. build/tmp/work/
25.2.23. build/tmp/work/tunearch/recipename/version/
25.2.24. build/tmp/work-shared/
25.3. The Metadata - meta/
25.3.1. meta/classes/
25.3.2. meta/conf/
25.3.3. meta/conf/machine/
25.3.4. meta/conf/distro/
25.3.5. meta/conf/machine-sdk/
25.3.6. meta/files/
25.3.7. meta/lib/
25.3.8. meta/recipes-bsp/
25.3.9. meta/recipes-connectivity/
25.3.10. meta/recipes-core/
25.3.11. meta/recipes-devtools/
25.3.12. meta/recipes-extended/
25.3.13. meta/recipes-gnome/
25.3.14. meta/recipes-graphics/
25.3.15. meta/recipes-kernel/
25.3.16. meta/recipes-lsb4/
25.3.17. meta/recipes-multimedia/
25.3.18. meta/recipes-rt/
25.3.19. meta/recipes-sato/
25.3.20. meta/recipes-support/
25.3.21. meta/site/
25.3.22. meta/recipes.txt

The Source Directory consists of several components. Understanding them and knowing where they are located is key to using the Yocto Project well. This chapter describes the Source Directory and gives information about the various files and directories.

For information on how to establish a local Source Directory on your development system, see the "Getting Set Up" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

Note

The OpenEmbedded build system does not support file or directory names that contain spaces. Be sure that the Source Directory you use does not contain these types of names.

25.1. Top-Level Core Components

This section describes the top-level components of the Source Directory.

25.1.1. bitbake/

This directory includes a copy of BitBake for ease of use. The copy usually matches the current stable BitBake release from the BitBake project. BitBake, a Metadata interpreter, reads the Yocto Project Metadata and runs the tasks defined by that data. Failures are usually from the Metadata and not from BitBake itself. Consequently, most users do not need to worry about BitBake.

When you run the bitbake command, the main BitBake executable, which resides in the bitbake/bin/ directory, starts. Sourcing an environment setup script (e.g. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres) places the scripts and bitbake/bin directories (in that order) into the shell's PATH environment variable.

For more information on BitBake, see the BitBake User Manual.

25.1.2. build/

This directory contains user configuration files and the output generated by the OpenEmbedded build system in its standard configuration where the source tree is combined with the output. The Build Directory is created initially when you source the OpenEmbedded build environment setup script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres).

It is also possible to place output and configuration files in a directory separate from the Source Directory by providing a directory name when you source the setup script. For information on separating output from your local Source Directory files, see the "oe-init-build-env and "oe-init-build-env-memres" sections.

25.1.3. documentation/

This directory holds the source for the Yocto Project documentation as well as templates and tools that allow you to generate PDF and HTML versions of the manuals. Each manual is contained in a sub-folder. For example, the files for this manual reside in the ref-manual/ directory.

25.1.4. meta/

This directory contains the OpenEmbedded Core metadata. The directory holds recipes, common classes, and machine configuration for emulated targets (qemux86, qemuarm, and so forth.)

25.1.5. meta-poky/

This directory contains the configuration for the Poky reference distribution.

25.1.6. meta-yocto-bsp/

This directory contains the Yocto Project reference hardware Board Support Packages (BSPs). For more information on BSPs, see the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide.

25.1.7. meta-selftest/

This directory adds additional recipes and append files used by the OpenEmbedded selftests to verify the behavior of the build system.

You do not have to add this layer to your bblayers.conf file unless you want to run the selftests.

25.1.8. meta-skeleton/

This directory contains template recipes for BSP and kernel development.

25.1.9. scripts/

This directory contains various integration scripts that implement extra functionality in the Yocto Project environment (e.g. QEMU scripts). The oe-init-build-env and oe-init-build-env-memres scripts append this directory to the shell's PATH environment variable.

The scripts directory has useful scripts that assist in contributing back to the Yocto Project, such as create-pull-request and send-pull-request.

25.1.10. oe-init-build-env

This script is one of two scripts that set up the OpenEmbedded build environment. For information on the other script, see the "oe-init-build-env-memres" section.

Running this script with the source command in a shell makes changes to PATH and sets other core BitBake variables based on the current working directory. You need to run an environment setup script before running BitBake commands. The script uses other scripts within the scripts directory to do the bulk of the work.

When you run this script, your Yocto Project environment is set up, a Build Directory is created, your working directory becomes the Build Directory, and you are presented with a list of common BitBake targets. Here is an example:

     $ source oe-init-build-env

     ### Shell environment set up for builds. ###

     You can now run 'bitbake <target>'

     Common targets are:
         core-image-minimal
         core-image-sato
         meta-toolchain
         meta-ide-support

     You can also run generated qemu images with a command like 'runqemu qemux86'
            

The script gets its default list of common targets from the conf-notes.txt file, which is found in the meta-poky directory within the Source Directory. Should you have custom distributions, it is very easy to modify this configuration file to include your targets for your distribution. See the "Creating a Custom Template Configuration Directory" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information.

By default, running this script without a Build Directory argument creates the build directory in your current working directory. If you provide a Build Directory argument when you source the script, you direct the OpenEmbedded build system to create a Build Directory of your choice. For example, the following command creates a Build Directory named mybuilds that is outside of the Source Directory:

     $ source oe-init-build-env ~/mybuilds
            

The OpenEmbedded build system uses the template configuration files, which are found by default in the meta-poky/conf directory in the Source Directory. See the "Creating a Custom Template Configuration Directory" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information.

Note

The OpenEmbedded build system does not support file or directory names that contain spaces. If you attempt to run the oe-init-build-env script from a Source Directory that contains spaces in either the filenames or directory names, the script returns an error indicating no such file or directory. Be sure to use a Source Directory free of names containing spaces.

25.1.11. oe-init-build-env-memres

This script is one of two scripts that set up the OpenEmbedded build environment. Aside from setting up the environment, this script starts a memory-resident BitBake server. For information on the other setup script, see the "oe-init-build-env" section.

Memory-resident BitBake resides in memory until you specifically remove it using the following BitBake command:

     $ bitbake -m
            

Running this script with the source command in a shell makes changes to PATH and sets other core BitBake variables based on the current working directory. One of these variables is the BBSERVER variable, which allows the OpenEmbedded build system to locate the server that is running BitBake.

You need to run an environment setup script before using BitBake commands. Following is the script syntax:

     $ source oe-init-build-env-memres port_number build_dir
            

Following are some considerations when sourcing this script:

  • The script uses other scripts within the scripts directory to do the bulk of the work.

  • If you do not provide a port number with the script, the BitBake server starts at a randomly selected port.

  • The script's parameters are positionally dependent. Consequently, you cannot run the script and provide a Build Directory name without also providing a port number. In other words, the following syntax is illegal:

         $ source oe-initbuild-env-memres build_dir
                        

    Note

    The previous restriction might be resolved in the future. See Bug 7555 for more information.

When you run this script, your Yocto Project environment is set up, a Build Directory is created, your working directory becomes the Build Directory, and you are presented with a list of common BitBake targets. Here is an example:

     $ source oe-init-build-env-memres
     No port specified, using dynamically selected port

     ### Shell environment set up for builds. ###

     You can now run 'bitbake <target>'

     Common targets are:
         core-image-minimal
         core-image-sato
         meta-toolchain
         meta-ide-support

     You can also run generated qemu images with a command like 'runqemu qemux86'
     Bitbake server address: 127.0.0.1, server port: 53995
     Bitbake server started on demand as needed, use bitbake -m to shut it down
            

The script gets its default list of common targets from the conf-notes.txt file, which is found in the meta-poky directory within the Source Directory. Should you have custom distributions, it is very easy to modify this configuration file to include your targets for your distribution. See the "Creating a Custom Template Configuration Directory" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information.

By default, running this script without a Build Directory argument creates a build directory named build. If you provide a Build Directory argument and port number when you source the script, the Build Directory is created using that name. For example, the following command starts the BitBake server using port 53995 and creates a Build Directory named mybuilds that is outside of the Source Directory:

     $ source oe-init-build-env-memres 53995 ~/mybuilds
            

The oe-init-build-env-memres script starts a memory resident BitBake server. This BitBake instance uses the bitbake-cookerdaemon.log file, which is located in the Build Directory.

The OpenEmbedded build system uses the template configuration files, which are found by default in the meta-poky/conf directory in the Source Directory. See the "Creating a Custom Template Configuration Directory" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information.

Note

The OpenEmbedded build system does not support file or directory names that contain spaces. If you attempt to run the oe-init-build-env-memres script from a Source Directory that contains spaces in either the filenames or directory names, the script returns an error indicating no such file or directory. Be sure to use a Source Directory free of names containing spaces.

25.1.12. LICENSE, README, and README.hardware

These files are standard top-level files.

25.2. The Build Directory - build/

The OpenEmbedded build system creates the Build Directory when you run one of the build environment setup scripts (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres).

If you do not give the Build Directory a specific name when you run a setup script, the name defaults to build.

The TOPDIR variable points to the Build Directory.

25.2.1. build/buildhistory

The OpenEmbedded build system creates this directory when you enable the build history feature. The directory tracks build information into image, packages, and SDK subdirectories. For information on the build history feature, see the "Maintaining Build Output Quality" section.

25.2.2. build/conf/local.conf

This configuration file contains all the local user configurations for your build environment. The local.conf file contains documentation on the various configuration options. Any variable set here overrides any variable set elsewhere within the environment unless that variable is hard-coded within a file (e.g. by using '=' instead of '?='). Some variables are hard-coded for various reasons but these variables are relatively rare.

Edit this file to set the MACHINE for which you want to build, which package types you wish to use (PACKAGE_CLASSES), and the location from which you want to access downloaded files (DL_DIR).

If local.conf is not present when you start the build, the OpenEmbedded build system creates it from local.conf.sample when you source the top-level build environment setup script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres).

The source local.conf.sample file used depends on the $TEMPLATECONF script variable, which defaults to meta-poky/conf when you are building from the Yocto Project development environment and defaults to meta/conf when you are building from the OpenEmbedded Core environment. Because the script variable points to the source of the local.conf.sample file, this implies that you can configure your build environment from any layer by setting the variable in the top-level build environment setup script as follows:

     TEMPLATECONF=your_layer/conf
            

Once the build process gets the sample file, it uses sed to substitute final ${OEROOT} values for all ##OEROOT## values.

Note

You can see how the TEMPLATECONF variable is used by looking at the scripts/oe-setup-builddir script in the Source Directory. You can find the Yocto Project version of the local.conf.sample file in the meta-poky/conf directory.

25.2.3. build/conf/bblayers.conf

This configuration file defines layers, which are directory trees, traversed (or walked) by BitBake. The bblayers.conf file uses the BBLAYERS variable to list the layers BitBake tries to find.

If bblayers.conf is not present when you start the build, the OpenEmbedded build system creates it from bblayers.conf.sample when you source the top-level build environment setup script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres).

The source bblayers.conf.sample file used depends on the $TEMPLATECONF script variable, which defaults to meta-poky/conf when you are building from the Yocto Project development environment and defaults to meta/conf when you are building from the OpenEmbedded Core environment. Because the script variable points to the source of the bblayers.conf.sample file, this implies that you can base your build from any layer by setting the variable in the top-level build environment setup script as follows:

     TEMPLATECONF=your_layer/conf
            

Once the build process gets the sample file, it uses sed to substitute final ${OEROOT} values for all ##OEROOT## values.

Note

You can see how the TEMPLATECONF variable scripts/oe-setup-builddir script in the Source Directory. You can find the Yocto Project version of the bblayers.conf.sample file in the meta-poky/conf directory.

25.2.4. build/conf/sanity_info

This file indicates the state of the sanity checks and is created during the build.

25.2.5. build/downloads/

This directory contains downloaded upstream source tarballs. You can reuse the directory for multiple builds or move the directory to another location. You can control the location of this directory through the DL_DIR variable.

25.2.6. build/sstate-cache/

This directory contains the shared state cache. You can reuse the directory for multiple builds or move the directory to another location. You can control the location of this directory through the SSTATE_DIR variable.

25.2.7. build/tmp/

The OpenEmbedded build system creates and uses this directory for all the build system's output. The TMPDIR variable points to this directory.

BitBake creates this directory if it does not exist. As a last resort, to clean up a build and start it from scratch (other than the downloads), you can remove everything in the tmp directory or get rid of the directory completely. If you do, you should also completely remove the build/sstate-cache directory.

25.2.8. build/tmp/buildstats/

This directory stores the build statistics.

25.2.9. build/tmp/cache/

When BitBake parses the metadata (recipes and configuration files), it caches the results in build/tmp/cache/ to speed up future builds. The results are stored on a per-machine basis.

During subsequent builds, BitBake checks each recipe (together with, for example, any files included or appended to it) to see if they have been modified. Changes can be detected, for example, through file modification time (mtime) changes and hashing of file contents. If no changes to the file are detected, then the parsed result stored in the cache is reused. If the file has changed, it is reparsed.

25.2.10. build/tmp/deploy/

This directory contains any "end result" output from the OpenEmbedded build process. The DEPLOY_DIR variable points to this directory. For more detail on the contents of the deploy directory, see the "Images" and "Application Development SDK" sections.

25.2.11. build/tmp/deploy/deb/

This directory receives any .deb packages produced by the build process. The packages are sorted into feeds for different architecture types.

25.2.12. build/tmp/deploy/rpm/

This directory receives any .rpm packages produced by the build process. The packages are sorted into feeds for different architecture types.

25.2.13. build/tmp/deploy/ipk/

This directory receives .ipk packages produced by the build process.

25.2.14. build/tmp/deploy/licenses/

This directory receives package licensing information. For example, the directory contains sub-directories for bash, busybox, and glibc (among others) that in turn contain appropriate COPYING license files with other licensing information. For information on licensing, see the "Maintaining Open Source License Compliance During Your Product's Lifecycle" section.

25.2.15. build/tmp/deploy/images/

This directory receives complete filesystem images. If you want to flash the resulting image from a build onto a device, look here for the image.

Be careful when deleting files in this directory. You can safely delete old images from this directory (e.g. core-image-*). However, the kernel (*zImage*, *uImage*, etc.), bootloader and other supplementary files might be deployed here prior to building an image. Because these files are not directly produced from the image, if you delete them they will not be automatically re-created when you build the image again.

If you do accidentally delete files here, you will need to force them to be re-created. In order to do that, you will need to know the target that produced them. For example, these commands rebuild and re-create the kernel files:

     $ bitbake -c clean virtual/kernel
     $ bitbake virtual/kernel
            

25.2.16. build/tmp/deploy/sdk/

The OpenEmbedded build system creates this directory to hold toolchain installer scripts, which when executed, install the sysroot that matches your target hardware. You can find out more about these installers in the "Building an SDK Installer" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

25.2.17. build/tmp/sstate-control/

The OpenEmbedded build system uses this directory for the shared state manifest files. The shared state code uses these files to record the files installed by each sstate task so that the files can be removed when cleaning the recipe or when a newer version is about to be installed. The build system also uses the manifests to detect and produce a warning when files from one task are overwriting those from another.

25.2.18. build/tmp/sysroots-components/

This directory is the location of the sysroot contents that the task do_prepare_recipe_sysroot links or copies into the recipe-specific sysroot for each recipe listed in DEPENDS. Population of this directory is handled through shared state, while the path is specified by the COMPONENTS_DIR variable. Apart from a few unusual circumstances, handling of the sysroots-components directory should be automatic, and recipes should not directly reference build/tmp/sysroots-components.

25.2.19. build/tmp/sysroots/

Previous versions of the OpenEmbedded build system used to create a global shared sysroot per machine along with a native sysroot. Beginning with the 2.3.3 version of the Yocto Project, sysroots exist in recipe-specific WORKDIR directories. Thus, the build/tmp/sysroots/ directory is unused.

Note

The build/tmp/sysroots/ directory can still be populated using the bitbake build-sysroots command and can be used for compatibility in some cases. However, in general it is not recommended to populate this directory. Individual recipe-specific sysroots should be used.

25.2.20. build/tmp/stamps/

This directory holds information that BitBake uses for accounting purposes to track what tasks have run and when they have run. The directory is sub-divided by architecture, package name, and version. Following is an example:

     stamps/all-poky-linux/distcc-config/1.0-r0.do_build-2fdd....2do
            

Although the files in the directory are empty of data, BitBake uses the filenames and timestamps for tracking purposes.

For information on how BitBake uses stamp files to determine if a task should be rerun, see the "Stamp Files and the Rerunning of Tasks" section.

25.2.21. build/tmp/log/

This directory contains general logs that are not otherwise placed using the package's WORKDIR. Examples of logs are the output from the do_check_pkg or do_distro_check tasks. Running a build does not necessarily mean this directory is created.

25.2.22. build/tmp/work/

This directory contains architecture-specific work sub-directories for packages built by BitBake. All tasks execute from the appropriate work directory. For example, the source for a particular package is unpacked, patched, configured and compiled all within its own work directory. Within the work directory, organization is based on the package group and version for which the source is being compiled as defined by the WORKDIR.

It is worth considering the structure of a typical work directory. As an example, consider linux-yocto-kernel-3.0 on the machine qemux86 built within the Yocto Project. For this package, a work directory of tmp/work/qemux86-poky-linux/linux-yocto/3.0+git1+<.....>, referred to as the WORKDIR, is created. Within this directory, the source is unpacked to linux-qemux86-standard-build and then patched by Quilt. (See the "Using Quilt in Your Workflow" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information.) Within the linux-qemux86-standard-build directory, standard Quilt directories linux-3.0/patches and linux-3.0/.pc are created, and standard Quilt commands can be used.

There are other directories generated within WORKDIR. The most important directory is WORKDIR/temp/, which has log files for each task (log.do_*.pid) and contains the scripts BitBake runs for each task (run.do_*.pid). The WORKDIR/image/ directory is where "make install" places its output that is then split into sub-packages within WORKDIR/packages-split/.

25.2.23. build/tmp/work/tunearch/recipename/version/

The recipe work directory - ${WORKDIR}.

As described earlier in the "build/tmp/sysroots/" section, beginning with the 2.3.3 release of the Yocto Project, the OpenEmbedded build system builds each recipe in its own work directory (i.e. WORKDIR). The path to the work directory is constructed using the architecture of the given build (e.g. TUNE_PKGARCH, MACHINE_ARCH, or "allarch"), the recipe name, and the version of the recipe (i.e. PE:PV-PR).

A number of key subdirectories exist within each recipe work directory:

  • ${WORKDIR}/temp: Contains the log files of each task executed for this recipe, the "run" files for each executed task, which contain the code run, and a log.task_order file, which lists the order in which tasks were executed.

  • ${WORKDIR}/image: Contains the output of the do_install task, which corresponds to the ${D} variable in that task.

  • ${WORKDIR}/pseudo: Contains the pseudo database and log for any tasks executed under pseudo for the recipe.

  • ${WORKDIR}/sysroot-destdir: Contains the output of the do_populate_sysroot task.

  • ${WORKDIR}/package: Contains the output of the do_package task before the output is split into individual packages.

  • ${WORKDIR}/packages-split: Contains the output of the do_package task after the output has been split into individual packages. Subdirectories exist for each individual package created by the recipe.

  • ${WORKDIR}/recipe-sysroot: A directory populated with the target dependencies of the recipe. This directory looks like the target filesystem and contains libraries that the recipe might need to link against (e.g. the C library).

  • ${WORKDIR}/recipe-sysroot-native: A directory populated with the native dependencies of the recipe. This directory contains the tools the recipe needs to build (e.g. the compiler, Autoconf, libtool, and so forth).

  • ${WORKDIR}/build: This subdirectory applies only to recipes that support builds where the source is separate from the build artifacts. The OpenEmbedded build system uses this directory as a separate build directory (i.e. ${B}).

25.2.24. build/tmp/work-shared/

For efficiency, the OpenEmbedded build system creates and uses this directory to hold recipes that share a work directory with other recipes. In practice, this is only used for gcc and its variants (e.g. gcc-cross, libgcc, gcc-runtime, and so forth).

25.3. The Metadata - meta/

As mentioned previously, Metadata is the core of the Yocto Project. Metadata has several important subdivisions:

25.3.1. meta/classes/

This directory contains the *.bbclass files. Class files are used to abstract common code so it can be reused by multiple packages. Every package inherits the base.bbclass file. Examples of other important classes are autotools.bbclass, which in theory allows any Autotool-enabled package to work with the Yocto Project with minimal effort. Another example is kernel.bbclass that contains common code and functions for working with the Linux kernel. Functions like image generation or packaging also have their specific class files such as image.bbclass, rootfs_*.bbclass and package*.bbclass.

For reference information on classes, see the "Classes" chapter.

25.3.2. meta/conf/

This directory contains the core set of configuration files that start from bitbake.conf and from which all other configuration files are included. See the include statements at the end of the bitbake.conf file and you will note that even local.conf is loaded from there. While bitbake.conf sets up the defaults, you can often override these by using the (local.conf) file, machine file or the distribution configuration file.

25.3.3. meta/conf/machine/

This directory contains all the machine configuration files. If you set MACHINE = "qemux86", the OpenEmbedded build system looks for a qemux86.conf file in this directory. The include directory contains various data common to multiple machines. If you want to add support for a new machine to the Yocto Project, look in this directory.

25.3.4. meta/conf/distro/

The contents of this directory controls any distribution-specific configurations. For the Yocto Project, the defaultsetup.conf is the main file here. This directory includes the versions and the SRCDATE definitions for applications that are configured here. An example of an alternative configuration might be poky-bleeding.conf. Although this file mainly inherits its configuration from Poky.

25.3.5. meta/conf/machine-sdk/

The OpenEmbedded build system searches this directory for configuration files that correspond to the value of SDKMACHINE. By default, 32-bit and 64-bit x86 files ship with the Yocto Project that support some SDK hosts. However, it is possible to extend that support to other SDK hosts by adding additional configuration files in this subdirectory within another layer.

25.3.6. meta/files/

This directory contains common license files and several text files used by the build system. The text files contain minimal device information and lists of files and directories with known permissions.

25.3.7. meta/lib/

This directory contains OpenEmbedded Python library code used during the build process.

25.3.8. meta/recipes-bsp/

This directory contains anything linking to specific hardware or hardware configuration information such as "u-boot" and "grub".

25.3.9. meta/recipes-connectivity/

This directory contains libraries and applications related to communication with other devices.

25.3.10. meta/recipes-core/

This directory contains what is needed to build a basic working Linux image including commonly used dependencies.

25.3.11. meta/recipes-devtools/

This directory contains tools that are primarily used by the build system. The tools, however, can also be used on targets.

25.3.12. meta/recipes-extended/

This directory contains non-essential applications that add features compared to the alternatives in core. You might need this directory for full tool functionality or for Linux Standard Base (LSB) compliance.

25.3.13. meta/recipes-gnome/

This directory contains all things related to the GTK+ application framework.

25.3.14. meta/recipes-graphics/

This directory contains X and other graphically related system libraries

25.3.15. meta/recipes-kernel/

This directory contains the kernel and generic applications and libraries that have strong kernel dependencies.

25.3.16. meta/recipes-lsb4/

This directory contains recipes specifically added to support the Linux Standard Base (LSB) version 4.x.

25.3.17. meta/recipes-multimedia/

This directory contains codecs and support utilities for audio, images and video.

25.3.18. meta/recipes-rt/

This directory contains package and image recipes for using and testing the PREEMPT_RT kernel.

25.3.19. meta/recipes-sato/

This directory contains the Sato demo/reference UI/UX and its associated applications and configuration data.

25.3.20. meta/recipes-support/

This directory contains recipes used by other recipes, but that are not directly included in images (i.e. dependencies of other recipes).

25.3.21. meta/site/

This directory contains a list of cached results for various architectures. Because certain "autoconf" test results cannot be determined when cross-compiling due to the tests not able to run on a live system, the information in this directory is passed to "autoconf" for the various architectures.

25.3.22. meta/recipes.txt

This file is a description of the contents of recipes-*.

Chapter 26. Classes

26.1. allarch.bbclass
26.2. archiver.bbclass
26.3. autotools*.bbclass
26.4. base.bbclass
26.5. bash-completion.bbclass
26.6. bin_package.bbclass
26.7. binconfig.bbclass
26.8. binconfig-disabled.bbclass
26.9. blacklist.bbclass
26.10. bluetooth.bbclass
26.11. bugzilla.bbclass
26.12. buildhistory.bbclass
26.13. buildstats.bbclass
26.14. buildstats-summary.bbclass
26.15. ccache.bbclass
26.16. chrpath.bbclass
26.17. clutter.bbclass
26.18. cmake.bbclass
26.19. cml1.bbclass
26.20. compress_doc.bbclass
26.21. copyleft_compliance.bbclass
26.22. copyleft_filter.bbclass
26.23. core-image.bbclass
26.24. cpan*.bbclass
26.25. cross.bbclass
26.26. cross-canadian.bbclass
26.27. crosssdk.bbclass
26.28. debian.bbclass
26.29. deploy.bbclass
26.30. devshell.bbclass
26.31. distro_features_check.bbclass
26.32. distrodata.bbclass
26.33. distutils*.bbclass
26.34. distutils3*.bbclass
26.35. externalsrc.bbclass
26.36. extrausers.bbclass
26.37. fontcache.bbclass
26.38. fs-uuid.bbclass
26.39. gconf.bbclass
26.40. gettext.bbclass
26.41. gnome.bbclass
26.42. gnomebase.bbclass
26.43. gobject-introspection.bbclass
26.44. grub-efi.bbclass
26.45. gsettings.bbclass
26.46. gtk-doc.bbclass
26.47. gtk-icon-cache.bbclass
26.48. gtk-immodules-cache.bbclass
26.49. gzipnative.bbclass
26.50. icecc.bbclass
26.51. image.bbclass
26.52. image-buildinfo.bbclass
26.53. image_types.bbclass
26.54. image_types_uboot.bbclass
26.55. image-live.bbclass
26.56. image-mklibs.bbclass
26.57. image-prelink.bbclass
26.58. image-vm.bbclass
26.59. image-vmdk.bbclass
26.60. insane.bbclass
26.61. insserv.bbclass
26.62. kernel.bbclass
26.63. kernel-arch.bbclass
26.64. kernel-fitimage.bbclass
26.65. kernel-grub.bbclass
26.66. kernel-module-split.bbclass
26.67. kernel-uboot.bbclass
26.68. kernel-uimage.bbclass
26.69. kernel-yocto.bbclass
26.70. kernelsrc.bbclass
26.71. lib_package.bbclass
26.72. libc*.bbclass
26.73. license.bbclass
26.74. linux-kernel-base.bbclass
26.75. linuxloader.bbclass
26.76. logging.bbclass
26.77. meta.bbclass
26.78. metadata_scm.bbclass
26.79. migrate_localcount.bbclass
26.80. mime.bbclass
26.81. mirrors.bbclass
26.82. module.bbclass
26.83. module-base.bbclass
26.84. multilib*.bbclass
26.85. native.bbclass
26.86. nativesdk.bbclass
26.87. nopackages.bbclass
26.88. npm.bbclass
26.89. oelint.bbclass
26.90. own-mirrors.bbclass
26.91. package.bbclass
26.92. package_deb.bbclass
26.93. package_ipk.bbclass
26.94. package_rpm.bbclass
26.95. package_tar.bbclass
26.96. packagedata.bbclass
26.97. packagegroup.bbclass
26.98. patch.bbclass
26.99. perlnative.bbclass
26.100. pixbufcache.bbclass
26.101. pkgconfig.bbclass
26.102. populate_sdk.bbclass
26.103. populate_sdk_*.bbclass
26.104. prexport.bbclass
26.105. primport.bbclass
26.106. prserv.bbclass
26.107. ptest.bbclass
26.108. ptest-gnome.bbclass
26.109. python-dir.bbclass
26.110. python3native.bbclass
26.111. pythonnative.bbclass
26.112. qemu.bbclass
26.113. recipe_sanity.bbclass
26.114. relocatable.bbclass
26.115. remove-libtool.bbclass
26.116. report-error.bbclass
26.117. rm_work.bbclass
26.118. rootfs*.bbclass
26.119. sanity.bbclass
26.120. scons.bbclass
26.121. sdl.bbclass
26.122. setuptools.bbclass
26.123. setuptools3.bbclass
26.124. sign_rpm.bbclass
26.125. sip.bbclass
26.126. siteconfig.bbclass
26.127. siteinfo.bbclass
26.128. spdx.bbclass
26.129. sstate.bbclass
26.130. staging.bbclass
26.131. syslinux.bbclass
26.132. systemd.bbclass
26.133. systemd-boot.bbclass
26.134. terminal.bbclass
26.135. testimage*.bbclass
26.136. testsdk.bbclass
26.137. texinfo.bbclass
26.138. tinderclient.bbclass
26.139. toaster.bbclass
26.140. toolchain-scripts.bbclass
26.141. typecheck.bbclass
26.142. uboot-config.bbclass
26.143. uninative.bbclass
26.144. update-alternatives.bbclass
26.145. update-rc.d.bbclass
26.146. useradd*.bbclass
26.147. utility-tasks.bbclass
26.148. utils.bbclass
26.149. vala.bbclass
26.150. waf.bbclass

Class files are used to abstract common functionality and share it amongst multiple recipe (.bb) files. To use a class file, you simply make sure the recipe inherits the class. In most cases, when a recipe inherits a class it is enough to enable its features. There are cases, however, where in the recipe you might need to set variables or override some default behavior.

Any Metadata usually found in a recipe can also be placed in a class file. Class files are identified by the extension .bbclass and are usually placed in a classes/ directory beneath the meta*/ directory found in the Source Directory. Class files can also be pointed to by BUILDDIR (e.g. build/) in the same way as .conf files in the conf directory. Class files are searched for in BBPATH using the same method by which .conf files are searched.

This chapter discusses only the most useful and important classes. Other classes do exist within the meta/classes directory in the Source Directory. You can reference the .bbclass files directly for more information.

26.1. allarch.bbclass

The allarch class is inherited by recipes that do not produce architecture-specific output. The class disables functionality that is normally needed for recipes that produce executable binaries (such as building the cross-compiler and a C library as pre-requisites, and splitting out of debug symbols during packaging).

Note

Unlike some distro recipes (e.g. Debian), OpenEmbedded recipes that produce packages that depend on tunings through use of the RDEPENDS and TUNE_PKGARCH variables, should never be configured for all architectures using allarch. This is the case even if the recipes do not produce architecture-specific output.

Configuring such recipes for all architectures causes the do_package_write_* tasks to have different signatures for the machines with different tunings. Additionally, unnecessary rebuilds occur every time an image for a different MACHINE is built even when the recipe never changes.

By default, all recipes inherit the base and package classes, which enable functionality needed for recipes that produce executable output. If your recipe, for example, only produces packages that contain configuration files, media files, or scripts (e.g. Python and Perl), then it should inherit the allarch class.

26.2. archiver.bbclass

The archiver class supports releasing source code and other materials with the binaries.

For more details on the source archiver, see the "Maintaining Open Source License Compliance During Your Product's Lifecycle" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual. You can also see the ARCHIVER_MODE variable for information about the variable flags (varflags) that help control archive creation.

26.3. autotools*.bbclass

The autotools* classes support Autotooled packages.

The autoconf, automake, and libtool packages bring standardization. This class defines a set of tasks (e.g. configure, compile and so forth) that work for all Autotooled packages. It should usually be enough to define a few standard variables and then simply inherit autotools. These classes can also work with software that emulates Autotools. For more information, see the "Autotooled Package" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

By default, the autotools* classes use out-of-tree builds (i.e. autotools.bbclass). (B != S).

If the software being built by a recipe does not support using out-of-tree builds, you should have the recipe inherit the autotools-brokensep class. The autotools-brokensep class behaves the same as the autotools class but builds with B == S. This method is useful when out-of-tree build support is either not present or is broken.

Note

It is recommended that out-of-tree support be fixed and used if at all possible.

It's useful to have some idea of how the tasks defined by the autotools* classes work and what they do behind the scenes.

  • do_configure - Regenerates the configure script (using autoreconf) and then launches it with a standard set of arguments used during cross-compilation. You can pass additional parameters to configure through the EXTRA_OECONF or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS variables.

  • do_compile - Runs make with arguments that specify the compiler and linker. You can pass additional arguments through the EXTRA_OEMAKE variable.

  • do_install - Runs make install and passes in ${D} as DESTDIR.

26.4. base.bbclass

The base class is special in that every .bb file implicitly inherits the class. This class contains definitions for standard basic tasks such as fetching, unpacking, configuring (empty by default), compiling (runs any Makefile present), installing (empty by default) and packaging (empty by default). These classes are often overridden or extended by other classes such as the autotools class or the package class.

The class also contains some commonly used functions such as oe_runmake, which runs make with the arguments specified in EXTRA_OEMAKE variable as well as the arguments passed directly to oe_runmake.

26.5. bash-completion.bbclass

Sets up packaging and dependencies appropriate for recipes that build software that includes bash-completion data.

26.6. bin_package.bbclass

The bin_package class is a helper class for recipes that extract the contents of a binary package (e.g. an RPM) and install those contents rather than building the binary from source. The binary package is extracted and new packages in the configured output package format are created. Extraction and installation of proprietary binaries is a good example use for this class.

Note

For RPMs and other packages that do not contain a subdirectory, you should specify an appropriate fetcher parameter to point to the subdirectory. For example, if BitBake is using the Git fetcher (git://), the "subpath" parameter limits the checkout to a specific subpath of the tree. Here is an example where ${BP} is used so that the files are extracted into the subdirectory expected by the default value of S:
     SRC_URI = "git://example.com/downloads/somepackage.rpm;subpath=${BP}"
            
See the "Fetchers" section in the BitBake User Manual for more information on supported BitBake Fetchers.

26.7. binconfig.bbclass

The binconfig class helps to correct paths in shell scripts.

Before pkg-config had become widespread, libraries shipped shell scripts to give information about the libraries and include paths needed to build software (usually named LIBNAME-config). This class assists any recipe using such scripts.

During staging, the OpenEmbedded build system installs such scripts into the sysroots/ directory. Inheriting this class results in all paths in these scripts being changed to point into the sysroots/ directory so that all builds that use the script use the correct directories for the cross compiling layout. See the BINCONFIG_GLOB variable for more information.

26.8. binconfig-disabled.bbclass

An alternative version of the binconfig class, which disables binary configuration scripts by making them return an error in favor of using pkg-config to query the information. The scripts to be disabled should be specified using the BINCONFIG variable within the recipe inheriting the class.

26.9. blacklist.bbclass

The blacklist class prevents the OpenEmbedded build system from building specific recipes (blacklists them). To use this class, inherit the class globally and set PNBLACKLIST for each recipe you wish to blacklist. Specify the PN value as a variable flag (varflag) and provide a reason, which is reported, if the package is requested to be built as the value. For example, if you want to blacklist a recipe called "exoticware", you add the following to your local.conf or distribution configuration:

     INHERIT += "blacklist"
     PNBLACKLIST[exoticware] = "Not supported by our organization."
        

26.10. bluetooth.bbclass

The bluetooth class defines a variable that expands to the recipe (package) providing core bluetooth support on the platform.

For details on how the class works, see the meta/classes/bluetooth.bbclass file in the Yocto Project Source Directory.

26.11. bugzilla.bbclass

The bugzilla class supports setting up an instance of Bugzilla in which you can automatically files bug reports in response to build failures. For this class to work, you need to enable the XML-RPC interface in the instance of Bugzilla.

26.12. buildhistory.bbclass

The buildhistory class records a history of build output metadata, which can be used to detect possible regressions as well as used for analysis of the build output. For more information on using Build History, see the "Maintaining Build Output Quality" section.

26.13. buildstats.bbclass

The buildstats class records performance statistics about each task executed during the build (e.g. elapsed time, CPU usage, and I/O usage).

When you use this class, the output goes into the BUILDSTATS_BASE directory, which defaults to ${TMPDIR}/buildstats/. You can analyze the elapsed time using scripts/pybootchartgui/pybootchartgui.py, which produces a cascading chart of the entire build process and can be useful for highlighting bottlenecks.

Collecting build statistics is enabled by default through the USER_CLASSES variable from your local.conf file. Consequently, you do not have to do anything to enable the class. However, if you want to disable the class, simply remove "buildstats" from the USER_CLASSES list.

26.14. buildstats-summary.bbclass

When inherited globally, prints statistics at the end of the build on sstate re-use. In order to function, this class requires the buildstats class be enabled.

26.15. ccache.bbclass

The ccache class enables the C/C++ Compiler Cache for the build. This class is used to give a minor performance boost during the build. However, using the class can lead to unexpected side-effects. Thus, it is recommended that you do not use this class. See http://ccache.samba.org/ for information on the C/C++ Compiler Cache.

26.16. chrpath.bbclass

The chrpath class is a wrapper around the "chrpath" utility, which is used during the build process for nativesdk, cross, and cross-canadian recipes to change RPATH records within binaries in order to make them relocatable.

26.17. clutter.bbclass

The clutter class consolidates the major and minor version naming and other common items used by Clutter and related recipes.

Note

Unlike some other classes related to specific libraries, recipes building other software that uses Clutter do not need to inherit this class unless they use the same recipe versioning scheme that the Clutter and related recipes do.

26.18. cmake.bbclass

The cmake class allows for recipes that need to build software using the CMake build system. You can use the EXTRA_OECMAKE variable to specify additional configuration options to be passed on the cmake command line.

26.19. cml1.bbclass

The cml1 class provides basic support for the Linux kernel style build configuration system.

26.20. compress_doc.bbclass

Enables compression for man pages and info pages. This class is intended to be inherited globally. The default compression mechanism is gz (gzip) but you can select an alternative mechanism by setting the DOC_COMPRESS variable.

26.21. copyleft_compliance.bbclass

The copyleft_compliance class preserves source code for the purposes of license compliance. This class is an alternative to the archiver class and is still used by some users even though it has been deprecated in favor of the archiver class.

26.22. copyleft_filter.bbclass

A class used by the archiver and copyleft_compliance classes for filtering licenses. The copyleft_filter class is an internal class and is not intended to be used directly.

26.23. core-image.bbclass

The core-image class provides common definitions for the core-image-* image recipes, such as support for additional IMAGE_FEATURES.

26.24. cpan*.bbclass

The cpan* classes support Perl modules.

Recipes for Perl modules are simple. These recipes usually only need to point to the source's archive and then inherit the proper class file. Building is split into two methods depending on which method the module authors used.

  • Modules that use old Makefile.PL-based build system require cpan.bbclass in their recipes.

  • Modules that use Build.PL-based build system require using cpan_build.bbclass in their recipes.

Both build methods inherit the cpan-base class for basic Perl support.

26.25. cross.bbclass

The cross class provides support for the recipes that build the cross-compilation tools.

26.26. cross-canadian.bbclass

The cross-canadian class provides support for the recipes that build the Canadian Cross-compilation tools for SDKs. See the "Cross-Development Toolchain Generation" section for more discussion on these cross-compilation tools.

26.27. crosssdk.bbclass

The crosssdk class provides support for the recipes that build the cross-compilation tools used for building SDKs. See the "Cross-Development Toolchain Generation" section for more discussion on these cross-compilation tools.

26.28. debian.bbclass

The debian class renames output packages so that they follow the Debian naming policy (i.e. glibc becomes libc6 and glibc-devel becomes libc6-dev.) Renaming includes the library name and version as part of the package name.

If a recipe creates packages for multiple libraries (shared object files of .so type), use the LEAD_SONAME variable in the recipe to specify the library on which to apply the naming scheme.

26.29. deploy.bbclass

The deploy class handles deploying files to the DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE directory. The main function of this class is to allow the deploy step to be accelerated by shared state. Recipes that inherit this class should define their own do_deploy function to copy the files to be deployed to DEPLOYDIR, and use addtask to add the task at the appropriate place, which is usually after do_compile or do_install. The class then takes care of staging the files from DEPLOYDIR to DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE.

26.30. devshell.bbclass

The devshell class adds the do_devshell task. Distribution policy dictates whether to include this class. See the "Using a Development Shell" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information about using devshell.

26.31. distro_features_check.bbclass

The distro_features_check class allows individual recipes to check for required and conflicting DISTRO_FEATURES.

This class provides support for the REQUIRED_DISTRO_FEATURES and CONFLICT_DISTRO_FEATURES variables. If any conditions specified in the recipe using the above variables are not met, the recipe will be skipped.

26.32. distrodata.bbclass

The distrodata class provides for automatic checking for upstream recipe updates. The class creates a comma-separated value (CSV) spreadsheet that contains information about the recipes. The information provides the do_distrodata and do_distro_check tasks, which do upstream checking and also verify if a package is used in multiple major distributions.

The class is not included by default. To use it, you must set the INHERIT variable:

     INHERIT+= "distrodata"
        

The distrodata class also provides the do_checkpkg task, which can be used against a simple recipe or against an image to get all its recipe information.

26.33. distutils*.bbclass

The distutils* classes support recipes for Python version 2.x extensions, which are simple. These recipes usually only need to point to the source's archive and then inherit the proper class. Building is split into two methods depending on which method the module authors used.

  • Extensions that use an Autotools-based build system require Autotools and the classes based on distutils in their recipes.

  • Extensions that use build systems based on distutils require the distutils class in their recipes.

  • Extensions that use build systems based on setuptools require the setuptools class in their recipes.

The distutils-common-base class is required by some of the distutils* classes to provide common Python2 support.

The distutils-tools class supports recipes for additional "distutils" tools.

26.34. distutils3*.bbclass

The distutils3* classes support recipes for Python version 3.x extensions, which are simple. These recipes usually only need to point to the source's archive and then inherit the proper class. Building is split into three methods depending on which method the module authors used.

  • Extensions that use an Autotools-based build system require Autotools and distutils-based classes in their recipes.

  • Extensions that use distutils-based build systems require the distutils class in their recipes.

  • Extensions that use build systems based on setuptools3 require the setuptools3 class in their recipes.

The distutils3* classes either inherit their corresponding distutils* class or replicate them using a Python3 version instead (e.g. distutils3-base inherits distutils-common-base, which is the same as distutils-base but inherits python3native instead of pythonnative).

26.35. externalsrc.bbclass

The externalsrc class supports building software from source code that is external to the OpenEmbedded build system. Building software from an external source tree means that the build system's normal fetch, unpack, and patch process is not used.

By default, the OpenEmbedded build system uses the S and B variables to locate unpacked recipe source code and to build it, respectively. When your recipe inherits the externalsrc class, you use the EXTERNALSRC and EXTERNALSRC_BUILD variables to ultimately define S and B.

By default, this class expects the source code to support recipe builds that use the B variable to point to the directory in which the OpenEmbedded build system places the generated objects built from the recipes. By default, the B directory is set to the following, which is separate from the source directory (S):

     ${WORKDIR}/${BPN}/{PV}/
        

See these variables for more information: WORKDIR, BPN, and PV,

For more information on the externalsrc class, see the comments in meta/classes/externalsrc.bbclass in the Source Directory. For information on how to use the externalsrc class, see the "Building Software from an External Source" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

26.36. extrausers.bbclass

The extrausers class allows additional user and group configuration to be applied at the image level. Inheriting this class either globally or from an image recipe allows additional user and group operations to be performed using the EXTRA_USERS_PARAMS variable.

Note

The user and group operations added using the extrausers class are not tied to a specific recipe outside of the recipe for the image. Thus, the operations can be performed across the image as a whole. Use the useradd class to add user and group configuration to a specific recipe.

Here is an example that uses this class in an image recipe:

     inherit extrausers
     EXTRA_USERS_PARAMS = "\
         useradd -p '' tester; \
         groupadd developers; \
         userdel nobody; \
         groupdel -g video; \
         groupmod -g 1020 developers; \
         usermod -s /bin/sh tester; \
         "
        

Here is an example that adds two users named "tester-jim" and "tester-sue" and assigns passwords:

     inherit extrausers
     EXTRA_USERS_PARAMS = "\
         useradd -P tester01 tester-jim; \
         useradd -P tester01 tester-sue; \
         "
        

Finally, here is an example that sets the root password to "1876*18":

     inherit extrausers
     EXTRA_USERS_PARAMS = "\
         usermod -P 1876*18 root; \
         "
        

26.37. fontcache.bbclass

The fontcache class generates the proper post-install and post-remove (postinst and postrm) scriptlets for font packages. These scriptlets call fc-cache (part of Fontconfig) to add the fonts to the font information cache. Since the cache files are architecture-specific, fc-cache runs using QEMU if the postinst scriptlets need to be run on the build host during image creation.

If the fonts being installed are in packages other than the main package, set FONT_PACKAGES to specify the packages containing the fonts.

26.38. fs-uuid.bbclass

The fs-uuid class extracts UUID from ${ROOTFS}, which must have been built by the time that this function gets called. The fs-uuid class only works on ext file systems and depends on tune2fs.

26.39. gconf.bbclass

The gconf class provides common functionality for recipes that need to install GConf schemas. The schemas will be put into a separate package (${PN}-gconf) that is created automatically when this class is inherited. This package uses the appropriate post-install and post-remove (postinst/postrm) scriptlets to register and unregister the schemas in the target image.

26.40. gettext.bbclass

The gettext class provides support for building software that uses the GNU gettext internationalization and localization system. All recipes building software that use gettext should inherit this class.

26.41. gnome.bbclass

The gnome class supports recipes that build software from the GNOME stack. This class inherits the gnomebase, gtk-icon-cache, gconf and mime classes. The class also disables GObject introspection where applicable.

26.42. gnomebase.bbclass

The gnomebase class is the base class for recipes that build software from the GNOME stack. This class sets SRC_URI to download the source from the GNOME mirrors as well as extending FILES with the typical GNOME installation paths.

26.43. gobject-introspection.bbclass

Provides support for recipes building software that supports GObject introspection. This functionality is only enabled if the "gobject-introspection-data" feature is in DISTRO_FEATURES as well as "qemu-usermode" being in MACHINE_FEATURES.

Note

This functionality is backfilled by default and, if not applicable, should be disabled through DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED or MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED, respectively.

26.44. grub-efi.bbclass

The grub-efi class provides grub-efi-specific functions for building bootable images.

This class supports several variables:

  • INITRD: Indicates list of filesystem images to concatenate and use as an initial RAM disk (initrd) (optional).

  • ROOTFS: Indicates a filesystem image to include as the root filesystem (optional).

  • GRUB_GFXSERIAL: Set this to "1" to have graphics and serial in the boot menu.

  • LABELS: A list of targets for the automatic configuration.

  • APPEND: An override list of append strings for each LABEL.

  • GRUB_OPTS: Additional options to add to the configuration (optional). Options are delimited using semi-colon characters (;).

  • GRUB_TIMEOUT: Timeout before executing the default LABEL (optional).

26.45. gsettings.bbclass

The gsettings class provides common functionality for recipes that need to install GSettings (glib) schemas. The schemas are assumed to be part of the main package. Appropriate post-install and post-remove (postinst/postrm) scriptlets are added to register and unregister the schemas in the target image.

26.46. gtk-doc.bbclass

The gtk-doc class is a helper class to pull in the appropriate gtk-doc dependencies and disable gtk-doc.

26.47. gtk-icon-cache.bbclass

The gtk-icon-cache class generates the proper post-install and post-remove (postinst/postrm) scriptlets for packages that use GTK+ and install icons. These scriptlets call gtk-update-icon-cache to add the fonts to GTK+'s icon cache. Since the cache files are architecture-specific, gtk-update-icon-cache is run using QEMU if the postinst scriptlets need to be run on the build host during image creation.

26.48. gtk-immodules-cache.bbclass

The gtk-immodules-cache class generates the proper post-install and post-remove (postinst/postrm) scriptlets for packages that install GTK+ input method modules for virtual keyboards. These scriptlets call gtk-update-icon-cache to add the input method modules to the cache. Since the cache files are architecture-specific, gtk-update-icon-cache is run using QEMU if the postinst scriptlets need to be run on the build host during image creation.

If the input method modules being installed are in packages other than the main package, set GTKIMMODULES_PACKAGES to specify the packages containing the modules.

26.49. gzipnative.bbclass

The gzipnative class enables the use of different native versions of gzip and pigz rather than the versions of these tools from the build host.

26.50. icecc.bbclass

The icecc class supports Icecream, which facilitates taking compile jobs and distributing them among remote machines.

The class stages directories with symlinks from gcc and g++ to icecc, for both native and cross compilers. Depending on each configure or compile, the OpenEmbedded build system adds the directories at the head of the PATH list and then sets the ICECC_CXX and ICEC_CC variables, which are the paths to the g++ and gcc compilers, respectively.

For the cross compiler, the class creates a tar.gz file that contains the Yocto Project toolchain and sets ICECC_VERSION, which is the version of the cross-compiler used in the cross-development toolchain, accordingly.

The class handles all three different compile stages (i.e native ,cross-kernel and target) and creates the necessary environment tar.gz file to be used by the remote machines. The class also supports SDK generation.

If ICECC_PATH is not set in your local.conf file, then the class tries to locate the icecc binary using which. If ICECC_ENV_EXEC is set in your local.conf file, the variable should point to the icecc-create-env script provided by the user. If you do not point to a user-provided script, the build system uses the default script provided by the recipe icecc-create-env-native.bb.

Note

This script is a modified version and not the one that comes with icecc.

If you do not want the Icecream distributed compile support to apply to specific recipes or classes, you can effectively "blacklist" them by listing the recipes and classes using the ICECC_USER_PACKAGE_BL and ICECC_USER_CLASS_BL, variables, respectively, in your local.conf file. Doing so causes the OpenEmbedded build system to handle these compilations locally.

Additionally, you can list recipes using the ICECC_USER_PACKAGE_WL variable in your local.conf file to force icecc to be enabled for recipes using an empty PARALLEL_MAKE variable.

Inheriting the icecc class changes all sstate signatures. Consequently, if a development team has a dedicated build system that populates STATE_MIRRORS and they want to reuse sstate from STATE_MIRRORS, then all developers and the build system need to either inherit the icecc class or nobody should.

At the distribution level, you can inherit the icecc class to be sure that all builders start with the same sstate signatures. After inheriting the class, you can then disable the feature by setting the ICECC_DISABLED variable to "1" as follows:

     INHERIT_DISTRO_append = " icecc"
     ICECC_DISABLED ??= "1"
        

This practice makes sure everyone is using the same signatures but also requires individuals that do want to use Icecream to enable the feature individually as follows in your local.conf file:

     ICECC_DISABLED = ""
        

26.51. image.bbclass

The image class helps support creating images in different formats. First, the root filesystem is created from packages using one of the rootfs*.bbclass files (depending on the package format used) and then one or more image files are created.

  • The IMAGE_FSTYPES variable controls the types of images to generate.

  • The IMAGE_INSTALL variable controls the list of packages to install into the image.

For information on customizing images, see the "Customizing Images" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual. For information on how images are created, see the "Images" section elsewhere in this manual.

26.52. image-buildinfo.bbclass

The image-buildinfo class writes information to the target filesystem on /etc/build.

26.53. image_types.bbclass

The image_types class defines all of the standard image output types that you can enable through the IMAGE_FSTYPES variable. You can use this class as a reference on how to add support for custom image output types.

By default, this class is enabled through the IMAGE_CLASSES variable in image.bbclass. If you define your own image types using a custom BitBake class and then use IMAGE_CLASSES to enable it, the custom class must either inherit image_types or image_types must also appear in IMAGE_CLASSES.

26.54. image_types_uboot.bbclass

The image_types_uboot class defines additional image types specifically for the U-Boot bootloader.

26.55. image-live.bbclass

This class controls building "live" (i.e. HDDIMG and ISO) images. Live images contain syslinux for legacy booting, as well as the bootloader specified by EFI_PROVIDER if MACHINE_FEATURES contains "efi".

Normally, you do not use this class directly. Instead, you add "live" to IMAGE_FSTYPES. You can selectively build just one of these types through the NOISO and NOHDD variables. For example, if you were building an ISO image, you would add "live" to IMAGE_FSTYPES, set the NOISO variable to "0" and the build system would use the image-live class to build the ISO image.

26.56. image-mklibs.bbclass

The image-mklibs class enables the use of the mklibs utility during the do_rootfs task, which optimizes the size of libraries contained in the image.

By default, the class is enabled in the local.conf.template using the USER_CLASSES variable as follows:

     USER_CLASSES ?= "buildstats image-mklibs image-prelink"
        

The image-prelink class enables the use of the prelink utility during the do_rootfs task, which optimizes the dynamic linking of shared libraries to reduce executable startup time.

By default, the class is enabled in the local.conf.template using the USER_CLASSES variable as follows:

     USER_CLASSES ?= "buildstats image-mklibs image-prelink"
        

26.58. image-vm.bbclass

The image-vm class supports building VM images.

26.59. image-vmdk.bbclass

The image-vmdk class supports building VMware VMDK images. Normally, you do not use this class directly. Instead, you add "vmdk" to IMAGE_FSTYPES.

26.60. insane.bbclass

The insane class adds a step to the package generation process so that output quality assurance checks are generated by the OpenEmbedded build system. A range of checks are performed that check the build's output for common problems that show up during runtime. Distribution policy usually dictates whether to include this class.

You can configure the sanity checks so that specific test failures either raise a warning or an error message. Typically, failures for new tests generate a warning. Subsequent failures for the same test would then generate an error message once the metadata is in a known and good condition. See the "QA Error and Warning Messages" Chapter for a list of all the warning and error messages you might encounter using a default configuration.

Use the WARN_QA and ERROR_QA variables to control the behavior of these checks at the global level (i.e. in your custom distro configuration). However, to skip one or more checks in recipes, you should use INSANE_SKIP. For example, to skip the check for symbolic link .so files in the main package of a recipe, add the following to the recipe. You need to realize that the package name override, in this example ${PN}, must be used:

     INSANE_SKIP_${PN} += "dev-so"
        

Please keep in mind that the QA checks exist in order to detect real or potential problems in the packaged output. So exercise caution when disabling these checks.

The following list shows the tests you can list with the WARN_QA and ERROR_QA variables:

  • already-stripped: Checks that produced binaries have not already been stripped prior to the build system extracting debug symbols. It is common for upstream software projects to default to stripping debug symbols for output binaries. In order for debugging to work on the target using -dbg packages, this stripping must be disabled.

  • arch: Checks the Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) type, bit size, and endianness of any binaries to ensure they match the target architecture. This test fails if any binaries do not match the type since there would be an incompatibility. The test could indicate that the wrong compiler or compiler options have been used. Sometimes software, like bootloaders, might need to bypass this check.

  • buildpaths: Checks for paths to locations on the build host inside the output files. Currently, this test triggers too many false positives and thus is not normally enabled.

  • build-deps: Determines if a build-time dependency that is specified through DEPENDS, explicit RDEPENDS, or task-level dependencies exists to match any runtime dependency. This determination is particularly useful to discover where runtime dependencies are detected and added during packaging. If no explicit dependency has been specified within the metadata, at the packaging stage it is too late to ensure that the dependency is built, and thus you can end up with an error when the package is installed into the image during the do_rootfs task because the auto-detected dependency was not satisfied. An example of this would be where the update-rc.d class automatically adds a dependency on the initscripts-functions package to packages that install an initscript that refers to /etc/init.d/functions. The recipe should really have an explicit RDEPENDS for the package in question on initscripts-functions so that the OpenEmbedded build system is able to ensure that the initscripts recipe is actually built and thus the initscripts-functions package is made available.

  • compile-host-path: Checks the do_compile log for indications that paths to locations on the build host were used. Using such paths might result in host contamination of the build output.

  • debug-deps: Checks that all packages except -dbg packages do not depend on -dbg packages, which would cause a packaging bug.

  • debug-files: Checks for .debug directories in anything but the -dbg package. The debug files should all be in the -dbg package. Thus, anything packaged elsewhere is incorrect packaging.

  • dep-cmp: Checks for invalid version comparison statements in runtime dependency relationships between packages (i.e. in RDEPENDS, RRECOMMENDS, RSUGGESTS, RPROVIDES, RREPLACES, and RCONFLICTS variable values). Any invalid comparisons might trigger failures or undesirable behavior when passed to the package manager.

  • desktop: Runs the desktop-file-validate program against any .desktop files to validate their contents against the specification for .desktop files.

  • dev-deps: Checks that all packages except -dev or -staticdev packages do not depend on -dev packages, which would be a packaging bug.

  • dev-so: Checks that the .so symbolic links are in the -dev package and not in any of the other packages. In general, these symlinks are only useful for development purposes. Thus, the -dev package is the correct location for them. Some very rare cases do exist for dynamically loaded modules where these symlinks are needed instead in the main package.

  • file-rdeps: Checks that file-level dependencies identified by the OpenEmbedded build system at packaging time are satisfied. For example, a shell script might start with the line #!/bin/bash. This line would translate to a file dependency on /bin/bash. Of the three package managers that the OpenEmbedded build system supports, only RPM directly handles file-level dependencies, resolving them automatically to packages providing the files. However, the lack of that functionality in the other two package managers does not mean the dependencies do not still need resolving. This QA check attempts to ensure that explicitly declared RDEPENDS exist to handle any file-level dependency detected in packaged files.

  • files-invalid: Checks for FILES variable values that contain "//", which is invalid.

  • host-user-contaminated: Checks that no package produced by the recipe contains any files outside of /home with a user or group ID that matches the user running BitBake. A match usually indicates that the files are being installed with an incorrect UID/GID, since target IDs are independent from host IDs. For additional information, see the section describing the do_install task.

  • incompatible-license: Report when packages are excluded from being created due to being marked with a license that is in INCOMPATIBLE_LICENSE.

  • install-host-path: Checks the do_install log for indications that paths to locations on the build host were used. Using such paths might result in host contamination of the build output.

  • installed-vs-shipped: Reports when files have been installed within do_install but have not been included in any package by way of the FILES variable. Files that do not appear in any package cannot be present in an image later on in the build process. Ideally, all installed files should be packaged or not installed at all. These files can be deleted at the end of do_install if the files are not needed in any package.

  • invalid-chars: Checks that the recipe metadata variables DESCRIPTION, SUMMARY, LICENSE, and SECTION do not contain non-UTF-8 characters. Some package managers do not support such characters.

  • invalid-packageconfig: Checks that no undefined features are being added to PACKAGECONFIG. For example, any name "foo" for which the following form does not exist:

         PACKAGECONFIG[foo] = "..."
                    

  • la: Checks .la files for any TMPDIR paths. Any .la file containing these paths is incorrect since libtool adds the correct sysroot prefix when using the files automatically itself.

  • ldflags: Ensures that the binaries were linked with the LDFLAGS options provided by the build system. If this test fails, check that the LDFLAGS variable is being passed to the linker command.

  • libdir: Checks for libraries being installed into incorrect (possibly hardcoded) installation paths. For example, this test will catch recipes that install /lib/bar.so when ${base_libdir} is "lib32". Another example is when recipes install /usr/lib64/foo.so when ${libdir} is "/usr/lib".

  • libexec: Checks if a package contains files in /usr/libexec. This check is not performed if the libexecdir variable has been set explicitly to /usr/libexec.

  • packages-list: Checks for the same package being listed multiple times through the PACKAGES variable value. Installing the package in this manner can cause errors during packaging.

  • perm-config: Reports lines in fs-perms.txt that have an invalid format.

  • perm-line: Reports lines in fs-perms.txt that have an invalid format.

  • perm-link: Reports lines in fs-perms.txt that specify 'link' where the specified target already exists.

  • perms: Currently, this check is unused but reserved.

  • pkgconfig: Checks .pc files for any TMPDIR/WORKDIR paths. Any .pc file containing these paths is incorrect since pkg-config itself adds the correct sysroot prefix when the files are accessed.

  • pkgname: Checks that all packages in PACKAGES have names that do not contain invalid characters (i.e. characters other than 0-9, a-z, ., +, and -).

  • pkgv-undefined: Checks to see if the PKGV variable is undefined during do_package.

  • pkgvarcheck: Checks through the variables RDEPENDS, RRECOMMENDS, RSUGGESTS, RCONFLICTS, RPROVIDES, RREPLACES, FILES, ALLOW_EMPTY, pkg_preinst, pkg_postinst, pkg_prerm and pkg_postrm, and reports if there are variable sets that are not package-specific. Using these variables without a package suffix is bad practice, and might unnecessarily complicate dependencies of other packages within the same recipe or have other unintended consequences.

  • pn-overrides: Checks that a recipe does not have a name (PN) value that appears in OVERRIDES. If a recipe is named such that its PN value matches something already in OVERRIDES (e.g. PN happens to be the same as MACHINE or DISTRO), it can have unexpected consequences. For example, assignments such as FILES_${PN} = "xyz" effectively turn into FILES = "xyz".

  • rpaths: Checks for rpaths in the binaries that contain build system paths such as TMPDIR. If this test fails, bad -rpath options are being passed to the linker commands and your binaries have potential security issues.

  • split-strip: Reports that splitting or stripping debug symbols from binaries has failed.

  • staticdev: Checks for static library files (*.a) in non-staticdev packages.

  • symlink-to-sysroot: Checks for symlinks in packages that point into TMPDIR on the host. Such symlinks will work on the host, but are clearly invalid when running on the target.

  • textrel: Checks for ELF binaries that contain relocations in their .text sections, which can result in a performance impact at runtime. See the explanation for the ELF binary message for more information regarding runtime performance issues.

  • unsafe-references-in-scripts: Reports when a script file installed in ${base_libdir}, ${base_bindir}, or ${base_sbindir}, depends on files installed under ${exec_prefix}. This dependency is a concern if you want the system to remain basically operable if /usr is mounted separately and is not mounted.

    Note

    Defaults for binaries installed in ${base_libdir}, ${base_bindir}, and ${base_sbindir} are /lib, /bin, and /sbin, respectively. The default for a binary installed under ${exec_prefix} is /usr.

  • useless-rpaths: Checks for dynamic library load paths (rpaths) in the binaries that by default on a standard system are searched by the linker (e.g. /lib and /usr/lib). While these paths will not cause any breakage, they do waste space and are unnecessary.

  • var-undefined: Reports when variables fundamental to packaging (i.e. WORKDIR, DEPLOY_DIR, D, PN, and PKGD) are undefined during do_package.

  • version-going-backwards: If Build History is enabled, reports when a package being written out has a lower version than the previously written package under the same name. If you are placing output packages into a feed and upgrading packages on a target system using that feed, the version of a package going backwards can result in the target system not correctly upgrading to the "new" version of the package.

    Note

    If you are not using runtime package management on your target system, then you do not need to worry about this situation.

  • xorg-driver-abi: Checks that all packages containing Xorg drivers have ABI dependencies. The xserver-xorg recipe provides driver ABI names. All drivers should depend on the ABI versions that they have been built against. Driver recipes that include xorg-driver-input.inc or xorg-driver-video.inc will automatically get these versions. Consequently, you should only need to explicitly add dependencies to binary driver recipes.

26.61. insserv.bbclass

The insserv class uses the insserv utility to update the order of symbolic links in /etc/rc?.d/ within an image based on dependencies specified by LSB headers in the init.d scripts themselves.

26.62. kernel.bbclass

The kernel class handles building Linux kernels. The class contains code to build all kernel trees. All needed headers are staged into the STAGING_KERNEL_DIR directory to allow out-of-tree module builds using the module class.

This means that each built kernel module is packaged separately and inter-module dependencies are created by parsing the modinfo output. If all modules are required, then installing the kernel-modules package installs all packages with modules and various other kernel packages such as kernel-vmlinux.

The kernel class contains logic that allows you to embed an initial RAM filesystem (initramfs) image when you build the kernel image. For information on how to build an initramfs, see the "Building an Initial RAM Filesystem (initramfs) Image" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

Various other classes are used by the kernel and module classes internally including the kernel-arch, module-base, and linux-kernel-base classes.

26.63. kernel-arch.bbclass

The kernel-arch class sets the ARCH environment variable for Linux kernel compilation (including modules).

26.64. kernel-fitimage.bbclass

The kernel-fitimage class provides support to pack zImages.

26.65. kernel-grub.bbclass

The kernel-grub class updates the boot area and the boot menu with the kernel as the priority boot mechanism while installing a RPM to update the kernel on a deployed target.

26.66. kernel-module-split.bbclass

The kernel-module-split class provides common functionality for splitting Linux kernel modules into separate packages.

26.67. kernel-uboot.bbclass

The kernel-uboot class provides support for building from vmlinux-style kernel sources.

26.68. kernel-uimage.bbclass

The kernel-uimage class provides support to pack uImage.

26.69. kernel-yocto.bbclass

The kernel-yocto class provides common functionality for building from linux-yocto style kernel source repositories.

26.70. kernelsrc.bbclass

The kernelsrc class sets the Linux kernel source and version.

26.71. lib_package.bbclass

The lib_package class supports recipes that build libraries and produce executable binaries, where those binaries should not be installed by default along with the library. Instead, the binaries are added to a separate ${PN}-bin package to make their installation optional.

26.72. libc*.bbclass

The libc* classes support recipes that build packages with libc:

  • The libc-common class provides common support for building with libc.

  • The libc-package class supports packaging up glibc and eglibc.

26.73. license.bbclass

The license class provides license manifest creation and license exclusion. This class is enabled by default using the default value for the INHERIT_DISTRO variable.

26.74. linux-kernel-base.bbclass

The linux-kernel-base class provides common functionality for recipes that build out of the Linux kernel source tree. These builds goes beyond the kernel itself. For example, the Perf recipe also inherits this class.

26.75. linuxloader.bbclass

Provides the function linuxloader(), which gives the value of the dynamic loader/linker provided on the platform. This value is used by a number of other classes.

26.76. logging.bbclass

The logging class provides the standard shell functions used to log messages for various BitBake severity levels (i.e. bbplain, bbnote, bbwarn, bberror, bbfatal, and bbdebug).

This class is enabled by default since it is inherited by the base class.

26.77. meta.bbclass

The meta class is inherited by recipes that do not build any output packages themselves, but act as a "meta" target for building other recipes.

26.78. metadata_scm.bbclass

The metadata_scm class provides functionality for querying the branch and revision of a Source Code Manager (SCM) repository.

The base class uses this class to print the revisions of each layer before starting every build. The metadata_scm class is enabled by default because it is inherited by the base class.

26.79. migrate_localcount.bbclass

The migrate_localcount class verifies a recipe's localcount data and increments it appropriately.

26.80. mime.bbclass

The mime class generates the proper post-install and post-remove (postinst/postrm) scriptlets for packages that install MIME type files. These scriptlets call update-mime-database to add the MIME types to the shared database.

26.81. mirrors.bbclass

The mirrors class sets up some standard MIRRORS entries for source code mirrors. These mirrors provide a fall-back path in case the upstream source specified in SRC_URI within recipes is unavailable.

This class is enabled by default since it is inherited by the base class.

26.82. module.bbclass

The module class provides support for building out-of-tree Linux kernel modules. The class inherits the module-base and kernel-module-split classes, and implements the do_compile and do_install tasks. The class provides everything needed to build and package a kernel module.

For general information on out-of-tree Linux kernel modules, see the "Incorporating Out-of-Tree Modules" section in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual.

26.83. module-base.bbclass

The module-base class provides the base functionality for building Linux kernel modules. Typically, a recipe that builds software that includes one or more kernel modules and has its own means of building the module inherits this class as opposed to inheriting the module class.

26.84. multilib*.bbclass

The multilib* classes provide support for building libraries with different target optimizations or target architectures and installing them side-by-side in the same image.

For more information on using the Multilib feature, see the "Combining Multiple Versions of Library Files into One Image" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

26.85. native.bbclass

The native class provides common functionality for recipes that wish to build tools to run on the build host (i.e. tools that use the compiler or other tools from the build host).

You can create a recipe that builds tools that run natively on the host a couple different ways:

  • Create a myrecipe-native.bb that inherits the native class. If you use this method, you must order the inherit statement in the recipe after all other inherit statements so that the native class is inherited last.

  • Create or modify a target recipe that contains the following:

         BBCLASSEXTEND = "native"
                    

    Inside the recipe, use _class-native and _class-target overrides to specify any functionality specific to the respective native or target case.

Warning

When creating a recipe, you must follow this naming convention:
     native-myrecipe.bb
            
Not doing so can lead to subtle problems because code exists that depends on the naming convention.

Although applied differently, the native class is used with both methods. The advantage of the second method is that you do not need to have two separate recipes (assuming you need both) for native and target. All common parts of the recipe are automatically shared.

26.86. nativesdk.bbclass

The nativesdk class provides common functionality for recipes that wish to build tools to run as part of an SDK (i.e. tools that run on SDKMACHINE).

You can create a recipe that builds tools that run on the SDK machine a couple different ways:

  • Create a nativesdk-myrecipe.bb recipe that inherits the nativesdk class. If you use this method, you must order the inherit statement in the recipe after all other inherit statements so that the nativesdk class is inherited last.

  • Create a nativesdk variant of any recipe by adding the following:

         BBCLASSEXTEND = "nativesdk"
                    

    Inside the recipe, use _class-nativesdk and _class-target overrides to specify any functionality specific to the respective SDK machine or target case.

Warning

When creating a recipe, you must follow this naming convention:
     nativesdk-myrecipe.bb
            
Not doing so can lead to subtle problems because code exists that depends on the naming convention.

Although applied differently, the nativesdk class is used with both methods. The advantage of the second method is that you do not need to have two separate recipes (assuming you need both) for the SDK machine and the target. All common parts of the recipe are automatically shared.

26.87. nopackages.bbclass

Disables packaging tasks for those recipes and classes where packaging is not needed.

26.88. npm.bbclass

Provides support for building Node.js software fetched using the npm package manager.

Note

Currently, recipes inheriting this class must use the npm:// fetcher to have dependencies fetched and packaged automatically.

26.89. oelint.bbclass

The oelint class is an obsolete lint checking tool that exists in meta/classes in the Source Directory.

A number of classes exist that could be generally useful in OE-Core but are never actually used within OE-Core itself. The oelint class is one such example. However, being aware of this class can reduce the proliferation of different versions of similar classes across multiple layers.

26.90. own-mirrors.bbclass

The own-mirrors class makes it easier to set up your own PREMIRRORS from which to first fetch source before attempting to fetch it from the upstream specified in SRC_URI within each recipe.

To use this class, inherit it globally and specify SOURCE_MIRROR_URL. Here is an example:

     INHERIT += "own-mirrors"
     SOURCE_MIRROR_URL = "http://example.com/my-source-mirror"
        

You can specify only a single URL in SOURCE_MIRROR_URL.

26.91. package.bbclass

The package class supports generating packages from a build's output. The core generic functionality is in package.bbclass. The code specific to particular package types resides in these package-specific classes: package_deb, package_rpm, package_ipk, and package_tar.

Warning

The package_tar class is broken and not supported. It is recommended that you do not use this class.

You can control the list of resulting package formats by using the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable defined in your conf/local.conf configuration file, which is located in the Build Directory. When defining the variable, you can specify one or more package types. Since images are generated from packages, a packaging class is needed to enable image generation. The first class listed in this variable is used for image generation.

If you take the optional step to set up a repository (package feed) on the development host that can be used by DNF, you can install packages from the feed while you are running the image on the target (i.e. runtime installation of packages). For more information, see the "Using Runtime Package Management" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

The package-specific class you choose can affect build-time performance and has space ramifications. In general, building a package with IPK takes about thirty percent less time as compared to using RPM to build the same or similar package. This comparison takes into account a complete build of the package with all dependencies previously built. The reason for this discrepancy is because the RPM package manager creates and processes more Metadata than the IPK package manager. Consequently, you might consider setting PACKAGE_CLASSES to "package_ipk" if you are building smaller systems.

Before making your package manager decision, however, you should consider some further things about using RPM:

  • RPM starts to provide more abilities than IPK due to the fact that it processes more Metadata. For example, this information includes individual file types, file checksum generation and evaluation on install, sparse file support, conflict detection and resolution for Multilib systems, ACID style upgrade, and repackaging abilities for rollbacks.

  • For smaller systems, the extra space used for the Berkeley Database and the amount of metadata when using RPM can affect your ability to perform on-device upgrades.

You can find additional information on the effects of the package class at these two Yocto Project mailing list links:

26.92. package_deb.bbclass

The package_deb class provides support for creating packages that use the Debian (i.e. .deb) file format. The class ensures the packages are written out in a .deb file format to the ${DEPLOY_DIR_DEB} directory.

This class inherits the package class and is enabled through the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable in the local.conf file.

26.93. package_ipk.bbclass

The package_ipk class provides support for creating packages that use the IPK (i.e. .ipk) file format. The class ensures the packages are written out in a .ipk file format to the ${DEPLOY_DIR_IPK} directory.

This class inherits the package class and is enabled through the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable in the local.conf file.

26.94. package_rpm.bbclass

The package_rpm class provides support for creating packages that use the RPM (i.e. .rpm) file format. The class ensures the packages are written out in a .rpm file format to the ${DEPLOY_DIR_RPM} directory.

This class inherits the package class and is enabled through the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable in the local.conf file.

26.95. package_tar.bbclass

The package_tar class provides support for creating tarballs. The class ensures the packages are written out in a tarball format to the ${DEPLOY_DIR_TAR} directory.

This class inherits the package class and is enabled through the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable in the local.conf file.

Note

You cannot specify the package_tar class first using the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable. You must use .deb, .ipk, or .rpm file formats for your image or SDK.

26.96. packagedata.bbclass

The packagedata class provides common functionality for reading pkgdata files found in PKGDATA_DIR. These files contain information about each output package produced by the OpenEmbedded build system.

This class is enabled by default because it is inherited by the package class.

26.97. packagegroup.bbclass

The packagegroup class sets default values appropriate for package group recipes (e.g. PACKAGES, PACKAGE_ARCH, ALLOW_EMPTY, and so forth). It is highly recommended that all package group recipes inherit this class.

For information on how to use this class, see the "Customizing Images Using Custom Package Groups" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

Previously, this class was called the task class.

26.98. patch.bbclass

The patch class provides all functionality for applying patches during the do_patch task.

This class is enabled by default because it is inherited by the base class.

26.99. perlnative.bbclass

When inherited by a recipe, the perlnative class supports using the native version of Perl built by the build system rather than using the version provided by the build host.

26.100. pixbufcache.bbclass

The pixbufcache class generates the proper post-install and post-remove (postinst/postrm) scriptlets for packages that install pixbuf loaders, which are used with gdk-pixbuf. These scriptlets call update_pixbuf_cache to add the pixbuf loaders to the cache. Since the cache files are architecture-specific, update_pixbuf_cache is run using QEMU if the postinst scriptlets need to be run on the build host during image creation.

If the pixbuf loaders being installed are in packages other than the recipe's main package, set PIXBUF_PACKAGES to specify the packages containing the loaders.

26.101. pkgconfig.bbclass

The pkgconfig class provides a standard way to get header and library information by using pkg-config. This class aims to smooth integration of pkg-config into libraries that use it.

During staging, BitBake installs pkg-config data into the sysroots/ directory. By making use of sysroot functionality within pkg-config, the pkgconfig class no longer has to manipulate the files.

26.102. populate_sdk.bbclass

The populate_sdk class provides support for SDK-only recipes. For information on advantages gained when building a cross-development toolchain using the do_populate_sdk task, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

26.103. populate_sdk_*.bbclass

The populate_sdk_* classes support SDK creation and consist of the following classes:

  • populate_sdk_base: The base class supporting SDK creation under all package managers (i.e. DEB, RPM, and opkg).

  • populate_sdk_deb: Supports creation of the SDK given the Debian package manager.

  • populate_sdk_rpm: Supports creation of the SDK given the RPM package manager.

  • populate_sdk_ipk: Supports creation of the SDK given the opkg (IPK format) package manager.

  • populate_sdk_ext: Supports extensible SDK creation under all package managers.

The populate_sdk_base class inherits the appropriate populate_sdk_* (i.e. deb, rpm, and ipk) based on IMAGE_PKGTYPE.

The base class ensures all source and destination directories are established and then populates the SDK. After populating the SDK, the populate_sdk_base class constructs two sysroots: ${SDK_ARCH}-nativesdk, which contains the cross-compiler and associated tooling, and the target, which contains a target root filesystem that is configured for the SDK usage. These two images reside in SDK_OUTPUT, which consists of the following:

     ${SDK_OUTPUT}/${SDK_ARCH}-nativesdk-pkgs
     ${SDK_OUTPUT}/${SDKTARGETSYSROOT}/target-pkgs
        

Finally, the base populate SDK class creates the toolchain environment setup script, the tarball of the SDK, and the installer.

The respective populate_sdk_deb, populate_sdk_rpm, and populate_sdk_ipk classes each support the specific type of SDK. These classes are inherited by and used with the populate_sdk_base class.

For more information on the cross-development toolchain generation, see the "Cross-Development Toolchain Generation" section. For information on advantages gained when building a cross-development toolchain using the do_populate_sdk task, see the "Building an SDK Installer" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

26.104. prexport.bbclass

The prexport class provides functionality for exporting PR values.

Note

This class is not intended to be used directly. Rather, it is enabled when using "bitbake-prserv-tool export".

26.105. primport.bbclass

The primport class provides functionality for importing PR values.

Note

This class is not intended to be used directly. Rather, it is enabled when using "bitbake-prserv-tool import".

26.106. prserv.bbclass

The prserv class provides functionality for using a PR service in order to automatically manage the incrementing of the PR variable for each recipe.

This class is enabled by default because it is inherited by the package class. However, the OpenEmbedded build system will not enable the functionality of this class unless PRSERV_HOST has been set.

26.107. ptest.bbclass

The ptest class provides functionality for packaging and installing runtime tests for recipes that build software that provides these tests.

This class is intended to be inherited by individual recipes. However, the class' functionality is largely disabled unless "ptest" appears in DISTRO_FEATURES. See the "Testing Packages With ptest" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information on ptest.

26.108. ptest-gnome.bbclass

Enables package tests (ptests) specifically for GNOME packages, which have tests intended to be executed with gnome-desktop-testing.

For information on setting up and running ptests, see the "Testing Packages With ptest" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

26.109. python-dir.bbclass

The python-dir class provides the base version, location, and site package location for Python.

26.110. python3native.bbclass

The python3native class supports using the native version of Python 3 built by the build system rather than support of the version provided by the build host.

26.111. pythonnative.bbclass

When inherited by a recipe, the pythonnative class supports using the native version of Python built by the build system rather than using the version provided by the build host.

26.112. qemu.bbclass

The qemu class provides functionality for recipes that either need QEMU or test for the existence of QEMU. Typically, this class is used to run programs for a target system on the build host using QEMU's application emulation mode.

26.113. recipe_sanity.bbclass

The recipe_sanity class checks for the presence of any host system recipe prerequisites that might affect the build (e.g. variables that are set or software that is present).

26.114. relocatable.bbclass

The relocatable class enables relocation of binaries when they are installed into the sysroot.

This class makes use of the chrpath class and is used by both the cross and native classes.

26.115. remove-libtool.bbclass

The remove-libtool class adds a post function to the do_install task to remove all .la files installed by libtool. Removing these files results in them being absent from both the sysroot and target packages.

If a recipe needs the .la files to be installed, then the recipe can override the removal by setting REMOVE_LIBTOOL_LA to "0" as follows:

     REMOVE_LIBTOOL_LA = "0"
        

Note

The remove-libtool class is not enabled by default.

26.116. report-error.bbclass

The report-error class supports enabling the error reporting tool, which allows you to submit build error information to a central database.

The class collects debug information for recipe, recipe version, task, machine, distro, build system, target system, host distro, branch, commit, and log. From the information, report files using a JSON format are created and stored in ${LOG_DIR}/error-report.

26.117. rm_work.bbclass

The rm_work class supports deletion of temporary workspace, which can ease your hard drive demands during builds.

The OpenEmbedded build system can use a substantial amount of disk space during the build process. A portion of this space is the work files under the ${TMPDIR}/work directory for each recipe. Once the build system generates the packages for a recipe, the work files for that recipe are no longer needed. However, by default, the build system preserves these files for inspection and possible debugging purposes. If you would rather have these files deleted to save disk space as the build progresses, you can enable rm_work by adding the following to your local.conf file, which is found in the Build Directory.

    INHERIT += "rm_work"
        

If you are modifying and building source code out of the work directory for a recipe, enabling rm_work will potentially result in your changes to the source being lost. To exclude some recipes from having their work directories deleted by rm_work, you can add the names of the recipe or recipes you are working on to the RM_WORK_EXCLUDE variable, which can also be set in your local.conf file. Here is an example:

    RM_WORK_EXCLUDE += "busybox glibc"
        

26.118. rootfs*.bbclass

The rootfs* classes support creating the root filesystem for an image and consist of the following classes:

  • The rootfs-postcommands class, which defines filesystem post-processing functions for image recipes.

  • The rootfs_deb class, which supports creation of root filesystems for images built using .deb packages.

  • The rootfs_rpm class, which supports creation of root filesystems for images built using .rpm packages.

  • The rootfs_ipk class, which supports creation of root filesystems for images built using .ipk packages.

  • The rootfsdebugfiles class, which installs additional files found on the build host directly into the root filesystem.

The root filesystem is created from packages using one of the rootfs*.bbclass files as determined by the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable.

For information on how root filesystem images are created, see the "Image Generation" section.

26.119. sanity.bbclass

The sanity class checks to see if prerequisite software is present on the host system so that users can be notified of potential problems that might affect their build. The class also performs basic user configuration checks from the local.conf configuration file to prevent common mistakes that cause build failures. Distribution policy usually determines whether to include this class.

26.120. scons.bbclass

The scons class supports recipes that need to build software that uses the SCons build system. You can use the EXTRA_OESCONS variable to specify additional configuration options you want to pass SCons command line.

26.121. sdl.bbclass

The sdl class supports recipes that need to build software that uses the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) library.

26.122. setuptools.bbclass

The setuptools class supports Python version 2.x extensions that use build systems based on setuptools. If your recipe uses these build systems, the recipe needs to inherit the setuptools class.

26.123. setuptools3.bbclass

The setuptools3 class supports Python version 3.x extensions that use build systems based on setuptools3. If your recipe uses these build systems, the recipe needs to inherit the setuptools3 class.

26.124. sign_rpm.bbclass

The sign_rpm class supports generating signed RPM packages.

26.125. sip.bbclass

The sip class supports recipes that build or package SIP-based Python bindings.

26.126. siteconfig.bbclass

The siteconfig class provides functionality for handling site configuration. The class is used by the autotools class to accelerate the do_configure task.

26.127. siteinfo.bbclass

The siteinfo class provides information about the targets that might be needed by other classes or recipes.

As an example, consider Autotools, which can require tests that must execute on the target hardware. Since this is not possible in general when cross compiling, site information is used to provide cached test results so these tests can be skipped over but still make the correct values available. The meta/site directory contains test results sorted into different categories such as architecture, endianness, and the libc used. Site information provides a list of files containing data relevant to the current build in the CONFIG_SITE variable that Autotools automatically picks up.

The class also provides variables like SITEINFO_ENDIANNESS and SITEINFO_BITS that can be used elsewhere in the metadata.

Because the base class includes the siteinfo class, it is always active.

26.128. spdx.bbclass

The spdx class integrates real-time license scanning, generation of SPDX standard output, and verification of license information during the build.

Note

This class is currently at the prototype stage in the 1.6 release.

26.129. sstate.bbclass

The sstate class provides support for Shared State (sstate). By default, the class is enabled through the INHERIT_DISTRO variable's default value.

For more information on sstate, see the "Shared State Cache" section.

26.130. staging.bbclass

The staging class installs files into individual recipe work directories for sysroots. The class contains the following key tasks:

  • The do_populate_sysroot task, which is responsible for handing the files that end up in the recipe sysroots.

  • The do_prepare_recipe_sysroot task (a "partner" task to the populate_sysroot task), which installs the files into the individual recipe work directories (i.e. WORKDIR).

The code in the staging class is complex and basically works in two stages:

  • Stage One: The first stage addresses recipes that have files they want to share with other recipes that have dependencies on the originating recipe. Normally these dependencies are installed through the do_install task into ${D}. The do_populate_sysroot task copies a subset of these files into ${SYSROOT_DESTDIR}. This subset of files is controlled by the SYSROOT_DIRS, SYSROOT_DIRS_NATIVE, and SYSROOT_DIRS_BLACKLIST variables.

    Note

    Additionally, a recipe can customize the files further by declaring a processing function in the SYSROOT_PREPROCESS_FUNCS variable.

    A shared state (sstate) object is built from these files and the files are placed into a subdirectory of tmp/sysroots-components/. The files are scanned for hardcoded paths to the original installation location. If the location is found in text files, the hardcoded locations are replaced by tokens and a list of the files needing such replacements is created. These adjustments are referred to as "FIXMEs". The list of files that are scanned for paths is controlled by the SSTATE_SCAN_FILES variable.

  • Stage Two: The second stage addresses recipes that want to use something from another recipe and declare a dependency on that recipe through the DEPENDS variable. The recipe will have a do_prepare_recipe_sysroot task and when this task executes, it creates the recipe-sysroot and recipe-sysroot-native in the recipe work directory (i.e. WORKDIR). The OpenEmbedded build system creates hard links to copies of the relevant files from sysroots-components into the recipe work directory.

    Note

    If hard links are not possible, the build system uses actual copies.

    The build system then addresses any "FIXMEs" to paths as defined from the list created in the first stage.

    Finally, any files in ${bindir} within the sysroot that have the prefix "postinst-" are executed.

    Note

    Although such sysroot post installation scripts are not recommended for general use, the files do allow some issues such as user creation and module indexes to be addressed.

    Because recipes can have other dependencies outside of DEPENDS (e.g. do_unpack[depends] += "tar-native:do_populate_sysroot"), the sysroot creation function extend_recipe_sysroot is also added as a pre-function for those tasks whose dependencies are not through DEPENDS but operate similarly.

    When installing dependencies into the sysroot, the code traverses the dependency graph and processes dependencies in exactly the same way as the dependencies would or would not be when installed from sstate. This processing means, for example, a native tool would have its native dependencies added but a target library would not have its dependencies traversed or installed. The same sstate dependency code is used so that builds should be identical regardless of whether sstate was used or not. For a closer look, see the setscene_depvalid() function in the sstate class.

    The build system is careful to maintain manifests of the files it installs so that any given dependency can be installed as needed. The sstate hash of the installed item is also stored so that if it changes, the build system can reinstall it.

26.131. syslinux.bbclass

The syslinux class provides syslinux-specific functions for building bootable images.

The class supports the following variables:

  • INITRD: Indicates list of filesystem images to concatenate and use as an initial RAM disk (initrd). This variable is optional.

  • ROOTFS: Indicates a filesystem image to include as the root filesystem. This variable is optional.

  • AUTO_SYSLINUXMENU: Enables creating an automatic menu when set to "1".

  • LABELS: Lists targets for automatic configuration.

  • APPEND: Lists append string overrides for each label.

  • SYSLINUX_OPTS: Lists additional options to add to the syslinux file. Semicolon characters separate multiple options.

  • SYSLINUX_SPLASH: Lists a background for the VGA boot menu when you are using the boot menu.

  • SYSLINUX_DEFAULT_CONSOLE: Set to "console=ttyX" to change kernel boot default console.

  • SYSLINUX_SERIAL: Sets an alternate serial port. Or, turns off serial when the variable is set with an empty string.

  • SYSLINUX_SERIAL_TTY: Sets an alternate "console=tty..." kernel boot argument.

26.132. systemd.bbclass

The systemd class provides support for recipes that install systemd unit files.

The functionality for this class is disabled unless you have "systemd" in DISTRO_FEATURES.

Under this class, the recipe or Makefile (i.e. whatever the recipe is calling during the do_install task) installs unit files into ${D}${systemd_unitdir}/system. If the unit files being installed go into packages other than the main package, you need to set SYSTEMD_PACKAGES in your recipe to identify the packages in which the files will be installed.

You should set SYSTEMD_SERVICE to the name of the service file. You should also use a package name override to indicate the package to which the value applies. If the value applies to the recipe's main package, use ${PN}. Here is an example from the connman recipe:

     SYSTEMD_SERVICE_${PN} = "connman.service"
        

Services are set up to start on boot automatically unless you have set SYSTEMD_AUTO_ENABLE to "disable".

For more information on systemd, see the "Selecting an Initialization Manager" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

26.133. systemd-boot.bbclass

The systemd-boot class provides functions specific to the systemd-boot bootloader for building bootable images. This is an internal class and is not intended to be used directly.

Note

The systemd-boot class is a result from merging the gummiboot class used in previous Yocto Project releases with the systemd project.

Set the EFI_PROVIDER variable to "systemd-boot" to use this class. Doing so creates a standalone EFI bootloader that is not dependent on systemd.

For information on more variables used and supported in this class, see the SYSTEMD_BOOT_CFG, SYSTEMD_BOOT_ENTRIES, and SYSTEMD_BOOT_TIMEOUT variables.

You can also see the Systemd-boot documentation for more information.

26.134. terminal.bbclass

The terminal class provides support for starting a terminal session. The OE_TERMINAL variable controls which terminal emulator is used for the session.

Other classes use the terminal class anywhere a separate terminal session needs to be started. For example, the patch class assuming PATCHRESOLVE is set to "user", the cml1 class, and the devshell class all use the terminal class.

26.135. testimage*.bbclass

The testimage* classes support running automated tests against images using QEMU and on actual hardware. The classes handle loading the tests and starting the image. To use the classes, you need to perform steps to set up the environment.

The tests are commands that run on the target system over ssh. Each test is written in Python and makes use of the unittest module.

The testimage.bbclass runs tests on an image when called using the following:

     $ bitbake -c testimage image
        

The testimage-auto class runs tests on an image after the image is constructed (i.e. TEST_IMAGE must be set to "1").

For information on how to enable, run, and create new tests, see the "Performing Automated Runtime Testing" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

26.136. testsdk.bbclass

This class supports running automated tests against software development kits (SDKs). The testsdk class runs tests on an SDK when called using the following:

     $ bitbake -c testsdk image
        

26.137. texinfo.bbclass

This class should be inherited by recipes whose upstream packages invoke the texinfo utilities at build-time. Native and cross recipes are made to use the dummy scripts provided by texinfo-dummy-native, for improved performance. Target architecture recipes use the genuine Texinfo utilities. By default, they use the Texinfo utilities on the host system.

Note

If you want to use the Texinfo recipe shipped with the build system, you can remove "texinfo-native" from ASSUME_PROVIDED and makeinfo from SANITY_REQUIRED_UTILITIES.

26.138. tinderclient.bbclass

The tinderclient class submits build results to an external Tinderbox instance.

Note

This class is currently unmaintained.

26.139. toaster.bbclass

The toaster class collects information about packages and images and sends them as events that the BitBake user interface can receive. The class is enabled when the Toaster user interface is running.

This class is not intended to be used directly.

26.140. toolchain-scripts.bbclass

The toolchain-scripts class provides the scripts used for setting up the environment for installed SDKs.

26.141. typecheck.bbclass

The typecheck class provides support for validating the values of variables set at the configuration level against their defined types. The OpenEmbedded build system allows you to define the type of a variable using the "type" varflag. Here is an example:

     IMAGE_FEATURES[type] = "list"
        

26.142. uboot-config.bbclass

The uboot-config class provides support for U-Boot configuration for a machine. Specify the machine in your recipe as follows:

     UBOOT_CONFIG ??= <default>
     UBOOT_CONFIG[foo] = "config,images"
        

You can also specify the machine using this method:

     UBOOT_MACHINE = "config"
        

See the UBOOT_CONFIG and UBOOT_MACHINE variables for additional information.

26.143. uninative.bbclass

Attempts to isolate the build system from the host distribution's C library in order to make re-use of native shared state artifacts across different host distributions practical. With this class enabled, a tarball containing a pre-built C library is downloaded at the start of the build. In the Poky reference distribution this is enabled by default through meta/conf/distro/include/yocto-uninative.inc. Other distributions that do not derive from poky can also "require conf/distro/include/yocto-uninative.inc" to use this. Alternatively if you prefer, you can build the uninative-tarball recipe yourself, publish the resulting tarball (e.g. via HTTP) and set UNINATIVE_URL and UNINATIVE_CHECKSUM appropriately. For an example, see the meta/conf/distro/include/yocto-uninative.inc.

The uninative class is also used unconditionally by the extensible SDK. When building the extensible SDK, uninative-tarball is built and the resulting tarball is included within the SDK.

26.144. update-alternatives.bbclass

The update-alternatives class helps the alternatives system when multiple sources provide the same command. This situation occurs when several programs that have the same or similar function are installed with the same name. For example, the ar command is available from the busybox, binutils and elfutils packages. The update-alternatives class handles renaming the binaries so that multiple packages can be installed without conflicts. The ar command still works regardless of which packages are installed or subsequently removed. The class renames the conflicting binary in each package and symlinks the highest priority binary during installation or removal of packages.

To use this class, you need to define a number of variables:

These variables list alternative commands needed by a package, provide pathnames for links, default links for targets, and so forth. For details on how to use this class, see the comments in the update-alternatives.bbclass.

Note

You can use the update-alternatives command directly in your recipes. However, this class simplifies things in most cases.

26.145. update-rc.d.bbclass

The update-rc.d class uses update-rc.d to safely install an initialization script on behalf of the package. The OpenEmbedded build system takes care of details such as making sure the script is stopped before a package is removed and started when the package is installed.

Three variables control this class: INITSCRIPT_PACKAGES, INITSCRIPT_NAME and INITSCRIPT_PARAMS. See the variable links for details.

26.146. useradd*.bbclass

The useradd* classes support the addition of users or groups for usage by the package on the target. For example, if you have packages that contain system services that should be run under their own user or group, you can use these classes to enable creation of the user or group. The meta-skeleton/recipes-skeleton/useradd/useradd-example.bb recipe in the Source Directory provides a simple example that shows how to add three users and groups to two packages. See the useradd-example.bb recipe for more information on how to use these classes.

The useradd_base class provides basic functionality for user or groups settings.

The useradd* classes support the USERADD_PACKAGES, USERADD_PARAM, GROUPADD_PARAM, and GROUPMEMS_PARAM variables.

The useradd-staticids class supports the addition of users or groups that have static user identification (uid) and group identification (gid) values.

The default behavior of the OpenEmbedded build system for assigning uid and gid values when packages add users and groups during package install time is to add them dynamically. This works fine for programs that do not care what the values of the resulting users and groups become. In these cases, the order of the installation determines the final uid and gid values. However, if non-deterministic uid and gid values are a problem, you can override the default, dynamic application of these values by setting static values. When you set static values, the OpenEmbedded build system looks in BBPATH for files/passwd and files/group files for the values.

To use static uid and gid values, you need to set some variables. See the USERADDEXTENSION, USERADD_UID_TABLES, USERADD_GID_TABLES, and USERADD_ERROR_DYNAMIC variables. You can also see the useradd class for additional information.

Notes

You do not use the useradd-staticids class directly. You either enable or disable the class by setting the USERADDEXTENSION variable. If you enable or disable the class in a configured system, TMPDIR might contain incorrect uid and gid values. Deleting the TMPDIR directory will correct this condition.

26.147. utility-tasks.bbclass

The utility-tasks class provides support for various "utility" type tasks that are applicable to all recipes, such as do_clean and do_listtasks.

This class is enabled by default because it is inherited by the base class.

26.148. utils.bbclass

The utils class provides some useful Python functions that are typically used in inline Python expressions (e.g. ${@...}). One example use is for bb.utils.contains().

This class is enabled by default because it is inherited by the base class.

26.149. vala.bbclass

The vala class supports recipes that need to build software written using the Vala programming language.

26.150. waf.bbclass

The waf class supports recipes that need to build software that uses the Waf build system. You can use the EXTRA_OECONF or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS variables to specify additional configuration options to be passed on the Waf command line.

Chapter 27. Tasks

Tasks are units of execution for BitBake. Recipes (.bb files) use tasks to complete configuring, compiling, and packaging software. This chapter provides a reference of the tasks defined in the OpenEmbedded build system.

27.1. Normal Recipe Build Tasks

The following sections describe normal tasks associated with building a recipe. For more information on tasks and dependencies, see the "Tasks" and "Dependencies" sections in the BitBake User Manual.

27.1.1. do_build

The default task for all recipes. This task depends on all other normal tasks required to build a recipe.

27.1.2. do_compile

Compiles the source code. This task runs with the current working directory set to ${B}.

The default behavior of this task is to run the oe_runmake function if a makefile (Makefile, makefile, or GNUmakefile) is found. If no such file is found, the do_compile task does nothing.

27.1.3. do_compile_ptest_base

Compiles the runtime test suite included in the software being built.

27.1.4. do_configure

Configures the source by enabling and disabling any build-time and configuration options for the software being built. The task runs with the current working directory set to ${B}.

The default behavior of this task is to run oe_runmake clean if a makefile (Makefile, makefile, or GNUmakefile) is found and CLEANBROKEN is not set to "1". If no such file is found or the CLEANBROKEN variable is set to "1", the do_configure task does nothing.

27.1.5. do_configure_ptest_base

Configures the runtime test suite included in the software being built.

27.1.6. do_deploy

Writes output files that are to be deployed to ${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE}. The task runs with the current working directory set to ${B}.

Recipes implementing this task should inherit the deploy class and should write the output to ${DEPLOYDIR}, which is not to be confused with ${DEPLOY_DIR}. The deploy class sets up do_deploy as a shared state (sstate) task that can be accelerated through sstate use. The sstate mechanism takes care of copying the output from ${DEPLOYDIR} to ${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE}.

Caution

Do not write the output directly to ${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE}, as this causes the sstate mechanism to malfunction.

The do_deploy task is not added as a task by default and consequently needs to be added manually. If you want the task to run after do_compile, you can add it by doing the following:

     addtask deploy after do_compile
            

Adding do_deploy after other tasks works the same way.

Note

You do not need to add before do_build to the addtask command (though it is harmless), because the base class contains the following:
     do_build[recrdeptask] += "do_deploy"
                
See the "Dependencies" section in the BitBake User Manual for more information.

If the do_deploy task re-executes, any previous output is removed (i.e. "cleaned").

27.1.7. do_distrodata

Provides information about the recipe.

The distrodata task is included as part of the distrodata class.

To build the distrodata task, use the bitbake command with the "-c" option and task name:

     $ bitbake core-image-minimal -c distrodata
            

By default, the results are stored in $LOG_DIR (e.g. $BUILD_DIR/tmp/log).

27.1.8. do_fetch

Fetches the source code. This task uses the SRC_URI variable and the argument's prefix to determine the correct fetcher module.

27.1.9. do_image

Starts the image generation process. The do_image task runs after the OpenEmbedded build system has run the do_rootfs task during which packages are identified for installation into the image and the root filesystem is created, complete with post-processing.

The do_image task performs pre-processing on the image through the IMAGE_PREPROCESS_COMMAND and dynamically generates supporting do_image_* tasks as needed.

For more information on image creation, see the "Image Generation" section.

27.1.10. do_image_complete

Completes the image generation process. The do_image_complete task runs after the OpenEmbedded build system has run the do_image task during which image pre-processing occurs and through dynamically generated do_image_* tasks the image is constructed.

The do_image_complete task performs post-processing on the image through the IMAGE_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND.

For more information on image creation, see the "Image Generation" section.

27.1.11. do_install

Copies files that are to be packaged into the holding area ${D}. This task runs with the current working directory set to ${B}, which is the compilation directory. The do_install task, as well as other tasks that either directly or indirectly depend on the installed files (e.g. do_package, do_package_write_*, and do_rootfs), run under fakeroot.

Caution

When installing files, be careful not to set the owner and group IDs of the installed files to unintended values. Some methods of copying files, notably when using the recursive cp command, can preserve the UID and/or GID of the original file, which is usually not what you want. The host-user-contaminated QA check checks for files that probably have the wrong ownership.

Safe methods for installing files include the following:

  • The install utility. This utility is the preferred method.

  • The cp command with the "--no-preserve=ownership" option.

  • The tar command with the "--no-same-owner" option. See the bin_package.bbclass file in the meta/classes directory of the Source Directory for an example.

27.1.12. do_install_ptest_base

Copies the runtime test suite files from the compilation directory to a holding area.

27.1.13. do_package

Analyzes the content of the holding area ${D} and splits the content into subsets based on available packages and files. This task makes use of the PACKAGES and FILES variables.

The do_package task, in conjunction with the do_packagedata task, also saves some important package metadata. For additional information, see the PKGDESTWORK variable and the "Automatically Added Runtime Dependencies" section.

27.1.14. do_package_qa

Runs QA checks on packaged files. For more information on these checks, see the insane class.

27.1.15. do_package_write_deb

Creates Debian packages (i.e. *.deb files) and places them in the ${DEPLOY_DIR_DEB} directory in the package feeds area. For more information, see the "Package Feeds" section.

27.1.16. do_package_write_ipk

Creates IPK packages (i.e. *.ipk files) and places them in the ${DEPLOY_DIR_IPK} directory in the package feeds area. For more information, see the "Package Feeds" section.

27.1.17. do_package_write_rpm

Creates RPM packages (i.e. *.rpm files) and places them in the ${DEPLOY_DIR_RPM} directory in the package feeds area. For more information, see the "Package Feeds" section.

27.1.18. do_package_write_tar

Creates tarballs and places them in the ${DEPLOY_DIR_TAR} directory in the package feeds area. For more information, see the "Package Feeds" section.

27.1.19. do_packagedata

Saves package metadata generated by the do_package task in PKGDATA_DIR to make it available globally.

27.1.20. do_patch

Locates patch files and applies them to the source code. See the "Patching" section for more information.

27.1.21. do_populate_lic

Writes license information for the recipe that is collected later when the image is constructed.

27.1.22. do_populate_sdk

Creates the file and directory structure for an installable SDK. See the "SDK Generation" section for more information.

27.1.23. do_populate_sysroot

Stages (copies) a subset of the files installed by the do_install task into the appropriate sysroot. For information on how to access these files from other recipes, see the STAGING_DIR* variables. Directories that would typically not be needed by other recipes at build time (e.g. /etc) are not copied by default.

For information on what directories are copied by default, see the SYSROOT_DIRS* variables. You can change these variables inside your recipe if you need to make additional (or fewer) directories available to other recipes at build time.

The do_populate_sysroot task is a shared state (sstate) task, which means that the task can be accelerated through sstate use. Realize also that if the task is re-executed, any previous output is removed (i.e. "cleaned").

27.1.24. do_prepare_recipe_sysroot

Installs the files into the individual recipe specific sysroots (i.e. ${WORKDIR} based upon the dependencies specified by DEPENDS. See the "staging" class for more information.

27.1.25. do_rm_work

Removes work files after the OpenEmbedded build system has finished with them. You can learn more by looking at the "rm_work.bbclass" section.

27.1.26. do_rm_work_all

Top-level task for removing work files after the build system has finished with them.

27.1.27. do_unpack

Unpacks the source code into a working directory pointed to by ${WORKDIR}. The S variable also plays a role in where unpacked source files ultimately reside. For more information on how source files are unpacked, see the "Source Fetching" section and the WORKDIR and S variable descriptions.

27.2. Manually Called Tasks

These tasks are typically manually triggered (e.g. by using the bitbake -c command-line option):

27.2.1. do_checkpkg

Provides information about the recipe including its upstream version and status. The upstream version and status reveals whether or not a version of the recipe exists upstream and a status of not updated, updated, or unknown.

The checkpkg task is included as part of the distrodata class.

To build the checkpkg task, use the bitbake command with the "-c" option and task name:

     $ bitbake core-image-minimal -c checkpkg
            

By default, the results are stored in $LOG_DIR (e.g. $BUILD_DIR/tmp/log).

27.2.2. do_checkuri

Validates the SRC_URI value.

27.2.3. do_checkuriall

Validates the SRC_URI value for all recipes required to build a target.

27.2.4. do_clean

Removes all output files for a target from the do_unpack task forward (i.e. do_unpack, do_configure, do_compile, do_install, and do_package).

You can run this task using BitBake as follows:

     $ bitbake -c clean recipe
            

Running this task does not remove the sstate) cache files. Consequently, if no changes have been made and the recipe is rebuilt after cleaning, output files are simply restored from the sstate cache. If you want to remove the sstate cache files for the recipe, you need to use the do_cleansstate task instead (i.e. bitbake -c cleansstate recipe).

27.2.5. do_cleanall

Removes all output files, shared state (sstate) cache, and downloaded source files for a target (i.e. the contents of DL_DIR). Essentially, the do_cleanall task is identical to the do_cleansstate task with the added removal of downloaded source files.

You can run this task using BitBake as follows:

     $ bitbake -c cleanall recipe
            

Typically, you would not normally use the cleanall task. Do so only if you want to start fresh with the do_fetch task.

27.2.6. do_cleansstate

Removes all output files and shared state (sstate) cache for a target. Essentially, the do_cleansstate task is identical to the do_clean task with the added removal of shared state (sstate) cache.

You can run this task using BitBake as follows:

     $ bitbake -c cleansstate recipe
            

When you run the do_cleansstate task, the OpenEmbedded build system no longer uses any sstate. Consequently, building the recipe from scratch is guaranteed.

Note

The do_cleansstate task cannot remove sstate from a remote sstate mirror. If you need to build a target from scratch using remote mirrors, use the "-f" option as follows:
     $ bitbake -f -c do_cleansstate target
                

27.2.7. do_devpyshell

Starts a shell in which an interactive Python interpreter allows you to interact with the BitBake build environment. From within this shell, you can directly examine and set bits from the data store and execute functions as if within the BitBake environment. See the "Using a Development Python Shell" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information about using devpyshell.

27.2.8. do_devshell

Starts a shell whose environment is set up for development, debugging, or both. See the "Using a Development Shell" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information about using devshell.

27.2.9. do_fetchall

Fetches all remote sources required to build a target.

27.2.10. do_listtasks

Lists all defined tasks for a target.

27.2.11. do_package_index

Creates or updates the index in the Package Feeds area.

Note

This task is not triggered with the bitbake -c command-line option as are the other tasks in this section. Because this task is specifically for the package-index recipe, you run it using bitbake package-index.

The following tasks are applicable to image recipes.

27.3.1. do_bootimg

Creates a bootable live image. See the IMAGE_FSTYPES variable for additional information on live image types.

27.3.2. do_bundle_initramfs

Combines an initial RAM disk (initramfs) image and kernel together to form a single image. The CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE variable has some more information about these types of images.

27.3.3. do_rootfs

Creates the root filesystem (file and directory structure) for an image. See the "Image Generation" section for more information on how the root filesystem is created.

27.3.4. do_testimage

Boots an image and performs runtime tests within the image. For information on automatically testing images, see the "Performing Automated Runtime Testing" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

27.3.5. do_testimage_auto

Boots an image and performs runtime tests within the image immediately after it has been built. This task is enabled when you set TEST_IMAGE equal to "1".

For information on automatically testing images, see the "Performing Automated Runtime Testing" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

27.3.6. do_vmdkimg

Creates a .vmdk image for use with VMware and compatible virtual machine hosts.

The following tasks are applicable to kernel recipes. Some of these tasks (e.g. the do_menuconfig task) are also applicable to recipes that use Linux kernel style configuration such as the BusyBox recipe.

27.4.1. do_compile_kernelmodules

Runs the step that builds the kernel modules (if needed). Building a kernel consists of two steps: 1) the kernel (vmlinux) is built, and 2) the modules are built (i.e. make modules).

27.4.2. do_diffconfig

When invoked by the user, this task creates a file containing the differences between the original config as produced by do_kernel_configme task and the changes made by the user with other methods (i.e. using (do_kernel_menuconfig). Once the file of differences is created, it can be used to create a config fragment that only contains the differences. You can invoke this task from the command line as follows:

     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c diffconfig
            

For more information, see the "Generating Configuration Files" section in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual.

27.4.3. do_kernel_checkout

Converts the newly unpacked kernel source into a form with which the OpenEmbedded build system can work. Because the kernel source can be fetched in several different ways, the do_kernel_checkout task makes sure that subsequent tasks are given a clean working tree copy of the kernel with the correct branches checked out.

27.4.4. do_kernel_configcheck

Validates the configuration produced by the do_kernel_menuconfig task. The do_kernel_configcheck task produces warnings when a requested configuration does not appear in the final .config file or when you override a policy configuration in a hardware configuration fragment. You can run this task explicitly and view the output by using the following command:

     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c kernel_configcheck -f
            

For more information, see the "Generating Configuration Files" section in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual.

27.4.5. do_kernel_configme

After the kernel is patched by the do_patch task, the do_kernel_configme task assembles and merges all the kernel config fragments into a merged configuration that can then be passed to the kernel configuration phase proper. This is also the time during which user-specified defconfigs are applied if present, and where configuration modes such as --allnoconfig are applied.

27.4.6. do_kernel_menuconfig

Invoked by the user to manipulate the .config file used to build a linux-yocto recipe. This task starts the Linux kernel configuration tool, which you then use to modify the kernel configuration.

Note

You can also invoke this tool from the command line as follows:
     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c menuconfig
                

See the "Generating Configuration Files" section in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual for more information on this configuration tool. You can also reference the "Using menuconfig" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

27.4.7. do_kernel_metadata

Collects all the features required for a given kernel build, whether the features come from SRC_URI or from Git repositories. After collection, the do_kernel_metadata task processes the features into a series of config fragments and patches, which can then be applied by subsequent tasks such as do_patch and do_kernel_configme.

27.4.8. do_menuconfig

Runs make menuconfig for the kernel. For information on menuconfig, see the "Using  menuconfig" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

27.4.9. do_savedefconfig

When invoked by the user, creates a defconfig file that can be used instead of the default defconfig. The saved defconfig contains the differences between the default defconfig and the changes made by the user using other methods (i.e. the do_kernel_menuconfig task. You can invoke the task using the following command:

     $ bitbake linux-yocto -c savedefconfig
            

27.4.10. do_shared_workdir

After the kernel has been compiled but before the kernel modules have been compiled, this task copies files required for module builds and which are generated from the kernel build into the shared work directory. With these copies successfully copied, the do_compile_kernelmodules task can successfully build the kernel modules in the next step of the build.

27.4.11. do_sizecheck

After the kernel has been built, this task checks the size of the stripped kernel image against KERNEL_IMAGE_MAXSIZE. If that variable was set and the size of the stripped kernel exceeds that size, the kernel build produces a warning to that effect.

27.4.12. do_strip

If KERNEL_IMAGE_STRIP_EXTRA_SECTIONS is defined, this task strips the sections named in that variable from vmlinux. This stripping is typically used to remove nonessential sections such as .comment sections from a size-sensitive configuration.

27.4.13. do_validate_branches

After the kernel is unpacked but before it is patched, this task makes sure that the machine and metadata branches as specified by the SRCREV variables actually exist on the specified branches. If these branches do not exist and AUTOREV is not being used, the do_validate_branches task fails during the build.

27.5. Miscellaneous Tasks

The following sections describe miscellaneous tasks.

27.5.1. do_spdx

A build stage that takes the source code and scans it on a remote FOSSOLOGY server in order to produce an SPDX document. This task applies only to the spdx class.

Chapter 28. devtool Quick Reference

The devtool command-line tool provides a number of features that help you build, test, and package software. This command is available alongside the bitbake command. Additionally, the devtool command is a key part of the extensible SDK.

This chapter provides a Quick Reference for the devtool command. For more information on how to apply the command when using the extensible SDK, see the "Using the Extensible SDK" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

28.1. Getting Help

The devtool command line is organized similarly to Git in that it has a number of sub-commands for each function. You can run devtool --help to see all the commands:

     $ devtool --help
     usage: devtool [--basepath BASEPATH] [--bbpath BBPATH] [-d] [-q]
                    [--color COLOR] [-h]
                    <subcommand> ...

     OpenEmbedded development tool

     options:
       --basepath BASEPATH  Base directory of SDK / build directory
       --bbpath BBPATH      Explicitly specify the BBPATH, rather than getting it
                            from the metadata
       -d, --debug          Enable debug output
       -q, --quiet          Print only errors
       --color COLOR        Colorize output (where COLOR is auto, always, never)
       -h, --help           show this help message and exit

     subcommands:
       Beginning work on a recipe:
         add                  Add a new recipe
         modify               Modify the source for an existing recipe
         upgrade              Upgrade an existing recipe
       Getting information:
         status               Show workspace status
         search               Search available recipes
       Working on a recipe in the workspace:
         edit-recipe          Edit a recipe file in your workspace
         configure-help       Get help on configure script options
         build                Build a recipe
         update-recipe        Apply changes from external source tree to recipe
         reset                Remove a recipe from your workspace
         finish               Finish working on a recipe in your workspace
       Testing changes on target:
         deploy-target        Deploy recipe output files to live target machine
         undeploy-target      Undeploy recipe output files in live target machine
         build-image          Build image including workspace recipe packages
       Advanced:
         create-workspace     Set up workspace in an alternative location
         extract              Extract the source for an existing recipe
         sync                 Synchronize the source tree for an existing recipe
     Use devtool <subcommand> --help to get help on a specific command
            

As directed in the general help output, you can get more syntax on a specific command by providing the command name and using --help:

     $ devtool add --help
     usage: devtool add [-h] [--same-dir | --no-same-dir] [--fetch URI]
                        [--version VERSION] [--no-git] [--autorev] [--binary]
                        [--also-native] [--src-subdir SUBDIR]
                        [recipename] [srctree] [fetchuri]

     Adds a new recipe to the workspace to build a specified source tree. Can
     optionally fetch a remote URI and unpack it to create the source tree.

     arguments:
       recipename            Name for new recipe to add (just name - no version,
                             path or extension). If not specified, will attempt to
                             auto-detect it.
       srctree               Path to external source tree. If not specified, a
                             subdirectory of
                             /home/scottrif/poky/build/workspace/sources will be
                             used.
       fetchuri              Fetch the specified URI and extract it to create the
                             source tree

     options:
       -h, --help            show this help message and exit
       --same-dir, -s        Build in same directory as source
       --no-same-dir         Force build in a separate build directory
       --fetch URI, -f URI   Fetch the specified URI and extract it to create the
                             source tree (deprecated - pass as positional argument
                             instead)
       --version VERSION, -V VERSION
                             Version to use within recipe (PV)
       --no-git, -g          If fetching source, do not set up source tree as a git
                             repository
       --autorev, -a         When fetching from a git repository, set SRCREV in the
                             recipe to a floating revision instead of fixed
       --binary, -b          Treat the source tree as something that should be
                             installed verbatim (no compilation, same directory
                             structure). Useful with binary packages e.g. RPMs.
       --also-native         Also add native variant (i.e. support building recipe
                             for the build host as well as the target machine)
       --src-subdir SUBDIR   Specify subdirectory within source tree to use
            

28.2. The Workspace Layer Structure

devtool uses a "Workspace" layer in which to accomplish builds. This layer is not specific to any single devtool command but is rather a common working area used across the tool.

The following figure shows the workspace structure:

     attic - A directory created if devtool believes it preserve
             anything when you run "devtool reset".  For example, if you
             run "devtool add", make changes to the recipe, and then
             run "devtool reset", devtool takes notice that the file has
             been changed and moves it into the attic should you still
             want the recipe.

     README - Provides information on what is in workspace layer and how to
              manage it.

     .devtool_md5 - A checksum file used by devtool.

     appends - A directory that contains *.bbappend files, which point to
               external source.

     conf - A configuration directory that contains the layer.conf file.

     recipes - A directory containing recipes.  This directory contains a
               folder for each directory added whose name matches that of the
               added recipe.  devtool places the recipe.bb file
               within that sub-directory.

     sources - A directory containing a working copy of the source files used
               when building the recipe.  This is the default directory used
               as the location of the source tree when you do not provide a
               source tree path.  This directory contains a folder for each
               set of source files matched to a corresponding recipe.
            

28.3. Adding a New Recipe to the Workspace Layer

Use the devtool add command to add a new recipe to the workspace layer. The recipe you add should not exist - devtool creates it for you. The source files the recipe uses should exist in an external area.

The following example creates and adds a new recipe named jackson to a workspace layer the tool creates. The source code built by the recipes resides in /home/scottrif/sources/jackson:

     $ devtool add jackson /home/scottrif/sources/jackson
            

If you add a recipe and the workspace layer does not exist, the command creates the layer and populates it as described in "The Workspace Layer Structure" section.

Running devtool add when the workspace layer exists causes the tool to add the recipe, append files, and source files into the existing workspace layer. The .bbappend file is created to point to the external source tree.

Note

If your recipe has runtime dependencies defined, you must be sure that these packages exist on the target hardware before attempting to run your application. If dependent packages (e.g. libraries) do not exist on the target, your application, when run, will fail to find those functions. For more information, see the "Deploying Your Software on the Target Machine" section.

28.4. Extracting the Source for an Existing Recipe

Use the devtool extract command to extract the source for an existing recipe. When you use this command, you must supply the root name of the recipe (i.e. no version, paths, or extensions), and you must supply the directory to which you want the source extracted.

Additional command options let you control the name of a development branch into which you can checkout the source and whether or not to keep a temporary directory, which is useful for debugging.

28.5. Synchronizing a Recipe's Extracted Source Tree

Use the devtool sync command to synchronize a previously extracted source tree for an existing recipe. When you use this command, you must supply the root name of the recipe (i.e. no version, paths, or extensions), and you must supply the directory to which you want the source extracted.

Additional command options let you control the name of a development branch into which you can checkout the source and whether or not to keep a temporary directory, which is useful for debugging.

28.6. Modifying an Existing Recipe

Use the devtool modify command to begin modifying the source of an existing recipe. This command is very similar to the add command except that it does not physically create the recipe in the workspace layer because the recipe already exists in an another layer.

The devtool modify command extracts the source for a recipe, sets it up as a Git repository if the source had not already been fetched from Git, checks out a branch for development, and applies any patches from the recipe as commits on top. You can use the following command to checkout the source files:

     $ devtool modify recipe
            

Using the above command form, devtool uses the existing recipe's SRC_URI statement to locate the upstream source, extracts the source into the default sources location in the workspace. The default development branch used is "devtool".

28.7. Edit an Existing Recipe

Use the devtool edit-recipe command to run the default editor, which is identified using the EDITOR variable, on the specified recipe.

When you use the devtool edit-recipe command, you must supply the root name of the recipe (i.e. no version, paths, or extensions). Also, the recipe file itself must reside in the workspace as a result of the devtool add or devtool upgrade commands. However, you can override that requirement by using the "-a" or "--any-recipe" option. Using either of these options allows you to edit any recipe regardless of its location.

28.8. Updating a Recipe

Use the devtool update-recipe command to update your recipe with patches that reflect changes you make to the source files. For example, if you know you are going to work on some code, you could first use the devtool modify command to extract the code and set up the workspace. After which, you could modify, compile, and test the code.

When you are satisfied with the results and you have committed your changes to the Git repository, you can then run the devtool update-recipe to create the patches and update the recipe:

     $ devtool update-recipe recipe
            

If you run the devtool update-recipe without committing your changes, the command ignores the changes.

Often, you might want to apply customizations made to your software in your own layer rather than apply them to the original recipe. If so, you can use the -a or --append option with the devtool update-recipe command. These options allow you to specify the layer into which to write an append file:

     $ devtool update-recipe recipe -a base-layer-directory
            

The *.bbappend file is created at the appropriate path within the specified layer directory, which may or may not be in your bblayers.conf file. If an append file already exists, the command updates it appropriately.

28.9. Upgrading a Recipe

Use the devtool upgrade command to upgrade an existing recipe to a new upstream version. The command puts the upgraded recipe file into the workspace along with any associated files, and extracts the source tree to a specified location should patches need rebased or added to as a result of the upgrade.

When you use the devtool upgrade command, you must supply the root name of the recipe (i.e. no version, paths, or extensions), and you must supply the directory to which you want the source extracted. Additional command options let you control things such as the version number to which you want to upgrade (i.e. the PV), the source revision to which you want to upgrade (i.e. the SRCREV, whether or not to apply patches, and so forth.

28.10. Resetting a Recipe

Use the devtool reset command to remove a recipe and its configuration (e.g. the corresponding .bbappend file) from the workspace layer. Realize that this command deletes the recipe and the append file. The command does not physically move them for you. Consequently, you must be sure to physically relocate your updated recipe and the append file outside of the workspace layer before running the devtool reset command.

If the devtool reset command detects that the recipe or the append files have been modified, the command preserves the modified files in a separate "attic" subdirectory under the workspace layer.

Here is an example that resets the workspace directory that contains the mtr recipe:

     $ devtool reset mtr
     NOTE: Cleaning sysroot for recipe mtr...
     NOTE: Leaving source tree /home/scottrif/poky/build/workspace/sources/mtr as-is; if you no
        longer need it then please delete it manually
     $
            

28.11. Building Your Recipe

Use the devtool build command to cause the OpenEmbedded build system to build your recipe. The devtool build command is equivalent to bitbake -c populate_sysroot.

When you use the devtool build command, you must supply the root name of the recipe (i.e. no version, paths, or extensions). You can use either the "-s" or the "--disable-parallel-make" option to disable parallel makes during the build. Here is an example:

     $ devtool build recipe
            

28.12. Building Your Image

Use the devtool build-image command to build an image, extending it to include packages from recipes in the workspace. Using this command is useful when you want an image that ready for immediate deployment onto a device for testing. For proper integration into a final image, you need to edit your custom image recipe appropriately.

When you use the devtool build-image command, you must supply the name of the image. This command has no command line options:

     $ devtool build-image image
            

28.13. Deploying Your Software on the Target Machine

Use the devtool deploy-target command to deploy the recipe's build output to the live target machine:

     $ devtool deploy-target recipe target
            

The target is the address of the target machine, which must be running an SSH server (i.e. user@hostname[:destdir]).

This command deploys all files installed during the do_install task. Furthermore, you do not need to have package management enabled within the target machine. If you do, the package manager is bypassed.

Notes

The deploy-target functionality is for development only. You should never use it to update an image that will be used in production.

Some conditions exist that could prevent a deployed application from behaving as expected. When both of the following conditions exist, your application has the potential to not behave correctly when run on the target:

  • You are deploying a new application to the target and the recipe you used to build the application had correctly defined runtime dependencies.

  • The target does not physically have the packages on which the application depends installed.

If both of these conditions exist, your application will not behave as expected. The reason for this misbehavior is because the devtool deploy-target command does not deploy the packages (e.g. libraries) on which your new application depends. The assumption is that the packages are already on the target. Consequently, when a runtime call is made in the application for a dependent function (e.g. a library call), the function cannot be found.

To be sure you have all the dependencies local to the target, you need to be sure that the packages are pre-deployed (installed) on the target before attempting to run your application.

28.14. Removing Your Software from the Target Machine

Use the devtool undeploy-target command to remove deployed build output from the target machine. For the devtool undeploy-target command to work, you must have previously used the devtool deploy-target command.

     $ devtool undeploy-target recipe target
            

The target is the address of the target machine, which must be running an SSH server (i.e. user@hostname).

28.15. Creating the Workspace Layer in an Alternative Location

Use the devtool create-workspace command to create a new workspace layer in your Build Directory. When you create a new workspace layer, it is populated with the README file and the conf directory only.

The following example creates a new workspace layer in your current working and by default names the workspace layer "workspace":

     $ devtool create-workspace
            

You can create a workspace layer anywhere by supplying a pathname with the command. The following command creates a new workspace layer named "new-workspace":

     $ devtool create-workspace /home/scottrif/new-workspace
            

28.16. Get the Status of the Recipes in Your Workspace

Use the devtool status command to list the recipes currently in your workspace. Information includes the paths to their respective external source trees.

The devtool status command has no command-line options:

     $ devtool status
            

Following is sample output after using devtool add to create and add the mtr_0.86.bb recipe to the workspace directory:

     $ devtool status
     mtr: /home/scottrif/poky/build/workspace/sources/mtr (/home/scottrif/poky/build/workspace/recipes/mtr/mtr_0.86.bb)
     $
            

28.17. Search for Available Target Recipes

Use the devtool search command to search for available target recipes. The command matches the recipe name, package name, description, and installed files. The command displays the recipe name as a result of a match.

When you use the devtool search command, you must supply a keyword. The command uses the keyword when searching for a match.

Chapter 29. QA Error and Warning Messages

29.1. Introduction

When building a recipe, the OpenEmbedded build system performs various QA checks on the output to ensure that common issues are detected and reported. Sometimes when you create a new recipe to build new software, it will build with no problems. When this is not the case, or when you have QA issues building any software, it could take a little time to resolve them.

While it is tempting to ignore a QA message or even to disable QA checks, it is best to try and resolve any reported QA issues. This chapter provides a list of the QA messages and brief explanations of the issues you could encounter so that you can properly resolve problems.

The next section provides a list of all QA error and warning messages based on a default configuration. Each entry provides the message or error form along with an explanation.

Notes

  • At the end of each message, the name of the associated QA test (as listed in the "insane.bbclass" section) appears within square brackets.

  • As mentioned, this list of error and warning messages is for QA checks only. The list does not cover all possible build errors or warnings you could encounter.

  • Because some QA checks are disabled by default, this list does not include all possible QA check errors and warnings.

29.2. Errors and Warnings

  • <packagename>: <path> is using libexec please relocate to <libexecdir> [libexec]

    The specified package contains files in /usr/libexec when the distro configuration uses a different path for <libexecdir> By default, <libexecdir> is $prefix/libexec. However, this default can be changed (e.g. ${libdir}).

     

  • package <packagename> contains bad RPATH <rpath> in file <file> [rpaths]

    The specified binary produced by the recipe contains dynamic library load paths (rpaths) that contain build system paths such as TMPDIR, which are incorrect for the target and could potentially be a security issue. Check for bad -rpath options being passed to the linker in your do_compile log. Depending on the build system used by the software being built, there might be a configure option to disable rpath usage completely within the build of the software.

     

  • <packagename>: <file> contains probably-redundant RPATH <rpath> [useless-rpaths]

    The specified binary produced by the recipe contains dynamic library load paths (rpaths) that on a standard system are searched by default by the linker (e.g. /lib and /usr/lib). While these paths will not cause any breakage, they do waste space and are unnecessary. Depending on the build system used by the software being built, there might be a configure option to disable rpath usage completely within the build of the software.

     

  • <packagename> requires <files>, but no providers in its RDEPENDS [file-rdeps]

    A file-level dependency has been identified from the specified package on the specified files, but there is no explicit corresponding entry in RDEPENDS. If particular files are required at runtime then RDEPENDS should be declared in the recipe to ensure the packages providing them are built.

     

  • <packagename1> rdepends on <packagename2>, but it isn't a build dependency? [build-deps]

    A runtime dependency exists between the two specified packages, but there is nothing explicit within the recipe to enable the OpenEmbedded build system to ensure that dependency is satisfied. This condition is usually triggered by an RDEPENDS value being added at the packaging stage rather than up front, which is usually automatic based on the contents of the package. In most cases, you should change the recipe to add an explicit RDEPENDS for the dependency.

     

  • non -dev/-dbg/nativesdk- package contains symlink .so: <packagename> path '<path>' [dev-so]

    Symlink .so files are for development only, and should therefore go into the -dev package. This situation might occur if you add *.so* rather than *.so.* to a non-dev package. Change FILES (and possibly PACKAGES) such that the specified .so file goes into an appropriate -dev package.

     

  • non -staticdev package contains static .a library: <packagename> path '<path>' [staticdev]

    Static .a library files should go into a -staticdev package. Change FILES (and possibly PACKAGES) such that the specified .a file goes into an appropriate -staticdev package.

     

  • <packagename>: found library in wrong location [libdir]

    The specified file may have been installed into an incorrect (possibly hardcoded) installation path. For example, this test will catch recipes that install /lib/bar.so when ${base_libdir} is "lib32". Another example is when recipes install /usr/lib64/foo.so when ${libdir} is "/usr/lib". False positives occasionally exist. For these cases add "libdir" to INSANE_SKIP for the package.

     

  • non debug package contains .debug directory: <packagename> path <path> [debug-files]

    The specified package contains a .debug directory, which should not appear in anything but the -dbg package. This situation might occur if you add a path which contains a .debug directory and do not explicitly add the .debug directory to the -dbg package. If this is the case, add the .debug directory explicitly to FILES_${PN}-dbg. See FILES for additional information on FILES.

     

  • Architecture did not match (<machine_arch> to <file_arch>) on <file> [arch]

    By default, the OpenEmbedded build system checks the Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) type, bit size, and endianness of any binaries to ensure they match the target architecture. This test fails if any binaries do not match the type since there would be an incompatibility. The test could indicate that the wrong compiler or compiler options have been used. Sometimes software, like bootloaders, might need to bypass this check. If the file you receive the error for is firmware that is not intended to be executed within the target operating system or is intended to run on a separate processor within the device, you can add "arch" to INSANE_SKIP for the package. Another option is to check the do_compile log and verify that the compiler options being used are correct.

     

  • Bit size did not match (<machine_bits> to <file_bits>) <recipe> on <file> [arch]

    By default, the OpenEmbedded build system checks the Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) type, bit size, and endianness of any binaries to ensure they match the target architecture. This test fails if any binaries do not match the type since there would be an incompatibility. The test could indicate that the wrong compiler or compiler options have been used. Sometimes software, like bootloaders, might need to bypass this check. If the file you receive the error for is firmware that is not intended to be executed within the target operating system or is intended to run on a separate processor within the device, you can add "arch" to INSANE_SKIP for the package. Another option is to check the do_compile log and verify that the compiler options being used are correct.

     

  • Endianness did not match (<machine_endianness> to <file_endianness>) on <file> [arch]

    By default, the OpenEmbedded build system checks the Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) type, bit size, and endianness of any binaries to ensure they match the target architecture. This test fails if any binaries do not match the type since there would be an incompatibility. The test could indicate that the wrong compiler or compiler options have been used. Sometimes software, like bootloaders, might need to bypass this check. If the file you receive the error for is firmware that is not intended to be executed within the target operating system or is intended to run on a separate processor within the device, you can add "arch" to INSANE_SKIP for the package. Another option is to check the do_compile log and verify that the compiler options being used are correct.

     

  • ELF binary '<file>' has relocations in .text [textrel]

    The specified ELF binary contains relocations in its .text sections. This situation can result in a performance impact at runtime.

    Typically, the way to solve this performance issue is to add "-fPIC" or "-fpic" to the compiler command-line options. For example, given software that reads CFLAGS when you build it, you could add the following to your recipe:

         CFLAGS_append = " -fPIC "
                        

    For more information on text relocations at runtime, see http://www.akkadia.org/drepper/textrelocs.html.

     

  • No GNU_HASH in the elf binary: '<file>' [ldflags]

    This indicates that binaries produced when building the recipe have not been linked with the LDFLAGS options provided by the build system. Check to be sure that the LDFLAGS variable is being passed to the linker command. A common workaround for this situation is to pass in LDFLAGS using TARGET_CC_ARCH within the recipe as follows:

         TARGET_CC_ARCH += "${LDFLAGS}"
                        

     

  • Package <packagename> contains Xorg driver (<driver>) but no xorg-abi- dependencies [xorg-driver-abi]

    The specified package contains an Xorg driver, but does not have a corresponding ABI package dependency. The xserver-xorg recipe provides driver ABI names. All drivers should depend on the ABI versions that they have been built against. Driver recipes that include xorg-driver-input.inc or xorg-driver-video.inc will automatically get these versions. Consequently, you should only need to explicitly add dependencies to binary driver recipes.

     

  • The /usr/share/info/dir file is not meant to be shipped in a particular package. [infodir]

    The /usr/share/info/dir should not be packaged. Add the following line to your do_install task or to your do_install_append within the recipe as follows:

         rm ${D}${infodir}/dir
                        

     

  • Symlink <path> in <packagename> points to TMPDIR [symlink-to-sysroot]

    The specified symlink points into TMPDIR on the host. Such symlinks will work on the host. However, they are clearly invalid when running on the target. You should either correct the symlink to use a relative path or remove the symlink.

     

  • <file> failed sanity test (workdir) in path <path> [la]

    The specified .la file contains TMPDIR paths. Any .la file containing these paths is incorrect since libtool adds the correct sysroot prefix when using the files automatically itself.

     

  • <file> failed sanity test (tmpdir) in path <path> [pkgconfig]

    The specified .pc file contains TMPDIR/WORKDIR paths. Any .pc file containing these paths is incorrect since pkg-config itself adds the correct sysroot prefix when the files are accessed.

     

  • <packagename> rdepends on <debug_packagename> [debug-deps]

    A dependency exists between the specified non-dbg package (i.e. a package whose name does not end in -dbg) and a package that is a dbg package. The dbg packages contain debug symbols and are brought in using several different methods:

    • Using the dbg-pkgs IMAGE_FEATURES value.

    • Using IMAGE_INSTALL.

    • As a dependency of another dbg package that was brought in using one of the above methods.

    The dependency might have been automatically added because the dbg package erroneously contains files that it should not contain (e.g. a non-symlink .so file) or it might have been added manually (e.g. by adding to RDEPENDS).

     

  • <packagename> rdepends on <dev_packagename> [dev-deps]

    A dependency exists between the specified non-dev package (a package whose name does not end in -dev) and a package that is a dev package. The dev packages contain development headers and are usually brought in using several different methods:

    • Using the dev-pkgs IMAGE_FEATURES value.

    • Using IMAGE_INSTALL.

    • As a dependency of another dev package that was brought in using one of the above methods.

    The dependency might have been automatically added (because the dev package erroneously contains files that it should not have (e.g. a non-symlink .so file) or it might have been added manually (e.g. by adding to RDEPENDS).

     

  • <var>_<packagename> is invalid: <comparison> (<value>) only comparisons <, =, >, <=, and >= are allowed [dep-cmp]

    If you are adding a versioned dependency relationship to one of the dependency variables (RDEPENDS, RRECOMMENDS, RSUGGESTS, RPROVIDES, RREPLACES, or RCONFLICTS), you must only use the named comparison operators. Change the versioned dependency values you are adding to match those listed in the message.

     

  • <recipename>: The compile log indicates that host include and/or library paths were used. Please check the log '<logfile>' for more information. [compile-host-path]

    The log for the do_compile task indicates that paths on the host were searched for files, which is not appropriate when cross-compiling. Look for "is unsafe for cross-compilation" or "CROSS COMPILE Badness" in the specified log file.

     

  • <recipename>: The install log indicates that host include and/or library paths were used. Please check the log '<logfile>' for more information. [install-host-path]

    The log for the do_install task indicates that paths on the host were searched for files, which is not appropriate when cross-compiling. Look for "is unsafe for cross-compilation" or "CROSS COMPILE Badness" in the specified log file.

     

  • This autoconf log indicates errors, it looked at host include and/or library paths while determining system capabilities. Rerun configure task after fixing this. The path was '<path>'

    The log for the do_configure task indicates that paths on the host were searched for files, which is not appropriate when cross-compiling. Look for "is unsafe for cross-compilation" or "CROSS COMPILE Badness" in the specified log file.

     

  • <packagename> doesn't match the [a-z0-9.+-]+ regex [pkgname]

    The convention within the OpenEmbedded build system (sometimes enforced by the package manager itself) is to require that package names are all lower case and to allow a restricted set of characters. If your recipe name does not match this, or you add packages to PACKAGES that do not conform to the convention, then you will receive this error. Rename your recipe. Or, if you have added a non-conforming package name to PACKAGES, change the package name appropriately.

     

  • <recipe>: configure was passed unrecognized options: <options> [unknown-configure-option]

    The configure script is reporting that the specified options are unrecognized. This situation could be because the options were previously valid but have been removed from the configure script. Or, there was a mistake when the options were added and there is another option that should be used instead. If you are unsure, consult the upstream build documentation, the ./configure --help output, and the upstream change log or release notes. Once you have worked out what the appropriate change is, you can update EXTRA_OECONF, PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS, or the individual PACKAGECONFIG option values accordingly.

     

  • Recipe <recipefile> has PN of "<recipename>" which is in OVERRIDES, this can result in unexpected behavior. [pn-overrides]

    The specified recipe has a name (PN) value that appears in OVERRIDES. If a recipe is named such that its PN value matches something already in OVERRIDES (e.g. PN happens to be the same as MACHINE or DISTRO), it can have unexpected consequences. For example, assignments such as FILES_${PN} = "xyz" effectively turn into FILES = "xyz". Rename your recipe (or if PN is being set explicitly, change the PN value) so that the conflict does not occur. See FILES for additional information.

     

  • <recipefile>: Variable <variable> is set as not being package specific, please fix this. [pkgvarcheck]

    Certain variables (RDEPENDS, RRECOMMENDS, RSUGGESTS, RCONFLICTS, RPROVIDES, RREPLACES, FILES, pkg_preinst, pkg_postinst, pkg_prerm, pkg_postrm, and ALLOW_EMPTY) should always be set specific to a package (i.e. they should be set with a package name override such as RDEPENDS_${PN} = "value" rather than RDEPENDS = "value"). If you receive this error, correct any assignments to these variables within your recipe.

     

  • File '<file>' from <recipename> was already stripped, this will prevent future debugging! [already-stripped]

    Produced binaries have already been stripped prior to the build system extracting debug symbols. It is common for upstream software projects to default to stripping debug symbols for output binaries. In order for debugging to work on the target using -dbg packages, this stripping must be disabled.

    Depending on the build system used by the software being built, disabling this stripping could be as easy as specifying an additional configure option. If not, disabling stripping might involve patching the build scripts. In the latter case, look for references to "strip" or "STRIP", or the "-s" or "-S" command-line options being specified on the linker command line (possibly through the compiler command line if preceded with "-Wl,").

    Note

    Disabling stripping here does not mean that the final packaged binaries will be unstripped. Once the OpenEmbedded build system splits out debug symbols to the -dbg package, it will then strip the symbols from the binaries.

     

  • <packagename> is listed in PACKAGES multiple times, this leads to packaging errors. [packages-list]

    Package names must appear only once in the PACKAGES variable. You might receive this error if you are attempting to add a package to PACKAGES that is already in the variable's value.

     

  • FILES variable for package <packagename> contains '//' which is invalid. Attempting to fix this but you should correct the metadata. [files-invalid]

    The string "//" is invalid in a Unix path. Correct all occurrences where this string appears in a FILES variable so that there is only a single "/".

     

  • <recipename>: Files/directories were installed but not shipped in any package [installed-vs-shipped]

    Files have been installed within the do_install task but have not been included in any package by way of the FILES variable. Files that do not appear in any package cannot be present in an image later on in the build process. You need to do one of the following:

    • Add the files to FILES for the package you want them to appear in (e.g. FILES_${PN} for the main package).

    • Delete the files at the end of the do_install task if the files are not needed in any package.

     

  • <oldpackage>-<oldpkgversion> was registered as shlib provider for <library>, changing it to <newpackage>-<newpkgversion> because it was built later

    This message means that both <oldpackage> and <newpackage> provide the specified shared library. You can expect this message when a recipe has been renamed. However, if that is not the case, the message might indicate that a private version of a library is being erroneously picked up as the provider for a common library. If that is the case, you should add the library's .so file name to PRIVATE_LIBS in the recipe that provides the private version of the library.

29.3. Configuring and Disabling QA Checks

You can configure the QA checks globally so that specific check failures either raise a warning or an error message, using the WARN_QA and ERROR_QA variables, respectively. You can also disable checks within a particular recipe using INSANE_SKIP. For information on how to work with the QA checks, see the "insane.bbclass" section.

Tip

Please keep in mind that the QA checks exist in order to detect real or potential problems in the packaged output. So exercise caution when disabling these checks.

Chapter 30. Images

The OpenEmbedded build system provides several example images to satisfy different needs. When you issue the bitbake command you provide a “top-level” recipe that essentially begins the build for the type of image you want.

Note

Building an image without GNU General Public License Version 3 (GPLv3), GNU Lesser General Public License Version 3 (LGPLv3), and the GNU Affero General Public License Version 3 (AGPL-3.0) components is only supported for minimal and base images. Furthermore, if you are going to build an image using non-GPLv3 and similarly licensed components, you must make the following changes in the local.conf file before using the BitBake command to build the minimal or base image:
     1. Comment out the EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES line
     2. Set INCOMPATIBLE_LICENSE = "GPL-3.0 LGPL-3.0 AGPL-3.0"
        

From within the poky Git repository, you can use the following command to display the list of directories within the Source Directory that containe image recipe files:

     $ ls meta*/recipes*/images/*.bb
        

Following is a list of supported recipes:

  • build-appliance-image: An example virtual machine that contains all the pieces required to run builds using the build system as well as the build system itself. You can boot and run the image using either the VMware Player or VMware Workstation. For more information on this image, see the Build Appliance page on the Yocto Project website.

  • core-image-base: A console-only image that fully supports the target device hardware.

  • core-image-clutter: An image with support for the Open GL-based toolkit Clutter, which enables development of rich and animated graphical user interfaces.

  • core-image-full-cmdline: A console-only image with more full-featured Linux system functionality installed.

  • core-image-lsb: An image that conforms to the Linux Standard Base (LSB) specification. This image requires a distribution configuration that enables LSB compliance (e.g. poky-lsb). If you build core-image-lsb without that configuration, the image will not be LSB-compliant.

  • core-image-lsb-dev: A core-image-lsb image that is suitable for development work using the host. The image includes headers and libraries you can use in a host development environment. This image requires a distribution configuration that enables LSB compliance (e.g. poky-lsb). If you build core-image-lsb-dev without that configuration, the image will not be LSB-compliant.

  • core-image-lsb-sdk: A core-image-lsb that includes everything in the cross-toolchain but also includes development headers and libraries to form a complete standalone SDK. This image requires a distribution configuration that enables LSB compliance (e.g. poky-lsb). If you build core-image-lsb-sdk without that configuration, the image will not be LSB-compliant. This image is suitable for development using the target.

  • core-image-minimal: A small image just capable of allowing a device to boot.

  • core-image-minimal-dev: A core-image-minimal image suitable for development work using the host. The image includes headers and libraries you can use in a host development environment.

  • core-image-minimal-initramfs: A core-image-minimal image that has the Minimal RAM-based Initial Root Filesystem (initramfs) as part of the kernel, which allows the system to find the first “init” program more efficiently. See the PACKAGE_INSTALL variable for additional information helpful when working with initramfs images.

  • core-image-minimal-mtdutils: A core-image-minimal image that has support for the Minimal MTD Utilities, which let the user interact with the MTD subsystem in the kernel to perform operations on flash devices.

  • core-image-rt: A core-image-minimal image plus a real-time test suite and tools appropriate for real-time use.

  • core-image-rt-sdk: A core-image-rt image that includes everything in the cross-toolchain. The image also includes development headers and libraries to form a complete stand-alone SDK and is suitable for development using the target.

  • core-image-sato: An image with Sato support, a mobile environment and visual style that works well with mobile devices. The image supports X11 with a Sato theme and applications such as a terminal, editor, file manager, media player, and so forth.

  • core-image-sato-dev: A core-image-sato image suitable for development using the host. The image includes libraries needed to build applications on the device itself, testing and profiling tools, and debug symbols. This image was formerly core-image-sdk.

  • core-image-sato-sdk: A core-image-sato image that includes everything in the cross-toolchain. The image also includes development headers and libraries to form a complete standalone SDK and is suitable for development using the target.

  • core-image-testmaster: A "master" image designed to be used for automated runtime testing. Provides a "known good" image that is deployed to a separate partition so that you can boot into it and use it to deploy a second image to be tested. You can find more information about runtime testing in the "Performing Automated Runtime Testing" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

  • core-image-testmaster-initramfs: A RAM-based Initial Root Filesystem (initramfs) image tailored for use with the core-image-testmaster image.

  • core-image-weston: A very basic Wayland image with a terminal. This image provides the Wayland protocol libraries and the reference Weston compositor. For more information, see the "Wayland" section.

  • core-image-x11: A very basic X11 image with a terminal.

Chapter 31. Features

This chapter provides a reference of shipped machine and distro features you can include as part of your image, a reference on image features you can select, and a reference on feature backfilling.

Features provide a mechanism for working out which packages should be included in the generated images. Distributions can select which features they want to support through the DISTRO_FEATURES variable, which is set or appended to in a distribution's configuration file such as poky.conf, poky-tiny.conf, poky-lsb.conf and so forth. Machine features are set in the MACHINE_FEATURES variable, which is set in the machine configuration file and specifies the hardware features for a given machine.

These two variables combine to work out which kernel modules, utilities, and other packages to include. A given distribution can support a selected subset of features so some machine features might not be included if the distribution itself does not support them.

One method you can use to determine which recipes are checking to see if a particular feature is contained or not is to grep through the Metadata for the feature. Here is an example that discovers the recipes whose build is potentially changed based on a given feature:

     $ cd poky
     $ git grep 'contains.*MACHINE_FEATURES.*feature'
        

31.1. Machine Features

The items below are features you can use with MACHINE_FEATURES. Features do not have a one-to-one correspondence to packages, and they can go beyond simply controlling the installation of a package or packages. Sometimes a feature can influence how certain recipes are built. For example, a feature might determine whether a particular configure option is specified within the do_configure task for a particular recipe.

This feature list only represents features as shipped with the Yocto Project metadata:

  • acpi: Hardware has ACPI (x86/x86_64 only)

  • alsa: Hardware has ALSA audio drivers

  • apm: Hardware uses APM (or APM emulation)

  • bluetooth: Hardware has integrated BT

  • efi: Support for booting through EFI

  • ext2: Hardware HDD or Microdrive

  • irda: Hardware has IrDA support

  • keyboard: Hardware has a keyboard

  • pcbios: Support for booting through BIOS

  • pci: Hardware has a PCI bus

  • pcmcia: Hardware has PCMCIA or CompactFlash sockets

  • phone: Mobile phone (voice) support

  • qvga: Machine has a QVGA (320x240) display

  • rtc: Machine has a Real-Time Clock

  • screen: Hardware has a screen

  • serial: Hardware has serial support (usually RS232)

  • touchscreen: Hardware has a touchscreen

  • usbgadget: Hardware is USB gadget device capable

  • usbhost: Hardware is USB Host capable

  • vfat: FAT file system support

  • wifi: Hardware has integrated WiFi

31.2. Distro Features

The items below are features you can use with DISTRO_FEATURES to enable features across your distribution. Features do not have a one-to-one correspondence to packages, and they can go beyond simply controlling the installation of a package or packages. In most cases, the presence or absence of a feature translates to the appropriate option supplied to the configure script during the do_configure task for the recipes that optionally support the feature.

Some distro features are also machine features. These select features make sense to be controlled both at the machine and distribution configuration level. See the COMBINED_FEATURES variable for more information.

This list only represents features as shipped with the Yocto Project metadata:

  • alsa: Include ALSA support (OSS compatibility kernel modules installed if available).

  • api-documentation: Enables generation of API documentation during recipe builds. The resulting documentation is added to SDK tarballs when the bitbake -c populate_sdk command is used. See the "Adding API Documentation to the Standard SDK" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide for more information.

  • bluetooth: Include bluetooth support (integrated BT only).

  • bluez5: Include BlueZ Version 5, which provides core Bluetooth layers and protocols support.

    Note

    The default value for the DISTRO FEATURES variable includes "bluetooth", which causes bluez5 to be backfilled in for bluetooth support. If you do not want bluez5 backfilled and would rather use bluez4, you need to use the DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED variable as follows:
         DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED = "bluez5"
                            
    Setting this variable tells the OpenEmbedded build system that you have considered but ruled out using the bluez5 feature and that bluez4 will be used.

  • cramfs: Include CramFS support.

  • directfb: Include DirectFB support.

  • ext2: Include tools for supporting for devices with internal HDD/Microdrive for storing files (instead of Flash only devices).

  • ipsec: Include IPSec support.

  • ipv6: Include IPv6 support.

  • irda: Include IrDA support.

  • keyboard: Include keyboard support (e.g. keymaps will be loaded during boot).

  • ldconfig: Include support for ldconfig and ld.so.conf on the target.

  • nfs: Include NFS client support (for mounting NFS exports on device).

  • opengl: Include the Open Graphics Library, which is a cross-language, multi-platform application programming interface used for rendering two and three-dimensional graphics.

  • pci: Include PCI bus support.

  • pcmcia: Include PCMCIA/CompactFlash support.

  • ppp: Include PPP dialup support.

  • ptest: Enables building the package tests where supported by individual recipes. For more information on package tests, see the "Testing Packages With ptest" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

  • smbfs: Include SMB networks client support (for mounting Samba/Microsoft Windows shares on device).

  • systemd: Include support for this init manager, which is a full replacement of for init with parallel starting of services, reduced shell overhead, and other features. This init manager is used by many distributions.

  • usbgadget: Include USB Gadget Device support (for USB networking/serial/storage).

  • usbhost: Include USB Host support (allows to connect external keyboard, mouse, storage, network etc).

  • wayland: Include the Wayland display server protocol and the library that supports it.

  • wifi: Include WiFi support (integrated only).

  • x11: Include the X server and libraries.

31.3. Image Features

The contents of images generated by the OpenEmbedded build system can be controlled by the IMAGE_FEATURES and EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES variables that you typically configure in your image recipes. Through these variables, you can add several different predefined packages such as development utilities or packages with debug information needed to investigate application problems or profile applications.

The following image features are available for all images:

  • allow-empty-password: Allows Dropbear and OpenSSH to accept root logins and logins from accounts having an empty password string.

  • dbg-pkgs: Installs debug symbol packages for all packages installed in a given image.

  • debug-tweaks: Makes an image suitable for development (e.g. allows root logins without passwords and enables post-installation logging). See the 'allow-empty-password', 'empty-root-password', and 'post-install-logging' features in this list for additional information.

  • dev-pkgs: Installs development packages (headers and extra library links) for all packages installed in a given image.

  • doc-pkgs: Installs documentation packages for all packages installed in a given image.

  • empty-root-password: Sets the root password to an empty string, which allows logins with a blank password.

  • package-management: Installs package management tools and preserves the package manager database.

  • post-install-logging: Enables logging postinstall script runs to the /var/log/postinstall.log file on first boot of the image on the target system.

    Note

    To make the /var/log directory on the target persistent, use the VOLATILE_LOG_DIR variable by setting it to "no".

  • ptest-pkgs: Installs ptest packages for all ptest-enabled recipes.

  • read-only-rootfs: Creates an image whose root filesystem is read-only. See the "Creating a Read-Only Root Filesystem" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information.

  • splash: Enables showing a splash screen during boot. By default, this screen is provided by psplash, which does allow customization. If you prefer to use an alternative splash screen package, you can do so by setting the SPLASH variable to a different package name (or names) within the image recipe or at the distro configuration level.

  • staticdev-pkgs: Installs static development packages, which are static libraries (i.e. *.a files), for all packages installed in a given image.

Some image features are available only when you inherit the core-image class. The current list of these valid features is as follows:

  • eclipse-debug: Provides Eclipse remote debugging support.

  • hwcodecs: Installs hardware acceleration codecs.

  • nfs-server: Installs an NFS server.

  • perf: Installs profiling tools such as perf, systemtap, and LTTng. For general information on user-space tools, see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

  • ssh-server-dropbear: Installs the Dropbear minimal SSH server.

  • ssh-server-openssh: Installs the OpenSSH SSH server, which is more full-featured than Dropbear. Note that if both the OpenSSH SSH server and the Dropbear minimal SSH server are present in IMAGE_FEATURES, then OpenSSH will take precedence and Dropbear will not be installed.

  • tools-debug: Installs debugging tools such as strace and gdb. For information on GDB, see the "Debugging With the GNU Project Debugger (GDB) Remotely" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual. For information on tracing and profiling, see the Yocto Project Profiling and Tracing Manual.

  • tools-sdk: Installs a full SDK that runs on the device.

  • tools-testapps: Installs device testing tools (e.g. touchscreen debugging).

  • x11: Installs the X server.

  • x11-base: Installs the X server with a minimal environment.

  • x11-sato: Installs the OpenedHand Sato environment.

31.4. Feature Backfilling

Sometimes it is necessary in the OpenEmbedded build system to extend MACHINE_FEATURES or DISTRO_FEATURES to control functionality that was previously enabled and not able to be disabled. For these cases, we need to add an additional feature item to appear in one of these variables, but we do not want to force developers who have existing values of the variables in their configuration to add the new feature in order to retain the same overall level of functionality. Thus, the OpenEmbedded build system has a mechanism to automatically "backfill" these added features into existing distro or machine configurations. You can see the list of features for which this is done by finding the DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL and MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL variables in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf file.

Because such features are backfilled by default into all configurations as described in the previous paragraph, developers who wish to disable the new features need to be able to selectively prevent the backfilling from occurring. They can do this by adding the undesired feature or features to the DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED or MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED variables for distro features and machine features respectively.

Here are two examples to help illustrate feature backfilling:

  • The "pulseaudio" distro feature option: Previously, PulseAudio support was enabled within the Qt and GStreamer frameworks. Because of this, the feature is backfilled and thus enabled for all distros through the DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL variable in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf file. However, your distro needs to disable the feature. You can disable the feature without affecting other existing distro configurations that need PulseAudio support by adding "pulseaudio" to DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED in your distro's .conf file. Adding the feature to this variable when it also exists in the DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL variable prevents the build system from adding the feature to your configuration's DISTRO_FEATURES, effectively disabling the feature for that particular distro.

  • The "rtc" machine feature option: Previously, real time clock (RTC) support was enabled for all target devices. Because of this, the feature is backfilled and thus enabled for all machines through the MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL variable in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf file. However, your target device does not have this capability. You can disable RTC support for your device without affecting other machines that need RTC support by adding the feature to your machine's MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED list in the machine's .conf file. Adding the feature to this variable when it also exists in the MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL variable prevents the build system from adding the feature to your configuration's MACHINE_FEATURES, effectively disabling RTC support for that particular machine.

Chapter 32. Variables Glossary

This chapter lists common variables used in the OpenEmbedded build system and gives an overview of their function and contents.

Glossary

A B C D E F G H I K L M O P R S T U V W X

A

ABIEXTENSION

Extension to the Application Binary Interface (ABI) field of the GNU canonical architecture name (e.g. "eabi").

ABI extensions are set in the machine include files. For example, the meta/conf/machine/include/arm/arch-arm.inc file sets the following extension:

     ABIEXTENSION = "eabi"
                   

ALLOW_EMPTY

Specifies if an output package should still be produced if it is empty. By default, BitBake does not produce empty packages. This default behavior can cause issues when there is an RDEPENDS or some other hard runtime requirement on the existence of the package.

Like all package-controlling variables, you must always use them in conjunction with a package name override, as in:

     ALLOW_EMPTY_${PN} = "1"
     ALLOW_EMPTY_${PN}-dev = "1"
     ALLOW_EMPTY_${PN}-staticdev = "1"
                   

ALTERNATIVE

Lists commands in a package that need an alternative binary naming scheme. Sometimes the same command is provided in multiple packages. When this occurs, the OpenEmbedded build system needs to use the alternatives system to create a different binary naming scheme so the commands can co-exist.

To use the variable, list out the package's commands that also exist as part of another package. For example, if the busybox package has four commands that also exist as part of another package, you identify them as follows:

     ALTERNATIVE_busybox = "sh sed test bracket"
                    

For more information on the alternatives system, see the "update-alternatives.bbclass" section.

ALTERNATIVE_LINK_NAME

Used by the alternatives system to map duplicated commands to actual locations. For example, if the bracket command provided by the busybox package is duplicated through another package, you must use the ALTERNATIVE_LINK_NAME variable to specify the actual location:

     ALTERNATIVE_LINK_NAME[bracket] = "/usr/bin/["
                    

In this example, the binary for the bracket command (i.e. [) from the busybox package resides in /usr/bin/.

Note

If ALTERNATIVE_LINK_NAME is not defined, it defaults to ${bindir}/name.

For more information on the alternatives system, see the "update-alternatives.bbclass" section.

ALTERNATIVE_PRIORITY

Used by the alternatives system to create default priorities for duplicated commands. You can use the variable to create a single default regardless of the command name or package, a default for specific duplicated commands regardless of the package, or a default for specific commands tied to particular packages. Here are the available syntax forms:

     ALTERNATIVE_PRIORITY = "priority"
     ALTERNATIVE_PRIORITY[name] = "priority"
     ALTERNATIVE_PRIORITY_pkg[name] = "priority"
                    

For more information on the alternatives system, see the "update-alternatives.bbclass" section.

ALTERNATIVE_TARGET

Used by the alternatives system to create default link locations for duplicated commands. You can use the variable to create a single default location for all duplicated commands regardless of the command name or package, a default for specific duplicated commands regardless of the package, or a default for specific commands tied to particular packages. Here are the available syntax forms:

     ALTERNATIVE_TARGET = "target"
     ALTERNATIVE_TARGET[name] = "target"
     ALTERNATIVE_TARGET_pkg[name] = "target"
                    

Note

If ALTERNATIVE_TARGET is not defined, it inherits the value from the ALTERNATIVE_LINK_NAME variable.

If ALTERNATIVE_LINK_NAME and ALTERNATIVE_TARGET are the same, the target for ALTERNATIVE_TARGET has ".{BPN}" appended to it.

Finally, if the file referenced has not been renamed, the alternatives system will rename it to avoid the need to rename alternative files in the do_install task while retaining support for the command if necessary.

For more information on the alternatives system, see the "update-alternatives.bbclass" section.

APPEND

An override list of append strings for each LABEL.

See the grub-efi class for more information on how this variable is used.

AR

The minimal command and arguments used to run ar.

ARCHIVER_MODE

When used with the archiver class, determines the type of information used to create a released archive. You can use this variable to create archives of patched source, original source, configured source, and so forth by employing the following variable flags (varflags):

     ARCHIVER_MODE[src] = "original"                 # Uses original (unpacked) source
                                                     # files.

     ARCHIVER_MODE[src] = "patched"                  # Uses patched source files. This is
                                                     # the default.

     ARCHIVER_MODE[src] = "configured"               # Uses configured source files.

     ARCHIVER_MODE[diff] = "1"                       # Uses patches between do_unpack and
                                                     # do_patch.

     ARCHIVER_MODE[diff-exclude] ?= "file file ..."  # Lists files and directories to
                                                     # exclude from diff.

     ARCHIVER_MODE[dumpdata] = "1"                   # Uses environment data.

     ARCHIVER_MODE[recipe] = "1"                     # Uses recipe and include files.

     ARCHIVER_MODE[srpm] = "1"                       # Uses RPM package files.
                    

For information on how the variable works, see the meta/classes/archiver.bbclass file in the Source Directory.

AS

The minimal command and arguments used to run the assembler.

ASSUME_PROVIDED

Lists recipe names (PN values) BitBake does not attempt to build. Instead, BitBake assumes these recipes have already been built.

In OpenEmbedded Core, ASSUME_PROVIDED mostly specifies native tools that should not be built. An example is git-native, which when specified, allows for the Git binary from the host to be used rather than building git-native.

ASSUME_SHLIBS

Provides additional shlibs provider mapping information, which adds to or overwrites the information provided automatically by the system. Separate multiple entries using spaces.

As an example, use the following form to add an shlib provider of shlibname in packagename with the optional version:

     shlibname:packagename[_version]
                    

Here is an example that adds a shared library named libEGL.so.1 as being provided by the libegl-implementation package:

     ASSUME_SHLIBS = "libEGL.so.1:libegl-implementation"
                    

AUTHOR

The email address used to contact the original author or authors in order to send patches and forward bugs.

AUTO_LIBNAME_PKGS

When the debian class is inherited, which is the default behavior, AUTO_LIBNAME_PKGS specifies which packages should be checked for libraries and renamed according to Debian library package naming.

The default value is "${PACKAGES}", which causes the debian class to act on all packages that are explicitly generated by the recipe.

AUTO_SYSLINUXMENU

Enables creating an automatic menu for the syslinux bootloader. You must set this variable in your recipe. The syslinux class checks this variable.

AUTOREV

When SRCREV is set to the value of this variable, it specifies to use the latest source revision in the repository. Here is an example:

     SRCREV = "${AUTOREV}"
                    

If you use the previous statement to retrieve the latest version of software, you need to be sure PV contains ${SRCPV}. For example, suppose you have a kernel recipe that inherits the kernel class and you use the previous statement. In this example, ${SRCPV} does not automatically get into PV. Consequently, you need to change PV in your recipe so that it does contain ${SRCPV}.

For more information see the "Automatically Incrementing a Binary Package Revision Number" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

AVAILTUNES

The list of defined CPU and Application Binary Interface (ABI) tunings (i.e. "tunes") available for use by the OpenEmbedded build system.

The list simply presents the tunes that are available. Not all tunes may be compatible with a particular machine configuration, or with each other in a Multilib configuration.

To add a tune to the list, be sure to append it with spaces using the "+=" BitBake operator. Do not simply replace the list by using the "=" operator. See the "Basic Syntax" section in the BitBake User Manual for more information.

B

B

The directory within the Build Directory in which the OpenEmbedded build system places generated objects during a recipe's build process. By default, this directory is the same as the S directory, which is defined as:

     S = "${WORKDIR}/${BP}"
                    

You can separate the (S) directory and the directory pointed to by the B variable. Most Autotools-based recipes support separating these directories. The build system defaults to using separate directories for gcc and some kernel recipes.

BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS

Lists "recommended-only" packages to not install. Recommended-only packages are packages installed only through the RRECOMMENDS variable. You can prevent any of these "recommended" packages from being installed by listing them with the BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS variable:

     BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS = "package_name package_name package_name ..."
                    

You can set this variable globally in your local.conf file or you can attach it to a specific image recipe by using the recipe name override:

     BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS_pn-target_image = "package_name"
                    

It is important to realize that if you choose to not install packages using this variable and some other packages are dependent on them (i.e. listed in a recipe's RDEPENDS variable), the OpenEmbedded build system ignores your request and will install the packages to avoid dependency errors.

Support for this variable exists only when using the IPK and RPM packaging backend. Support does not exist for DEB.

See the NO_RECOMMENDATIONS and the PACKAGE_EXCLUDE variables for related information.

BASE_LIB

The library directory name for the CPU or Application Binary Interface (ABI) tune. The BASE_LIB applies only in the Multilib context. See the "Combining Multiple Versions of Library Files into One Image" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for information on Multilib.

The BASE_LIB variable is defined in the machine include files in the Source Directory. If Multilib is not being used, the value defaults to "lib".

BASE_WORKDIR

Points to the base of the work directory for all recipes. The default value is "${TMPDIR}/work".

BB_ALLOWED_NETWORKS

Specifies a space-delimited list of hosts that the fetcher is allowed to use to obtain the required source code. Following are considerations surrounding this variable:

  • This host list is only used if BB_NO_NETWORK is either not set or set to "0".

  • Limited support for wildcard matching against the beginning of host names exists. For example, the following setting matches git.gnu.org, ftp.gnu.org, and foo.git.gnu.org.

         BB_ALLOWED_NETWORKS = "*.gnu.org"
                                

  • Mirrors not in the host list are skipped and logged in debug.

  • Attempts to access networks not in the host list cause a failure.

Using BB_ALLOWED_NETWORKS in conjunction with PREMIRRORS is very useful. Adding the host you want to use to PREMIRRORS results in the source code being fetched from an allowed location and avoids raising an error when a host that is not allowed is in a SRC_URI statement. This is because the fetcher does not attempt to use the host listed in SRC_URI after a successful fetch from the PREMIRRORS occurs.

BB_DANGLINGAPPENDS_WARNONLY

Defines how BitBake handles situations where an append file (.bbappend) has no corresponding recipe file (.bb). This condition often occurs when layers get out of sync (e.g. oe-core bumps a recipe version and the old recipe no longer exists and the other layer has not been updated to the new version of the recipe yet).

The default fatal behavior is safest because it is the sane reaction given something is out of sync. It is important to realize when your changes are no longer being applied.

You can change the default behavior by setting this variable to "1", "yes", or "true" in your local.conf file, which is located in the Build Directory: Here is an example:

     BB_DANGLINGAPPENDS_WARNONLY = "1"
                    

BB_DISKMON_DIRS

Monitors disk space and available inodes during the build and allows you to control the build based on these parameters.

Disk space monitoring is disabled by default. To enable monitoring, add the BB_DISKMON_DIRS variable to your conf/local.conf file found in the Build Directory. Use the following form:

     BB_DISKMON_DIRS = "action,dir,threshold [...]"

     where:

        action is:
           ABORT:     Immediately abort the build when
                      a threshold is broken.
           STOPTASKS: Stop the build after the currently
                      executing tasks have finished when
                      a threshold is broken.
           WARN:      Issue a warning but continue the
                      build when a threshold is broken.
                      Subsequent warnings are issued as
                      defined by the
                      BB_DISKMON_WARNINTERVAL variable,
                      which must be defined in the
                      conf/local.conf file.

        dir is:
           Any directory you choose. You can specify one or
           more directories to monitor by separating the
           groupings with a space.  If two directories are
           on the same device, only the first directory
           is monitored.

        threshold is:
           Either the minimum available disk space,
           the minimum number of free inodes, or
           both.  You must specify at least one.  To
           omit one or the other, simply omit the value.
           Specify the threshold using G, M, K for Gbytes,
           Mbytes, and Kbytes, respectively. If you do
           not specify G, M, or K, Kbytes is assumed by
           default.  Do not use GB, MB, or KB.
                    

Here are some examples:

     BB_DISKMON_DIRS = "ABORT,${TMPDIR},1G,100K WARN,${SSTATE_DIR},1G,100K"
     BB_DISKMON_DIRS = "STOPTASKS,${TMPDIR},1G"
     BB_DISKMON_DIRS = "ABORT,${TMPDIR},,100K"
                    

The first example works only if you also provide the BB_DISKMON_WARNINTERVAL variable in the conf/local.conf. This example causes the build system to immediately abort when either the disk space in ${TMPDIR} drops below 1 Gbyte or the available free inodes drops below 100 Kbytes. Because two directories are provided with the variable, the build system also issue a warning when the disk space in the ${SSTATE_DIR} directory drops below 1 Gbyte or the number of free inodes drops below 100 Kbytes. Subsequent warnings are issued during intervals as defined by the BB_DISKMON_WARNINTERVAL variable.

The second example stops the build after all currently executing tasks complete when the minimum disk space in the ${TMPDIR} directory drops below 1 Gbyte. No disk monitoring occurs for the free inodes in this case.

The final example immediately aborts the build when the number of free inodes in the ${TMPDIR} directory drops below 100 Kbytes. No disk space monitoring for the directory itself occurs in this case.

BB_DISKMON_WARNINTERVAL

Defines the disk space and free inode warning intervals. To set these intervals, define the variable in your conf/local.conf file in the Build Directory.

If you are going to use the BB_DISKMON_WARNINTERVAL variable, you must also use the BB_DISKMON_DIRS variable and define its action as "WARN". During the build, subsequent warnings are issued each time disk space or number of free inodes further reduces by the respective interval.

If you do not provide a BB_DISKMON_WARNINTERVAL variable and you do use BB_DISKMON_DIRS with the "WARN" action, the disk monitoring interval defaults to the following:

     BB_DISKMON_WARNINTERVAL = "50M,5K"
                    

When specifying the variable in your configuration file, use the following form:

     BB_DISKMON_WARNINTERVAL = "disk_space_interval,disk_inode_interval"

     where:

        disk_space_interval is:
           An interval of memory expressed in either
           G, M, or K for Gbytes, Mbytes, or Kbytes,
           respectively. You cannot use GB, MB, or KB.

        disk_inode_interval is:
           An interval of free inodes expressed in either
           G, M, or K for Gbytes, Mbytes, or Kbytes,
           respectively. You cannot use GB, MB, or KB.
                    

Here is an example:

     BB_DISKMON_DIRS = "WARN,${SSTATE_DIR},1G,100K"
     BB_DISKMON_WARNINTERVAL = "50M,5K"
                    

These variables cause the OpenEmbedded build system to issue subsequent warnings each time the available disk space further reduces by 50 Mbytes or the number of free inodes further reduces by 5 Kbytes in the ${SSTATE_DIR} directory. Subsequent warnings based on the interval occur each time a respective interval is reached beyond the initial warning (i.e. 1 Gbytes and 100 Kbytes).

BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS

Causes tarballs of the Git repositories, including the Git metadata, to be placed in the DL_DIR directory.

For performance reasons, creating and placing tarballs of the Git repositories is not the default action by the OpenEmbedded build system.

     BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS = "1"
                    

Set this variable in your local.conf file in the Build Directory.

BB_NUMBER_THREADS

The maximum number of tasks BitBake should run in parallel at any one time. The OpenEmbedded build system automatically configures this variable to be equal to the number of cores on the build system. For example, a system with a dual core processor that also uses hyper-threading causes the BB_NUMBER_THREADS variable to default to "4".

For single socket systems (i.e. one CPU), you should not have to override this variable to gain optimal parallelism during builds. However, if you have very large systems that employ multiple physical CPUs, you might want to make sure the BB_NUMBER_THREADS variable is not set higher than "20".

For more information on speeding up builds, see the "Speeding Up the Build" section.

BBCLASSEXTEND

Allows you to extend a recipe so that it builds variants of the software. Common variants for recipes exist such as "natives" like quilt-native, which is a copy of Quilt built to run on the build system; "crosses" such as gcc-cross, which is a compiler built to run on the build machine but produces binaries that run on the target MACHINE; "nativesdk", which targets the SDK machine instead of MACHINE; and "mulitlibs" in the form "multilib:multilib_name".

To build a different variant of the recipe with a minimal amount of code, it usually is as simple as adding the following to your recipe:

     BBCLASSEXTEND =+ "native nativesdk"
     BBCLASSEXTEND =+ "multilib:multilib_name"
                    

Note

Internally, the BBCLASSEXTEND mechanism generates recipe variants by rewriting variable values and applying overrides such as _class-native. For example, to generate a native version of a recipe, a DEPENDS on "foo" is rewritten to a DEPENDS on "foo-native".

Even when using BBCLASSEXTEND, the recipe is only parsed once. Parsing once adds some limitations. For example, it is not possible to include a different file depending on the variant, since include statements are processed when the recipe is parsed.

BBFILE_COLLECTIONS

Lists the names of configured layers. These names are used to find the other BBFILE_* variables. Typically, each layer will append its name to this variable in its conf/layer.conf file.

BBFILE_PATTERN

Variable that expands to match files from BBFILES in a particular layer. This variable is used in the conf/layer.conf file and must be suffixed with the name of the specific layer (e.g. BBFILE_PATTERN_emenlow).

BBFILE_PRIORITY

Assigns the priority for recipe files in each layer.

This variable is useful in situations where the same recipe appears in more than one layer. Setting this variable allows you to prioritize a layer against other layers that contain the same recipe - effectively letting you control the precedence for the multiple layers. The precedence established through this variable stands regardless of a recipe's version (PV variable). For example, a layer that has a recipe with a higher PV value but for which the BBFILE_PRIORITY is set to have a lower precedence still has a lower precedence.

A larger value for the BBFILE_PRIORITY variable results in a higher precedence. For example, the value 6 has a higher precedence than the value 5. If not specified, the BBFILE_PRIORITY variable is set based on layer dependencies (see the LAYERDEPENDS variable for more information. The default priority, if unspecified for a layer with no dependencies, is the lowest defined priority + 1 (or 1 if no priorities are defined).

Tip

You can use the command bitbake-layers show-layers to list all configured layers along with their priorities.
BBFILES

List of recipe files used by BitBake to build software.

BBINCLUDELOGS

Variable that controls how BitBake displays logs on build failure.

BBINCLUDELOGS_LINES

If BBINCLUDELOGS is set, specifies the maximum number of lines from the task log file to print when reporting a failed task. If you do not set BBINCLUDELOGS_LINES, the entire log is printed.

BBLAYERS

Lists the layers to enable during the build. This variable is defined in the bblayers.conf configuration file in the Build Directory. Here is an example:

     BBLAYERS = " \
       /home/scottrif/poky/meta \
       /home/scottrif/poky/meta-poky \
       /home/scottrif/poky/meta-yocto-bsp \
       /home/scottrif/poky/meta-mykernel \
       "
                    

This example enables four layers, one of which is a custom, user-defined layer named meta-mykernel.

BBMASK

Prevents BitBake from processing recipes and recipe append files.

You can use the BBMASK variable to "hide" these .bb and .bbappend files. BitBake ignores any recipe or recipe append files that match any of the expressions. It is as if BitBake does not see them at all. Consequently, matching files are not parsed or otherwise used by BitBake.

The values you provide are passed to Python's regular expression compiler. The expressions are compared against the full paths to the files. For complete syntax information, see Python's documentation at http://docs.python.org/release/2.3/lib/re-syntax.html.

The following example uses a complete regular expression to tell BitBake to ignore all recipe and recipe append files in the meta-ti/recipes-misc/ directory:

     BBMASK = "meta-ti/recipes-misc/"
                    

If you want to mask out multiple directories or recipes, you can specify multiple regular expression fragments. This next example masks out multiple directories and individual recipes:

     BBMASK += "/meta-ti/recipes-misc/ meta-ti/recipes-ti/packagegroup/"
     BBMASK += "/meta-oe/recipes-support/"
     BBMASK += "/meta-foo/.*/openldap"
     BBMASK += "opencv.*\.bbappend"
     BBMASK += "lzma"
                    

Note

When specifying a directory name, use the trailing slash character to ensure you match just that directory name.

BBMULTICONFIG

Specifies each separate configuration when you are building targets with multiple configurations. Use this variable in your conf/local.conf configuration file. Specify a multiconfigname for each configuration file you are using. For example, the following line specifies three configuration files:

     BBMULTIFONFIG = "configA configB configC"
                    

Each configuration file you use must reside in the Build Directory's conf/multiconfig directory (e.g. build_directory/conf/multiconfig/configA.conf).

For information on how to use BBMULTICONFIG in an environment that supports building targets with multiple configurations, see the "Building Targets with Multiple Configurations" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

BBPATH

Used by BitBake to locate .bbclass and configuration files. This variable is analogous to the PATH variable.

Note

If you run BitBake from a directory outside of the Build Directory, you must be sure to set BBPATH to point to the Build Directory. Set the variable as you would any environment variable and then run BitBake:
     $ BBPATH = "build_directory"
     $ export BBPATH
     $ bitbake target
                        

BBSERVER

Points to the server that runs memory-resident BitBake. This variable is set by the oe-init-build-env-memres setup script and should not be hand-edited. The variable is only used when you employ memory-resident BitBake. The setup script exports the value as follows:

     export BBSERVER=localhost:$port
                    

For more information on how the BBSERVER is used, see the oe-init-build-env-memres script, which is located in the Source Directory.

BINCONFIG

When inheriting the binconfig-disabled class, this variable specifies binary configuration scripts to disable in favor of using pkg-config to query the information. The binconfig-disabled class will modify the specified scripts to return an error so that calls to them can be easily found and replaced.

To add multiple scripts, separate them by spaces. Here is an example from the libpng recipe:

     BINCONFIG = "${bindir}/libpng-config ${bindir}/libpng16-config"
                    

BINCONFIG_GLOB

When inheriting the binconfig class, this variable specifies a wildcard for configuration scripts that need editing. The scripts are edited to correct any paths that have been set up during compilation so that they are correct for use when installed into the sysroot and called by the build processes of other recipes.

For more information on how this variable works, see meta/classes/binconfig.bbclass in the Source Directory. You can also find general information on the class in the "binconfig.bbclass" section.

BP

The base recipe name and version but without any special recipe name suffix (i.e. -native, lib64-, and so forth). BP is comprised of the following:

     ${BPN}-${PV}
                    

BPN

This variable is a version of the PN variable with common prefixes and suffixes removed, such as nativesdk-, -cross, -native, and multilib's lib64- and lib32-. The exact lists of prefixes and suffixes removed are specified by the MLPREFIX and SPECIAL_PKGSUFFIX variables, respectively.

BUGTRACKER

Specifies a URL for an upstream bug tracking website for a recipe. The OpenEmbedded build system does not use this variable. Rather, the variable is a useful pointer in case a bug in the software being built needs to be manually reported.

BUILD_ARCH

Specifies the architecture of the build host (e.g. i686). The OpenEmbedded build system sets the value of BUILD_ARCH from the machine name reported by the uname command.

BUILD_CFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C compiler when building for the build host. When building in the -native context, CFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

BUILD_CPPFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C pre-processor (i.e. to both the C and the C++ compilers) when building for the build host. When building in the -native context, CPPFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

BUILD_CXXFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C++ compiler when building for the build host. When building in the -native context, CXXFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

BUILD_LDFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the linker when building for the build host. When building in the -native context, LDFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

BUILD_OPTIMIZATION

Specifies the optimization flags passed to the C compiler when building for the build host or the SDK. The flags are passed through the BUILD_CFLAGS and BUILDSDK_CFLAGS default values.

The default value of the BUILD_OPTIMIZATION variable is "-O2 -pipe".

BUILD_OS

Specifies the operating system in use on the build host (e.g. "linux"). The OpenEmbedded build system sets the value of BUILD_OS from the OS reported by the uname command - the first word, converted to lower-case characters.

BUILD_PREFIX

The toolchain binary prefix used for native recipes. The OpenEmbedded build system uses the BUILD_PREFIX value to set the TARGET_PREFIX when building for native recipes.

BUILD_SYS

Specifies the system, including the architecture and the operating system, to use when building for the build host (i.e. when building native recipes).

The OpenEmbedded build system automatically sets this variable based on BUILD_ARCH, BUILD_VENDOR, and BUILD_OS. You do not need to set the BUILD_SYS variable yourself.

BUILD_VENDOR

Specifies the vendor name to use when building for the build host. The default value is an empty string ("").

BUILDDIR

Points to the location of the Build Directory. You can define this directory indirectly through the oe-init-build-env and oe-init-build-env-memres scripts by passing in a Build Directory path when you run the scripts. If you run the scripts and do not provide a Build Directory path, the BUILDDIR defaults to build in the current directory.

BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT

When inheriting the buildhistory class, this variable specifies whether or not to commit the build history output in a local Git repository. If set to "1", this local repository will be maintained automatically by the buildhistory class and a commit will be created on every build for changes to each top-level subdirectory of the build history output (images, packages, and sdk). If you want to track changes to build history over time, you should set this value to "1".

By default, the buildhistory class does not commit the build history output in a local Git repository:

     BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT ?= "0"
                    

BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT_AUTHOR

When inheriting the buildhistory class, this variable specifies the author to use for each Git commit. In order for the BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT_AUTHOR variable to work, the BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT variable must be set to "1".

Git requires that the value you provide for the BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT_AUTHOR variable takes the form of "name <email@host>". Providing an email address or host that is not valid does not produce an error.

By default, the buildhistory class sets the variable as follows:

     BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT_AUTHOR ?= "buildhistory <buildhistory@${DISTRO}>"
                    

BUILDHISTORY_DIR

When inheriting the buildhistory class, this variable specifies the directory in which build history information is kept. For more information on how the variable works, see the buildhistory.class.

By default, the buildhistory class sets the directory as follows:

     BUILDHISTORY_DIR ?= "${TOPDIR}/buildhistory"
                    

BUILDHISTORY_FEATURES

When inheriting the buildhistory class, this variable specifies the build history features to be enabled. For more information on how build history works, see the "Maintaining Build Output Quality" section.

You can specify three features in the form of a space-separated list:

  • image: Analysis of the contents of images, which includes the list of installed packages among other things.

  • package: Analysis of the contents of individual packages.

  • sdk: Analysis of the contents of the software development kit (SDK).

By default, the buildhistory class enables all three features:

     BUILDHISTORY_FEATURES ?= "image package sdk"
                    

BUILDHISTORY_IMAGE_FILES

When inheriting the buildhistory class, this variable specifies a list of paths to files copied from the image contents into the build history directory under an "image-files" directory in the directory for the image, so that you can track the contents of each file. The default is to copy /etc/passwd and /etc/group, which allows you to monitor for changes in user and group entries. You can modify the list to include any file. Specifying an invalid path does not produce an error. Consequently, you can include files that might not always be present.

By default, the buildhistory class provides paths to the following files:

     BUILDHISTORY_IMAGE_FILES ?= "/etc/passwd /etc/group"
                    

BUILDHISTORY_PUSH_REPO

When inheriting the buildhistory class, this variable optionally specifies a remote repository to which build history pushes Git changes. In order for BUILDHISTORY_PUSH_REPO to work, BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT must be set to "1".

The repository should correspond to a remote address that specifies a repository as understood by Git, or alternatively to a remote name that you have set up manually using git remote within the local repository.

By default, the buildhistory class sets the variable as follows:

     BUILDHISTORY_PUSH_REPO ?= ""
                    

BUILDSDK_CFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C compiler when building for the SDK. When building in the nativesdk- context, CFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

BUILDSDK_CPPFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C pre-processor (i.e. to both the C and the C++ compilers) when building for the SDK. When building in the nativesdk- context, CPPFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

BUILDSDK_CXXFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C++ compiler when building for the SDK. When building in the nativesdk- context, CXXFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

BUILDSDK_LDFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the linker when building for the SDK. When building in the nativesdk- context, LDFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

BUILDSTATS_BASE

Points to the location of the directory that holds build statistics when you use and enable the buildstats class. The BUILDSTATS_BASE directory defaults to ${TMPDIR}/buildstats/.

BUSYBOX_SPLIT_SUID

For the BusyBox recipe, specifies whether to split the output executable file into two parts: one for features that require setuid root, and one for the remaining features (i.e. those that do not require setuid root).

The BUSYBOX_SPLIT_SUID variable defaults to "1", which results in a single output executable file. Set the variable to "0" to split the output file.

C

CACHE

Specifies the directory BitBake uses to store a cache of the Metadata so it does not need to be parsed every time BitBake is started.

CC

The minimal command and arguments used to run the C compiler.

CFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C compiler. This variable is exported to an environment variable and thus made visible to the software being built during the compilation step.

Default initialization for CFLAGS varies depending on what is being built:

CLASSOVERRIDE

An internal variable specifying the special class override that should currently apply (e.g. "class-target", "class-native", and so forth). The classes that use this variable (e.g. native, nativesdk, and so forth) set the variable to appropriate values.

Note

CLASSOVERRIDE gets its default "class-target" value from the bitbake.conf file.

As an example, the following override allows you to install extra files, but only when building for the target:

     do_install_append_class-target() {
         install my-extra-file ${D}${sysconfdir}
     }
                    

Here is an example where FOO is set to "native" when building for the build host, and to "other" when not building for the build host:

     FOO_class-native = "native"
     FOO = "other"
                    

The underlying mechanism behind CLASSOVERRIDE is simply that it is included in the default value of OVERRIDES.

CLEANBROKEN

If set to "1" within a recipe, CLEANBROKEN specifies that the make clean command does not work for the software being built. Consequently, the OpenEmbedded build system will not try to run make clean during the do_configure task, which is the default behavior.

COMBINED_FEATURES

Provides a list of hardware features that are enabled in both MACHINE_FEATURES and DISTRO_FEATURES. This select list of features contains features that make sense to be controlled both at the machine and distribution configuration level. For example, the "bluetooth" feature requires hardware support but should also be optional at the distribution level, in case the hardware supports Bluetooth but you do not ever intend to use it.

For more information, see the MACHINE_FEATURES and DISTRO_FEATURES variables.

COMMON_LICENSE_DIR

Points to meta/files/common-licenses in the Source Directory, which is where generic license files reside.

COMPATIBLE_HOST

A regular expression that resolves to one or more hosts (when the recipe is native) or one or more targets (when the recipe is non-native) with which a recipe is compatible. The regular expression is matched against HOST_SYS. You can use the variable to stop recipes from being built for classes of systems with which the recipes are not compatible. Stopping these builds is particularly useful with kernels. The variable also helps to increase parsing speed since the build system skips parsing recipes not compatible with the current system.

COMPATIBLE_MACHINE

A regular expression that resolves to one or more target machines with which a recipe is compatible. The regular expression is matched against MACHINEOVERRIDES. You can use the variable to stop recipes from being built for machines with which the recipes are not compatible. Stopping these builds is particularly useful with kernels. The variable also helps to increase parsing speed since the build system skips parsing recipes not compatible with the current machine.

COMPLEMENTARY_GLOB

Defines wildcards to match when installing a list of complementary packages for all the packages explicitly (or implicitly) installed in an image. The resulting list of complementary packages is associated with an item that can be added to IMAGE_FEATURES. An example usage of this is the "dev-pkgs" item that when added to IMAGE_FEATURES will install -dev packages (containing headers and other development files) for every package in the image.

To add a new feature item pointing to a wildcard, use a variable flag to specify the feature item name and use the value to specify the wildcard. Here is an example:

     COMPLEMENTARY_GLOB[dev-pkgs] = '*-dev'
                    

CONF_VERSION

Tracks the version of the local configuration file (i.e. local.conf). The value for CONF_VERSION increments each time build/conf/ compatibility changes.

CONFFILES

Identifies editable or configurable files that are part of a package. If the Package Management System (PMS) is being used to update packages on the target system, it is possible that configuration files you have changed after the original installation and that you now want to remain unchanged are overwritten. In other words, editable files might exist in the package that you do not want reset as part of the package update process. You can use the CONFFILES variable to list the files in the package that you wish to prevent the PMS from overwriting during this update process.

To use the CONFFILES variable, provide a package name override that identifies the resulting package. Then, provide a space-separated list of files. Here is an example:

     CONFFILES_${PN} += "${sysconfdir}/file1 \
        ${sysconfdir}/file2 ${sysconfdir}/file3"
                    

A relationship exists between the CONFFILES and FILES variables. The files listed within CONFFILES must be a subset of the files listed within FILES. Because the configuration files you provide with CONFFILES are simply being identified so that the PMS will not overwrite them, it makes sense that the files must already be included as part of the package through the FILES variable.

Note

When specifying paths as part of the CONFFILES variable, it is good practice to use appropriate path variables. For example, ${sysconfdir} rather than /etc or ${bindir} rather than /usr/bin. You can find a list of these variables at the top of the meta/conf/bitbake.conf file in the Source Directory.
CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE

Identifies the initial RAM filesystem (initramfs) source files. The OpenEmbedded build system receives and uses this kernel Kconfig variable as an environment variable. By default, the variable is set to null ("").

The CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE can be either a single cpio archive with a .cpio suffix or a space-separated list of directories and files for building the initramfs image. A cpio archive should contain a filesystem archive to be used as an initramfs image. Directories should contain a filesystem layout to be included in the initramfs image. Files should contain entries according to the format described by the usr/gen_init_cpio program in the kernel tree.

If you specify multiple directories and files, the initramfs image will be the aggregate of all of them.

For information on creating an initramfs, see the "Building an Initial RAM Filesystem (initramfs) Image" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

CONFIG_SITE

A list of files that contains autoconf test results relevant to the current build. This variable is used by the Autotools utilities when running configure.

CONFIGURE_FLAGS

The minimal arguments for GNU configure.

CONFLICT_DISTRO_FEATURES

When inheriting the distro_features_check class, this variable identifies distribution features that would be in conflict should the recipe be built. In other words, if the CONFLICT_DISTRO_FEATURES variable lists a feature that also appears in DISTRO_FEATURES within the current configuration, an error occurs and the build stops.

COPYLEFT_LICENSE_EXCLUDE

A space-separated list of licenses to exclude from the source archived by the archiver class. In other words, if a license in a recipe's LICENSE value is in the value of COPYLEFT_LICENSE_EXCLUDE, then its source is not archived by the class.

Note

The COPYLEFT_LICENSE_EXCLUDE variable takes precedence over the COPYLEFT_LICENSE_INCLUDE variable.

The default value, which is "CLOSED Proprietary", for COPYLEFT_LICENSE_EXCLUDE is set by the copyleft_filter class, which is inherited by the archiver class.

COPYLEFT_LICENSE_INCLUDE

A space-separated list of licenses to include in the source archived by the archiver class. In other words, if a license in a recipe's LICENSE value is in the value of COPYLEFT_LICENSE_INCLUDE, then its source is archived by the class.

The default value is set by the copyleft_filter class, which is inherited by the archiver class. The default value includes "GPL*", "LGPL*", and "AGPL*".

COPYLEFT_PN_EXCLUDE

A list of recipes to exclude in the source archived by the archiver class. The COPYLEFT_PN_EXCLUDE variable overrides the license inclusion and exclusion caused through the COPYLEFT_LICENSE_INCLUDE and COPYLEFT_LICENSE_EXCLUDE variables, respectively.

The default value, which is "" indicating to not explicitly exclude any recipes by name, for COPYLEFT_PN_EXCLUDE is set by the copyleft_filter class, which is inherited by the archiver class.

COPYLEFT_PN_INCLUDE

A list of recipes to include in the source archived by the archiver class. The COPYLEFT_PN_INCLUDE variable overrides the license inclusion and exclusion caused through the COPYLEFT_LICENSE_INCLUDE and COPYLEFT_LICENSE_EXCLUDE variables, respectively.

The default value, which is "" indicating to not explicitly include any recipes by name, for COPYLEFT_PN_INCLUDE is set by the copyleft_filter class, which is inherited by the archiver class.

COPYLEFT_RECIPE_TYPES

A space-separated list of recipe types to include in the source archived by the archiver class. Recipe types are target, native, nativesdk, cross, crosssdk, and cross-canadian.

The default value, which is "target*", for COPYLEFT_RECIPE_TYPES is set by the copyleft_filter class, which is inherited by the archiver class.

COPY_LIC_DIRS

If set to "1" along with the COPY_LIC_MANIFEST variable, the OpenEmbedded build system copies into the image the license files, which are located in /usr/share/common-licenses, for each package. The license files are placed in directories within the image itself during build time.

Note

The COPY_LIC_DIRS does not offer a path for adding licenses for newly installed packages to an image, which might be most suitable for read-only filesystems that cannot be upgraded. See the LICENSE_CREATE_PACKAGE variable for additional information. You can also reference the "Providing License Text" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for information on providing license text.

COPY_LIC_MANIFEST

If set to "1", the OpenEmbedded build system copies the license manifest for the image to /usr/share/common-licenses/license.manifest within the image itself during build time.

Note

The COPY_LIC_MANIFEST does not offer a path for adding licenses for newly installed packages to an image, which might be most suitable for read-only filesystems that cannot be upgraded. See the LICENSE_CREATE_PACKAGE variable for additional information. You can also reference the "Providing License Text" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for information on providing license text.

CORE_IMAGE_EXTRA_INSTALL

Specifies the list of packages to be added to the image. You should only set this variable in the local.conf configuration file found in the Build Directory.

This variable replaces POKY_EXTRA_INSTALL, which is no longer supported.

COREBASE

Specifies the parent directory of the OpenEmbedded Core Metadata layer (i.e. meta).

It is an important distinction that COREBASE points to the parent of this layer and not the layer itself. Consider an example where you have cloned the Poky Git repository and retained the poky name for your local copy of the repository. In this case, COREBASE points to the poky folder because it is the parent directory of the poky/meta layer.

COREBASE_FILES

Lists files from the COREBASE directory that should be copied other than the layers listed in the bblayers.conf file. The COREBASE_FILES variable exists for the purpose of copying metadata from the OpenEmbedded build system into the extensible SDK.

Explicitly listing files in COREBASE is needed because it typically contains build directories and other files that should not normally be copied into the extensible SDK. Consequently, the value of COREBASE_FILES is used in order to only copy the files that are actually needed.

CPP

The minimal command and arguments used to run the C preprocessor.

CPPFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C pre-processor (i.e. to both the C and the C++ compilers). This variable is exported to an environment variable and thus made visible to the software being built during the compilation step.

Default initialization for CPPFLAGS varies depending on what is being built:

CROSS_COMPILE

The toolchain binary prefix for the target tools. The CROSS_COMPILE variable is the same as the TARGET_PREFIX variable.

Note

The OpenEmbedded build system sets the CROSS_COMPILE variable only in certain contexts (e.g. when building for kernel and kernel module recipes).

CVSDIR

The directory in which files checked out under the CVS system are stored.

CXX

The minimal command and arguments used to run the C++ compiler.

CXXFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C++ compiler. This variable is exported to an environment variable and thus made visible to the software being built during the compilation step.

Default initialization for CXXFLAGS varies depending on what is being built:

D

D

The destination directory. The location in the Build Directory where components are installed by the do_install task. This location defaults to:

     ${WORKDIR}/image
                    

Caution

Tasks that read from or write to this directory should run under fakeroot.

DATE

The date the build was started. Dates appear using the year, month, and day (YMD) format (e.g. "20150209" for February 9th, 2015).

DATETIME

The date and time on which the current build started. The format is suitable for timestamps.

DEBIAN_NOAUTONAME

When the debian class is inherited, which is the default behavior, DEBIAN_NOAUTONAME specifies a particular package should not be renamed according to Debian library package naming. You must use the package name as an override when you set this variable. Here is an example from the fontconfig recipe:

     DEBIAN_NOAUTONAME_fontconfig-utils = "1"
                    

DEBIANNAME

When the debian class is inherited, which is the default behavior, DEBIANNAME allows you to override the library name for an individual package. Overriding the library name in these cases is rare. You must use the package name as an override when you set this variable. Here is an example from the dbus recipe:

     DEBIANNAME_${PN} = "dbus-1"
                    

DEBUG_BUILD

Specifies to build packages with debugging information. This influences the value of the SELECTED_OPTIMIZATION variable.

DEBUG_OPTIMIZATION

The options to pass in TARGET_CFLAGS and CFLAGS when compiling a system for debugging. This variable defaults to "-O -fno-omit-frame-pointer ${DEBUG_FLAGS} -pipe".

DEFAULT_PREFERENCE

Specifies a weak bias for recipe selection priority.

The most common usage of this is variable is to set it to "-1" within a recipe for a development version of a piece of software. Using the variable in this way causes the stable version of the recipe to build by default in the absence of PREFERRED_VERSION being used to build the development version.

Note

The bias provided by DEFAULT_PREFERENCE is weak and is overridden by BBFILE_PRIORITY if that variable is different between two layers that contain different versions of the same recipe.
DEFAULTTUNE

The default CPU and Application Binary Interface (ABI) tunings (i.e. the "tune") used by the OpenEmbedded build system. The DEFAULTTUNE helps define TUNE_FEATURES.

The default tune is either implicitly or explicitly set by the machine (MACHINE). However, you can override the setting using available tunes as defined with AVAILTUNES.

DEPENDS

Lists a recipe's build-time dependencies. These are dependencies on other recipes whose contents (e.g. headers and shared libraries) are needed by the recipe at build time.

As an example, consider a recipe foo that contains the following assignment:

     DEPENDS = "bar"
                    

The practical effect of the previous assignment is that all files installed by bar will be available in the appropriate staging sysroot, given by the STAGING_DIR* variables, by the time the do_configure task for foo runs. This mechanism is implemented by having do_configure depend on the do_populate_sysroot task of each recipe listed in DEPENDS, through a [deptask] declaration in the base class.

Note

It seldom is necessary to reference, for example, STAGING_DIR_HOST explicitly. The standard classes and build-related variables are configured to automatically use the appropriate staging sysroots.

As another example, DEPENDS can also be used to add utilities that run on the build machine during the build. For example, a recipe that makes use of a code generator built by the recipe codegen might have the following:

     DEPENDS = "codegen-native"
                    

For more information, see the native class and the EXTRANATIVEPATH variable.

Notes

  • DEPENDS is a list of recipe names. Or, to be more precise, it is a list of PROVIDES names, which usually match recipe names. Putting a package name such as "foo-dev" in DEPENDS does not make sense. Use "foo" instead, as this will put files from all the packages that make up foo, which includes those from foo-dev, into the sysroot.

  • One recipe having another recipe in DEPENDS does not by itself add any runtime dependencies between the packages produced by the two recipes. However, as explained in the "Automatically Added Runtime Dependencies" section, runtime dependencies will often be added automatically, meaning DEPENDS alone is sufficient for most recipes.

  • Counterintuitively, DEPENDS is often necessary even for recipes that install precompiled components. For example, if libfoo is a precompiled library that links against libbar, then linking against libfoo requires both libfoo and libbar to be available in the sysroot. Without a DEPENDS from the recipe that installs libfoo to the recipe that installs libbar, other recipes might fail to link against libfoo.

For information on runtime dependencies, see the RDEPENDS variable. You can also see the "Tasks" and "Dependencies" sections in the BitBake User Manual for additional information on tasks and dependencies.

DEPLOY_DIR

Points to the general area that the OpenEmbedded build system uses to place images, packages, SDKs and other output files that are ready to be used outside of the build system. By default, this directory resides within the Build Directory as ${TMPDIR}/deploy.

For more information on the structure of the Build Directory, see "The Build Directory - build/" section. For more detail on the contents of the deploy directory, see the "Images", "Package Feeds", and "Application Development SDK" sections.

DEPLOY_DIR_DEB

Points to the area that the OpenEmbedded build system uses to place Debian packages that are ready to be used outside of the build system. This variable applies only when PACKAGE_CLASSES contains "package_deb".

The BitBake configuration file initially defines the DEPLOY_DIR_DEB variable as a sub-folder of DEPLOY_DIR:

     DEPLOY_DIR_DEB = "${DEPLOY_DIR}/deb"
                    

The package_deb class uses the DEPLOY_DIR_DEB variable to make sure the do_package_write_deb task writes Debian packages into the appropriate folder. For more information on how packaging works, see the "Package Feeds" section.

DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE

Points to the area that the OpenEmbedded build system uses to place images and other associated output files that are ready to be deployed onto the target machine. The directory is machine-specific as it contains the ${MACHINE} name. By default, this directory resides within the Build Directory as ${DEPLOY_DIR}/images/${MACHINE}/.

For more information on the structure of the Build Directory, see "The Build Directory - build/" section. For more detail on the contents of the deploy directory, see the "Images" and "Application Development SDK" sections.

DEPLOY_DIR_IPK

Points to the area that the OpenEmbedded build system uses to place IPK packages that are ready to be used outside of the build system. This variable applies only when PACKAGE_CLASSES contains "package_ipk".

The BitBake configuration file initially defines this variable as a sub-folder of DEPLOY_DIR:

     DEPLOY_DIR_IPK = "${DEPLOY_DIR}/ipk"
                    

The package_ipk class uses the DEPLOY_DIR_IPK variable to make sure the do_package_write_ipk task writes IPK packages into the appropriate folder. For more information on how packaging works, see the "Package Feeds" section.

DEPLOY_DIR_RPM

Points to the area that the OpenEmbedded build system uses to place RPM packages that are ready to be used outside of the build system. This variable applies only when PACKAGE_CLASSES contains "package_rpm".

The BitBake configuration file initially defines this variable as a sub-folder of DEPLOY_DIR:

     DEPLOY_DIR_RPM = "${DEPLOY_DIR}/rpm"
                    

The package_rpm class uses the DEPLOY_DIR_RPM variable to make sure the do_package_write_rpm task writes RPM packages into the appropriate folder. For more information on how packaging works, see the "Package Feeds" section.

DEPLOY_DIR_TAR

Points to the area that the OpenEmbedded build system uses to place tarballs that are ready to be used outside of the build system. This variable applies only when PACKAGE_CLASSES contains "package_tar".

The BitBake configuration file initially defines this variable as a sub-folder of DEPLOY_DIR:

     DEPLOY_DIR_TAR = "${DEPLOY_DIR}/tar"
                    

The package_tar class uses the DEPLOY_DIR_TAR variable to make sure the do_package_write_tar task writes TAR packages into the appropriate folder. For more information on how packaging works, see the "Package Feeds" section.

DEPLOYDIR

When inheriting the deploy class, the DEPLOYDIR points to a temporary work area for deployed files that is set in the deploy class as follows:

     DEPLOYDIR = "${WORKDIR}/deploy-${PN}"
                    

Recipes inheriting the deploy class should copy files to be deployed into DEPLOYDIR, and the class will take care of copying them into DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE afterwards.

DESCRIPTION

The package description used by package managers. If not set, DESCRIPTION takes the value of the SUMMARY variable.

DISK_SIGNATURE

A 32-bit MBR disk signature used by directdisk images.

By default, the signature is set to an automatically generated random value that allows the OpenEmbedded build system to create a boot loader. You can override the signature in the image recipe by setting DISK_SIGNATURE to an 8-digit hex string. You might want to override DISK_SIGNATURE if you want the disk signature to remain constant between image builds.

When using Linux 3.8 or later, you can use DISK_SIGNATURE to specify the root by UUID to allow the kernel to locate the root device even if the device name changes due to differences in hardware configuration. By default, ROOT_VM is set as follows:

     ROOT_VM ?= "root=/dev/sda2"
                    

However, you can change this to locate the root device using the disk signature instead:

     ROOT_VM = "root=PARTUUID=${DISK_SIGNATURE}-02"
                    

As previously mentioned, it is possible to set the DISK_SIGNATURE variable in your local.conf file to a fixed value if you do not want syslinux.cfg changing for each build. You might find this useful when you want to upgrade the root filesystem on a device without having to recreate or modify the master boot record.

DISTRO

The short name of the distribution. This variable corresponds to a distribution configuration file whose root name is the same as the variable's argument and whose filename extension is .conf. For example, the distribution configuration file for the Poky distribution is named poky.conf and resides in the meta-poky/conf/distro directory of the Source Directory.

Within that poky.conf file, the DISTRO variable is set as follows:

     DISTRO = "poky"
                    

Distribution configuration files are located in a conf/distro directory within the Metadata that contains the distribution configuration. The value for DISTRO must not contain spaces, and is typically all lower-case.

Note

If the DISTRO variable is blank, a set of default configurations are used, which are specified within meta/conf/distro/defaultsetup.conf also in the Source Directory.

DISTRO_CODENAME

Specifies a codename for the distribution being built.

DISTRO_EXTRA_RDEPENDS

Specifies a list of distro-specific packages to add to all images. This variable takes affect through packagegroup-base so the variable only really applies to the more full-featured images that include packagegroup-base. You can use this variable to keep distro policy out of generic images. As with all other distro variables, you set this variable in the distro .conf file.

DISTRO_EXTRA_RRECOMMENDS

Specifies a list of distro-specific packages to add to all images if the packages exist. The packages might not exist or be empty (e.g. kernel modules). The list of packages are automatically installed but you can remove them.

DISTRO_FEATURES

The software support you want in your distribution for various features. You define your distribution features in the distribution configuration file.

In most cases, the presence or absence of a feature in DISTRO_FEATURES is translated to the appropriate option supplied to the configure script during the do_configure task for recipes that optionally support the feature. For example, specifying "x11" in DISTRO_FEATURES, causes every piece of software built for the target that can optionally support X11 to have its X11 support enabled.

Two more examples are Bluetooth and NFS support. For a more complete list of features that ships with the Yocto Project and that you can provide with this variable, see the "Distro Features" section.

DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL

Features to be added to DISTRO_FEATURES if not also present in DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED.

This variable is set in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf file. It is not intended to be user-configurable. It is best to just reference the variable to see which distro features are being backfilled for all distro configurations. See the Feature backfilling section for more information.

DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED

Features from DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL that should not be backfilled (i.e. added to DISTRO_FEATURES) during the build. See the "Feature Backfilling" section for more information.

DISTRO_FEATURES_DEFAULT

A convenience variable that gives you the default list of distro features with the exception of any features specific to the C library (libc).

When creating a custom distribution, you might find it useful to be able to reuse the default DISTRO_FEATURES options without the need to write out the full set. Here is an example that uses DISTRO_FEATURES_DEFAULT from a custom distro configuration file:

     DISTRO_FEATURES ?= "${DISTRO_FEATURES_DEFAULT} ${DISTRO_FEATURES_LIBC} myfeature"
                    

DISTRO_FEATURES_FILTER_NATIVE

Specifies a list of features that if present in the target DISTRO_FEATURES value should be included in DISTRO_FEATURES when building native recipes. This variable is used in addition to the features filtered using the DISTRO_FEATURES_NATIVE variable.

DISTRO_FEATURES_FILTER_NATIVESDK

Specifies a list of features that if present in the target DISTRO_FEATURES value should be included in DISTRO_FEATURES when building nativesdk recipes. This variable is used in addition to the features filtered using the DISTRO_FEATURES_NATIVESDK variable.

DISTRO_FEATURES_LIBC

A convenience variable that specifies the list of distro features that are specific to the C library (libc). Typically, these features are prefixed with "libc-" and control which features are enabled at during the build within the C library itself.

DISTRO_FEATURES_NATIVE

Specifies a list of features that should be included in DISTRO_FEATURES when building native recipes. This variable is used in addition to the features filtered using the DISTRO_FEATURES_FILTER_NATIVE variable.

DISTRO_FEATURES_NATIVESDK

Specifies a list of features that should be included in DISTRO_FEATURES when building nativesdk recipes. This variable is used in addition to the features filtered using the DISTRO_FEATURES_FILTER_NATIVESDK variable.

DISTRO_NAME

The long name of the distribution.

DISTRO_VERSION

The version of the distribution.

DISTROOVERRIDES

A colon-separated list of overrides specific to the current distribution. By default, this list includes the value of DISTRO.

You can extend DISTROOVERRIDES to add extra overrides that should apply to the distribution.

The underlying mechanism behind DISTROOVERRIDES is simply that it is included in the default value of OVERRIDES.

DL_DIR

The central download directory used by the build process to store downloads. By default, DL_DIR gets files suitable for mirroring for everything except Git repositories. If you want tarballs of Git repositories, use the BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS variable.

You can set this directory by defining the DL_DIR variable in the conf/local.conf file. This directory is self-maintaining and you should not have to touch it. By default, the directory is downloads in the Build Directory.

     #DL_DIR ?= "${TOPDIR}/downloads"
                    

To specify a different download directory, simply remove the comment from the line and provide your directory.

During a first build, the system downloads many different source code tarballs from various upstream projects. Downloading can take a while, particularly if your network connection is slow. Tarballs are all stored in the directory defined by DL_DIR and the build system looks there first to find source tarballs.

Note

When wiping and rebuilding, you can preserve this directory to speed up this part of subsequent builds.

You can safely share this directory between multiple builds on the same development machine. For additional information on how the build process gets source files when working behind a firewall or proxy server, see this specific question in the "FAQ" chapter. You can also refer to the "Working Behind a Network Proxy" Wiki page.

DOC_COMPRESS

When inheriting the compress_doc class, this variable sets the compression policy used when the OpenEmbedded build system compresses man pages and info pages. By default, the compression method used is gz (gzip). Other policies available are xz and bz2.

For information on policies and on how to use this variable, see the comments in the meta/classes/compress_doc.bbclass file.

E

EFI_PROVIDER

When building bootable images (i.e. where hddimg or vmdk is in IMAGE_FSTYPES), the EFI_PROVIDER variable specifies the EFI bootloader to use. The default is "grub-efi", but "systemd-boot" can be used instead.

See the systemd-boot and image-live classes for more information.

ENABLE_BINARY_LOCALE_GENERATION

Variable that controls which locales for glibc are generated during the build (useful if the target device has 64Mbytes of RAM or less).

ERR_REPORT_DIR

When used with the report-error class, specifies the path used for storing the debug files created by the error reporting tool, which allows you to submit build errors you encounter to a central database. By default, the value of this variable is ${LOG_DIR}/error-report.

You can set ERR_REPORT_DIR to the path you want the error reporting tool to store the debug files as follows in your local.conf file:

     ERR_REPORT_DIR = "path"
                    

ERROR_QA

Specifies the quality assurance checks whose failures are reported as errors by the OpenEmbedded build system. You set this variable in your distribution configuration file. For a list of the checks you can control with this variable, see the "insane.bbclass" section.

EXCLUDE_FROM_SHLIBS

Triggers the OpenEmbedded build system's shared libraries resolver to exclude an entire package when scanning for shared libraries.

Note

The shared libraries resolver's functionality results in part from the internal function package_do_shlibs, which is part of the do_package task. You should be aware that the shared libraries resolver might implicitly define some dependencies between packages.

The EXCLUDE_FROM_SHLIBS variable is similar to the PRIVATE_LIBS variable, which excludes a package's particular libraries only and not the whole package.

Use the EXCLUDE_FROM_SHLIBS variable by setting it to "1" for a particular package:

     EXCLUDE_FROM_SHLIBS = "1"
                    

EXCLUDE_FROM_WORLD

Directs BitBake to exclude a recipe from world builds (i.e. bitbake world). During world builds, BitBake locates, parses and builds all recipes found in every layer exposed in the bblayers.conf configuration file.

To exclude a recipe from a world build using this variable, set the variable to "1" in the recipe.

Note

Recipes added to EXCLUDE_FROM_WORLD may still be built during a world build in order to satisfy dependencies of other recipes. Adding a recipe to EXCLUDE_FROM_WORLD only ensures that the recipe is not explicitly added to the list of build targets in a world build.
EXTENDPE

Used with file and pathnames to create a prefix for a recipe's version based on the recipe's PE value. If PE is set and greater than zero for a recipe, EXTENDPE becomes that value (e.g if PE is equal to "1" then EXTENDPE becomes "1_"). If a recipe's PE is not set (the default) or is equal to zero, EXTENDPE becomes "".

See the STAMP variable for an example.

EXTENDPKGV

The full package version specification as it appears on the final packages produced by a recipe. The variable's value is normally used to fix a runtime dependency to the exact same version of another package in the same recipe:

     RDEPENDS_${PN}-additional-module = "${PN} (= ${EXTENDPKGV})"
                    

The dependency relationships are intended to force the package manager to upgrade these types of packages in lock-step.

EXTERNAL_KERNEL_TOOLS

When set, the EXTERNAL_KERNEL_TOOLS variable indicates that these tools are not in the source tree.

When kernel tools are available in the tree, they are preferred over any externally installed tools. Setting the EXTERNAL_KERNEL_TOOLS variable tells the OpenEmbedded build system to prefer the installed external tools. See the kernel-yocto class in meta/classes to see how the variable is used.

EXTERNALSRC

When inheriting the externalsrc class, this variable points to the source tree, which is outside of the OpenEmbedded build system. When set, this variable sets the S variable, which is what the OpenEmbedded build system uses to locate unpacked recipe source code.

For more information on externalsrc.bbclass, see the "externalsrc.bbclass" section. You can also find information on how to use this variable in the "Building Software from an External Source" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

EXTERNALSRC_BUILD

When inheriting the externalsrc class, this variable points to the directory in which the recipe's source code is built, which is outside of the OpenEmbedded build system. When set, this variable sets the B variable, which is what the OpenEmbedded build system uses to locate the Build Directory.

For more information on externalsrc.bbclass, see the "externalsrc.bbclass" section. You can also find information on how to use this variable in the "Building Software from an External Source" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

EXTRA_AUTORECONF

For recipes inheriting the autotools class, you can use EXTRA_AUTORECONF to specify extra options to pass to the autoreconf command that is executed during the do_configure task.

The default value is "--exclude=autopoint".

EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES

A list of additional features to include in an image. When listing more than one feature, separate them with a space.

Typically, you configure this variable in your local.conf file, which is found in the Build Directory. Although you can use this variable from within a recipe, best practices dictate that you do not.

Note

To enable primary features from within the image recipe, use the IMAGE_FEATURES variable.

Here are some examples of features you can add:

"dbg-pkgs" - Adds -dbg packages for all installed packages
             including symbol information for debugging and
             profiling.

"debug-tweaks" - Makes an image suitable for debugging.
                 For example, allows root logins without
                 passwords and enables post-installation
                 logging. See the 'allow-empty-password'
                 and 'post-install-logging' features in
                 the "Image Features" section for
                 more information.

"dev-pkgs" - Adds -dev packages for all installed packages.
             This is useful if you want to develop against
             the libraries in the image.

"read-only-rootfs" - Creates an image whose root
                     filesystem is read-only. See the
                     "Creating a Read-Only Root Filesystem"
                     section in the Yocto Project
                     Development Manual for more
                     information

"tools-debug" - Adds debugging tools such as gdb and
                strace.

"tools-sdk" - Adds development tools such as gcc, make,
              pkgconfig and so forth.

"tools-testapps" - Adds useful testing tools such as
                   ts_print, aplay, arecord and so
                   forth.

                    

For a complete list of image features that ships with the Yocto Project, see the "Image Features" section.

For an example that shows how to customize your image by using this variable, see the "Customizing Images Using Custom IMAGE_FEATURES and EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

EXTRA_IMAGECMD

Specifies additional options for the image creation command that has been specified in IMAGE_CMD. When setting this variable, you should use an override for the associated type. Here is an example:

     EXTRA_IMAGECMD_ext3 ?= "-i 4096"
                    

EXTRA_IMAGEDEPENDS

A list of recipes to build that do not provide packages for installing into the root filesystem.

Sometimes a recipe is required to build the final image but is not needed in the root filesystem. You can use the EXTRA_IMAGEDEPENDS variable to list these recipes and thus specify the dependencies. A typical example is a required bootloader in a machine configuration.

Note

To add packages to the root filesystem, see the various *RDEPENDS and *RRECOMMENDS variables.
EXTRANATIVEPATH

A list of subdirectories of ${STAGING_BINDIR_NATIVE} added to the beginning of the environment variable PATH. As an example, the following prepends "${STAGING_BINDIR_NATIVE}/foo:${STAGING_BINDIR_NATIVE}/bar:" to PATH:

     EXTRANATIVEPATH = "foo bar"
                    

EXTRA_OECMAKE

Additional cmake options.

EXTRA_OECONF

Additional configure script options. See PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS for additional information on passing configure script options.

EXTRA_OEMAKE

Additional GNU make options.

Because the EXTRA_OEMAKE defaults to "", you need to set the variable to specify any required GNU options.

PARALLEL_MAKE and PARALLEL_MAKEINST also make use of EXTRA_OEMAKE to pass the required flags.

EXTRA_OESCONS

When inheriting the scons class, this variable specifies additional configuration options you want to pass to the scons command line.

EXTRA_USERS_PARAMS

When inheriting the extrausers class, this variable provides image level user and group operations. This is a more global method of providing user and group configuration as compared to using the useradd class, which ties user and group configurations to a specific recipe.

The set list of commands you can configure using the EXTRA_USERS_PARAMS is shown in the extrausers class. These commands map to the normal Unix commands of the same names:

     # EXTRA_USERS_PARAMS = "\
     # useradd -p '' tester; \
     # groupadd developers; \
     # userdel nobody; \
     # groupdel -g video; \
     # groupmod -g 1020 developers; \
     # usermod -s /bin/sh tester; \
     # "
                    

F

FEATURE_PACKAGES

Defines one or more packages to include in an image when a specific item is included in IMAGE_FEATURES. When setting the value, FEATURE_PACKAGES should have the name of the feature item as an override. Here is an example:

     FEATURE_PACKAGES_widget = "package1 package2"
                    

In this example, if "widget" were added to IMAGE_FEATURES, package1 and package2 would be included in the image.

Note

Packages installed by features defined through FEATURE_PACKAGES are often package groups. While similarly named, you should not confuse the FEATURE_PACKAGES variable with package groups, which are discussed elsewhere in the documentation.

FEED_DEPLOYDIR_BASE_URI

Points to the base URL of the server and location within the document-root that provides the metadata and packages required by OPKG to support runtime package management of IPK packages. You set this variable in your local.conf file.

Consider the following example:

     FEED_DEPLOYDIR_BASE_URI = "http://192.168.7.1/BOARD-dir"
                    

This example assumes you are serving your packages over HTTP and your databases are located in a directory named BOARD-dir, which is underneath your HTTP server's document-root. In this case, the OpenEmbedded build system generates a set of configuration files for you in your target that work with the feed.

FILES

The list of files and directories that are placed in a package. The PACKAGES variable lists the packages generated by a recipe.

To use the FILES variable, provide a package name override that identifies the resulting package. Then, provide a space-separated list of files or paths that identify the files you want included as part of the resulting package. Here is an example:

     FILES_${PN} += "${bindir}/mydir1 ${bindir}/mydir2/myfile"
                    

Note

When specifying paths as part of the FILES variable, it is good practice to use appropriate path variables. For example, use ${sysconfdir} rather than /etc, or ${bindir} rather than /usr/bin. You can find a list of these variables at the top of the meta/conf/bitbake.conf file in the Source Directory. You will also find the default values of the various FILES_* variables in this file.

If some of the files you provide with the FILES variable are editable and you know they should not be overwritten during the package update process by the Package Management System (PMS), you can identify these files so that the PMS will not overwrite them. See the CONFFILES variable for information on how to identify these files to the PMS.

FILES_SOLIBSDEV

Defines the file specification to match SOLIBSDEV. In other words, FILES_SOLIBSDEV defines the full path name of the development symbolic link (symlink) for shared libraries on the target platform.

The following statement from the bitbake.conf shows how it is set:

     FILES_SOLIBSDEV ?= "${base_libdir}/lib*${SOLIBSDEV} ${libdir}/lib*${SOLIBSDEV}"
                    

FILESEXTRAPATHS

Extends the search path the OpenEmbedded build system uses when looking for files and patches as it processes recipes and append files. The default directories BitBake uses when it processes recipes are initially defined by the FILESPATH variable. You can extend FILESPATH variable by using FILESEXTRAPATHS.

Best practices dictate that you accomplish this by using FILESEXTRAPATHS from within a .bbappend file and that you prepend paths as follows:

     FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/${PN}:"
                    

In the above example, the build system first looks for files in a directory that has the same name as the corresponding append file.

Note

When extending FILESEXTRAPATHS, be sure to use the immediate expansion (:=) operator. Immediate expansion makes sure that BitBake evaluates THISDIR at the time the directive is encountered rather than at some later time when expansion might result in a directory that does not contain the files you need.

Also, include the trailing separating colon character if you are prepending. The trailing colon character is necessary because you are directing BitBake to extend the path by prepending directories to the search path.

Here is another common use:

     FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/files:"
                    

In this example, the build system extends the FILESPATH variable to include a directory named files that is in the same directory as the corresponding append file.

Here is a final example that specifically adds three paths:

     FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "path_1:path_2:path_3:"
                    

By prepending paths in .bbappend files, you allow multiple append files that reside in different layers but are used for the same recipe to correctly extend the path.

FILESOVERRIDES

A subset of OVERRIDES used by the OpenEmbedded build system for creating FILESPATH. You can find more information on how overrides are handled in the BitBake Manual.

By default, the FILESOVERRIDES variable is defined as:

     FILESOVERRIDES = "${TRANSLATED_TARGET_ARCH}:${MACHINEOVERRIDES}:${DISTROOVERRIDES}"
                    

Note

Do not hand-edit the FILESOVERRIDES variable. The values match up with expected overrides and are used in an expected manner by the build system.

FILESPATH

The default set of directories the OpenEmbedded build system uses when searching for patches and files. During the build process, BitBake searches each directory in FILESPATH in the specified order when looking for files and patches specified by each file:// URI in a recipe.

The default value for the FILESPATH variable is defined in the base.bbclass class found in meta/classes in the Source Directory:

     FILESPATH = "${@base_set_filespath(["${FILE_DIRNAME}/${BP}", \
        "${FILE_DIRNAME}/${BPN}", "${FILE_DIRNAME}/files"], d)}"
                    

Note

Do not hand-edit the FILESPATH variable. If you want the build system to look in directories other than the defaults, extend the FILESPATH variable by using the FILESEXTRAPATHS variable.

Be aware that the default FILESPATH directories do not map to directories in custom layers where append files (.bbappend) are used. If you want the build system to find patches or files that reside with your append files, you need to extend the FILESPATH variable by using the FILESEXTRAPATHS variable.

FILESYSTEM_PERMS_TABLES

Allows you to define your own file permissions settings table as part of your configuration for the packaging process. For example, suppose you need a consistent set of custom permissions for a set of groups and users across an entire work project. It is best to do this in the packages themselves but this is not always possible.

By default, the OpenEmbedded build system uses the fs-perms.txt, which is located in the meta/files folder in the Source Directory. If you create your own file permissions setting table, you should place it in your layer or the distro's layer.

You define the FILESYSTEM_PERMS_TABLES variable in the conf/local.conf file, which is found in the Build Directory, to point to your custom fs-perms.txt. You can specify more than a single file permissions setting table. The paths you specify to these files must be defined within the BBPATH variable.

For guidance on how to create your own file permissions settings table file, examine the existing fs-perms.txt.

FONT_EXTRA_RDEPENDS

When inheriting the fontcache class, this variable specifies the runtime dependencies for font packages. By default, the FONT_EXTRA_RDEPENDS is set to "fontconfig-utils".

FONT_PACKAGES

When inheriting the fontcache class, this variable identifies packages containing font files that need to be cached by Fontconfig. By default, the fontcache class assumes that fonts are in the recipe's main package (i.e. ${PN}). Use this variable if fonts you need are in a package other than that main package.

FORCE_RO_REMOVE

Forces the removal of the packages listed in ROOTFS_RO_UNNEEDED during the generation of the root filesystem.

Set the variable to "1" to force the removal of these packages.

FULL_OPTIMIZATION

The options to pass in TARGET_CFLAGS and CFLAGS when compiling an optimized system. This variable defaults to "-O2 -pipe ${DEBUG_FLAGS}".

G

GDB

The minimal command and arguments to run the GNU Debugger.

GITDIR

The directory in which a local copy of a Git repository is stored when it is cloned.

GLIBC_GENERATE_LOCALES

Specifies the list of GLIBC locales to generate should you not wish generate all LIBC locals, which can be time consuming.

Note

If you specifically remove the locale en_US.UTF-8, you must set IMAGE_LINGUAS appropriately.

You can set GLIBC_GENERATE_LOCALES in your local.conf file. By default, all locales are generated.

      GLIBC_GENERATE_LOCALES = "en_GB.UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8"
                    

GROUPADD_PARAM

When inheriting the useradd class, this variable specifies for a package what parameters should be passed to the groupadd command if you wish to add a group to the system when the package is installed.

Here is an example from the dbus recipe:

     GROUPADD_PARAM_${PN} = "-r netdev"
                    

For information on the standard Linux shell command groupadd, see http://linux.die.net/man/8/groupadd.

GROUPMEMS_PARAM

When inheriting the useradd class, this variable specifies for a package what parameters should be passed to the groupmems command if you wish to modify the members of a group when the package is installed.

For information on the standard Linux shell command groupmems, see http://linux.die.net/man/8/groupmems.

GRUB_GFXSERIAL

Configures the GNU GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) to have graphics and serial in the boot menu. Set this variable to "1" in your local.conf or distribution configuration file to enable graphics and serial in the menu.

See the grub-efi class for more information on how this variable is used.

GRUB_OPTS

Additional options to add to the GNU GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) configuration. Use a semi-colon character (;) to separate multiple options.

The GRUB_OPTS variable is optional. See the grub-efi class for more information on how this variable is used.

GRUB_TIMEOUT

Specifies the timeout before executing the default LABEL in the GNU GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB).

The GRUB_TIMEOUT variable is optional. See the grub-efi class for more information on how this variable is used.

GTKIMMODULES_PACKAGES

When inheriting the gtk-immodules-cache class, this variable specifies the packages that contain the GTK+ input method modules being installed when the modules are in packages other than the main package.

H

HOMEPAGE

Website where more information about the software the recipe is building can be found.

HOST_ARCH

The name of the target architecture, which is normally the same as TARGET_ARCH. The OpenEmbedded build system supports many architectures. Here is an example list of architectures supported. This list is by no means complete as the architecture is configurable:

     arm
     i586
     x86_64
     powerpc
     powerpc64
     mips
     mipsel
                    

HOST_CC_ARCH

Specifies architecture-specific compiler flags that are passed to the C compiler.

Default initialization for HOST_CC_ARCH varies depending on what is being built:

  • TARGET_CC_ARCH when building for the target

  • BUILD_CC_ARCH when building for the build host (i.e. -native)

  • BUILDSDK_CC_ARCH when building for an SDK (i.e. nativesdk-)

HOST_OS

Specifies the name of the target operating system, which is normally the same as the TARGET_OS. The variable can be set to "linux" for glibc-based systems and to "linux-musl" for musl. For ARM/EABI targets, there are also "linux-gnueabi" and "linux-musleabi" values possible.

HOST_PREFIX

Specifies the prefix for the cross-compile toolchain. HOST_PREFIX is normally the same as TARGET_PREFIX.

HOST_SYS

Specifies the system, including the architecture and the operating system, for which the build is occurring in the context of the current recipe.

The OpenEmbedded build system automatically sets this variable based on HOST_ARCH, HOST_VENDOR, and HOST_OS variables.

Note

You do not need to set the variable yourself.

Consider these two examples:

  • Given a native recipe on a 32-bit x86 machine running Linux, the value is "i686-linux".

  • Given a recipe being built for a little-endian MIPS target running Linux, the value might be "mipsel-linux".

HOSTTOOLS

A space-separated list (filter) of tools on the build host that should be allowed to be called from within build tasks. Using this filter helps reduce the possibility of host contamination. If a tool specified in the value of HOSTTOOLS is not found on the build host, the OpenEmbedded build system produces an error and the build is not started.

For additional information, see HOSTTOOLS_NONFATAL.

HOSTTOOLS_NONFATAL

A space-separated list (filter) of tools on the build host that should be allowed to be called from within build tasks. Using this filter helps reduce the possibility of host contamination. Unlike HOSTTOOLS, the OpenEmbedded build system does not produce and error if a tool specified in the value of HOSTTOOLS_NONFATAL is not found on the build host. Thus, you can use HOSTTOOLS_NONFATAL to filter optional host tools.

HOST_VENDOR

Specifies the name of the vendor. HOST_VENDOR is normally the same as TARGET_VENDOR.

I

ICECC_DISABLED

Disables or enables the icecc (Icecream) function. For more information on this function and best practices for using this variable, see the "icecc.bbclass" section.

Setting this variable to "1" in your local.conf disables the function:

     ICECC_DISABLED ??= "1"
                    

To enable the function, set the variable as follows:

     ICECC_DISABLED = ""
                    

ICECC_ENV_EXEC

Points to the icecc-create-env script that you provide. This variable is used by the icecc class. You set this variable in your local.conf file.

If you do not point to a script that you provide, the OpenEmbedded build system uses the default script provided by the icecc-create-env.bb recipe, which is a modified version and not the one that comes with icecc.

ICECC_PARALLEL_MAKE

Extra options passed to the make command during the do_compile task that specify parallel compilation. This variable usually takes the form of "-j x", where x represents the maximum number of parallel threads make can run.

Note

The options passed affect builds on all enabled machines on the network, which are machines running the iceccd daemon.

If your enabled machines support multiple cores, coming up with the maximum number of parallel threads that gives you the best performance could take some experimentation since machine speed, network lag, available memory, and existing machine loads can all affect build time. Consequently, unlike the PARALLEL_MAKE variable, there is no rule-of-thumb for setting ICECC_PARALLEL_MAKE to achieve optimal performance.

If you do not set ICECC_PARALLEL_MAKE, the build system does not use it (i.e. the system does not detect and assign the number of cores as is done with PARALLEL_MAKE).

ICECC_PATH

The location of the icecc binary. You can set this variable in your local.conf file. If your local.conf file does not define this variable, the icecc class attempts to define it by locating icecc using which.

ICECC_USER_CLASS_BL

Identifies user classes that you do not want the Icecream distributed compile support to consider. This variable is used by the icecc class. You set this variable in your local.conf file.

When you list classes using this variable, you are "blacklisting" them from distributed compilation across remote hosts. Any classes you list will be distributed and compiled locally.

ICECC_USER_PACKAGE_BL

Identifies user recipes that you do not want the Icecream distributed compile support to consider. This variable is used by the icecc class. You set this variable in your local.conf file.

When you list packages using this variable, you are "blacklisting" them from distributed compilation across remote hosts. Any packages you list will be distributed and compiled locally.

ICECC_USER_PACKAGE_WL

Identifies user recipes that use an empty PARALLEL_MAKE variable that you want to force remote distributed compilation on using the Icecream distributed compile support. This variable is used by the icecc class. You set this variable in your local.conf file.

IMAGE_BASENAME

The base name of image output files. This variable defaults to the recipe name (${PN}).

IMAGE_BOOT_FILES

A space-separated list of files installed into the boot partition when preparing an image using the wic tool with the bootimg-partition source plugin. By default, the files are installed under the same name as the source files. To change the installed name, separate it from the original name with a semi-colon (;). Source files need to be located in DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE. Here are two examples:

     IMAGE_BOOT_FILES = "u-boot.img uImage;kernel"
     IMAGE_BOOT_FILES = "u-boot.${UBOOT_SUFFIX} ${KERNEL_IMAGETYPE}"
                    

Alternatively, source files can be picked up using a glob pattern. In this case, the destination file will have the same name as the base name of the source file path. To install files into a directory within the target location, pass its name after a semi-colon (;). Here are two examples:

     IMAGE_BOOT_FILES = "bcm2835-bootfiles/*"
     IMAGE_BOOT_FILES = "bcm2835-bootfiles/*;boot/"
                    

The first example installs all files from ${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE}/bcm2835-bootfiles into the root of the target partition. The second example installs the same files into a boot directory within the target partition.

IMAGE_CLASSES

A list of classes that all images should inherit. You typically use this variable to specify the list of classes that register the different types of images the OpenEmbedded build system creates.

The default value for IMAGE_CLASSES is image_types. You can set this variable in your local.conf or in a distribution configuration file.

For more information, see meta/classes/image_types.bbclass in the Source Directory.

IMAGE_CMD

Specifies the command to create the image file for a specific image type, which corresponds to the value set set in IMAGE_FSTYPES, (e.g. ext3, btrfs, and so forth). When setting this variable, you should use an override for the associated type. Here is an example:

     IMAGE_CMD_jffs2 = "mkfs.jffs2 --root=${IMAGE_ROOTFS} \
        --faketime --output=${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE}/${IMAGE_NAME}.rootfs.jffs2 \
        ${EXTRA_IMAGECMD}"
                    

You typically do not need to set this variable unless you are adding support for a new image type. For more examples on how to set this variable, see the image_types class file, which is meta/classes/image_types.bbclass.

IMAGE_DEVICE_TABLES

Specifies one or more files that contain custom device tables that are passed to the makedevs command as part of creating an image. These files list basic device nodes that should be created under /dev within the image. If IMAGE_DEVICE_TABLES is not set, files/device_table-minimal.txt is used, which is located by BBPATH. For details on how you should write device table files, see meta/files/device_table-minimal.txt as an example.

IMAGE_FEATURES

The primary list of features to include in an image. Typically, you configure this variable in an image recipe. Although you can use this variable from your local.conf file, which is found in the Build Directory, best practices dictate that you do not.

Note

To enable extra features from outside the image recipe, use the EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES variable.

For a list of image features that ships with the Yocto Project, see the "Image Features" section.

For an example that shows how to customize your image by using this variable, see the "Customizing Images Using Custom IMAGE_FEATURES and EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

IMAGE_FSTYPES

Specifies the formats the OpenEmbedded build system uses during the build when creating the root filesystem. For example, setting IMAGE_FSTYPES as follows causes the build system to create root filesystems using two formats: .ext3 and .tar.bz2:

     IMAGE_FSTYPES = "ext3 tar.bz2"
                    

For the complete list of supported image formats from which you can choose, see IMAGE_TYPES.

Note

If you add "live" to IMAGE_FSTYPES inside an image recipe, be sure that you do so prior to the "inherit image" line of the recipe or the live image will not build.

Note

Due to the way this variable is processed, it is not possible to update its contents using _append or _prepend. To add one or more additional options to this variable the += operator must be used.
IMAGE_INSTALL

Specifies the packages to install into an image. The IMAGE_INSTALL variable is a mechanism for an image recipe and you should use it with care to avoid ordering issues.

Note

When working with an core-image-minimal-initramfs image, do not use the IMAGE_INSTALL variable to specify packages for installation. Instead, use the PACKAGE_INSTALL variable, which allows the initial RAM filesystem (initramfs) recipe to use a fixed set of packages and not be affected by IMAGE_INSTALL. For information on creating an initramfs, see the "Building an Initial RAM Filesystem (initramfs) Image" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

Image recipes set IMAGE_INSTALL to specify the packages to install into an image through image.bbclass. Additionally, "helper" classes exist, such as core-image.bbclass, that can take IMAGE_FEATURES lists and turn these into auto-generated entries in IMAGE_INSTALL in addition to its default contents.

Using IMAGE_INSTALL with the += operator from the /conf/local.conf file or from within an image recipe is not recommended as it can cause ordering issues. Since core-image.bbclass sets IMAGE_INSTALL to a default value using the ?= operator, using a += operation against IMAGE_INSTALL will result in unexpected behavior when used in conf/local.conf. Furthermore, the same operation from within an image recipe may or may not succeed depending on the specific situation. In both these cases, the behavior is contrary to how most users expect the += operator to work.

When you use this variable, it is best to use it as follows:

     IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " package-name"
                    

Be sure to include the space between the quotation character and the start of the package name or names.

IMAGE_LINGUAS

Specifies the list of locales to install into the image during the root filesystem construction process. The OpenEmbedded build system automatically splits locale files, which are used for localization, into separate packages. Setting the IMAGE_LINGUAS variable ensures that any locale packages that correspond to packages already selected for installation into the image are also installed. Here is an example:

     IMAGE_LINGUAS = "pt-br de-de"
                    

In this example, the build system ensures any Brazilian Portuguese and German locale files that correspond to packages in the image are installed (i.e. *-locale-pt-br and *-locale-de-de as well as *-locale-pt and *-locale-de, since some software packages only provide locale files by language and not by country-specific language).

See the GLIBC_GENERATE_LOCALES variable for information on generating GLIBC locales.

IMAGE_MANIFEST

The manifest file for the image. This file lists all the installed packages that make up the image. The file contains package information on a line-per-package basis as follows:

     packagename packagearch version
                    

The image class defines the manifest file as follows:

     IMAGE_MANIFEST = "${DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE}/${IMAGE_NAME}.rootfs.manifest"
                    

The location is derived using the DEPLOY_DIR_IMAGE and IMAGE_NAME variables. You can find information on how the image is created in the "Image Generation" section.

IMAGE_NAME

The name of the output image files minus the extension. This variable is derived using the IMAGE_BASENAME, MACHINE, and DATETIME variables:

     IMAGE_NAME = "${IMAGE_BASENAME}-${MACHINE}-${DATETIME}"
                    

IMAGE_OVERHEAD_FACTOR

Defines a multiplier that the build system applies to the initial image size for cases when the multiplier times the returned disk usage value for the image is greater than the sum of IMAGE_ROOTFS_SIZE and IMAGE_ROOTFS_EXTRA_SPACE. The result of the multiplier applied to the initial image size creates free disk space in the image as overhead. By default, the build process uses a multiplier of 1.3 for this variable. This default value results in 30% free disk space added to the image when this method is used to determine the final generated image size. You should be aware that post install scripts and the package management system uses disk space inside this overhead area. Consequently, the multiplier does not produce an image with all the theoretical free disk space. See IMAGE_ROOTFS_SIZE for information on how the build system determines the overall image size.

The default 30% free disk space typically gives the image enough room to boot and allows for basic post installs while still leaving a small amount of free disk space. If 30% free space is inadequate, you can increase the default value. For example, the following setting gives you 50% free space added to the image:

     IMAGE_OVERHEAD_FACTOR = "1.5"
                    

Alternatively, you can ensure a specific amount of free disk space is added to the image by using the IMAGE_ROOTFS_EXTRA_SPACE variable.

IMAGE_PKGTYPE

Defines the package type (DEB, RPM, IPK, or TAR) used by the OpenEmbedded build system. The variable is defined appropriately by the package_deb, package_rpm, package_ipk, or package_tar class.

Warning

The package_tar class is broken and is not supported. It is recommended that you do not use it.

The populate_sdk_* and image classes use the IMAGE_PKGTYPE for packaging up images and SDKs.

You should not set the IMAGE_PKGTYPE manually. Rather, the variable is set indirectly through the appropriate package_* class using the PACKAGE_CLASSES variable. The OpenEmbedded build system uses the first package type (e.g. DEB, RPM, or IPK) that appears with the variable

Note

Files using the .tar format are never used as a substitute packaging format for DEB, RPM, and IPK formatted files for your image or SDK.

IMAGE_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND

Specifies a list of functions to call once the OpenEmbedded build system has created the final image output files. You can specify functions separated by semicolons:

     IMAGE_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND += "function; ... "
                    

If you need to pass the root filesystem path to a command within the function, you can use ${IMAGE_ROOTFS}, which points to the directory that becomes the root filesystem image. See the IMAGE_ROOTFS variable for more information.

IMAGE_PREPROCESS_COMMAND

Specifies a list of functions to call before the OpenEmbedded build system has created the final image output files. You can specify functions separated by semicolons:

     IMAGE_PREPROCESS_COMMAND += "function; ... "
                    

If you need to pass the root filesystem path to a command within the function, you can use ${IMAGE_ROOTFS}, which points to the directory that becomes the root filesystem image. See the IMAGE_ROOTFS variable for more information.

IMAGE_ROOTFS

The location of the root filesystem while it is under construction (i.e. during the do_rootfs task). This variable is not configurable. Do not change it.

IMAGE_ROOTFS_ALIGNMENT

Specifies the alignment for the output image file in Kbytes. If the size of the image is not a multiple of this value, then the size is rounded up to the nearest multiple of the value. The default value is "1". See IMAGE_ROOTFS_SIZE for additional information.

IMAGE_ROOTFS_EXTRA_SPACE

Defines additional free disk space created in the image in Kbytes. By default, this variable is set to "0". This free disk space is added to the image after the build system determines the image size as described in IMAGE_ROOTFS_SIZE.

This variable is particularly useful when you want to ensure that a specific amount of free disk space is available on a device after an image is installed and running. For example, to be sure 5 Gbytes of free disk space is available, set the variable as follows:

     IMAGE_ROOTFS_EXTRA_SPACE = "5242880"
                    

For example, the Yocto Project Build Appliance specifically requests 40 Gbytes of extra space with the line:

     IMAGE_ROOTFS_EXTRA_SPACE = "41943040"
                    

IMAGE_ROOTFS_SIZE

Defines the size in Kbytes for the generated image. The OpenEmbedded build system determines the final size for the generated image using an algorithm that takes into account the initial disk space used for the generated image, a requested size for the image, and requested additional free disk space to be added to the image. Programatically, the build system determines the final size of the generated image as follows:

    if (image-du * overhead) < rootfs-size:
	internal-rootfs-size = rootfs-size + xspace
    else:
	internal-rootfs-size = (image-du * overhead) + xspace

    where:

      image-du = Returned value of the du command on
                 the image.

      overhead = IMAGE_OVERHEAD_FACTOR

      rootfs-size = IMAGE_ROOTFS_SIZE

      internal-rootfs-size = Initial root filesystem
                             size before any modifications.

      xspace = IMAGE_ROOTFS_EXTRA_SPACE
                    

See the IMAGE_OVERHEAD_FACTOR and IMAGE_ROOTFS_EXTRA_SPACE variables for related information.

IMAGE_TYPEDEP

Specifies a dependency from one image type on another. Here is an example from the image-live class:

     IMAGE_TYPEDEP_live = "ext3"
                    

In the previous example, the variable ensures that when "live" is listed with the IMAGE_FSTYPES variable, the OpenEmbedded build system produces an ext3 image first since one of the components of the live image is an ext3 formatted partition containing the root filesystem.

IMAGE_TYPES

Specifies the complete list of supported image types by default:

     btrfs
     cpio
     cpio.gz
     cpio.lz4
     cpio.lzma
     cpio.xz
     cramfs
     elf
     ext2
     ext2.bz2
     ext2.gz
     ext2.lzma
     ext3
     ext3.gz
     ext4
     ext4.gz
     hdddirect
     hddimg
     iso
     jffs2
     jffs2.sum
     multiubi
     qcow2
     squashfs
     squashfs-lzo
     squashfs-xz
     tar
     tar.bz2
     tar.gz
     tar.lz4
     tar.xz
     ubi
     ubifs
     vdi
     vmdk
     wic
     wic.bz2
     wic.gz
     wic.lzma
                    

For more information about these types of images, see meta/classes/image_types*.bbclass in the Source Directory.

INC_PR

Helps define the recipe revision for recipes that share a common include file. You can think of this variable as part of the recipe revision as set from within an include file.

Suppose, for example, you have a set of recipes that are used across several projects. And, within each of those recipes the revision (its PR value) is set accordingly. In this case, when the revision of those recipes changes, the burden is on you to find all those recipes and be sure that they get changed to reflect the updated version of the recipe. In this scenario, it can get complicated when recipes that are used in many places and provide common functionality are upgraded to a new revision.

A more efficient way of dealing with this situation is to set the INC_PR variable inside the include files that the recipes share and then expand the INC_PR variable within the recipes to help define the recipe revision.

The following provides an example that shows how to use the INC_PR variable given a common include file that defines the variable. Once the variable is defined in the include file, you can use the variable to set the PR values in each recipe. You will notice that when you set a recipe's PR you can provide more granular revisioning by appending values to the INC_PR variable:

recipes-graphics/xorg-font/xorg-font-common.inc:INC_PR = "r2"
recipes-graphics/xorg-font/encodings_1.0.4.bb:PR = "${INC_PR}.1"
recipes-graphics/xorg-font/font-util_1.3.0.bb:PR = "${INC_PR}.0"
recipes-graphics/xorg-font/font-alias_1.0.3.bb:PR = "${INC_PR}.3"
                    

The first line of the example establishes the baseline revision to be used for all recipes that use the include file. The remaining lines in the example are from individual recipes and show how the PR value is set.

INCOMPATIBLE_LICENSE

Specifies a space-separated list of license names (as they would appear in LICENSE) that should be excluded from the build. Recipes that provide no alternatives to listed incompatible licenses are not built. Packages that are individually licensed with the specified incompatible licenses will be deleted.

Note

This functionality is only regularly tested using the following setting:
     INCOMPATIBLE_LICENSE = "GPL-3.0 LGPL-3.0 AGPL-3.0"
                    
Although you can use other settings, you might be required to remove dependencies on or provide alternatives to components that are required to produce a functional system image.
INHERIT

Causes the named class or classes to be inherited globally. Anonymous functions in the class or classes are not executed for the base configuration and in each individual recipe. The OpenEmbedded build system ignores changes to INHERIT in individual recipes.

For more information on INHERIT, see the "INHERIT Configuration Directive" section in the Yocto Project Bitbake User Manual.

INHERIT_DISTRO

Lists classes that will be inherited at the distribution level. It is unlikely that you want to edit this variable.

The default value of the variable is set as follows in the meta/conf/distro/defaultsetup.conf file:

     INHERIT_DISTRO ?= "debian devshell sstate license"
                    

INHIBIT_DEFAULT_DEPS

Prevents the default dependencies, namely the C compiler and standard C library (libc), from being added to DEPENDS. This variable is usually used within recipes that do not require any compilation using the C compiler.

Set the variable to "1" to prevent the default dependencies from being added.

INHIBIT_PACKAGE_DEBUG_SPLIT

Prevents the OpenEmbedded build system from splitting out debug information during packaging. By default, the build system splits out debugging information during the do_package task. For more information on how debug information is split out, see the PACKAGE_DEBUG_SPLIT_STYLE variable.

To prevent the build system from splitting out debug information during packaging, set the INHIBIT_PACKAGE_DEBUG_SPLIT variable as follows:

     INHIBIT_PACKAGE_DEBUG_SPLIT = "1"
                    

INHIBIT_PACKAGE_STRIP

If set to "1", causes the build to not strip binaries in resulting packages and prevents the -dbg package from containing the source files.

By default, the OpenEmbedded build system strips binaries and puts the debugging symbols into ${PN}-dbg. Consequently, you should not set INHIBIT_PACKAGE_STRIP when you plan to debug in general.

INITRAMFS_FSTYPES

Defines the format for the output image of an initial RAM filesystem (initramfs), which is used during boot. Supported formats are the same as those supported by the IMAGE_FSTYPES variable.

The default value of this variable, which is set in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf configuration file in the Source Directory, is "cpio.gz". The Linux kernel's initramfs mechanism, as opposed to the initial RAM filesystem initrd mechanism, expects an optionally compressed cpio archive.

INITRAMFS_IMAGE

Specifies the PROVIDES name of an image recipe that is used to build an initial RAM filesystem (initramfs) image. An initramfs provides a temporary root filesystem used for early system initialization (e.g. loading of modules needed to locate and mount the "real" root filesystem). The specified recipe is added as a dependency of the root filesystem recipe (e.g. core-image-sato). See the meta/recipes-core/images/core-image-minimal-initramfs.bb recipe in the Source Directory for an example initramfs recipe. To select this recipe to provide the initramfs, set INITRAMFS_IMAGE to "core-image-minimal-initramfs".

Note

The initramfs image recipe should set IMAGE_FSTYPES to INITRAMFS_FSTYPES.

You can also find more information by referencing the meta/poky/conf/local.conf.sample.extended configuration file in the Source Directory, the image class, and the kernel class to see how to use the INITRAMFS_IMAGE variable.

If INITRAMFS_IMAGE is empty, which is the default, then no initramfs is built.

For more information, you can also see the INITRAMFS_IMAGE_BUNDLE variable, which allows the generated image to be bundled inside the kernel image. Additionally, for information on creating an initramfs, see the "Building an Initial RAM Filesystem (initramfs) Image" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

INITRAMFS_IMAGE_BUNDLE

Controls whether or not the image recipe specified by INITRAMFS_IMAGE is run through an extra pass (do_bundle_initramfs) during kernel compilation in order to build a single binary that contains both the kernel image and the initial RAM filesystem (initramfs) image. This makes use of the CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE kernel feature.

Note

Using an extra compilation pass to bundle the initramfs avoids a circular dependency between the kernel recipe and the initramfs recipe should the initramfs include kernel modules. Should that be the case, the initramfs recipe depends on the kernel for the kernel modules, and the kernel depends on the initramfs recipe since the initramfs is bundled inside the kernel image.

The combined binary is deposited into the tmp/deploy directory, which is part of the Build Directory.

Setting the variable to "1" in a configuration file causes the OpenEmbedded build system to generate a kernel image with the initramfs specified in INITRAMFS_IMAGE bundled within:

     INITRAMFS_IMAGE_BUNDLE = "1"
                    

By default, the kernel class sets this variable to a null string as follows:

     INITRAMFS_IMAGE_BUNDLE ?= ""
                    

Note

You must set the INITRAMFS_IMAGE_BUNDLE variable in a configuration file. You cannot set the variable in a recipe file.

See the local.conf.sample.extended file for additional information. Also, for information on creating an initramfs, see the "Building an Initial RAM Filesystem (initramfs) Image" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

INITRD

Indicates list of filesystem images to concatenate and use as an initial RAM disk (initrd).

The INITRD variable is an optional variable used with the image-live class.

INITRD_IMAGE

When building a "live" bootable image (i.e. when IMAGE_FSTYPES contains "live"), INITRD_IMAGE specifies the image recipe that should be built to provide the initial RAM disk image. The default value is "core-image-minimal-initramfs".

See the image-live class for more information.

INITSCRIPT_NAME

The filename of the initialization script as installed to ${sysconfdir}/init.d.

This variable is used in recipes when using update-rc.d.bbclass. The variable is mandatory.

INITSCRIPT_PACKAGES

A list of the packages that contain initscripts. If multiple packages are specified, you need to append the package name to the other INITSCRIPT_* as an override.

This variable is used in recipes when using update-rc.d.bbclass. The variable is optional and defaults to the PN variable.

INITSCRIPT_PARAMS

Specifies the options to pass to update-rc.d. Here is an example:

     INITSCRIPT_PARAMS = "start 99 5 2 . stop 20 0 1 6 ."
                    

In this example, the script has a runlevel of 99, starts the script in initlevels 2 and 5, and stops the script in levels 0, 1 and 6.

The variable's default value is "defaults", which is set in the update-rc.d class.

The value in INITSCRIPT_PARAMS is passed through to the update-rc.d command. For more information on valid parameters, please see the update-rc.d manual page at http://www.tin.org/bin/man.cgi?section=8&topic=update-rc.d.

INSANE_SKIP

Specifies the QA checks to skip for a specific package within a recipe. For example, to skip the check for symbolic link .so files in the main package of a recipe, add the following to the recipe. The package name override must be used, which in this example is ${PN}:

     INSANE_SKIP_${PN} += "dev-so"
                    

See the "insane.bbclass" section for a list of the valid QA checks you can specify using this variable.

INSTALL_TIMEZONE_FILE

By default, the tzdata recipe packages an /etc/timezone file. Set the INSTALL_TIMEZONE_FILE variable to "0" at the configuration level to disable this behavior.

IPK_FEED_URIS

When the IPK backend is in use and package management is enabled on the target, you can use this variable to set up opkg in the target image to point to package feeds on a nominated server. Once the feed is established, you can perform installations or upgrades using the package manager at runtime.

K

KARCH

Defines the kernel architecture used when assembling the configuration. Architectures supported for this release are:

     powerpc
     i386
     x86_64
     arm
     qemu
     mips
                    

You define the KARCH variable in the BSP Descriptions.

KBRANCH

A regular expression used by the build process to explicitly identify the kernel branch that is validated, patched, and configured during a build. You must set this variable to ensure the exact kernel branch you want is being used by the build process.

Values for this variable are set in the kernel's recipe file and the kernel's append file. For example, if you are using the Yocto Project kernel that is based on the Linux 3.14 kernel, the kernel recipe file is the meta/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto_3.14.bb file. Following is an example for a kernel recipe file:

     KBRANCH ?= "standard/base"
                    

This variable is also used from the kernel's append file to identify the kernel branch specific to a particular machine or target hardware. The kernel's append file is located in the BSP layer for a given machine. For example, the kernel append file for the Emenlow BSP is in the meta-intel Git repository and is named meta-emenlow/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto_3.14.bbappend. Here are the related statements from the append file:

     COMPATIBLE_MACHINE_emenlow-noemgd = "emenlow-noemgd"
     KMACHINE_emenlow-noemgd = "emenlow"
     KBRANCH_emenlow-noemgd = "standard/base"
     KERNEL_FEATURES_append_emenlow-noemgd = " features/drm-gma500/drm-gma500.scc"
                    

The KBRANCH statement identifies the kernel branch to use when building for the Emenlow BSP.

KBUILD_DEFCONFIG

When used with the kernel-yocto class, specifies an "in-tree" kernel configuration file for use during a kernel build.

Typically, when using a defconfig to configure a kernel during a build, you place the file in your layer in the same manner as you would patch files and configuration fragment files (i.e. "out-of-tree"). However, if you want to use a defconfig file that is part of the kernel tree (i.e. "in-tree"), you can use the KBUILD_DEFCONFIG variable to point to the defconfig file.

To use the variable, set it in the append file for your kernel recipe using the following form:

     KBUILD_DEFCONFIG_KMACHINE ?= defconfig_file
                    

Here is an example from a "raspberrypi2" KMACHINE build that uses a defconfig file named "bcm2709_defconfig":

     KBUILD_DEFCONFIG_raspberrypi2 = "bcm2709_defconfig"
                    

As an alternative, you can use the following within your append file:

     KBUILD_DEFCONFIG_pn-linux-yocto ?= defconfig_file
                    

For more information on how to use the KBUILD_DEFCONFIG variable, see the "Using an "In-Tree" defconfig File" section.

KERNEL_ALT_IMAGETYPE

Specifies an alternate kernel image type for creation in addition to the kernel image type specified using the KERNEL_IMAGETYPE variable.

KERNEL_CLASSES

A list of classes defining kernel image types that the kernel class should inherit. You typically append this variable to enable extended image types. An example is the "kernel-fitimage", which enables fitImage support and resides in meta/classes/kernel-fitimage.bbclass. You can register custom kernel image types with the kernel class using this variable.

KERNEL_DEVICETREE

Specifies the name of the generated Linux kernel device tree (i.e. the .dtb) file.

Note

Legacy support exists for specifying the full path to the device tree. However, providing just the .dtb file is preferred.

In order to use this variable, you must have the include files in your kernel recipe:

     require recipes-kernel/linux/linux-dtb.inc
                    

or

     require recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto.inc
                    

KERNEL_EXTRA_ARGS

Specifies additional make command-line arguments the OpenEmbedded build system passes on when compiling the kernel.

KERNEL_FEATURES

Includes additional metadata from the Yocto Project kernel Git repository. In the OpenEmbedded build system, the default Board Support Packages (BSPs) Metadata is provided through the KMACHINE and KBRANCH variables. You can use the KERNEL_FEATURES variable to further add metadata for all BSPs.

The metadata you add through this variable includes config fragments and features descriptions, which usually includes patches as well as config fragments. You typically override the KERNEL_FEATURES variable for a specific machine. In this way, you can provide validated, but optional, sets of kernel configurations and features.

For example, the following adds netfilter to all the Yocto Project kernels and adds sound support to the qemux86 machine:

     # Add netfilter to all linux-yocto kernels
     KERNEL_FEATURES="features/netfilter/netfilter.scc"

     # Add sound support to the qemux86 machine
     KERNEL_FEATURES_append_qemux86=" cfg/sound.scc"
                    
KERNEL_IMAGE_BASE_NAME

The base name of the kernel image. This variable is set in the kernel class as follows:

     KERNEL_IMAGE_BASE_NAME ?= "${PKGE}-${PKGV}-${PKGR}-${MACHINE}-${DATETIME}"
                    

See the PKGE, PKGV, PKGR, MACHINE, and DATETIME variables for additional information.

KERNEL_IMAGE_MAXSIZE

Specifies the maximum size of the kernel image file in kilobytes. If KERNEL_IMAGE_MAXSIZE is set, the size of the kernel image file is checked against the set value during the do_sizecheck task. The task fails if the kernel image file is larger than the setting.

KERNEL_IMAGE_MAXSIZE is useful for target devices that have a limited amount of space in which the kernel image must be stored.

By default, this variable is not set, which means the size of the kernel image is not checked.

KERNEL_IMAGETYPE

The type of kernel to build for a device, usually set by the machine configuration files and defaults to "zImage". This variable is used when building the kernel and is passed to make as the target to build.

If you want to build an alternate kernel image type, use the KERNEL_ALT_IMAGETYPE variable.

KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD

Lists kernel modules that need to be auto-loaded during boot.

Note

This variable replaces the deprecated module_autoload variable.

You can use the KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD variable anywhere that it can be recognized by the kernel recipe or by an out-of-tree kernel module recipe (e.g. a machine configuration file, a distribution configuration file, an append file for the recipe, or the recipe itself).

Specify it as follows:

     KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD += "module_name1 module_name2 module_name3"
                    

Including KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD causes the OpenEmbedded build system to populate the /etc/modules-load.d/modname.conf file with the list of modules to be auto-loaded on boot. The modules appear one-per-line in the file. Here is an example of the most common use case:

     KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD += "module_name"
                    

For information on how to populate the modname.conf file with modprobe.d syntax lines, see the KERNEL_MODULE_PROBECONF variable.

KERNEL_MODULE_PROBECONF

Provides a list of modules for which the OpenEmbedded build system expects to find module_conf_modname values that specify configuration for each of the modules. For information on how to provide those module configurations, see the module_conf_* variable.

KERNEL_PATH

The location of the kernel sources. This variable is set to the value of the STAGING_KERNEL_DIR within the module class. For information on how this variable is used, see the "Incorporating Out-of-Tree Modules" section.

To help maximize compatibility with out-of-tree drivers used to build modules, the OpenEmbedded build system also recognizes and uses the KERNEL_SRC variable, which is identical to the KERNEL_PATH variable. Both variables are common variables used by external Makefiles to point to the kernel source directory.

KERNEL_SRC

The location of the kernel sources. This variable is set to the value of the STAGING_KERNEL_DIR within the module class. For information on how this variable is used, see the "Incorporating Out-of-Tree Modules" section.

To help maximize compatibility with out-of-tree drivers used to build modules, the OpenEmbedded build system also recognizes and uses the KERNEL_PATH variable, which is identical to the KERNEL_SRC variable. Both variables are common variables used by external Makefiles to point to the kernel source directory.

KERNEL_VERSION

Specifies the version of the kernel as extracted from version.h or utsrelease.h within the kernel sources. Effects of setting this variable do not take affect until the kernel has been configured. Consequently, attempting to refer to this variable in contexts prior to configuration will not work.

KERNELDEPMODDEPEND

Specifies whether the data referenced through PKGDATA_DIR is needed or not. The KERNELDEPMODDEPEND does not control whether or not that data exists, but simply whether or not it is used. If you do not need to use the data, set the KERNELDEPMODDEPEND variable in your initramfs recipe. Setting the variable there when the data is not needed avoids a potential dependency loop.

KFEATURE_DESCRIPTION

Provides a short description of a configuration fragment. You use this variable in the .scc file that describes a configuration fragment file. Here is the variable used in a file named smp.scc to describe SMP being enabled:

     define KFEATURE_DESCRIPTION "Enable SMP"
                    

KMACHINE

The machine as known by the kernel. Sometimes the machine name used by the kernel does not match the machine name used by the OpenEmbedded build system. For example, the machine name that the OpenEmbedded build system understands as core2-32-intel-common goes by a different name in the Linux Yocto kernel. The kernel understands that machine as intel-core2-32. For cases like these, the KMACHINE variable maps the kernel machine name to the OpenEmbedded build system machine name.

These mappings between different names occur in the Yocto Linux Kernel's meta branch. As an example take a look in the common/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto_3.19.bbappend file:

     LINUX_VERSION_core2-32-intel-common = "3.19.0"
     COMPATIBLE_MACHINE_core2-32-intel-common = "${MACHINE}"
     SRCREV_meta_core2-32-intel-common = "8897ef68b30e7426bc1d39895e71fb155d694974"
     SRCREV_machine_core2-32-intel-common = "43b9eced9ba8a57add36af07736344dcc383f711"
     KMACHINE_core2-32-intel-common = "intel-core2-32"
     KBRANCH_core2-32-intel-common = "standard/base"
     KERNEL_FEATURES_append_core2-32-intel-common = "${KERNEL_FEATURES_INTEL_COMMON}"
                    

The KMACHINE statement says that the kernel understands the machine name as "intel-core2-32". However, the OpenEmbedded build system understands the machine as "core2-32-intel-common".

KTYPE

Defines the kernel type to be used in assembling the configuration. The linux-yocto recipes define "standard", "tiny", and "preempt-rt" kernel types. See the "Kernel Types" section in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual for more information on kernel types.

You define the KTYPE variable in the BSP Descriptions. The value you use must match the value used for the LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE value used by the kernel recipe.

L

LABELS

Provides a list of targets for automatic configuration.

See the grub-efi class for more information on how this variable is used.

LAYERDEPENDS

Lists the layers, separated by spaces, on which this recipe depends. Optionally, you can specify a specific layer version for a dependency by adding it to the end of the layer name. Here is an example:

     LAYERDEPENDS_mylayer = "anotherlayer (=3)"
                    

In this previous example, version 3 of "anotherlayer" is compared against LAYERVERSION_anotherlayer.

An error is produced if any dependency is missing or the version numbers (if specified) do not match exactly. This variable is used in the conf/layer.conf file and must be suffixed with the name of the specific layer (e.g. LAYERDEPENDS_mylayer).

LAYERDIR

When used inside the layer.conf configuration file, this variable provides the path of the current layer. This variable is not available outside of layer.conf and references are expanded immediately when parsing of the file completes.

LAYERRECOMMENDS

Lists the layers, separated by spaces, recommended for use with this layer.

Optionally, you can specify a specific layer version for a recommendation by adding the version to the end of the layer name. Here is an example:

     LAYERRECOMMENDS_mylayer = "anotherlayer (=3)"
                    

In this previous example, version 3 of "anotherlayer" is compared against LAYERVERSION_anotherlayer.

This variable is used in the conf/layer.conf file and must be suffixed with the name of the specific layer (e.g. LAYERRECOMMENDS_mylayer).

LAYERVERSION

Optionally specifies the version of a layer as a single number. You can use this within LAYERDEPENDS for another layer in order to depend on a specific version of the layer. This variable is used in the conf/layer.conf file and must be suffixed with the name of the specific layer (e.g. LAYERVERSION_mylayer).

LD

The minimal command and arguments used to run the linker.

LDFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the linker. This variable is exported to an environment variable and thus made visible to the software being built during the compilation step.

Default initialization for LDFLAGS varies depending on what is being built:

LEAD_SONAME

Specifies the lead (or primary) compiled library file (.so) that the debian class applies its naming policy to given a recipe that packages multiple libraries.

This variable works in conjunction with the debian class.

LIC_FILES_CHKSUM

Checksums of the license text in the recipe source code.

This variable tracks changes in license text of the source code files. If the license text is changed, it will trigger a build failure, which gives the developer an opportunity to review any license change.

This variable must be defined for all recipes (unless LICENSE is set to "CLOSED").

For more information, see the " Tracking License Changes" section.

LICENSE

The list of source licenses for the recipe. Follow these rules:

  • Do not use spaces within individual license names.

  • Separate license names using | (pipe) when there is a choice between licenses.

  • Separate license names using & (ampersand) when multiple licenses exist that cover different parts of the source.

  • You can use spaces between license names.

  • For standard licenses, use the names of the files in meta/files/common-licenses/ or the SPDXLICENSEMAP flag names defined in meta/conf/licenses.conf.

Here are some examples:

     LICENSE = "LGPLv2.1 | GPLv3"
     LICENSE = "MPL-1 & LGPLv2.1"
     LICENSE = "GPLv2+"
                    

The first example is from the recipes for Qt, which the user may choose to distribute under either the LGPL version 2.1 or GPL version 3. The second example is from Cairo where two licenses cover different parts of the source code. The final example is from sysstat, which presents a single license.

You can also specify licenses on a per-package basis to handle situations where components of the output have different licenses. For example, a piece of software whose code is licensed under GPLv2 but has accompanying documentation licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 could be specified as follows:

     LICENSE = "GFDL-1.2 & GPLv2"
     LICENSE_${PN} = "GPLv2"
     LICENSE_${PN}-doc = "GFDL-1.2"
                    

LICENSE_CREATE_PACKAGE

Setting LICENSE_CREATE_PACKAGE to "1" causes the OpenEmbedded build system to create an extra package (i.e. ${PN}-lic) for each recipe and to add those packages to the RRECOMMENDS_${PN}.

The ${PN}-lic package installs a directory in /usr/share/licenses named ${PN}, which is the recipe's base name, and installs files in that directory that contain license and copyright information (i.e. copies of the appropriate license files from meta/common-licenses that match the licenses specified in the LICENSE variable of the recipe metadata and copies of files marked in LIC_FILES_CHKSUM as containing license text).

For related information on providing license text, see the COPY_LIC_DIRS variable, the COPY_LIC_MANIFEST variable, and the "Providing License Text" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

LICENSE_FLAGS

Specifies additional flags for a recipe you must whitelist through LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST in order to allow the recipe to be built. When providing multiple flags, separate them with spaces.

This value is independent of LICENSE and is typically used to mark recipes that might require additional licenses in order to be used in a commercial product. For more information, see the "Enabling Commercially Licensed Recipes" section.

LICENSE_FLAGS_WHITELIST

Lists license flags that when specified in LICENSE_FLAGS within a recipe should not prevent that recipe from being built. This practice is otherwise known as "whitelisting" license flags. For more information, see the Enabling Commercially Licensed Recipes" section.

LICENSE_PATH

Path to additional licenses used during the build. By default, the OpenEmbedded build system uses COMMON_LICENSE_DIR to define the directory that holds common license text used during the build. The LICENSE_PATH variable allows you to extend that location to other areas that have additional licenses:

     LICENSE_PATH += "path-to-additional-common-licenses"
                    

LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE

Defines the kernel type to be used in assembling the configuration. The linux-yocto recipes define "standard", "tiny", and "preempt-rt" kernel types. See the "Kernel Types" section in the Yocto Project Linux Kernel Development Manual for more information on kernel types.

If you do not specify a LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE, it defaults to "standard". Together with KMACHINE, the LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE variable defines the search arguments used by the kernel tools to find the appropriate description within the kernel Metadata with which to build out the sources and configuration.

LINUX_VERSION

The Linux version from kernel.org on which the Linux kernel image being built using the OpenEmbedded build system is based. You define this variable in the kernel recipe. For example, the linux-yocto-3.4.bb kernel recipe found in meta/recipes-kernel/linux defines the variables as follows:

     LINUX_VERSION ?= "3.4.24"
                    

The LINUX_VERSION variable is used to define PV for the recipe:

     PV = "${LINUX_VERSION}+git${SRCPV}"
                    

LINUX_VERSION_EXTENSION

A string extension compiled into the version string of the Linux kernel built with the OpenEmbedded build system. You define this variable in the kernel recipe. For example, the linux-yocto kernel recipes all define the variable as follows:

     LINUX_VERSION_EXTENSION ?= "-yocto-${LINUX_KERNEL_TYPE}"
                    

Defining this variable essentially sets the Linux kernel configuration item CONFIG_LOCALVERSION, which is visible through the uname command. Here is an example that shows the extension assuming it was set as previously shown:

     $ uname -r
     3.7.0-rc8-custom
                    

LOG_DIR

Specifies the directory to which the OpenEmbedded build system writes overall log files. The default directory is ${TMPDIR}/log.

For the directory containing logs specific to each task, see the T variable.

M

MACHINE

Specifies the target device for which the image is built. You define MACHINE in the local.conf file found in the Build Directory. By default, MACHINE is set to "qemux86", which is an x86-based architecture machine to be emulated using QEMU:

     MACHINE ?= "qemux86"
                    

The variable corresponds to a machine configuration file of the same name, through which machine-specific configurations are set. Thus, when MACHINE is set to "qemux86" there exists the corresponding qemux86.conf machine configuration file, which can be found in the Source Directory in meta/conf/machine.

The list of machines supported by the Yocto Project as shipped include the following:

     MACHINE ?= "qemuarm"
     MACHINE ?= "qemuarm64"
     MACHINE ?= "qemumips"
     MACHINE ?= "qemumips64"
     MACHINE ?= "qemuppc"
     MACHINE ?= "qemux86"
     MACHINE ?= "qemux86-64"
     MACHINE ?= "genericx86"
     MACHINE ?= "genericx86-64"
     MACHINE ?= "beaglebone"
     MACHINE ?= "mpc8315e-rdb"
     MACHINE ?= "edgerouter"
                    

The last five are Yocto Project reference hardware boards, which are provided in the meta-yocto-bsp layer.

Note

Adding additional Board Support Package (BSP) layers to your configuration adds new possible settings for MACHINE.

MACHINE_ARCH

Specifies the name of the machine-specific architecture. This variable is set automatically from MACHINE or TUNE_PKGARCH. You should not hand-edit the MACHINE_ARCH variable.

MACHINE_ESSENTIAL_EXTRA_RDEPENDS

A list of required machine-specific packages to install as part of the image being built. The build process depends on these packages being present. Furthermore, because this is a "machine essential" variable, the list of packages are essential for the machine to boot. The impact of this variable affects images based on packagegroup-core-boot, including the core-image-minimal image.

This variable is similar to the MACHINE_ESSENTIAL_EXTRA_RRECOMMENDS variable with the exception that the image being built has a build dependency on the variable's list of packages. In other words, the image will not build if a file in this list is not found.

As an example, suppose the machine for which you are building requires example-init to be run during boot to initialize the hardware. In this case, you would use the following in the machine's .conf configuration file:

     MACHINE_ESSENTIAL_EXTRA_RDEPENDS += "example-init"
                    

MACHINE_ESSENTIAL_EXTRA_RRECOMMENDS

A list of recommended machine-specific packages to install as part of the image being built. The build process does not depend on these packages being present. However, because this is a "machine essential" variable, the list of packages are essential for the machine to boot. The impact of this variable affects images based on packagegroup-core-boot, including the core-image-minimal image.

This variable is similar to the MACHINE_ESSENTIAL_EXTRA_RDEPENDS variable with the exception that the image being built does not have a build dependency on the variable's list of packages. In other words, the image will still build if a package in this list is not found. Typically, this variable is used to handle essential kernel modules, whose functionality may be selected to be built into the kernel rather than as a module, in which case a package will not be produced.

Consider an example where you have a custom kernel where a specific touchscreen driver is required for the machine to be usable. However, the driver can be built as a module or into the kernel depending on the kernel configuration. If the driver is built as a module, you want it to be installed. But, when the driver is built into the kernel, you still want the build to succeed. This variable sets up a "recommends" relationship so that in the latter case, the build will not fail due to the missing package. To accomplish this, assuming the package for the module was called kernel-module-ab123, you would use the following in the machine's .conf configuration file:

     MACHINE_ESSENTIAL_EXTRA_RRECOMMENDS += "kernel-module-ab123"
                    

Note

In this example, the kernel-module-ab123 recipe needs to explicitly set its PACKAGES variable to ensure that BitBake does not use the kernel recipe's PACKAGES_DYNAMIC variable to satisfy the dependency.

Some examples of these machine essentials are flash, screen, keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen drivers (depending on the machine).

MACHINE_EXTRA_RDEPENDS

A list of machine-specific packages to install as part of the image being built that are not essential for the machine to boot. However, the build process for more fully-featured images depends on the packages being present.

This variable affects all images based on packagegroup-base, which does not include the core-image-minimal or core-image-full-cmdline images.

The variable is similar to the MACHINE_EXTRA_RRECOMMENDS variable with the exception that the image being built has a build dependency on the variable's list of packages. In other words, the image will not build if a file in this list is not found.

An example is a machine that has WiFi capability but is not essential for the machine to boot the image. However, if you are building a more fully-featured image, you want to enable the WiFi. The package containing the firmware for the WiFi hardware is always expected to exist, so it is acceptable for the build process to depend upon finding the package. In this case, assuming the package for the firmware was called wifidriver-firmware, you would use the following in the .conf file for the machine:

     MACHINE_EXTRA_RDEPENDS += "wifidriver-firmware"
                    

MACHINE_EXTRA_RRECOMMENDS

A list of machine-specific packages to install as part of the image being built that are not essential for booting the machine. The image being built has no build dependency on this list of packages.

This variable affects only images based on packagegroup-base, which does not include the core-image-minimal or core-image-full-cmdline images.

This variable is similar to the MACHINE_EXTRA_RDEPENDS variable with the exception that the image being built does not have a build dependency on the variable's list of packages. In other words, the image will build if a file in this list is not found.

An example is a machine that has WiFi capability but is not essential For the machine to boot the image. However, if you are building a more fully-featured image, you want to enable WiFi. In this case, the package containing the WiFi kernel module will not be produced if the WiFi driver is built into the kernel, in which case you still want the build to succeed instead of failing as a result of the package not being found. To accomplish this, assuming the package for the module was called kernel-module-examplewifi, you would use the following in the .conf file for the machine:

     MACHINE_EXTRA_RRECOMMENDS += "kernel-module-examplewifi"
                    

MACHINE_FEATURES

Specifies the list of hardware features the MACHINE is capable of supporting. For related information on enabling features, see the DISTRO_FEATURES, COMBINED_FEATURES, and IMAGE_FEATURES variables.

For a list of hardware features supported by the Yocto Project as shipped, see the "Machine Features" section.

MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL

Features to be added to MACHINE_FEATURES if not also present in MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED.

This variable is set in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf file. It is not intended to be user-configurable. It is best to just reference the variable to see which machine features are being backfilled for all machine configurations. See the "Feature backfilling" section for more information.

MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED

Features from MACHINE_FEATURES_BACKFILL that should not be backfilled (i.e. added to MACHINE_FEATURES) during the build. See the "Feature backfilling" section for more information.

MACHINEOVERRIDES

A colon-separated list of overrides that apply to the current machine. By default, this list includes the value of MACHINE.

You can extend MACHINEOVERRIDES to add extra overrides that should apply to a machine. For example, all machines emulated in QEMU (e.g. qemuarm, qemux86, and so forth) include a file named meta/conf/machine/include/qemu.inc that prepends the following override to MACHINEOVERRIDES:

     MACHINEOVERRIDES =. "qemuall:"
                    

This override allows variables to be overriden for all machines emulated in QEMU, like in the following example from the connman-conf recipe:

     SRC_URI_append_qemuall = "file://wired.config \
                               file://wired-setup \
                              "
                    

The underlying mechanism behind MACHINEOVERRIDES is simply that it is included in the default value of OVERRIDES.

MAINTAINER

The email address of the distribution maintainer.

MIRRORS

Specifies additional paths from which the OpenEmbedded build system gets source code. When the build system searches for source code, it first tries the local download directory. If that location fails, the build system tries locations defined by PREMIRRORS, the upstream source, and then locations specified by MIRRORS in that order.

Assuming your distribution (DISTRO) is "poky", the default value for MIRRORS is defined in the conf/distro/poky.conf file in the meta-poky Git repository.

MLPREFIX

Specifies a prefix has been added to PN to create a special version of a recipe or package, such as a Multilib version. The variable is used in places where the prefix needs to be added to or removed from a the name (e.g. the BPN variable). MLPREFIX gets set when a prefix has been added to PN.

Note

The "ML" in MLPREFIX stands for "MultiLib". This representation is historical and comes from a time when nativesdk was a suffix rather than a prefix on the recipe name. When nativesdk was turned into a prefix, it made sense to set MLPREFIX for it as well.

To help understand when MLPREFIX might be needed, consider when BBCLASSEXTEND is used to provide a nativesdk version of a recipe in addition to the target version. If that recipe declares build-time dependencies on tasks in other recipes by using DEPENDS, then a dependency on "foo" will automatically get rewritten to a dependency on "nativesdk-foo". However, dependencies like the following will not get rewritten automatically:

     do_foo[depends] += "recipe:do_foo"
                    

If you want such a dependency to also get transformed, you can do the following:

     do_foo[depends] += "${MLPREFIX}recipe:do_foo"
                    

module_autoload

This variable has been replaced by the KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD variable. You should replace all occurrences of module_autoload with additions to KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD, for example:

     module_autoload_rfcomm = "rfcomm"
                    

should now be replaced with:

     KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD += "rfcomm"
                    

See the KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD variable for more information.

module_conf

Specifies modprobe.d syntax lines for inclusion in the /etc/modprobe.d/modname.conf file.

You can use this variable anywhere that it can be recognized by the kernel recipe or out-of-tree kernel module recipe (e.g. a machine configuration file, a distribution configuration file, an append file for the recipe, or the recipe itself). If you use this variable, you must also be sure to list the module name in the KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD variable.

Here is the general syntax:

     module_conf_module_name = "modprobe.d-syntax"
                    

You must use the kernel module name override.

Run man modprobe.d in the shell to find out more information on the exact syntax you want to provide with module_conf.

Including module_conf causes the OpenEmbedded build system to populate the /etc/modprobe.d/modname.conf file with modprobe.d syntax lines. Here is an example that adds the options arg1 and arg2 to a module named mymodule:

     module_conf_mymodule = "options mymodule arg1=val1 arg2=val2"
                    

For information on how to specify kernel modules to auto-load on boot, see the KERNEL_MODULE_AUTOLOAD variable.

MODULE_IMAGE_BASE_NAME

The base name of the kernel modules tarball. This variable is set in the kernel class as follows:

     MODULE_IMAGE_BASE_NAME ?= "modules-${PKGE}-${PKGV}-${PKGR}-${MACHINE}-${DATETIME}"
                    

See the PKGE, PKGV, PKGR, MACHINE, and DATETIME variables for additional information.

MODULE_TARBALL_DEPLOY

Controls creation of the modules-*.tgz file. Set this variable to "0" to disable creation of this file, which contains all of the kernel modules resulting from a kernel build.

MULTIMACH_TARGET_SYS

Uniquely identifies the type of the target system for which packages are being built. This variable allows output for different types of target systems to be put into different subdirectories of the same output directory.

The default value of this variable is:

     ${PACKAGE_ARCH}${TARGET_VENDOR}-${TARGET_OS}
                    

Some classes (e.g. cross-canadian) modify the MULTIMACH_TARGET_SYS value.

See the STAMP variable for an example. See the STAGING_DIR_TARGET variable for more information.

N

NATIVELSBSTRING

A string identifying the host distribution. Strings consist of the host distributor ID followed by the release, as reported by the lsb_release tool or as read from /etc/lsb-release. For example, when running a build on Ubuntu 12.10, the value is "Ubuntu-12.10". If this information is unable to be determined, the value resolves to "Unknown".

This variable is used by default to isolate native shared state packages for different distributions (e.g. to avoid problems with glibc version incompatibilities). Additionally, the variable is checked against SANITY_TESTED_DISTROS if that variable is set.

NM

The minimal command and arguments to run nm.

NO_RECOMMENDATIONS

Prevents installation of all "recommended-only" packages. Recommended-only packages are packages installed only through the RRECOMMENDS variable). Setting the NO_RECOMMENDATIONS variable to "1" turns this feature on:

     NO_RECOMMENDATIONS = "1"
                    

You can set this variable globally in your local.conf file or you can attach it to a specific image recipe by using the recipe name override:

     NO_RECOMMENDATIONS_pn-target_image = "1"
                    

It is important to realize that if you choose to not install packages using this variable and some other packages are dependent on them (i.e. listed in a recipe's RDEPENDS variable), the OpenEmbedded build system ignores your request and will install the packages to avoid dependency errors.

Note

Some recommended packages might be required for certain system functionality, such as kernel modules. It is up to you to add packages with the IMAGE_INSTALL variable.

Support for this variable exists only when using the IPK and RPM packaging backend. Support does not exist for DEB.

See the BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS and the PACKAGE_EXCLUDE variables for related information.

NOHDD

Causes the OpenEmbedded build system to skip building the .hddimg image. The NOHDD variable is used with the image-live class. Set the variable to "1" to prevent the .hddimg image from being built.

NOISO

Causes the OpenEmbedded build system to skip building the ISO image. The NOISO variable is used with the image-live class. Set the variable to "1" to prevent the ISO image from being built. To enable building an ISO image, set the variable to "0".

O

OBJCOPY

The minimal command and arguments to run objcopy.

OBJDUMP

The minimal command and arguments to run objdump.

OE_BINCONFIG_EXTRA_MANGLE

When inheriting the binconfig class, this variable specifies additional arguments passed to the "sed" command. The sed command alters any paths in configuration scripts that have been set up during compilation. Inheriting this class results in all paths in these scripts being changed to point into the sysroots/ directory so that all builds that use the script will use the correct directories for the cross compiling layout.

See the meta/classes/binconfig.bbclass in the Source Directory for details on how this class applies these additional sed command arguments. For general information on the binconfig.bbclass class, see the "Binary Configuration Scripts - binconfig.bbclass" section.

OE_IMPORTS

An internal variable used to tell the OpenEmbedded build system what Python modules to import for every Python function run by the system.

Note

Do not set this variable. It is for internal use only.
OE_INIT_ENV_SCRIPT

The name of the build environment setup script for the purposes of setting up the environment within the extensible SDK. The default value is "oe-init-build-env".

If you use a custom script to set up your build environment, set the OE_INIT_ENV_SCRIPT variable to its name.

OE_TERMINAL

Controls how the OpenEmbedded build system spawns interactive terminals on the host development system (e.g. using the BitBake command with the -c devshell command-line option). For more information, see the "Using a Development Shell" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

You can use the following values for the OE_TERMINAL variable:

     auto
     gnome
     xfce
     rxvt
     screen
     konsole
     none
                    

OEROOT

The directory from which the top-level build environment setup script is sourced. The Yocto Project makes two top-level build environment setup scripts available: oe-init-build-env and oe-init-build-env-memres. When you run one of these scripts, the OEROOT variable resolves to the directory that contains the script.

For additional information on how this variable is used, see the initialization scripts.

OLDEST_KERNEL

Declares the oldest version of the Linux kernel that the produced binaries must support. This variable is passed into the build of the Embedded GNU C Library (glibc).

The default for this variable comes from the meta/conf/bitbake.conf configuration file. You can override this default by setting the variable in a custom distribution configuration file.

OVERRIDES

A colon-separated list of overrides that currently apply. Overrides are a BitBake mechanism that allows variables to be selectively overridden at the end of parsing. The set of overrides in OVERRIDES represents the "state" during building, which includes the current recipe being built, the machine for which it is being built, and so forth.

As an example, if the string "an-override" appears as an element in the colon-separated list in OVERRIDES, then the following assignment will override FOO with the value "overridden" at the end of parsing:

     FOO_an-override = "overridden"
                    

See the "Conditional Syntax (Overrides)" section in the BitBake User Manual for more information on the overrides mechanism.

The default value of OVERRIDES includes the values of the CLASSOVERRIDE, MACHINEOVERRIDES, and DISTROOVERRIDES variables. Another important override included by default is pn-${PN}. This override allows variables to be set for a single recipe within configuration (.conf) files. Here is an example:

     FOO_pn-myrecipe = "myrecipe-specific value"
                    

Tip

An easy way to see what overrides apply is to search for OVERRIDES in the output of the bitbake -e command. See the "Viewing Variable Values" section for more information.

P

P

The recipe name and version. P is comprised of the following:

     ${PN}-${PV}
                    

PACKAGE_ARCH

The architecture of the resulting package or packages.

By default, the value of this variable is set to TUNE_PKGARCH when building for the target, BUILD_ARCH when building for the build host and "${SDK_ARCH}-${SDKPKGSUFFIX}" when building for the SDK. However, if your recipe's output packages are built specific to the target machine rather than general for the architecture of the machine, you should set PACKAGE_ARCH to the value of MACHINE_ARCH in the recipe as follows:

     PACKAGE_ARCH = "${MACHINE_ARCH}"
                    

PACKAGE_ARCHS

Specifies a list of architectures compatible with the target machine. This variable is set automatically and should not normally be hand-edited. Entries are separated using spaces and listed in order of priority. The default value for PACKAGE_ARCHS is "all any noarch ${PACKAGE_EXTRA_ARCHS} ${MACHINE_ARCH}".

PACKAGE_BEFORE_PN

Enables easily adding packages to PACKAGES before ${PN} so that those added packages can pick up files that would normally be included in the default package.

PACKAGE_CLASSES

This variable, which is set in the local.conf configuration file found in the conf folder of the Build Directory, specifies the package manager the OpenEmbedded build system uses when packaging data.

You can provide one or more of the following arguments for the variable:

     PACKAGE_CLASSES ?= "package_rpm package_deb package_ipk package_tar"
                    

Warning

While it is a legal option, the package_tar class is broken and is not supported. It is recommended that you do not use it.

The build system uses only the first argument in the list as the package manager when creating your image or SDK. However, packages will be created using any additional packaging classes you specify. For example, if you use the following in your local.conf file:

     PACKAGE_CLASSES ?= "package_ipk"
                    

The OpenEmbedded build system uses the IPK package manager to create your image or SDK.

For information on packaging and build performance effects as a result of the package manager in use, see the "package.bbclass" section.

PACKAGE_DEBUG_SPLIT_STYLE

Determines how to split up the binary and debug information when creating *-dbg packages to be used with the GNU Project Debugger (GDB).

With the PACKAGE_DEBUG_SPLIT_STYLE variable, you can control where debug information, which can include or exclude source files, is stored:

  • ".debug": Debug symbol files are placed next to the binary in a .debug directory on the target. For example, if a binary is installed into /bin, the corresponding debug symbol files are installed in /bin/.debug. Source files are placed in /usr/src/debug. This is the default behavior.

  • "debug-file-directory": Debug symbol files are placed under /usr/lib/debug on the target, and separated by the path from where the binary is installed. For example, if a binary is installed in /bin, the corresponding debug symbols are installed in /usr/lib/debug/bin. Source files are placed in /usr/src/debug.

  • "debug-without-src": The same behavior as ".debug" previously described with the exception that no source files are installed.

You can find out more about debugging using GDB by reading the "Debugging With the GNU Project Debugger (GDB) Remotely" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

PACKAGE_EXCLUDE_COMPLEMENTARY

Prevents specific packages from being installed when you are installing complementary packages.

You might find that you want to prevent installing certain packages when you are installing complementary packages. For example, if you are using IMAGE_FEATURES to install dev-pkgs, you might not want to install all packages from a particular multilib. If you find yourself in this situation, you can use the PACKAGE_EXCLUDE_COMPLEMENTARY variable to specify regular expressions to match the packages you want to exclude.

PACKAGE_EXCLUDE

Lists packages that should not be installed into an image. For example:

     PACKAGE_EXCLUDE = "package_name package_name package_name ..."
                    

You can set this variable globally in your local.conf file or you can attach it to a specific image recipe by using the recipe name override:

     PACKAGE_EXCLUDE_pn-target_image = "package_name"
                    

If you choose to not install a package using this variable and some other package is dependent on it (i.e. listed in a recipe's RDEPENDS variable), the OpenEmbedded build system generates a fatal installation error. Because the build system halts the process with a fatal error, you can use the variable with an iterative development process to remove specific components from a system.

Support for this variable exists only when using the IPK and RPM packaging backend. Support does not exist for DEB.

See the NO_RECOMMENDATIONS and the BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS variables for related information.

PACKAGE_EXTRA_ARCHS

Specifies the list of architectures compatible with the device CPU. This variable is useful when you build for several different devices that use miscellaneous processors such as XScale and ARM926-EJS.

PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS

Specifies the package architectures used as part of the package feed URIs during the build. The PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS variable is appended to the final package feed URI, which is constructed using the PACKAGE_FEED_URIS and PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS variables.

Consider the following example where the PACKAGE_FEED_URIS, PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS, and PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS variables are defined in your local.conf file:

     PACKAGE_FEED_URIS = "https://example.com/packagerepos/release \
                          https://example.com/packagerepos/updates"
     PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS = "rpm rpm-dev"
     PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS = "all core2-64"
                    

Given these settings, the resulting package feeds are as follows:

     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm/core2-64
     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm-dev/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm-dev/core2-64
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm/core2-64
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm-dev/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm-dev/core2-64
                    

PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS

Specifies the base path used when constructing package feed URIs. The PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS variable makes up the middle portion of a package feed URI used by the OpenEmbedded build system. The base path lies between the PACKAGE_FEED_URIS and PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS variables.

Consider the following example where the PACKAGE_FEED_URIS, PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS, and PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS variables are defined in your local.conf file:

     PACKAGE_FEED_URIS = "https://example.com/packagerepos/release \
                          https://example.com/packagerepos/updates"
     PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS = "rpm rpm-dev"
     PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS = "all core2-64"
                    

Given these settings, the resulting package feeds are as follows:

     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm/core2-64
     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm-dev/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm-dev/core2-64
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm/core2-64
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm-dev/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm-dev/core2-64
                    

PACKAGE_FEED_URIS

Specifies the front portion of the package feed URI used by the OpenEmbedded build system. Each final package feed URI is comprised of PACKAGE_FEED_URIS, PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS, and PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS variables.

Consider the following example where the PACKAGE_FEED_URIS, PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS, and PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS variables are defined in your local.conf file:

     PACKAGE_FEED_URIS = "https://example.com/packagerepos/release \
                          https://example.com/packagerepos/updates"
     PACKAGE_FEED_BASE_PATHS = "rpm rpm-dev"
     PACKAGE_FEED_ARCHS = "all core2-64"
                    

Given these settings, the resulting package feeds are as follows:

     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm/core2-64
     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm-dev/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/release/rpm-dev/core2-64
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm/core2-64
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm-dev/all
     https://example.com/packagerepos/updates/rpm-dev/core2-64
                    

PACKAGE_GROUP

The PACKAGE_GROUP variable has been renamed to FEATURE_PACKAGES. See the variable description for FEATURE_PACKAGES for information.

If if you use the PACKAGE_GROUP variable, the OpenEmbedded build system issues a warning message.

PACKAGE_INSTALL

The final list of packages passed to the package manager for installation into the image.

Because the package manager controls actual installation of all packages, the list of packages passed using PACKAGE_INSTALL is not the final list of packages that are actually installed. This variable is internal to the image construction code. Consequently, in general, you should use the IMAGE_INSTALL variable to specify packages for installation. The exception to this is when working with the core-image-minimal-initramfs image. When working with an initial RAM filesystem (initramfs) image, use the PACKAGE_INSTALL variable. For information on creating an initramfs, see the "Building an Initial RAM Filesystem (initramfs) Image" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

PACKAGE_INSTALL_ATTEMPTONLY

Specifies a list of packages the OpenEmbedded build system attempts to install when creating an image. If a listed package fails to install, the build system does not generate an error. This variable is generally not user-defined.

PACKAGE_PREPROCESS_FUNCS

Specifies a list of functions run to pre-process the PKGD directory prior to splitting the files out to individual packages.

PACKAGE_WRITE_DEPS

Specifies a list of dependencies for post-installation and pre-installation scripts on native/cross tools. If your post-installation or pre-installation script can execute at rootfs creation time rather than on the target but depends on a native tool in order to execute, you need to list the tools in PACKAGE_WRITE_DEPENDS.

For information on running post-installation scripts, see the "Post-Installation Scripts" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

PACKAGECONFIG

This variable provides a means of enabling or disabling features of a recipe on a per-recipe basis. PACKAGECONFIG blocks are defined in recipes when you specify features and then arguments that define feature behaviors. Here is the basic block structure:

     PACKAGECONFIG ??= "f1 f2 f3 ..."
     PACKAGECONFIG[f1] = "--with-f1,--without-f1,build-deps-f1,rt-deps-f1"
     PACKAGECONFIG[f2] = "--with-f2,--without-f2,build-deps-f2,rt-deps-f2"
     PACKAGECONFIG[f3] = "--with-f3,--without-f3,build-deps-f3,rt-deps-f3"
                    

The PACKAGECONFIG variable itself specifies a space-separated list of the features to enable. Following the features, you can determine the behavior of each feature by providing up to four order-dependent arguments, which are separated by commas. You can omit any argument you like but must retain the separating commas. The order is important and specifies the following:

  1. Extra arguments that should be added to the configure script argument list (EXTRA_OECONF or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS) if the feature is enabled.

  2. Extra arguments that should be added to EXTRA_OECONF or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS if the feature is disabled.

  3. Additional build dependencies (DEPENDS) that should be added if the feature is enabled.

  4. Additional runtime dependencies (RDEPENDS) that should be added if the feature is enabled.

Consider the following PACKAGECONFIG block taken from the librsvg recipe. In this example the feature is croco, which has three arguments that determine the feature's behavior.

     PACKAGECONFIG ??= "croco"
     PACKAGECONFIG[croco] = "--with-croco,--without-croco,libcroco"
                    

The --with-croco and libcroco arguments apply only if the feature is enabled. In this case, --with-croco is added to the configure script argument list and libcroco is added to DEPENDS. On the other hand, if the feature is disabled say through a .bbappend file in another layer, then the second argument --without-croco is added to the configure script rather than --with-croco.

The basic PACKAGECONFIG structure previously described holds true regardless of whether you are creating a block or changing a block. When creating a block, use the structure inside your recipe.

If you want to change an existing PACKAGECONFIG block, you can do so one of two ways:

  • Append file: Create an append file named recipename.bbappend in your layer and override the value of PACKAGECONFIG. You can either completely override the variable:

         PACKAGECONFIG="f4 f5"
                                

    Or, you can just append the variable:

         PACKAGECONFIG_append = " f4"
                                
  • Configuration file: This method is identical to changing the block through an append file except you edit your local.conf or mydistro.conf file. As with append files previously described, you can either completely override the variable:

         PACKAGECONFIG_pn-recipename="f4 f5"
                                

    Or, you can just amend the variable:

         PACKAGECONFIG_append_pn-recipename = " f4"
                                

PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS

A space-separated list of configuration options generated from the PACKAGECONFIG setting.

Classes such as autotools and cmake use PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS to pass PACKAGECONFIG options to configure and cmake, respectively. If you are using PACKAGECONFIG but not a class that handles the do_configure task, then you need to use PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS appropriately.

For additional information, see the PACKAGECONFIG variable.

PACKAGEGROUP_DISABLE_COMPLEMENTARY

For recipes inheriting the packagegroup class, setting PACKAGEGROUP_DISABLE_COMPLEMENTARY to "1" specifies that the normal complementary packages (i.e. -dev, -dbg, and so forth) should not be automatically created by the packagegroup recipe, which is the default behavior.

PACKAGES

The list of packages to be created from the recipe. The default value is the following:

     ${PN}-dbg ${PN}-staticdev ${PN}-dev ${PN}-doc ${PN}-locale ${PACKAGE_BEFORE_PN} ${PN}
                    

During packaging, the do_package task goes through PACKAGES and uses the FILES variable corresponding to each package to assign files to the package. If a file matches the FILES variable for more than one package in PACKAGES, it will be assigned to the earliest (leftmost) package.

Packages in the variable's list that are empty (i.e. where none of the patterns in FILES_pkg match any files installed by the do_install task) are not generated, unless generation is forced through the ALLOW_EMPTY variable.

PACKAGES_DYNAMIC

A promise that your recipe satisfies runtime dependencies for optional modules that are found in other recipes. PACKAGES_DYNAMIC does not actually satisfy the dependencies, it only states that they should be satisfied. For example, if a hard, runtime dependency (RDEPENDS) of another package is satisfied at build time through the PACKAGES_DYNAMIC variable, but a package with the module name is never actually produced, then the other package will be broken. Thus, if you attempt to include that package in an image, you will get a dependency failure from the packaging system during the do_rootfs task.

Typically, if there is a chance that such a situation can occur and the package that is not created is valid without the dependency being satisfied, then you should use RRECOMMENDS (a soft runtime dependency) instead of RDEPENDS.

For an example of how to use the PACKAGES_DYNAMIC variable when you are splitting packages, see the "Handling Optional Module Packaging" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

PACKAGESPLITFUNCS

Specifies a list of functions run to perform additional splitting of files into individual packages. Recipes can either prepend to this variable or prepend to the populate_packages function in order to perform additional package splitting. In either case, the function should set PACKAGES, FILES, RDEPENDS and other packaging variables appropriately in order to perform the desired splitting.

PARALLEL_MAKE

Extra options passed to the make command during the do_compile task in order to specify parallel compilation on the local build host. This variable is usually in the form "-j x", where x represents the maximum number of parallel threads make can run.

Caution

In order for PARALLEL_MAKE to be effective, make must be called with ${EXTRA_OEMAKE}. An easy way to ensure this is to use the oe_runmake function.

By default, the OpenEmbedded build system automatically sets this variable to be equal to the number of cores the build system uses.

Note

If the software being built experiences dependency issues during the do_compile task that result in race conditions, you can clear the PARALLEL_MAKE variable within the recipe as a workaround. For information on addressing race conditions, see the "Debugging Parallel Make Races" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

For single socket systems (i.e. one CPU), you should not have to override this variable to gain optimal parallelism during builds. However, if you have very large systems that employ multiple physical CPUs, you might want to make sure the PARALLEL_MAKE variable is not set higher than "-j 20".

For more information on speeding up builds, see the "Speeding Up the Build" section.

PARALLEL_MAKEINST

Extra options passed to the make install command during the do_install task in order to specify parallel installation. This variable defaults to the value of PARALLEL_MAKE.

Notes and Cautions

In order for PARALLEL_MAKEINST to be effective, make must be called with ${EXTRA_OEMAKE}. An easy way to ensure this is to use the oe_runmake function.

If the software being built experiences dependency issues during the do_install task that result in race conditions, you can clear the PARALLEL_MAKEINST variable within the recipe as a workaround. For information on addressing race conditions, see the "Debugging Parallel Make Races" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

PATCHRESOLVE

Determines the action to take when a patch fails. You can set this variable to one of two values: "noop" and "user".

The default value of "noop" causes the build to simply fail when the OpenEmbedded build system cannot successfully apply a patch. Setting the value to "user" causes the build system to launch a shell and places you in the right location so that you can manually resolve the conflicts.

Set this variable in your local.conf file.

PATCHTOOL

Specifies the utility used to apply patches for a recipe during the do_patch task. You can specify one of three utilities: "patch", "quilt", or "git". The default utility used is "quilt" except for the quilt-native recipe itself. Because the quilt tool is not available at the time quilt-native is being patched, it uses "patch".

If you wish to use an alternative patching tool, set the variable in the recipe using one of the following:

     PATCHTOOL = "patch"
     PATCHTOOL = "quilt"
     PATCHTOOL = "git"
                    

PE

The epoch of the recipe. By default, this variable is unset. The variable is used to make upgrades possible when the versioning scheme changes in some backwards incompatible way.

PE is the default value of the PKGE variable.

PF

Specifies the recipe or package name and includes all version and revision numbers (i.e. glibc-2.13-r20+svnr15508/ and bash-4.2-r1/). This variable is comprised of the following:

     ${PN}-${EXTENDPE}${PV}-${PR}
                    

PIXBUF_PACKAGES

When inheriting the pixbufcache class, this variable identifies packages that contain the pixbuf loaders used with gdk-pixbuf. By default, the pixbufcache class assumes that the loaders are in the recipe's main package (i.e. ${PN}). Use this variable if the loaders you need are in a package other than that main package.

PKG

The name of the resulting package created by the OpenEmbedded build system.

Note

When using the PKG variable, you must use a package name override.

For example, when the debian class renames the output package, it does so by setting PKG_packagename.

PKG_CONFIG_PATH

The path to pkg-config files for the current build context. pkg-config reads this variable from the environment.

PKGD

Points to the destination directory for files to be packaged before they are split into individual packages. This directory defaults to the following:

     ${WORKDIR}/package
                    

Do not change this default.

PKGDATA_DIR

Points to a shared, global-state directory that holds data generated during the packaging process. During the packaging process, the do_packagedata task packages data for each recipe and installs it into this temporary, shared area. This directory defaults to the following, which you should not change:

     ${STAGING_DIR_HOST}/pkgdata
                    

For examples of how this data is used, see the "Automatically Added Runtime Dependencies" section and the "Viewing Package Information with oe-pkgdata-util" section.

PKGDEST

Points to the parent directory for files to be packaged after they have been split into individual packages. This directory defaults to the following:

     ${WORKDIR}/packages-split
                    

Under this directory, the build system creates directories for each package specified in PACKAGES. Do not change this default.

PKGDESTWORK

Points to a temporary work area where the do_package task saves package metadata. The PKGDESTWORK location defaults to the following:

     ${WORKDIR}/pkgdata
                    

Do not change this default.

The do_packagedata task copies the package metadata from PKGDESTWORK to PKGDATA_DIR to make it available globally.

PKGE

The epoch of the package(s) built by the recipe. By default, PKGE is set to PE.

PKGR

The revision of the package(s) built by the recipe. By default, PKGR is set to PR.

PKGV

The version of the package(s) built by the recipe. By default, PKGV is set to PV.

PN

This variable can have two separate functions depending on the context: a recipe name or a resulting package name.

PN refers to a recipe name in the context of a file used by the OpenEmbedded build system as input to create a package. The name is normally extracted from the recipe file name. For example, if the recipe is named expat_2.0.1.bb, then the default value of PN will be "expat".

The variable refers to a package name in the context of a file created or produced by the OpenEmbedded build system.

If applicable, the PN variable also contains any special suffix or prefix. For example, using bash to build packages for the native machine, PN is bash-native. Using bash to build packages for the target and for Multilib, PN would be bash and lib64-bash, respectively.

PNBLACKLIST

Lists recipes you do not want the OpenEmbedded build system to build. This variable works in conjunction with the blacklist class, which the recipe must inherit globally.

To prevent a recipe from being built, inherit the class globally and use the variable in your local.conf file. Here is an example that prevents myrecipe from being built:

     INHERIT += "blacklist"
     PNBLACKLIST[myrecipe] = "Not supported by our organization."
                    

POPULATE_SDK_POST_HOST_COMMAND

Specifies a list of functions to call once the OpenEmbedded build system has created the host part of the SDK. You can specify functions separated by semicolons:

     POPULATE_SDK_POST_HOST_COMMAND += "function; ... "
                    

If you need to pass the SDK path to a command within a function, you can use ${SDK_DIR}, which points to the parent directory used by the OpenEmbedded build system when creating SDK output. See the SDK_DIR variable for more information.

POPULATE_SDK_POST_TARGET_COMMAND

Specifies a list of functions to call once the OpenEmbedded build system has created the target part of the SDK. You can specify functions separated by semicolons:

     POPULATE_SDK_POST_TARGET_COMMAND += "function; ... "
                    

If you need to pass the SDK path to a command within a function, you can use ${SDK_DIR}, which points to the parent directory used by the OpenEmbedded build system when creating SDK output. See the SDK_DIR variable for more information.

PR

The revision of the recipe. The default value for this variable is "r0". Subsequent revisions of the recipe conventionally have the values "r1", "r2", and so forth. When PV increases, PR is conventionally reset to "r0".

Note

The OpenEmbedded build system does not need the aid of PR to know when to rebuild a recipe. The build system uses the task input checksums along with the stamp and shared state cache mechanisms.

The PR variable primarily becomes significant when a package manager dynamically installs packages on an already built image. In this case, PR, which is the default value of PKGR, helps the package manager distinguish which package is the most recent one in cases where many packages have the same PV (i.e. PKGV). A component having many packages with the same PV usually means that the packages all install the same upstream version, but with later (PR) version packages including packaging fixes.

Note

PR does not need to be increased for changes that do not change the package contents or metadata.

Because manually managing PR can be cumbersome and error-prone, an automated solution exists. See the "Working With a PR Service" section for more information.

PREFERRED_PROVIDER

If multiple recipes provide an item, this variable determines which recipe should be given preference. You should always suffix the variable with the name of the provided item, and you should set it to the PN of the recipe to which you want to give precedence. Some examples:

     PREFERRED_PROVIDER_virtual/kernel ?= "linux-yocto"
     PREFERRED_PROVIDER_virtual/xserver = "xserver-xf86"
     PREFERRED_PROVIDER_virtual/libgl ?= "mesa"
                    

Note

If you set PREFERRED_PROVIDER for a virtual/* item, then any recipe that PROVIDES that item that is not selected by PREFERRED_PROVIDER is prevented from building, which is usually desirable since this mechanism is designed to select between mutually exclusive alternative providers.

PREFERRED_VERSION

If there are multiple versions of recipes available, this variable determines which recipe should be given preference. You must always suffix the variable with the PN you want to select, and you should set the PV accordingly for precedence. You can use the "%" character as a wildcard to match any number of characters, which can be useful when specifying versions that contain long revision numbers that could potentially change. Here are two examples:

     PREFERRED_VERSION_python = "3.4.0"
     PREFERRED_VERSION_linux-yocto = "3.19%"
                    

Note

The specified version is matched against PV, which does not necessarily match the version part of the recipe's filename. For example, consider two recipes foo_1.2.bb and foo_git.bb where foo_git.bb contains the following assignment:
     PV = "1.1+git${SRCPV}"
                        
In this case, the correct way to select foo_git.bb is by using an assignment such as the following:
     PREFERRED_VERSION_foo = "1.1+git%"
                        
Compare that previous example against the following incorrect example, which does not work:
     PREFERRED_VERSION_foo = "git"
                        

Sometimes the PREFERRED_VERSION variable can be set by configuration files in a way that is hard to change. You can use OVERRIDES to set a machine-specific override. Here is an example:

     PREFERRED_VERSION_linux-yocto_qemux86 = "3.4%"
                    

Although not recommended, worst case, you can also use the "forcevariable" override, which is the strongest override possible. Here is an example:

     PREFERRED_VERSION_linux-yocto_forcevariable = "3.4%"
                    

Note

The _forcevariable override is not handled specially. This override only works because the default value of OVERRIDES includes "forcevariable".

PREMIRRORS

Specifies additional paths from which the OpenEmbedded build system gets source code. When the build system searches for source code, it first tries the local download directory. If that location fails, the build system tries locations defined by PREMIRRORS, the upstream source, and then locations specified by MIRRORS in that order.

Assuming your distribution (DISTRO) is "poky", the default value for PREMIRRORS is defined in the conf/distro/poky.conf file in the meta-poky Git repository.

Typically, you could add a specific server for the build system to attempt before any others by adding something like the following to the local.conf configuration file in the Build Directory:

     PREMIRRORS_prepend = "\
     git://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n \
     ftp://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n \
     http://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n \
     https://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n"
                    

These changes cause the build system to intercept Git, FTP, HTTP, and HTTPS requests and direct them to the http:// sources mirror. You can use file:// URLs to point to local directories or network shares as well.

PRIORITY

Indicates the importance of a package.

PRIORITY is considered to be part of the distribution policy because the importance of any given recipe depends on the purpose for which the distribution is being produced. Thus, PRIORITY is not normally set within recipes.

You can set PRIORITY to "required", "standard", "extra", and "optional", which is the default.

PRIVATE_LIBS

Specifies libraries installed within a recipe that should be ignored by the OpenEmbedded build system's shared library resolver. This variable is typically used when software being built by a recipe has its own private versions of a library normally provided by another recipe. In this case, you would not want the package containing the private libraries to be set as a dependency on other unrelated packages that should instead depend on the package providing the standard version of the library.

Libraries specified in this variable should be specified by their file name. For example, from the Firefox recipe in meta-browser:

     PRIVATE_LIBS = "libmozjs.so \
                     libxpcom.so \
                     libnspr4.so \
                     libxul.so \
                     libmozalloc.so \
                     libplc4.so \
                     libplds4.so"
                    

For more information, see the "Automatically Added Runtime Dependencies" section.

PROVIDES

A list of aliases by which a particular recipe can be known. By default, a recipe's own PN is implicitly already in its PROVIDES list. If a recipe uses PROVIDES, the additional aliases are synonyms for the recipe and can be useful satisfying dependencies of other recipes during the build as specified by DEPENDS.

Consider the following example PROVIDES statement from a recipe file libav_0.8.11.bb:

     PROVIDES += "libpostproc"
                    

The PROVIDES statement results in the "libav" recipe also being known as "libpostproc".

In addition to providing recipes under alternate names, the PROVIDES mechanism is also used to implement virtual targets. A virtual target is a name that corresponds to some particular functionality (e.g. a Linux kernel). Recipes that provide the functionality in question list the virtual target in PROVIDES. Recipes that depend on the functionality in question can include the virtual target in DEPENDS to leave the choice of provider open.

Conventionally, virtual targets have names on the form "virtual/function" (e.g. "virtual/kernel"). The slash is simply part of the name and has no syntactical significance.

The PREFERRED_PROVIDER variable is used to select which particular recipe provides a virtual target.

Note

A corresponding mechanism for virtual runtime dependencies (packages) exists. However, the mechanism does not depend on any special functionality beyond ordinary variable assignments. For example, VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_dev_manager refers to the package of the component that manages the /dev directory.

Setting the "preferred provider" for runtime dependencies is as simple as using the following assignment in a configuration file:

     VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_dev_manager = "udev"
                        

PRSERV_HOST

The network based PR service host and port.

The conf/local.conf.sample.extended configuration file in the Source Directory shows how the PRSERV_HOST variable is set:

     PRSERV_HOST = "localhost:0"
                    

You must set the variable if you want to automatically start a local PR service. You can set PRSERV_HOST to other values to use a remote PR service.

PTEST_ENABLED

Specifies whether or not Package Test (ptest) functionality is enabled when building a recipe. You should not set this variable directly. Enabling and disabling building Package Tests at build time should be done by adding "ptest" to (or removing it from) DISTRO_FEATURES.

PV

The version of the recipe. The version is normally extracted from the recipe filename. For example, if the recipe is named expat_2.0.1.bb, then the default value of PV will be "2.0.1". PV is generally not overridden within a recipe unless it is building an unstable (i.e. development) version from a source code repository (e.g. Git or Subversion).

PV is the default value of the PKGV variable.

PYTHON_ABI

When used by recipes that inherit the distutils3, setuptools3, distutils, or setuptools classes, denotes the Application Binary Interface (ABI) currently in use for Python. By default, the ABI is "m". You do not have to set this variable as the OpenEmbedded build system sets it for you.

The OpenEmbedded build system uses the ABI to construct directory names used when installing the Python headers and libraries in sysroot (e.g. .../python3.3m/...).

Recipes that inherit the distutils class during cross-builds also use this variable to locate the headers and libraries of the appropriate Python that the extension is targeting.

PYTHON_PN

When used by recipes that inherit the distutils3, setuptools3, distutils, or setuptools classes, specifies the major Python version being built. For Python 2.x, PYTHON_PN would be "python2". For Python 3.x, the variable would be "python3". You do not have to set this variable as the OpenEmbedded build system automatically sets it for you.

The variable allows recipes to use common infrastructure such as the following:

     DEPENDS += "${PYTHON_PN}-native"
                    

In the previous example, the version of the dependency is PYTHON_PN.

R

RANLIB

The minimal command and arguments to run ranlib.

RCONFLICTS

The list of packages that conflict with packages. Note that packages will not be installed if conflicting packages are not first removed.

Like all package-controlling variables, you must always use them in conjunction with a package name override. Here is an example:

     RCONFLICTS_${PN} = "another_conflicting_package_name"
                   

BitBake, which the OpenEmbedded build system uses, supports specifying versioned dependencies. Although the syntax varies depending on the packaging format, BitBake hides these differences from you. Here is the general syntax to specify versions with the RCONFLICTS variable:

     RCONFLICTS_${PN} = "package (operator version)"
                    

For operator, you can specify the following:

     =
     <
     >
     <=
     >=
                    

For example, the following sets up a dependency on version 1.2 or greater of the package foo:

     RCONFLICTS_${PN} = "foo (>= 1.2)"
                    

RDEPENDS

Lists runtime dependencies of a package. These dependencies are other packages that must be installed in order for the package to function correctly. As an example, the following assignment declares that the package foo needs the packages bar and baz to be installed:

     RDEPENDS_foo = "bar baz"
                    

The most common types of package runtime dependencies are automatically detected and added. Therefore, most recipes do not need to set RDEPENDS. For more information, see the "Automatically Added Runtime Dependencies" section.

The practical effect of the above RDEPENDS assignment is that bar and baz will be declared as dependencies inside the package foo when it is written out by one of the do_package_write_* tasks. Exactly how this is done depends on which package format is used, which is determined by PACKAGE_CLASSES. When the corresponding package manager installs the package, it will know to also install the packages on which it depends.

To ensure that the packages bar and baz get built, the previous RDEPENDS assignment also causes a task dependency to be added. This dependency is from the recipe's do_build (not to be confused with do_compile) task to the do_package_write_* task of the recipes that build bar and baz.

The names of the packages you list within RDEPENDS must be the names of other packages - they cannot be recipe names. Although package names and recipe names usually match, the important point here is that you are providing package names within the RDEPENDS variable. For an example of the default list of packages created from a recipe, see the PACKAGES variable.

Because the RDEPENDS variable applies to packages being built, you should always use the variable in a form with an attached package name (remember that a single recipe can build multiple packages). For example, suppose you are building a development package that depends on the perl package. In this case, you would use the following RDEPENDS statement:

     RDEPENDS_${PN}-dev += "perl"
                    

In the example, the development package depends on the perl package. Thus, the RDEPENDS variable has the ${PN}-dev package name as part of the variable.

Caution

RDEPENDS_${PN}-dev includes ${PN} by default. This default is set in the BitBake configuration file (meta/conf/bitbake.conf). Be careful not to accidentally remove ${PN} when modifying RDEPENDS_${PN}-dev. Use the "+=" operator rather than the "=" operator.

The package names you use with RDEPENDS must appear as they would in the PACKAGES variable. The PKG variable allows a different name to be used for the final package (e.g. the debian class uses this to rename packages), but this final package name cannot be used with RDEPENDS, which makes sense as RDEPENDS is meant to be independent of the package format used.

BitBake, which the OpenEmbedded build system uses, supports specifying versioned dependencies. Although the syntax varies depending on the packaging format, BitBake hides these differences from you. Here is the general syntax to specify versions with the RDEPENDS variable:

     RDEPENDS_${PN} = "package (operator version)"
                    

For operator, you can specify the following:

     =
     <
     >
     <=
     >=
                    

For version, provide the version number.

Tip

You can use EXTENDPKGV to provide a full package version specification.

For example, the following sets up a dependency on version 1.2 or greater of the package foo:

     RDEPENDS_${PN} = "foo (>= 1.2)"
                    

For information on build-time dependencies, see the DEPENDS variable. You can also see the "Tasks" and "Dependencies" sections in the BitBake User Manual for additional information on tasks and dependencies.

REQUIRED_DISTRO_FEATURES

When inheriting the distro_features_check class, this variable identifies distribution features that must exist in the current configuration in order for the OpenEmbedded build system to build the recipe. In other words, if the REQUIRED_DISTRO_FEATURES variable lists a feature that does not appear in DISTRO_FEATURES within the current configuration, an error occurs and the build stops.

RM_WORK_EXCLUDE

With rm_work enabled, this variable specifies a list of recipes whose work directories should not be removed. See the "rm_work.bbclass" section for more details.

ROOT_HOME

Defines the root home directory. By default, this directory is set as follows in the BitBake configuration file:

     ROOT_HOME ??= "/home/root"
                    

Note

This default value is likely used because some embedded solutions prefer to have a read-only root filesystem and prefer to keep writeable data in one place.

You can override the default by setting the variable in any layer or in the local.conf file. Because the default is set using a "weak" assignment (i.e. "??="), you can use either of the following forms to define your override:

     ROOT_HOME = "/root"
     ROOT_HOME ?= "/root"
                    

These override examples use /root, which is probably the most commonly used override.

ROOTFS

Indicates a filesystem image to include as the root filesystem.

The ROOTFS variable is an optional variable used with the image-live class.

ROOTFS_POSTINSTALL_COMMAND

Specifies a list of functions to call after the OpenEmbedded build system has installed packages. You can specify functions separated by semicolons:

     ROOTFS_POSTINSTALL_COMMAND += "function; ... "
                    

If you need to pass the root filesystem path to a command within a function, you can use ${IMAGE_ROOTFS}, which points to the directory that becomes the root filesystem image. See the IMAGE_ROOTFS variable for more information.

ROOTFS_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND

Specifies a list of functions to call once the OpenEmbedded build system has created the root filesystem. You can specify functions separated by semicolons:

     ROOTFS_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND += "function; ... "
                    

If you need to pass the root filesystem path to a command within a function, you can use ${IMAGE_ROOTFS}, which points to the directory that becomes the root filesystem image. See the IMAGE_ROOTFS variable for more information.

ROOTFS_POSTUNINSTALL_COMMAND

Specifies a list of functions to call after the OpenEmbedded build system has removed unnecessary packages. When runtime package management is disabled in the image, several packages are removed including base-passwd, shadow, and update-alternatives. You can specify functions separated by semicolons:

     ROOTFS_POSTUNINSTALL_COMMAND += "function; ... "
                    

If you need to pass the root filesystem path to a command within a function, you can use ${IMAGE_ROOTFS}, which points to the directory that becomes the root filesystem image. See the IMAGE_ROOTFS variable for more information.

ROOTFS_PREPROCESS_COMMAND

Specifies a list of functions to call before the OpenEmbedded build system has created the root filesystem. You can specify functions separated by semicolons:

     ROOTFS_PREPROCESS_COMMAND += "function; ... "
                    

If you need to pass the root filesystem path to a command within a function, you can use ${IMAGE_ROOTFS}, which points to the directory that becomes the root filesystem image. See the IMAGE_ROOTFS variable for more information.

RPROVIDES

A list of package name aliases that a package also provides. These aliases are useful for satisfying runtime dependencies of other packages both during the build and on the target (as specified by RDEPENDS).

Note

A package's own name is implicitly already in its RPROVIDES list.

As with all package-controlling variables, you must always use the variable in conjunction with a package name override. Here is an example:

     RPROVIDES_${PN} = "widget-abi-2"
                   

RRECOMMENDS

A list of packages that extends the usability of a package being built. The package being built does not depend on this list of packages in order to successfully build, but rather uses them for extended usability. To specify runtime dependencies for packages, see the RDEPENDS variable.

The package manager will automatically install the RRECOMMENDS list of packages when installing the built package. However, you can prevent listed packages from being installed by using the BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS, NO_RECOMMENDATIONS, and PACKAGE_EXCLUDE variables.

Packages specified in RRECOMMENDS need not actually be produced. However, a recipe must exist that provides each package, either through the PACKAGES or PACKAGES_DYNAMIC variables or the RPROVIDES variable, or an error will occur during the build. If such a recipe does exist and the package is not produced, the build continues without error.

Because the RRECOMMENDS variable applies to packages being built, you should always attach an override to the variable to specify the particular package whose usability is being extended. For example, suppose you are building a development package that is extended to support wireless functionality. In this case, you would use the following:

     RRECOMMENDS_${PN}-dev += "wireless_package_name"
                    

In the example, the package name (${PN}-dev) must appear as it would in the PACKAGES namespace before any renaming of the output package by classes such as debian.bbclass.

BitBake, which the OpenEmbedded build system uses, supports specifying versioned recommends. Although the syntax varies depending on the packaging format, BitBake hides these differences from you. Here is the general syntax to specify versions with the RRECOMMENDS variable:

     RRECOMMENDS_${PN} = "package (operator version)"
                    

For operator, you can specify the following:

     =
     <
     >
     <=
     >=
                    

For example, the following sets up a recommend on version 1.2 or greater of the package foo:

     RRECOMMENDS_${PN} = "foo (>= 1.2)"
                    

RREPLACES

A list of packages replaced by a package. The package manager uses this variable to determine which package should be installed to replace other package(s) during an upgrade. In order to also have the other package(s) removed at the same time, you must add the name of the other package to the RCONFLICTS variable.

As with all package-controlling variables, you must use this variable in conjunction with a package name override. Here is an example:

     RREPLACES_${PN} = "other_package_being_replaced"
                   

BitBake, which the OpenEmbedded build system uses, supports specifying versioned replacements. Although the syntax varies depending on the packaging format, BitBake hides these differences from you. Here is the general syntax to specify versions with the RREPLACES variable:

     RREPLACES_${PN} = "package (operator version)"
                    

For operator, you can specify the following:

     =
     <
     >
     <=
     >=
                    

For example, the following sets up a replacement using version 1.2 or greater of the package foo:

     RREPLACES_${PN} = "foo (>= 1.2)"
                    

RSUGGESTS

A list of additional packages that you can suggest for installation by the package manager at the time a package is installed. Not all package managers support this functionality.

As with all package-controlling variables, you must always use this variable in conjunction with a package name override. Here is an example:

     RSUGGESTS_${PN} = "useful_package another_package"
                   

S

S

The location in the Build Directory where unpacked recipe source code resides. By default, this directory is ${WORKDIR}/${BPN}-${PV}, where ${BPN} is the base recipe name and ${PV} is the recipe version. If the source tarball extracts the code to a directory named anything other than ${BPN}-${PV}, or if the source code if fetched from an SCM such as Git or Subversion, then you must set S in the recipe so that the OpenEmbedded build system knows where to find the unpacked source.

As an example, assume a Source Directory top-level folder named poky and a default Build Directory at poky/build. In this case, the work directory the build system uses to keep the unpacked recipe for db is the following:

     poky/build/tmp/work/qemux86-poky-linux/db/5.1.19-r3/db-5.1.19
                    

The unpacked source code resides in the db-5.1.19 folder.

This next example assumes a Git repository. By default, Git repositories are cloned to ${WORKDIR}/git during do_fetch. Since this path is different from the default value of S, you must set it specifically so the source can be located:

     SRC_URI = "git://path/to/repo.git"
     S = "${WORKDIR}/git"
                    

SANITY_REQUIRED_UTILITIES

Specifies a list of command-line utilities that should be checked for during the initial sanity checking process when running BitBake. If any of the utilities are not installed on the build host, then BitBake immediately exits with an error.

SANITY_TESTED_DISTROS

A list of the host distribution identifiers that the build system has been tested against. Identifiers consist of the host distributor ID followed by the release, as reported by the lsb_release tool or as read from /etc/lsb-release. Separate the list items with explicit newline characters (\n). If SANITY_TESTED_DISTROS is not empty and the current value of NATIVELSBSTRING does not appear in the list, then the build system reports a warning that indicates the current host distribution has not been tested as a build host.

SDK_ARCH

The target architecture for the SDK. Typically, you do not directly set this variable. Instead, use SDKMACHINE.

SDK_DEPLOY

The directory set up and used by the populate_sdk_base to which the SDK is deployed. The populate_sdk_base class defines SDK_DEPLOY as follows:

     SDK_DEPLOY = "${TMPDIR}/deploy/sdk"
                    

SDK_DIR

The parent directory used by the OpenEmbedded build system when creating SDK output. The populate_sdk_base class defines the variable as follows:

     SDK_DIR = "${WORKDIR}/sdk"
                    

Note

The SDK_DIR directory is a temporary directory as it is part of WORKDIR. The final output directory is SDK_DEPLOY.

SDK_EXT_TYPE

Controls whether or not shared state artifacts are copied into the extensible SDK. The default value of "full" copies all of the required shared state artifacts into the extensible SDK. The value "minimal" leaves these artifacts out of the SDK.

Note

If you set the variable to "minimal", you need to ensure SSTATE_MIRRORS is set in the SDK's configuration to enable the artifacts to be fetched as needed.

SDK_HOST_MANIFEST

The manifest file for the host part of the SDK. This file lists all the installed packages that make up the host part of SDK. The file contains package information on a line-per-package basis as follows:

     packagename packagearch version
                    

The populate_sdk_base class defines the manifest file as follows:

     SDK_HOST_MANIFEST = "${SDK_DEPLOY}/${TOOLCHAIN_OUTPUTNAME}.host.manifest"
                    

The location is derived using the SDK_DEPLOY and TOOLCHAIN_OUTPUTNAME variables.

SDK_INCLUDE_PKGDATA

When set to "1", specifies to include the packagedata for all recipes in the "world" target in the extensible SDK. Including this data allows the devtool search command to find these recipes in search results, as well as allows the devtool add command to map dependencies more effectively.

Note

Enabling the SDK_INCLUDE_PKGDATA variable significantly increases build time because all of world needs to be built. Enabling the variable also slightly increases the size of the extensible SDK.

SDK_INCLUDE_TOOLCHAIN

When set to "1", specifies to include the toolchain in the extensible SDK. Including the toolchain is useful particularly when SDK_EXT_TYPE is set to "minimal" to keep the SDK reasonably small but you still want to provide a usable toolchain. For example, suppose you want to use the toolchain from an IDE (e.g. Eclipse) or from other tools and you do not want to perform additional steps to install the toolchain.

The SDK_INCLUDE_TOOLCHAIN variable defaults to "0" if SDK_EXT_TYPE is set to "minimal", and defaults to "1" if SDK_EXT_TYPE is set to "full".

SDK_INHERIT_BLACKLIST

A list of classes to remove from the INHERIT value globally within the extensible SDK configuration. The default value is "buildhistory icecc".

Some classes are not generally applicable within the extensible SDK context and you can use this variable to disable them.

SDK_LOCAL_CONF_BLACKLIST

A list of variables not allowed through from the build system configuration into the extensible SDK configuration. Usually, these are variables that are specific to the machine on which the build system is running and thus would be potentially problematic within the extensible SDK.

SDK_LOCAL_CONF_WHITELIST

A list of variables allowed through from the build system configuration into the extensible SDK configuration. This list overrides the variables specified using the SDK_LOCAL_CONF_BLACKLIST variable as well as any variables identified by automatic blacklisting due to the "/" character being found at the start of the value, which is usually indicative of being a path and thus might not be valid on the system where the SDK is installed.

SDK_NAME

The base name for SDK output files. The name is derived from the DISTRO, TCLIBC, SDK_ARCH, IMAGE_BASENAME, and TUNE_PKGARCH variables:

     SDK_NAME = "${DISTRO}-${TCLIBC}-${SDK_ARCH}-${IMAGE_BASENAME}-${TUNE_PKGARCH}"
                    

SDK_OS

Specifies the operating system for which the SDK will be built. The default value is the value of BUILD_OS.

SDK_OUTPUT

The location used by the OpenEmbedded build system when creating SDK output. The populate_sdk_base class defines the variable as follows:

     SDK_OUTPUT = "${SDK_DIR}/image"
                    

Note

The SDK_OUTPUT directory is a temporary directory as it is part of WORKDIR by way of SDK_DIR. The final output directory is SDK_DEPLOY.

SDK_PACKAGE_ARCHS

Specifies a list of architectures compatible with the SDK machine. This variable is set automatically and should not normally be hand-edited. Entries are separated using spaces and listed in order of priority. The default value for SDK_PACKAGE_ARCHS is "all any noarch ${SDK_ARCH}-${SDKPKGSUFFIX}".

SDK_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND

Specifies a list of functions to call once the OpenEmbedded build system has created the SDK. You can specify functions separated by semicolons:

     SDK_POSTPROCESS_COMMAND += "function; ... "
                    

If you need to pass an SDK path to a command within a function, you can use ${SDK_DIR}, which points to the parent directory used by the OpenEmbedded build system when creating SDK output. See the SDK_DIR variable for more information.

SDK_PREFIX

The toolchain binary prefix used for nativesdk recipes. The OpenEmbedded build system uses the SDK_PREFIX value to set the TARGET_PREFIX when building nativesdk recipes. The default value is "${SDK_SYS}-".

SDK_RECRDEP_TASKS

A list of shared state tasks added to the extensible SDK. By default, the following tasks are added:

     do_populate_lic
     do_package_qa
     do_populate_sysroot
     do_deploy
                    

Despite the default value of "" for the SDK_RECRDEP_TASKS variable, the above four tasks are always added to the SDK. To specify tasks beyond these four, you need to use the SDK_RECRDEP_TASKS variable (e.g. you are defining additional tasks that are needed in order to build SDK_TARGETS).

SDK_SYS

Specifies the system, including the architecture and the operating system, for which the SDK will be built.

The OpenEmbedded build system automatically sets this variable based on SDK_ARCH, SDK_VENDOR, and SDK_OS. You do not need to set the SDK_SYS variable yourself.

SDK_TARGET_MANIFEST

The manifest file for the target part of the SDK. This file lists all the installed packages that make up the target part of the SDK. The file contains package information on a line-per-package basis as follows:

     packagename packagearch version
                    

The populate_sdk_base class defines the manifest file as follows:

     SDK_TARGET_MANIFEST = "${SDK_DEPLOY}/${TOOLCHAIN_OUTPUTNAME}.target.manifest"
                    

The location is derived using the SDK_DEPLOY and TOOLCHAIN_OUTPUTNAME variables.

SDK_TARGETS

A list of targets to install from shared state as part of the standard or extensible SDK installation. The default value is "${PN}" (i.e. the image from which the SDK is built).

The SDK_TARGETS variable is an internal variable and typically would not be changed.

SDK_TITLE

Specifies a title to be printed when running the SDK installer. The SDK_TITLE variable defaults to "distro SDK" for the standard SDK and "distro Extensible SDK" for the extensible SDK, where distro is the first one of DISTRO_NAME or DISTRO that is set in your configuration.

SDK_UPDATE_URL

An optional URL for an update server for the extensible SDK. If set, the value is used as the default update server when running devtool sdk-update within the extensible SDK.

SDK_VENDOR

Specifies the name of the SDK vendor.

SDK_VERSION

Specifies the version of the SDK. The distribution configuration file (e.g. /meta-poky/conf/distro/poky.conf) defines the SDK_VERSION as follows:

     SDK_VERSION := "${@'${DISTRO_VERSION}'.replace('snapshot-${DATE}','snapshot')}"
                    

For additional information, see the DISTRO_VERSION and DATE variables.

SDKIMAGE_FEATURES

Equivalent to IMAGE_FEATURES. However, this variable applies to the SDK generated from an image using the following command:

     $ bitbake -c populate_sdk imagename
                    

SDKMACHINE

The machine for which the SDK is built. In other words, the SDK is built such that it runs on the target you specify with the SDKMACHINE value. The value points to a corresponding .conf file under conf/machine-sdk/.

You can use "i686" and "x86_64" as possible values for this variable. The variable defaults to "i686" and is set in the local.conf file in the Build Directory.

     SDKMACHINE ?= "i686"
                     

Note

You cannot set the SDKMACHINE variable in your distribution configuration file. If you do, the configuration will not take affect.

SDKPATH

Defines the path offered to the user for installation of the SDK that is generated by the OpenEmbedded build system. The path appears as the default location for installing the SDK when you run the SDK's installation script. You can override the offered path when you run the script.

SDKTARGETSYSROOT

The full path to the sysroot used for cross-compilation within an SDK as it will be when installed into the default SDKPATH.

SECTION

The section in which packages should be categorized. Package management utilities can make use of this variable.

SELECTED_OPTIMIZATION

Specifies the optimization flags passed to the C compiler when building for the target. The flags are passed through the default value of the TARGET_CFLAGS variable.

The SELECTED_OPTIMIZATION variable takes the value of FULL_OPTIMIZATION unless DEBUG_BUILD = "1". If that is the case, the value of DEBUG_OPTIMIZATION is used.

SERIAL_CONSOLE

Defines a serial console (TTY) to enable using getty. Provide a value that specifies the baud rate followed by the TTY device name separated by a space. You cannot specify more than one TTY device:

     SERIAL_CONSOLE = "115200 ttyS0"
                    

Note

The SERIAL_CONSOLE variable is deprecated. Please use the SERIAL_CONSOLES variable.

SERIAL_CONSOLES

Defines the serial consoles (TTYs) to enable using getty. Provide a value that specifies the baud rate followed by the TTY device name separated by a semicolon. Use spaces to separate multiple devices:

     SERIAL_CONSOLES = "115200;ttyS0 115200;ttyS1"
                    

SERIAL_CONSOLES_CHECK

Specifies serial consoles, which must be listed in SERIAL_CONSOLES, to check against /proc/console before enabling them using getty. This variable allows aliasing in the format: <device>:<alias>. If a device was listed as "sclp_line0" in /dev/ and "ttyS0" was listed in /proc/console, you would do the following:

     SERIAL_CONSOLES_CHECK = "slcp_line0:ttyS0"
                    

This variable is currently only supported with SysVinit (i.e. not with systemd).

SIGGEN_EXCLUDE_SAFE_RECIPE_DEPS

A list of recipe dependencies that should not be used to determine signatures of tasks from one recipe when they depend on tasks from another recipe. For example:

    SIGGEN_EXCLUDE_SAFE_RECIPE_DEPS += "intone->mplayer2"
                    

In this example, intone depends on mplayer2.

Use of this variable is one mechanism to remove dependencies that affect task signatures and thus force rebuilds when a recipe changes.

Caution

If you add an inappropriate dependency for a recipe relationship, the software might break during runtime if the interface of the second recipe was changed after the first recipe had been built.

SIGGEN_EXCLUDERECIPES_ABISAFE

A list of recipes that are completely stable and will never change. The ABI for the recipes in the list are presented by output from the tasks run to build the recipe. Use of this variable is one way to remove dependencies from one recipe on another that affect task signatures and thus force rebuilds when the recipe changes.

Caution

If you add an inappropriate variable to this list, the software might break at runtime if the interface of the recipe was changed after the other had been built.

SITEINFO_BITS

Specifies the number of bits for the target system CPU. The value should be either "32" or "64".

SITEINFO_ENDIANNESS

Specifies the endian byte order of the target system. The value should be either "le" for little-endian or "be" for big-endian.

SKIP_FILEDEPS

Enables removal of all files from the "Provides" section of an RPM package. Removal of these files is required for packages containing prebuilt binaries and libraries such as libstdc++ and glibc.

To enable file removal, set the variable to "1" in your conf/local.conf configuration file in your: Build Directory.

     SKIP_FILEDEPS = "1"
                    

SOC_FAMILY

Groups together machines based upon the same family of SOC (System On Chip). You typically set this variable in a common .inc file that you include in the configuration files of all the machines.

Note

You must include conf/machine/include/soc-family.inc for this variable to appear in MACHINEOVERRIDES.

SOLIBS

Defines the suffix for shared libraries used on the target platform. By default, this suffix is ".so.*" for all Linux-based systems and is defined in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf configuration file.

You will see this variable referenced in the default values of FILES_${PN}.

SOLIBSDEV

Defines the suffix for the development symbolic link (symlink) for shared libraries on the target platform. By default, this suffix is ".so" for Linux-based systems and is defined in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf configuration file.

You will see this variable referenced in the default values of FILES_${PN}-dev.

SOURCE_MIRROR_FETCH

When you are fetching files to create a mirror of sources (i.e. creating a source mirror), setting SOURCE_MIRROR_FETCH to "1" in your local.conf configuration file ensures the source for all recipes are fetched regardless of whether or not a recipe is compatible with the configuration. A recipe is considered incompatible with the currently configured machine when either or both the COMPATIBLE_MACHINE variable and COMPATIBLE_HOST variables specify compatibility with a machine other than that of the current machine or host.

Warning

Do not set the SOURCE_MIRROR_FETCH variable unless you are creating a source mirror. In other words, do not set the variable during a normal build.

SOURCE_MIRROR_URL

Defines your own PREMIRRORS from which to first fetch source before attempting to fetch from the upstream specified in SRC_URI.

To use this variable, you must globally inherit the own-mirrors class and then provide the URL to your mirrors. Here is the general syntax:

     INHERIT += "own-mirrors"
     SOURCE_MIRROR_URL = "http://example.com/my_source_mirror"
                    

Note

You can specify only a single URL in SOURCE_MIRROR_URL.

SPDXLICENSEMAP

Maps commonly used license names to their SPDX counterparts found in meta/files/common-licenses/. For the default SPDXLICENSEMAP mappings, see the meta/conf/licenses.conf file.

For additional information, see the LICENSE variable.

SPECIAL_PKGSUFFIX

A list of prefixes for PN used by the OpenEmbedded build system to create variants of recipes or packages. The list specifies the prefixes to strip off during certain circumstances such as the generation of the BPN variable.

SRC_URI

The list of source files - local or remote. This variable tells the OpenEmbedded build system which bits to pull in for the build and how to pull them in. For example, if the recipe or append file only needs to fetch a tarball from the Internet, the recipe or append file uses a single SRC_URI entry. On the other hand, if the recipe or append file needs to fetch a tarball, apply two patches, and include a custom file, the recipe or append file would include four instances of the variable.

The following list explains the available URI protocols. URI protocols are highly dependent on particular BitBake Fetcher submodules. Depending on the fetcher BitBake uses, various URL parameters are employed. For specifics on the supported Fetchers, see the "Fetchers" section in the BitBake User Manual.

  • file:// - Fetches files, which are usually files shipped with the Metadata, from the local machine. The path is relative to the FILESPATH variable. Thus, the build system searches, in order, from the following directories, which are assumed to be a subdirectories of the directory in which the recipe file (.bb) or append file (.bbappend) resides:

    • ${BPN} - The base recipe name without any special suffix or version numbers.

    • ${BP} - ${BPN}-${PV}. The base recipe name and version but without any special package name suffix.

    • files - Files within a directory, which is named files and is also alongside the recipe or append file.

    Note

    If you want the build system to pick up files specified through a SRC_URI statement from your append file, you need to be sure to extend the FILESPATH variable by also using the FILESEXTRAPATHS variable from within your append file.

  • bzr:// - Fetches files from a Bazaar revision control repository.

  • git:// - Fetches files from a Git revision control repository.

  • osc:// - Fetches files from an OSC (OpenSUSE Build service) revision control repository.

  • repo:// - Fetches files from a repo (Git) repository.

  • ccrc:// - Fetches files from a ClearCase repository.

  • http:// - Fetches files from the Internet using http.

  • https:// - Fetches files from the Internet using https.

  • ftp:// - Fetches files from the Internet using ftp.

  • cvs:// - Fetches files from a CVS revision control repository.

  • hg:// - Fetches files from a Mercurial (hg) revision control repository.

  • p4:// - Fetches files from a Perforce (p4) revision control repository.

  • ssh:// - Fetches files from a secure shell.

  • svn:// - Fetches files from a Subversion (svn) revision control repository.

Standard and recipe-specific options for SRC_URI exist. Here are standard options:

  • apply - Whether to apply the patch or not. The default action is to apply the patch.

  • striplevel - Which striplevel to use when applying the patch. The default level is 1.

  • patchdir - Specifies the directory in which the patch should be applied. The default is ${S}.

Here are options specific to recipes building code from a revision control system:

  • mindate - Apply the patch only if SRCDATE is equal to or greater than mindate.

  • maxdate - Apply the patch only if SRCDATE is not later than mindate.

  • minrev - Apply the patch only if SRCREV is equal to or greater than minrev.

  • maxrev - Apply the patch only if SRCREV is not later than maxrev.

  • rev - Apply the patch only if SRCREV is equal to rev.

  • notrev - Apply the patch only if SRCREV is not equal to rev.

Here are some additional options worth mentioning:

  • unpack - Controls whether or not to unpack the file if it is an archive. The default action is to unpack the file.

  • destsuffix - Places the file (or extracts its contents) into the specified subdirectory of WORKDIR when the Git fetcher is used.

  • subdir - Places the file (or extracts its contents) into the specified subdirectory of WORKDIR when the local (file://) fetcher is used.

  • localdir - Places the file (or extracts its contents) into the specified subdirectory of WORKDIR when the CVS fetcher is used.

  • subpath - Limits the checkout to a specific subpath of the tree when using the Git fetcher is used.

  • name - Specifies a name to be used for association with SRC_URI checksums when you have more than one file specified in SRC_URI.

  • downloadfilename - Specifies the filename used when storing the downloaded file.

SRC_URI_OVERRIDES_PACKAGE_ARCH

By default, the OpenEmbedded build system automatically detects whether SRC_URI contains files that are machine-specific. If so, the build system automatically changes PACKAGE_ARCH. Setting this variable to "0" disables this behavior.

SRCDATE

The date of the source code used to build the package. This variable applies only if the source was fetched from a Source Code Manager (SCM).

SRCPV

Returns the version string of the current package. This string is used to help define the value of PV.

The SRCPV variable is defined in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf configuration file in the Source Directory as follows:

     SRCPV = "${@bb.fetch2.get_srcrev(d)}"
                    

Recipes that need to define PV do so with the help of the SRCPV. For example, the ofono recipe (ofono_git.bb) located in meta/recipes-connectivity in the Source Directory defines PV as follows:

     PV = "0.12-git${SRCPV}"
                    

SRCREV

The revision of the source code used to build the package. This variable applies to Subversion, Git, Mercurial and Bazaar only. Note that if you want to build a fixed revision and you want to avoid performing a query on the remote repository every time BitBake parses your recipe, you should specify a SRCREV that is a full revision identifier and not just a tag.

Note

For information on limitations when inheriting the latest revision of software using SRCREV, see the AUTOREV variable description and the "Automatically Incrementing a Binary Package Revision Number" section, which is in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

SSTATE_DIR

The directory for the shared state cache.

SSTATE_MIRROR_ALLOW_NETWORK

If set to "1", allows fetches from mirrors that are specified in SSTATE_MIRRORS to work even when fetching from the network has been disabled by setting BB_NO_NETWORK to "1". Using the SSTATE_MIRROR_ALLOW_NETWORK variable is useful if you have set SSTATE_MIRRORS to point to an internal server for your shared state cache, but you want to disable any other fetching from the network.

SSTATE_MIRRORS

Configures the OpenEmbedded build system to search other mirror locations for prebuilt cache data objects before building out the data. This variable works like fetcher MIRRORS and PREMIRRORS and points to the cache locations to check for the shared objects.

You can specify a filesystem directory or a remote URL such as HTTP or FTP. The locations you specify need to contain the shared state cache (sstate-cache) results from previous builds. The sstate-cache you point to can also be from builds on other machines.

If a mirror uses the same structure as SSTATE_DIR, you need to add "PATH" at the end as shown in the examples below. The build system substitutes the correct path within the directory structure.

     SSTATE_MIRRORS ?= "\
     file://.* http://someserver.tld/share/sstate/PATH;downloadfilename=PATH \n \
     file://.* file:///some-local-dir/sstate/PATH"
                    

SSTATE_SCAN_FILES

Controls the list of files the OpenEmbedded build system scans for hardcoded installation paths. The variable uses a space-separated list of filenames (not paths) with standard wildcard characters allowed.

During a build, the OpenEmbedded build system creates a shared state (sstate) object during the first stage of preparing the sysroots. That object is scanned for hardcoded paths for original installation locations. The list of files that are scanned for paths is controlled by the SSTATE_SCAN_FILES variable. Typically, recipes add files they want to be scanned to the value of SSTATE_SCAN_FILES rather than the variable being comprehensively set. The sstate class specifies the default list of files.

For details on the process, see the staging class.

STAGING_BASE_LIBDIR_NATIVE

Specifies the path to the /lib subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the build host.

STAGING_BASELIBDIR

Specifies the path to the /lib subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the target for which the current recipe is being built (STAGING_DIR_HOST).

STAGING_BINDIR

Specifies the path to the /usr/bin subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the target for which the current recipe is being built (STAGING_DIR_HOST).

STAGING_BINDIR_CROSS

Specifies the path to the directory containing binary configuration scripts. These scripts provide configuration information for other software that wants to make use of libraries or include files provided by the software associated with the script.

Note

This style of build configuration has been largely replaced by pkg-config. Consequently, if pkg-config is supported by the library to which you are linking, it is recommended you use pkg-config instead of a provided configuration script.

STAGING_BINDIR_NATIVE

Specifies the path to the /usr/bin subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the build host.

STAGING_DATADIR

Specifies the path to the /usr/share subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the target for which the current recipe is being built (STAGING_DIR_HOST).

STAGING_DATADIR_NATIVE

Specifies the path to the /usr/share subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the build host.

STAGING_DIR

Specifies the path to the top-level sysroots directory (i.e. ${TMPDIR}/sysroots).

STAGING_DIR contains the directories that are staged into the sysroot by the do_populate_sysroot task. See the SYSROOT_DIRS variable and the "Sharing Files Between Recipes" section for more information.

Note

Recipes should never write files directly under the STAGING_DIR directory because the OpenEmbedded build system manages the directory automatically. Instead, files should be installed to ${D} within your recipe's do_install task and then the OpenEmbedded build system will stage a subset of those files into the sysroot.

STAGING_DIR_HOST

Specifies the path to the sysroot directory for the system that the component is built to run on (the system that hosts the component). For most recipes, this sysroot is the one that the recipe's do_populate_sysroot task copies files into. Exceptions include -native recipes, where the do_populate_sysroot task instead uses STAGING_DIR_NATIVE. Depending on the type of recipe and the build target, STAGING_DIR_HOST can have the following values:

  • For recipes building for the target machine, the value is "${STAGING_DIR}/${MACHINE}".

  • For native recipes building for the build host, the value is empty given the assumption that when building for the build host, the build host's own directories should be used.

    Note

    -native recipes are not installed into host paths like such as /usr. Rather, these recipes are installed into STAGING_DIR_NATIVE. When compiling -native recipes, standard build environment variables such as CPPFLAGS and CFLAGS are set up so that both host paths and STAGING_DIR_NATIVE are searched for libraries and headers using, for example, GCC's -isystem option.

    This emphasizes that the STAGING_DIR* variables should be viewed as input variables by tasks such as do_configure, do_compile, and do_install. Having the real system root correspond to STAGING_DIR_HOST makes conceptual sense for -native recipes, as they make use of host headers and libraries.

STAGING_DIR_NATIVE

Specifies the path to the sysroot directory used when building components that run on the build host itself.

STAGING_DIR_TARGET

Specifies the path to the sysroot used for the system for which the component generates code. For components that do not generate code, which is the majority, STAGING_DIR_TARGET is set to match STAGING_DIR_HOST.

Some recipes build binaries that can run on the target system but those binaries in turn generate code for another different system (e.g. cross-canadian recipes). Using terminology from GNU, the primary system is referred to as the "HOST" and the secondary, or different, system is referred to as the "TARGET". Thus, the binaries run on the "HOST" system and generate binaries for the "TARGET" system. The STAGING_DIR_HOST variable points to the sysroot used for the "HOST" system, while STAGING_DIR_TARGET points to the sysroot used for the "TARGET" system.

STAGING_ETCDIR_NATIVE

Specifies the path to the /etc subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the build host.

STAGING_EXECPREFIXDIR

Specifies the path to the /usr subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the target for which the current recipe is being built (STAGING_DIR_HOST).

STAGING_INCDIR

Specifies the path to the /usr/include subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the target for which the current recipe being built (STAGING_DIR_HOST).

STAGING_INCDIR_NATIVE

Specifies the path to the /usr/include subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the build host.

STAGING_KERNEL_BUILDDIR

Points to the directory containing the kernel build artifacts. Recipes building software that needs to access kernel build artifacts (e.g. systemtap-uprobes) can look in the directory specified with the STAGING_KERNEL_BUILDDIR variable to find these artifacts after the kernel has been built.

STAGING_KERNEL_DIR

The directory with kernel headers that are required to build out-of-tree modules.

STAGING_LIBDIR

Specifies the path to the /usr/lib subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the target for which the current recipe is being built (STAGING_DIR_HOST).

STAGING_LIBDIR_NATIVE

Specifies the path to the /usr/lib subdirectory of the sysroot directory for the build host.

STAMP

Specifies the base path used to create recipe stamp files. The path to an actual stamp file is constructed by evaluating this string and then appending additional information. Currently, the default assignment for STAMP as set in the meta/conf/bitbake.conf file is:

     STAMP = "${STAMPS_DIR}/${MULTIMACH_TARGET_SYS}/${PN}/${EXTENDPE}${PV}-${PR}"
                    

For information on how BitBake uses stamp files to determine if a task should be rerun, see the "Stamp Files and the Rerunning of Tasks" section.

See STAMPS_DIR, MULTIMACH_TARGET_SYS, PN, EXTENDPE, PV, and PR for related variable information.

STAMPS_DIR

Specifies the base directory in which the OpenEmbedded build system places stamps. The default directory is ${TMPDIR}/stamps.

STRIP

The minimal command and arguments to run strip, which is used to strip symbols.

SUMMARY

The short (72 characters or less) summary of the binary package for packaging systems such as opkg, rpm or dpkg. By default, SUMMARY is used to define the DESCRIPTION variable if DESCRIPTION is not set in the recipe.

SVNDIR

The directory in which files checked out of a Subversion system are stored.

SYSLINUX_DEFAULT_CONSOLE

Specifies the kernel boot default console. If you want to use a console other than the default, set this variable in your recipe as follows where "X" is the console number you want to use:

     SYSLINUX_DEFAULT_CONSOLE = "console=ttyX"
                    

The syslinux class initially sets this variable to null but then checks for a value later.

SYSLINUX_OPTS

Lists additional options to add to the syslinux file. You need to set this variable in your recipe. If you want to list multiple options, separate the options with a semicolon character (;).

The syslinux class uses this variable to create a set of options.

SYSLINUX_SERIAL

Specifies the alternate serial port or turns it off. To turn off serial, set this variable to an empty string in your recipe. The variable's default value is set in the syslinux as follows:

     SYSLINUX_SERIAL ?= "0 115200"
                    

The class checks for and uses the variable as needed.

SYSLINUX_SPLASH

An .LSS file used as the background for the VGA boot menu when you are using the boot menu. You need to set this variable in your recipe.

The syslinux class checks for this variable and if found, the OpenEmbedded build system installs the splash screen.

SYSLINUX_SERIAL_TTY

Specifies the alternate console=tty... kernel boot argument. The variable's default value is set in the syslinux as follows:

     SYSLINUX_SERIAL_TTY ?= "console=ttyS0,115200"
                    

The class checks for and uses the variable as needed.

SYSROOT_DESTDIR

Points to the temporary directory under the work directory (default ${WORKDIR}/sysroot-destidir) where the files that will be populated into the sysroot are assembled during the do_populate_sysroot task.

     SYSROOT_DESTDIR ?= "console=ttyS0,115200"
                    

SYSROOT_DIRS

Directories that are staged into the sysroot by the do_populate_sysroot task. By default, the following directories are staged:

     SYSROOT_DIRS = " \
         ${includedir} \
         ${libdir} \
         ${base_libdir} \
         ${nonarch_base_libdir} \
         ${datadir} \
     "
                    

SYSROOT_DIRS_BLACKLIST

Directories that are not staged into the sysroot by the do_populate_sysroot task. You can use this variable to exclude certain subdirectories of directories listed in SYSROOT_DIRS from staging. By default, the following directories are not staged:

     SYSROOT_DIRS_BLACKLIST = " \
         ${mandir} \
         ${docdir} \
         ${infodir} \
         ${datadir}/locale \
         ${datadir}/applications \
         ${datadir}/fonts \
         ${datadir}/pixmaps \
     "
                     

SYSROOT_DIRS_NATIVE

Extra directories staged into the sysroot by the do_populate_sysroot task for -native recipes, in addition to those specified in SYSROOT_DIRS. By default, the following extra directories are staged:

     SYSROOT_DIRS_NATIVE = " \
         ${bindir} \
         ${sbindir} \
         ${base_bindir} \
         ${base_sbindir} \
         ${libexecdir} \
         ${sysconfdir} \
         ${localstatedir} \
     "
                    

Note

Programs built by -native recipes run directly from the sysroot (STAGING_DIR_NATIVE), which is why additional directories containing program executables and supporting files need to be staged.

SYSROOT_PREPROCESS_FUNCS

A list of functions to execute after files are staged into the sysroot. These functions are usually used to apply additional processing on the staged files, or to stage additional files.

SYSTEMD_AUTO_ENABLE

When inheriting the systemd class, this variable specifies whether the service you have specified in SYSTEMD_SERVICE should be started automatically or not. By default, the service is enabled to automatically start at boot time. The default setting is in the systemd class as follows:

     SYSTEMD_AUTO_ENABLE ??= "enable"
                    

You can disable the service by setting the variable to "disable".

SYSTEMD_BOOT_CFG

When EFI_PROVIDER is set to "systemd-boot", the SYSTEMD_BOOT_CFG variable specifies the configuration file that should be used. By default, the systemd-boot class sets the SYSTEMD_BOOT_CFG as follows:

     SYSTEMD_BOOT_CFG ?= "${S}/loader.conf"
                    

For information on Systemd-boot, see the Systemd-boot documentation.

SYSTEMD_BOOT_ENTRIES

When EFI_PROVIDER is set to "systemd-boot", the SYSTEMD_BOOT_ENTRIES variable specifies a list of entry files (*.conf) to be installed containing one boot entry per file. By default, the systemd-boot class sets the SYSTEMD_BOOT_ENTRIES as follows:

     SYSTEMD_BOOT_ENTRIES ?= ""
                    

For information on Systemd-boot, see the Systemd-boot documentation.

SYSTEMD_BOOT_TIMEOUT

When EFI_PROVIDER is set to "systemd-boot", the SYSTEMD_BOOT_TIMEOUT variable specifies the boot menu timeout in seconds. By default, the systemd-boot class sets the SYSTEMD_BOOT_TIMEOUT as follows:

     SYSTEMD_BOOT_TIMEOUT ?= "10"
                    

For information on Systemd-boot, see the Systemd-boot documentation.

SYSTEMD_PACKAGES

When inheriting the systemd class, this variable locates the systemd unit files when they are not found in the main recipe's package. By default, the SYSTEMD_PACKAGES variable is set such that the systemd unit files are assumed to reside in the recipes main package:

     SYSTEMD_PACKAGES ?= "${PN}"
                    

If these unit files are not in this recipe's main package, you need to use SYSTEMD_PACKAGES to list the package or packages in which the build system can find the systemd unit files.

SYSTEMD_SERVICE

When inheriting the systemd class, this variable specifies the systemd service name for a package.

When you specify this file in your recipe, use a package name override to indicate the package to which the value applies. Here is an example from the connman recipe:

     SYSTEMD_SERVICE_${PN} = "connman.service"
                    

SYSVINIT_ENABLED_GETTYS

When using SysVinit, specifies a space-separated list of the virtual terminals that should be running a getty (allowing login), assuming USE_VT is not set to "0".

The default value for SYSVINIT_ENABLED_GETTYS is "1" (i.e. only run a getty on the first virtual terminal).

T

T

This variable points to a directory were BitBake places temporary files, which consist mostly of task logs and scripts, when building a particular recipe. The variable is typically set as follows:

     T = "${WORKDIR}/temp"
                    

The WORKDIR is the directory into which BitBake unpacks and builds the recipe. The default bitbake.conf file sets this variable.

The T variable is not to be confused with the TMPDIR variable, which points to the root of the directory tree where BitBake places the output of an entire build.

TARGET_ARCH

The target machine's architecture. The OpenEmbedded build system supports many architectures. Here is an example list of architectures supported. This list is by no means complete as the architecture is configurable:

     arm
     i586
     x86_64
     powerpc
     powerpc64
     mips
     mipsel
                    

For additional information on machine architectures, see the TUNE_ARCH variable.

TARGET_AS_ARCH

Specifies architecture-specific assembler flags for the target system. TARGET_AS_ARCH is initialized from TUNE_ASARGS by default in the BitBake configuration file (meta/conf/bitbake.conf):

     TARGET_AS_ARCH = "${TUNE_ASARGS}"
                    

TARGET_CC_ARCH

Specifies architecture-specific C compiler flags for the target system. TARGET_CC_ARCH is initialized from TUNE_CCARGS by default.

Note

It is a common workaround to append LDFLAGS to TARGET_CC_ARCH in recipes that build software for the target that would not otherwise respect the exported LDFLAGS variable.

TARGET_CC_KERNEL_ARCH

This is a specific kernel compiler flag for a CPU or Application Binary Interface (ABI) tune. The flag is used rarely and only for cases where a userspace TUNE_CCARGS is not compatible with the kernel compilation. The TARGET_CC_KERNEL_ARCH variable allows the kernel (and associated modules) to use a different configuration. See the meta/conf/machine/include/arm/feature-arm-thumb.inc file in the Source Directory for an example.

TARGET_CFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C compiler when building for the target. When building in the target context, CFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

Additionally, the SDK's environment setup script sets the CFLAGS variable in the environment to the TARGET_CFLAGS value so that executables built using the SDK also have the flags applied.

TARGET_CPPFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C pre-processor (i.e. to both the C and the C++ compilers) when building for the target. When building in the target context, CPPFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

Additionally, the SDK's environment setup script sets the CPPFLAGS variable in the environment to the TARGET_CPPFLAGS value so that executables built using the SDK also have the flags applied.

TARGET_CXXFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the C++ compiler when building for the target. When building in the target context, CXXFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

Additionally, the SDK's environment setup script sets the CXXFLAGS variable in the environment to the TARGET_CXXFLAGS value so that executables built using the SDK also have the flags applied.

TARGET_FPU

Specifies the method for handling FPU code. For FPU-less targets, which include most ARM CPUs, the variable must be set to "soft". If not, the kernel emulation gets used, which results in a performance penalty.

TARGET_LD_ARCH

Specifies architecture-specific linker flags for the target system. TARGET_LD_ARCH is initialized from TUNE_LDARGS by default in the BitBake configuration file (meta/conf/bitbake.conf):

     TARGET_LD_ARCH = "${TUNE_LDARGS}"
                    

TARGET_LDFLAGS

Specifies the flags to pass to the linker when building for the target. When building in the target context, LDFLAGS is set to the value of this variable by default.

Additionally, the SDK's environment setup script sets the LDFLAGS variable in the environment to the TARGET_LDFLAGS value so that executables built using the SDK also have the flags applied.

TARGET_OS

Specifies the target's operating system. The variable can be set to "linux" for glibc-based systems and to "linux-musl" for musl. For ARM/EABI targets, there are also "linux-gnueabi" and "linux-musleabi" values possible.

TARGET_PREFIX

Specifies the prefix used for the toolchain binary target tools.

Depending on the type of recipe and the build target, TARGET_PREFIX is set as follows:

  • For recipes building for the target machine, the value is "${TARGET_SYS}-".

  • For native recipes, the build system sets the variable to the value of BUILD_PREFIX.

  • For native SDK recipes (nativesdk), the build system sets the variable to the value of SDK_PREFIX.

TARGET_SYS

Specifies the system, including the architecture and the operating system, for which the build is occurring in the context of the current recipe.

The OpenEmbedded build system automatically sets this variable based on TARGET_ARCH, TARGET_VENDOR, and TARGET_OS variables.

Note

You do not need to set the TARGET_SYS variable yourself.

Consider these two examples:

  • Given a native recipe on a 32-bit, x86 machine running Linux, the value is "i686-linux".

  • Given a recipe being built for a little-endian, MIPS target running Linux, the value might be "mipsel-linux".

TARGET_VENDOR

Specifies the name of the target vendor.

TCLIBCAPPEND

Specifies a suffix to be appended onto the TMPDIR value. The suffix identifies the libc variant for building. When you are building for multiple variants with the same Build Directory, this mechanism ensures that output for different libc variants is kept separate to avoid potential conflicts.

In the defaultsetup.conf file, the default value of TCLIBCAPPEND is "-${TCLIBC}". However, distros such as poky, which normally only support one libc variant, set TCLIBCAPPEND to "" in their distro configuration file resulting in no suffix being applied.

TCLIBC

Specifies the GNU standard C library (libc) variant to use during the build process. This variable replaces POKYLIBC, which is no longer supported.

You can select "glibc" or "musl".

TCMODE

Specifies the toolchain selector. TCMODE controls the characteristics of the generated packages and images by telling the OpenEmbedded build system which toolchain profile to use. By default, the OpenEmbedded build system builds its own internal toolchain. The variable's default value is "default", which uses that internal toolchain.

Note

If TCMODE is set to a value other than "default", then it is your responsibility to ensure that the toolchain is compatible with the default toolchain. Using older or newer versions of these components might cause build problems. See the Release Notes for the specific components with which the toolchain must be compatible.

The TCMODE variable is similar to TCLIBC, which controls the variant of the GNU standard C library (libc) used during the build process: glibc or musl.

With additional layers, it is possible to use a pre-compiled external toolchain. One example is the Sourcery G++ Toolchain. The support for this toolchain resides in the separate Mentor Graphics® meta-sourcery layer at http://github.com/MentorEmbedded/meta-sourcery/.

The layer's README file contains information on how to use the Sourcery G++ Toolchain as an external toolchain. In summary, you must be sure to add the layer to your bblayers.conf file in front of the meta layer and then set the EXTERNAL_TOOLCHAIN variable in your local.conf file to the location in which you installed the toolchain.

The fundamentals used for this example apply to any external toolchain. You can use meta-sourcery as a template for adding support for other external toolchains.

TEST_EXPORT_DIR

The location the OpenEmbedded build system uses to export tests when the TEST_EXPORT_ONLY variable is set to "1".

The TEST_EXPORT_DIR variable defaults to "${TMPDIR}/testimage/${PN}".

TEST_EXPORT_ONLY

Specifies to export the tests only. Set this variable to "1" if you do not want to run the tests but you want them to be exported in a manner that you to run them outside of the build system.

TEST_IMAGE

Automatically runs the series of automated tests for images when an image is successfully built.

These tests are written in Python making use of the unittest module, and the majority of them run commands on the target system over ssh. You can set this variable to "1" in your local.conf file in the Build Directory to have the OpenEmbedded build system automatically run these tests after an image successfully builds:

     TEST_IMAGE = "1"
                    

For more information on enabling, running, and writing these tests, see the "Performing Automated Runtime Testing" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual and the "testimage*.bbclass" section.

TEST_LOG_DIR

Holds the SSH log and the boot log for QEMU machines. The TEST_LOG_DIR variable defaults to "${WORKDIR}/testimage".

Note

Actual test results reside in the task log (log.do_testimage), which is in the ${WORKDIR}/temp/ directory.

TEST_POWERCONTROL_CMD

For automated hardware testing, specifies the command to use to control the power of the target machine under test. Typically, this command would point to a script that performs the appropriate action (e.g. interacting with a web-enabled power strip). The specified command should expect to receive as the last argument "off", "on" or "cycle" specifying to power off, on, or cycle (power off and then power on) the device, respectively.

TEST_POWERCONTROL_EXTRA_ARGS

For automated hardware testing, specifies additional arguments to pass through to the command specified in TEST_POWERCONTROL_CMD. Setting TEST_POWERCONTROL_EXTRA_ARGS is optional. You can use it if you wish, for example, to separate the machine-specific and non-machine-specific parts of the arguments.

TEST_QEMUBOOT_TIMEOUT

The time in seconds allowed for an image to boot before automated runtime tests begin to run against an image. The default timeout period to allow the boot process to reach the login prompt is 500 seconds. You can specify a different value in the local.conf file.

For more information on testing images, see the "Performing Automated Runtime Testing" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

TEST_SERIALCONTROL_CMD

For automated hardware testing, specifies the command to use to connect to the serial console of the target machine under test. This command simply needs to connect to the serial console and forward that connection to standard input and output as any normal terminal program does.

For example, to use the Picocom terminal program on serial device /dev/ttyUSB0 at 115200bps, you would set the variable as follows:

     TEST_SERIALCONTROL_CMD = "picocom /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 115200"
                    

TEST_SERIALCONTROL_EXTRA_ARGS

For automated hardware testing, specifies additional arguments to pass through to the command specified in TEST_SERIALCONTROL_CMD. Setting TEST_SERIALCONTROL_EXTRA_ARGS is optional. You can use it if you wish, for example, to separate the machine-specific and non-machine-specific parts of the command.

TEST_SERVER_IP

The IP address of the build machine (host machine). This IP address is usually automatically detected. However, if detection fails, this variable needs to be set to the IP address of the build machine (i.e. where the build is taking place).

Note

The TEST_SERVER_IP variable is only used for a small number of tests such as the "dnf" test suite, which needs to download packages from WORKDIR/oe-rootfs-repo.

TEST_TARGET

Specifies the target controller to use when running tests against a test image. The default controller to use is "qemu":

     TEST_TARGET = "qemu"
                    

A target controller is a class that defines how an image gets deployed on a target and how a target is started. A layer can extend the controllers by adding a module in the layer's /lib/oeqa/controllers directory and by inheriting the BaseTarget class, which is an abstract class that cannot be used as a value of TEST_TARGET.

You can provide the following arguments with TEST_TARGET:

  • "qemu" and "QemuTarget": Boots a QEMU image and runs the tests. See the "Enabling Runtime Tests on QEMU" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for more information.

  • "simpleremote" and "SimpleRemoteTarget": Runs the tests on target hardware that is already up and running. The hardware can be on the network or it can be a device running an image on QEMU. You must also set TEST_TARGET_IP when you use "simpleremote" or "SimpleRemoteTarget".

    Note

    This argument is defined in meta/lib/oeqa/targetcontrol.py. The small caps names are kept for compatibility reasons.

  • "GummibootTarget": Automatically deploys and runs tests on an EFI-enabled machine that has a master image installed.

    Note

    This argument is defined in meta/lib/oeqa/controllers/masterimage.py.

For information on running tests on hardware, see the "Enabling Runtime Tests on Hardware" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

TEST_TARGET_IP

The IP address of your hardware under test. The TEST_TARGET_IP variable has no effect when TEST_TARGET is set to "qemu".

When you specify the IP address, you can also include a port. Here is an example:

     TEST_TARGET_IP = "192.168.1.4:2201"
                    

Specifying a port is useful when SSH is started on a non-standard port or in cases when your hardware under test is behind a firewall or network that is not directly accessible from your host and you need to do port address translation.

TEST_SUITES

An ordered list of tests (modules) to run against an image when performing automated runtime testing.

The OpenEmbedded build system provides a core set of tests that can be used against images.

Note

Currently, there is only support for running these tests under QEMU.

Tests include ping, ssh, df among others. You can add your own tests to the list of tests by appending TEST_SUITES as follows:

     TEST_SUITES_append = " mytest"
                    

Alternatively, you can provide the "auto" option to have all applicable tests run against the image.

     TEST_SUITES_append = " auto"
                    

Using this option causes the build system to automatically run tests that are applicable to the image. Tests that are not applicable are skipped.

The order in which tests are run is important. Tests that depend on another test must appear later in the list than the test on which they depend. For example, if you append the list of tests with two tests (test_A and test_B) where test_B is dependent on test_A, then you must order the tests as follows:

     TEST_SUITES = " test_A test_B"
                    

For more information on testing images, see the "Performing Automated Runtime Testing" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

THISDIR

The directory in which the file BitBake is currently parsing is located. Do not manually set this variable.

TIME

The time the build was started. Times appear using the hour, minute, and second (HMS) format (e.g. "140159" for one minute and fifty-nine seconds past 1400 hours).

TMPDIR

This variable is the base directory the OpenEmbedded build system uses for all build output and intermediate files (other than the shared state cache). By default, the TMPDIR variable points to tmp within the Build Directory.

If you want to establish this directory in a location other than the default, you can uncomment and edit the following statement in the conf/local.conf file in the Source Directory:

     #TMPDIR = "${TOPDIR}/tmp"
                    

An example use for this scenario is to set TMPDIR to a local disk, which does not use NFS, while having the Build Directory use NFS.

The filesystem used by TMPDIR must have standard filesystem semantics (i.e. mixed-case files are unique, POSIX file locking, and persistent inodes). Due to various issues with NFS and bugs in some implementations, NFS does not meet this minimum requirement. Consequently, TMPDIR cannot be on NFS.

TOOLCHAIN_HOST_TASK

This variable lists packages the OpenEmbedded build system uses when building an SDK, which contains a cross-development environment. The packages specified by this variable are part of the toolchain set that runs on the SDKMACHINE, and each package should usually have the prefix nativesdk-. For example, consider the following command when building an SDK:

     $ bitbake -c populate_sdk imagename
                    

In this case, a default list of packages is set in this variable, but you can add additional packages to the list. See the "Adding Individual Packages to the Standard SDK" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide for more information.

For background information on cross-development toolchains in the Yocto Project development environment, see the "Cross-Development Toolchain Generation" section. For information on setting up a cross-development environment, see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

TOOLCHAIN_OUTPUTNAME

This variable defines the name used for the toolchain output. The populate_sdk_base class sets the TOOLCHAIN_OUTPUTNAME variable as follows:

     TOOLCHAIN_OUTPUTNAME ?= "${SDK_NAME}-toolchain-${SDK_VERSION}"
                    

See the SDK_NAME and SDK_VERSION variables for additional information.

TOOLCHAIN_TARGET_TASK

This variable lists packages the OpenEmbedded build system uses when it creates the target part of an SDK (i.e. the part built for the target hardware), which includes libraries and headers. Use this variable to add individual packages to the part of the SDK that runs on the target. See the "Adding Individual Packages to the Standard SDK" section in the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide for more information.

For background information on cross-development toolchains in the Yocto Project development environment, see the "Cross-Development Toolchain Generation" section. For information on setting up a cross-development environment, see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide.

TOPDIR

The top-level Build Directory. BitBake automatically sets this variable when you initialize your build environment using either oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres.

TRANSLATED_TARGET_ARCH

A sanitized version of TARGET_ARCH. This variable is used where the architecture is needed in a value where underscores are not allowed, for example within package filenames. In this case, dash characters replace any underscore characters used in TARGET_ARCH.

Do not edit this variable.

TUNE_ARCH

The GNU canonical architecture for a specific architecture (i.e. arm, armeb, mips, mips64, and so forth). BitBake uses this value to setup configuration.

TUNE_ARCH definitions are specific to a given architecture. The definitions can be a single static definition, or can be dynamically adjusted. You can see details for a given CPU family by looking at the architecture's README file. For example, the meta/conf/machine/include/mips/README file in the Source Directory provides information for TUNE_ARCH specific to the mips architecture.

TUNE_ARCH is tied closely to TARGET_ARCH, which defines the target machine's architecture. The BitBake configuration file (meta/conf/bitbake.conf) sets TARGET_ARCH as follows:

     TARGET_ARCH = "${TUNE_ARCH}"
                    

The following list, which is by no means complete since architectures are configurable, shows supported machine architectures:

     arm
     i586
     x86_64
     powerpc
     powerpc64
     mips
     mipsel
                    

TUNE_ASARGS

Specifies architecture-specific assembler flags for the target system. The set of flags is based on the selected tune features. TUNE_ASARGS is set using the tune include files, which are typically under meta/conf/machine/include/ and are influenced through TUNE_FEATURES. For example, the meta/conf/machine/include/x86/arch-x86.inc file defines the flags for the x86 architecture as follows:

     TUNE_ASARGS += "${@bb.utils.contains("TUNE_FEATURES", "mx32", "-x32", "", d)}"
                    

Note

Board Support Packages (BSPs) select the tune. The selected tune, in turn, affects the tune variables themselves (i.e. the tune can supply its own set of flags).

TUNE_CCARGS

Specifies architecture-specific C compiler flags for the target system. The set of flags is based on the selected tune features. TUNE_CCARGS is set using the tune include files, which are typically under meta/conf/machine/include/ and are influenced through TUNE_FEATURES.

Note

Board Support Packages (BSPs) select the tune. The selected tune, in turn, affects the tune variables themselves (i.e. the tune can supply its own set of flags).

TUNE_LDARGS

Specifies architecture-specific linker flags for the target system. The set of flags is based on the selected tune features. TUNE_LDARGS is set using the tune include files, which are typically under meta/conf/machine/include/ and are influenced through TUNE_FEATURES. For example, the meta/conf/machine/include/x86/arch-x86.inc file defines the flags for the x86 architecture as follows:

     TUNE_LDARGS += "${@bb.utils.contains("TUNE_FEATURES", "mx32", "-m elf32_x86_64", "", d)}"
                    

Note

Board Support Packages (BSPs) select the tune. The selected tune, in turn, affects the tune variables themselves (i.e. the tune can supply its own set of flags).

TUNE_FEATURES

Features used to "tune" a compiler for optimal use given a specific processor. The features are defined within the tune files and allow arguments (i.e. TUNE_*ARGS) to be dynamically generated based on the features.

The OpenEmbedded build system verifies the features to be sure they are not conflicting and that they are supported.

The BitBake configuration file (meta/conf/bitbake.conf) defines TUNE_FEATURES as follows:

     TUNE_FEATURES ??= "${TUNE_FEATURES_tune-${DEFAULTTUNE}}"
                    

See the DEFAULTTUNE variable for more information.

TUNE_PKGARCH

The package architecture understood by the packaging system to define the architecture, ABI, and tuning of output packages. The specific tune is defined using the "_tune" override as follows:

     TUNE_PKGARCH_tune-tune = "tune"
                    

These tune-specific package architectures are defined in the machine include files. Here is an example of the "core2-32" tuning as used in the meta/conf/machine/include/tune-core2.inc file:

     TUNE_PKGARCH_tune-core2-32 = "core2-32"
                    

TUNEABI

An underlying Application Binary Interface (ABI) used by a particular tuning in a given toolchain layer. Providers that use prebuilt libraries can use the TUNEABI, TUNEABI_OVERRIDE, and TUNEABI_WHITELIST variables to check compatibility of tunings against their selection of libraries.

If TUNEABI is undefined, then every tuning is allowed. See the sanity class to see how the variable is used.

TUNEABI_OVERRIDE

If set, the OpenEmbedded system ignores the TUNEABI_WHITELIST variable. Providers that use prebuilt libraries can use the TUNEABI_OVERRIDE, TUNEABI_WHITELIST, and TUNEABI variables to check compatibility of a tuning against their selection of libraries.

See the sanity class to see how the variable is used.

TUNEABI_WHITELIST

A whitelist of permissible TUNEABI values. If TUNEABI_WHITELIST is not set, all tunes are allowed. Providers that use prebuilt libraries can use the TUNEABI_WHITELIST, TUNEABI_OVERRIDE, and TUNEABI variables to check compatibility of a tuning against their selection of libraries.

See the sanity class to see how the variable is used.

TUNECONFLICTS[feature]

Specifies CPU or Application Binary Interface (ABI) tuning features that conflict with feature.

Known tuning conflicts are specified in the machine include files in the Source Directory. Here is an example from the meta/conf/machine/include/mips/arch-mips.inc include file that lists the "o32" and "n64" features as conflicting with the "n32" feature:

     TUNECONFLICTS[n32] = "o32 n64"
                    

TUNEVALID[feature]

Specifies a valid CPU or Application Binary Interface (ABI) tuning feature. The specified feature is stored as a flag. Valid features are specified in the machine include files (e.g. meta/conf/machine/include/arm/arch-arm.inc). Here is an example from that file:

     TUNEVALID[bigendian] = "Enable big-endian mode."
                    

See the machine include files in the Source Directory for these features.

U

UBOOT_CONFIG

Configures the UBOOT_MACHINE and can also define IMAGE_FSTYPES for individual cases.

Following is an example from the meta-fsl-arm layer.

     UBOOT_CONFIG ??= "sd"
     UBOOT_CONFIG[sd] = "mx6qsabreauto_config,sdcard"
     UBOOT_CONFIG[eimnor] = "mx6qsabreauto_eimnor_config"
     UBOOT_CONFIG[nand] = "mx6qsabreauto_nand_config,ubifs"
     UBOOT_CONFIG[spinor] = "mx6qsabreauto_spinor_config"
                    

In this example, "sd" is selected as the configuration of the possible four for the UBOOT_MACHINE. The "sd" configuration defines "mx6qsabreauto_config" as the value for UBOOT_MACHINE, while the "sdcard" specifies the IMAGE_FSTYPES to use for the U-boot image.

For more information on how the UBOOT_CONFIG is handled, see the uboot-config class.

UBOOT_ENTRYPOINT

Specifies the entry point for the U-Boot image. During U-Boot image creation, the UBOOT_ENTRYPOINT variable is passed as a command-line parameter to the uboot-mkimage utility.

UBOOT_LOADADDRESS

Specifies the load address for the U-Boot image. During U-Boot image creation, the UBOOT_LOADADDRESS variable is passed as a command-line parameter to the uboot-mkimage utility.

UBOOT_LOCALVERSION

Appends a string to the name of the local version of the U-Boot image. For example, assuming the version of the U-Boot image built was "2013.10, the full version string reported by U-Boot would be "2013.10-yocto" given the following statement:

     UBOOT_LOCALVERSION = "-yocto"
                    

UBOOT_MACHINE

Specifies the value passed on the make command line when building a U-Boot image. The value indicates the target platform configuration. You typically set this variable from the machine configuration file (i.e. conf/machine/machine_name.conf).

Please see the "Selection of Processor Architecture and Board Type" section in the U-Boot README for valid values for this variable.

UBOOT_MAKE_TARGET

Specifies the target called in the Makefile. The default target is "all".

UBOOT_SUFFIX

Points to the generated U-Boot extension. For example, u-boot.sb has a .sb extension.

The default U-Boot extension is .bin

UBOOT_TARGET

Specifies the target used for building U-Boot. The target is passed directly as part of the "make" command (e.g. SPL and AIS). If you do not specifically set this variable, the OpenEmbedded build process passes and uses "all" for the target during the U-Boot building process.

UNKNOWN_CONFIGURE_WHITELIST

Specifies a list of options that, if reported by the configure script as being invalid, should not generate a warning during the do_configure task. Normally, invalid configure options are simply not passed to the configure script (e.g. should be removed from EXTRA_OECONF or PACKAGECONFIG_CONFARGS). However, common options, for example, exist that are passed to all configure scripts at a class level that might not be valid for some configure scripts. It follows that no benefit exists in seeing a warning about these options. For these cases, the options are added to UNKNOWN_CONFIGURE_WHITELIST.

The configure arguments check that uses UNKNOWN_CONFIGURE_WHITELIST is part of the insane class and is only enabled if the recipe inherits the autotools class.

UPDATERCPN

For recipes inheriting the update-rc.d class, UPDATERCPN specifies the package that contains the initscript that is to be enabled.

The default value is "${PN}". Given that almost all recipes that install initscripts package them in the main package for the recipe, you rarely need to set this variable in individual recipes.

UPSTREAM_CHECK_GITTAGREGEX

When the distrodata class is enabled globally, you can perform a per-recipe check for what the latest upstream source code version is by calling bitbake -c checkpkg recipe. If the recipe source code is provided from Git repositories, the OpenEmbedded build system determines the latest upstream version by picking the latest tag from the list of all repository tags. You can use the UPSTREAM_CHECK_GITTAGREGEX variable to provide a regular expression to filter only the relevant tags should the default filter not work correctly.

     UPSTREAM_CHECK_GITTAGREGEX = "git_tag_regex"
                    

UPSTREAM_CHECK_REGEX

When the distrodata class is enabled globally, use the UPSTREAM_CHECK_REGEX variable to specify a different regular expression instead of the default one when the package checking system is parsing the page found using UPSTREAM_CHECK_URI.

     UPSTREAM_CHECK_REGEX = "package_regex"
                    

UPSTREAM_CHECK_URI

When the distrodata class is enabled globally, you can perform a per-recipe check for what the latest upstream source code version is by calling bitbake -c checkpkg recipe. If the source code is provided from tarballs, the latest version is determined by fetching the directory listing where the tarball is and attempting to find a later tarball. When this approach does not work, you can use UPSTREAM_CHECK_URI to provide a different URI that contains the link to the latest tarball.

     UPSTREAM_CHECK_URI = "recipe_url"
                    

USE_DEVFS

Determines if devtmpfs is used for /dev population. The default value used for USE_DEVFS is "1" when no value is specifically set. Typically, you would set USE_DEVFS to "0" for a statically populated /dev directory.

See the "Selecting a Device Manager" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual for information on how to use this variable.

USE_VT

When using SysVinit, determines whether or not to run a getty on any virtual terminals in order to enable logging in through those terminals.

The default value used for USE_VT is "1" when no default value is specifically set. Typically, you would set USE_VT to "0" in the machine configuration file for machines that do not have a graphical display attached and therefore do not need virtual terminal functionality.

USER_CLASSES

A list of classes to globally inherit. These classes are used by the OpenEmbedded build system to enable extra features (e.g. buildstats, image-mklibs, and so forth).

The default list is set in your local.conf file:

     USER_CLASSES ?= "buildstats image-mklibs image-prelink"
                    

For more information, see meta-poky/conf/local.conf.sample in the Source Directory.

USERADD_ERROR_DYNAMIC

If set to "error", forces the OpenEmbedded build system to produce an error if the user identification (uid) and group identification (gid) values are not defined in files/passwd and files/group files. If set to "warn", a warning will be issued instead.

The default behavior for the build system is to dynamically apply uid and gid values. Consequently, the USERADD_ERROR_DYNAMIC variable is by default not set. If you plan on using statically assigned gid and uid values, you should set the USERADD_ERROR_DYNAMIC variable in your local.conf file as follows:

     USERADD_ERROR_DYNAMIC = "error"
                    

Overriding the default behavior implies you are going to also take steps to set static uid and gid values through use of the USERADDEXTENSION, USERADD_UID_TABLES, and USERADD_GID_TABLES variables.

USERADD_GID_TABLES

Specifies a password file to use for obtaining static group identification (gid) values when the OpenEmbedded build system adds a group to the system during package installation.

When applying static group identification (gid) values, the OpenEmbedded build system looks in BBPATH for a files/group file and then applies those uid values. Set the variable as follows in your local.conf file:

     USERADD_GID_TABLES = "files/group"
                    

Note

Setting the USERADDEXTENSION variable to "useradd-staticids" causes the build system to use static gid values.
USERADD_PACKAGES

When inheriting the useradd class, this variable specifies the individual packages within the recipe that require users and/or groups to be added.

You must set this variable if the recipe inherits the class. For example, the following enables adding a user for the main package in a recipe:

     USERADD_PACKAGES = "${PN}"
                    

Note

If follows that if you are going to use the USERADD_PACKAGES variable, you need to set one or more of the USERADD_PARAM, GROUPADD_PARAM, or GROUPMEMS_PARAM variables.

USERADD_PARAM

When inheriting the useradd class, this variable specifies for a package what parameters should be passed to the useradd command if you wish to add a user to the system when the package is installed.

Here is an example from the dbus recipe:

     USERADD_PARAM_${PN} = "--system --home ${localstatedir}/lib/dbus \
                            --no-create-home --shell /bin/false \
                            --user-group messagebus"
                    

For information on the standard Linux shell command useradd, see http://linux.die.net/man/8/useradd.

USERADD_UID_TABLES

Specifies a password file to use for obtaining static user identification (uid) values when the OpenEmbedded build system adds a user to the system during package installation.

When applying static user identification (uid) values, the OpenEmbedded build system looks in BBPATH for a files/passwd file and then applies those uid values. Set the variable as follows in your local.conf file:

     USERADD_UID_TABLES = "files/passwd"
                    

Note

Setting the USERADDEXTENSION variable to "useradd-staticids" causes the build system to use static uid values.
USERADDEXTENSION

When set to "useradd-staticids", causes the OpenEmbedded build system to base all user and group additions on a static passwd and group files found in BBPATH.

To use static user identification (uid) and group identification (gid) values, set the variable as follows in your local.conf file:

     USERADDEXTENSION = "useradd-staticids"
                    

Note

Setting this variable to use static uid and gid values causes the OpenEmbedded build system to employ the useradd-staticids class.

If you use static uid and gid information, you must also specify the files/passwd and files/group files by setting the USERADD_UID_TABLES and USERADD_GID_TABLES variables. Additionally, you should also set the USERADD_ERROR_DYNAMIC variable.

V

VOLATILE_LOG_DIR

Specifies the persistence of the target's /var/log directory, which is used to house postinstall target log files.

By default, VOLATILE_LOG_DIR is set to "yes", which means the file is not persistent. You can override this setting by setting the variable to "no" to make the log directory persistent.

W

WARN_QA

Specifies the quality assurance checks whose failures are reported as warnings by the OpenEmbedded build system. You set this variable in your distribution configuration file. For a list of the checks you can control with this variable, see the "insane.bbclass" section.

WKS_FILE_DEPENDS

When placed in the recipe that builds your image, this variable lists build-time dependencies. The WKS_FILE_DEPENDS variable is only applicable when Wic images are active (i.e. when IMAGE_FSTYPES contains entries related to Wic). If your recipe does not create Wic images, the variable has no effect.

The WKS_FILE_DEPENDS variable is similar to the DEPENDS variable. When you use the variable in your recipe that builds the Wic image, dependencies you list in the WIC_FILE_DEPENDS variable are added to the DEPENDS variable.

With the WKS_FILE_DEPENDS variable, you have the possibility to specify a list of additional dependencies (e.g. native tools, bootloaders, and so forth), that are required to build Wic images. Following is an example:

     WKS_FILE_DEPENDS = "some-native-tool"
                    

In the previous example, some-native-tool would be replaced with an actual native tool on which the build would depend.

WKS_FILE

Specifies the location of the Wic kickstart file that is used by the OpenEmbedded build system to create a partitioned image (image.wic). For information on how to create a partitioned image, see the "Creating Partitioned Images" section. For details on the kickstart file format, see the "OpenEmbedded Kickstart (.wks) Reference.

WORKDIR

The pathname of the work directory in which the OpenEmbedded build system builds a recipe. This directory is located within the TMPDIR directory structure and is specific to the recipe being built and the system for which it is being built.

The WORKDIR directory is defined as follows:

     ${TMPDIR}/work/${MULTIMACH_TARGET_SYS}/${PN}/${EXTENDPE}${PV}-${PR}
                    

The actual directory depends on several things:

  • TMPDIR: The top-level build output directory
  • MULTIMACH_TARGET_SYS: The target system identifier
  • PN: The recipe name
  • EXTENDPE: The epoch - (if PE is not specified, which is usually the case for most recipes, then EXTENDPE is blank)
  • PV: The recipe version
  • PR: The recipe revision

As an example, assume a Source Directory top-level folder name poky, a default Build Directory at poky/build, and a qemux86-poky-linux machine target system. Furthermore, suppose your recipe is named foo_1.3.0-r0.bb. In this case, the work directory the build system uses to build the package would be as follows:

     poky/build/tmp/work/qemux86-poky-linux/foo/1.3.0-r0
                    

X

XSERVER

Specifies the packages that should be installed to provide an X server and drivers for the current machine, assuming your image directly includes packagegroup-core-x11-xserver or, perhaps indirectly, includes "x11-base" in IMAGE_FEATURES.

The default value of XSERVER, if not specified in the machine configuration, is "xserver-xorg xf86-video-fbdev xf86-input-evdev".

Chapter 33. Variable Context

While you can use most variables in almost any context such as .conf, .bbclass, .inc, and .bb files, some variables are often associated with a particular locality or context. This chapter describes some common associations.

33.1. Configuration

The following subsections provide lists of variables whose context is configuration: distribution, machine, and local.

33.1.1. Distribution (Distro)

This section lists variables whose configuration context is the distribution, or distro.

33.1.3. Local

This section lists variables whose configuration context is the local configuration through the local.conf file.

33.2. Recipes

The following subsections provide lists of variables whose context is recipes: required, dependencies, path, and extra build information.

33.2.1. Required

This section lists variables that are required for recipes.

33.2.2. Dependencies

This section lists variables that define recipe dependencies.

33.2.3. Paths

This section lists variables that define recipe paths.

33.2.4. Extra Build Information

This section lists variables that define extra build information for recipes.

Chapter 34. FAQ

34.1.

How does Poky differ from OpenEmbedded?

The term "Poky" refers to the specific reference build system that the Yocto Project provides. Poky is based on OE-Core and BitBake. Thus, the generic term used here for the build system is the "OpenEmbedded build system." Development in the Yocto Project using Poky is closely tied to OpenEmbedded, with changes always being merged to OE-Core or BitBake first before being pulled back into Poky. This practice benefits both projects immediately.

34.2.

My development system does not meet the required Git, tar, and Python versions. In particular, I do not have Python 3.4.0 or greater. Can I still use the Yocto Project?

You can get the required tools on your host development system a couple different ways (i.e. building a tarball or downloading a tarball). See the "Required Git, tar, and Python Versions" section for steps on how to update your build tools.

34.3.

How can you claim Poky / OpenEmbedded-Core is stable?

There are three areas that help with stability;

  • The Yocto Project team keeps OE-Core small and focused, containing around 830 recipes as opposed to the thousands available in other OpenEmbedded community layers. Keeping it small makes it easy to test and maintain.

  • The Yocto Project team runs manual and automated tests using a small, fixed set of reference hardware as well as emulated targets.

  • The Yocto Project uses an autobuilder, which provides continuous build and integration tests.

34.4.

How do I get support for my board added to the Yocto Project?

Support for an additional board is added by creating a Board Support Package (BSP) layer for it. For more information on how to create a BSP layer, see the "Understanding and Creating Layers" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual and the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide.

Usually, if the board is not completely exotic, adding support in the Yocto Project is fairly straightforward.

34.5.

Are there any products built using the OpenEmbedded build system?

The software running on the Vernier LabQuest is built using the OpenEmbedded build system. See the Vernier LabQuest website for more information. There are a number of pre-production devices using the OpenEmbedded build system and the Yocto Project team announces them as soon as they are released.

34.6.

What does the OpenEmbedded build system produce as output?

Because you can use the same set of recipes to create output of various formats, the output of an OpenEmbedded build depends on how you start it. Usually, the output is a flashable image ready for the target device.

34.7.

How do I add my package to the Yocto Project?

To add a package, you need to create a BitBake recipe. For information on how to create a BitBake recipe, see the "Writing a New Recipe" in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

34.8.

Do I have to reflash my entire board with a new Yocto Project image when recompiling a package?

The OpenEmbedded build system can build packages in various formats such as IPK for OPKG, Debian package (.deb), or RPM. You can then upgrade the packages using the package tools on the device, much like on a desktop distribution such as Ubuntu or Fedora. However, package management on the target is entirely optional.

34.9.

I see the error 'chmod: XXXXX new permissions are r-xrwxrwx, not r-xr-xr-x'. What is wrong?

You are probably running the build on an NTFS filesystem. Use ext2, ext3, or ext4 instead.

34.10.

I see lots of 404 responses for files on http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/*. Is something wrong?

Nothing is wrong. The OpenEmbedded build system checks any configured source mirrors before downloading from the upstream sources. The build system does this searching for both source archives and pre-checked out versions of SCM-managed software. These checks help in large installations because it can reduce load on the SCM servers themselves. The address above is one of the default mirrors configured into the build system. Consequently, if an upstream source disappears, the team can place sources there so builds continue to work.

34.11.

I have machine-specific data in a package for one machine only but the package is being marked as machine-specific in all cases, how do I prevent this?

Set SRC_URI_OVERRIDES_PACKAGE_ARCH = "0" in the .bb file but make sure the package is manually marked as machine-specific for the case that needs it. The code that handles SRC_URI_OVERRIDES_PACKAGE_ARCH is in the meta/classes/base.bbclass file.

34.12.

I'm behind a firewall and need to use a proxy server. How do I do that?

Most source fetching by the OpenEmbedded build system is done by wget and you therefore need to specify the proxy settings in a .wgetrc file, which can be in your home directory if you are a single user or can be in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc as a global user file.

Following is the applicable code for setting various proxy types in the .wgetrc file. By default, these settings are disabled with comments. To use them, remove the comments:

     # You can set the default proxies for Wget to use for http, https, and ftp.
     # They will override the value in the environment.
     #https_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
     #http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
     #ftp_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/

     # If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
     #use_proxy = on
                

The Yocto Project also includes a meta-poky/conf/site.conf.sample file that shows how to configure CVS and Git proxy servers if needed. For more information on setting up various proxy types and configuring proxy servers, see the "Working Behind a Network Proxy" Wiki page.

34.13.

What’s the difference between target and target-native?

The *-native targets are designed to run on the system being used for the build. These are usually tools that are needed to assist the build in some way such as quilt-native, which is used to apply patches. The non-native version is the one that runs on the target device.

34.14.

I'm seeing random build failures. Help?!

If the same build is failing in totally different and random ways, the most likely explanation is:

  • The hardware you are running the build on has some problem.

  • You are running the build under virtualization, in which case the virtualization probably has bugs.

The OpenEmbedded build system processes a massive amount of data that causes lots of network, disk and CPU activity and is sensitive to even single-bit failures in any of these areas. True random failures have always been traced back to hardware or virtualization issues.

34.15.

When I try to build a native recipe, the build fails with iconv.h problems.

If you get an error message that indicates GNU libiconv is not in use but iconv.h has been included from libiconv, you need to check to see if you have a previously installed version of the header file in /usr/local/include.

     #error GNU libiconv not in use but included iconv.h is from libiconv
                

If you find a previously installed file, you should either uninstall it or temporarily rename it and try the build again.

This issue is just a single manifestation of "system leakage" issues caused when the OpenEmbedded build system finds and uses previously installed files during a native build. This type of issue might not be limited to iconv.h. Be sure that leakage cannot occur from /usr/local/include and /opt locations.

34.16.

What do we need to ship for license compliance?

This is a difficult question and you need to consult your lawyer for the answer for your specific case. It is worth bearing in mind that for GPL compliance, there needs to be enough information shipped to allow someone else to rebuild and produce the same end result you are shipping. This means sharing the source code, any patches applied to it, and also any configuration information about how that package was configured and built.

You can find more information on licensing in the "Licensing" and "Maintaining Open Source License Compliance During Your Product's Lifecycle" sections, both of which are in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

34.17.

How do I disable the cursor on my touchscreen device?

You need to create a form factor file as described in the "Miscellaneous BSP-Specific Recipe Files" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Packages (BSP) Developer's Guide. Set the HAVE_TOUCHSCREEN variable equal to one as follows:

     HAVE_TOUCHSCREEN=1
                

34.18.

How do I make sure connected network interfaces are brought up by default?

The default interfaces file provided by the netbase recipe does not automatically bring up network interfaces. Therefore, you will need to add a BSP-specific netbase that includes an interfaces file. See the "Miscellaneous BSP-Specific Recipe Files" section in the Yocto Project Board Support Packages (BSP) Developer's Guide for information on creating these types of miscellaneous recipe files.

For example, add the following files to your layer:

     meta-MACHINE/recipes-bsp/netbase/netbase/MACHINE/interfaces
     meta-MACHINE/recipes-bsp/netbase/netbase_5.0.bbappend
                

34.19.

How do I create images with more free space?

By default, the OpenEmbedded build system creates images that are 1.3 times the size of the populated root filesystem. To affect the image size, you need to set various configurations:

  • Image Size: The OpenEmbedded build system uses the IMAGE_ROOTFS_SIZE variable to define the size of the image in Kbytes. The build system determines the size by taking into account the initial root filesystem size before any modifications such as requested size for the image and any requested additional free disk space to be added to the image.

  • Overhead: Use the IMAGE_OVERHEAD_FACTOR variable to define the multiplier that the build system applies to the initial image size, which is 1.3 by default.

  • Additional Free Space: Use the IMAGE_ROOTFS_EXTRA_SPACE variable to add additional free space to the image. The build system adds this space to the image after it determines its IMAGE_ROOTFS_SIZE.

34.20.

Why don't you support directories with spaces in the pathnames?

The Yocto Project team has tried to do this before but too many of the tools the OpenEmbedded build system depends on, such as autoconf, break when they find spaces in pathnames. Until that situation changes, the team will not support spaces in pathnames.

34.21.

How do I use an external toolchain?

The toolchain configuration is very flexible and customizable. It is primarily controlled with the TCMODE variable. This variable controls which tcmode-*.inc file to include from the meta/conf/distro/include directory within the Source Directory.

The default value of TCMODE is "default", which tells the OpenEmbedded build system to use its internally built toolchain (i.e. tcmode-default.inc). However, other patterns are accepted. In particular, "external-*" refers to external toolchains. One example is the Sourcery G++ Toolchain. The support for this toolchain resides in the separate meta-sourcery layer at http://github.com/MentorEmbedded/meta-sourcery/.

In addition to the toolchain configuration, you also need a corresponding toolchain recipe file. This recipe file needs to package up any pre-built objects in the toolchain such as libgcc, libstdcc++, any locales, and libc.

34.22.

How does the OpenEmbedded build system obtain source code and will it work behind my firewall or proxy server?

The way the build system obtains source code is highly configurable. You can setup the build system to get source code in most environments if HTTP transport is available.

When the build system searches for source code, it first tries the local download directory. If that location fails, Poky tries PREMIRRORS, the upstream source, and then MIRRORS in that order.

Assuming your distribution is "poky", the OpenEmbedded build system uses the Yocto Project source PREMIRRORS by default for SCM-based sources, upstreams for normal tarballs, and then falls back to a number of other mirrors including the Yocto Project source mirror if those fail.

As an example, you could add a specific server for the build system to attempt before any others by adding something like the following to the local.conf configuration file:

     PREMIRRORS_prepend = "\
     git://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n \
     ftp://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n \
     http://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n \
     https://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n"
                

These changes cause the build system to intercept Git, FTP, HTTP, and HTTPS requests and direct them to the http:// sources mirror. You can use file:// URLs to point to local directories or network shares as well.

Aside from the previous technique, these options also exist:

     BB_NO_NETWORK = "1"
                

This statement tells BitBake to issue an error instead of trying to access the Internet. This technique is useful if you want to ensure code builds only from local sources.

Here is another technique:

     BB_FETCH_PREMIRRORONLY = "1"
                

This statement limits the build system to pulling source from the PREMIRRORS only. Again, this technique is useful for reproducing builds.

Here is another technique:

     BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS = "1"
                

This statement tells the build system to generate mirror tarballs. This technique is useful if you want to create a mirror server. If not, however, the technique can simply waste time during the build.

Finally, consider an example where you are behind an HTTP-only firewall. You could make the following changes to the local.conf configuration file as long as the PREMIRRORS server is current:

     PREMIRRORS_prepend = "\
     ftp://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n \
     http://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n \
     https://.*/.* http://www.yoctoproject.org/sources/ \n"
     BB_FETCH_PREMIRRORONLY = "1"
                

These changes would cause the build system to successfully fetch source over HTTP and any network accesses to anything other than the PREMIRRORS would fail.

The build system also honors the standard shell environment variables http_proxy, ftp_proxy, https_proxy, and all_proxy to redirect requests through proxy servers.

Note

You can find more information on the "Working Behind a Network Proxy" Wiki page.

34.23.

Can I get rid of build output so I can start over?

Yes - you can easily do this. When you use BitBake to build an image, all the build output goes into the directory created when you run the build environment setup script (i.e. oe-init-build-env or oe-init-build-env-memres). By default, this Build Directory is named build but can be named anything you want.

Within the Build Directory, is the tmp directory. To remove all the build output yet preserve any source code or downloaded files from previous builds, simply remove the tmp directory.

34.24.

Why do ${bindir} and ${libdir} have strange values for -native recipes?

Executables and libraries might need to be used from a directory other than the directory into which they were initially installed. Complicating this situation is the fact that sometimes these executables and libraries are compiled with the expectation of being run from that initial installation target directory. If this is the case, moving them causes problems.

This scenario is a fundamental problem for package maintainers of mainstream Linux distributions as well as for the OpenEmbedded build system. As such, a well-established solution exists. Makefiles, Autotools configuration scripts, and other build systems are expected to respect environment variables such as bindir, libdir, and sysconfdir that indicate where executables, libraries, and data reside when a program is actually run. They are also expected to respect a DESTDIR environment variable, which is prepended to all the other variables when the build system actually installs the files. It is understood that the program does not actually run from within DESTDIR.

When the OpenEmbedded build system uses a recipe to build a target-architecture program (i.e. one that is intended for inclusion on the image being built), that program eventually runs from the root file system of that image. Thus, the build system provides a value of "/usr/bin" for bindir, a value of "/usr/lib" for libdir, and so forth.

Meanwhile, DESTDIR is a path within the Build Directory. However, when the recipe builds a native program (i.e. one that is intended to run on the build machine), that program is never installed directly to the build machine's root file system. Consequently, the build system uses paths within the Build Directory for DESTDIR, bindir and related variables. To better understand this, consider the following two paths where the first is relatively normal and the second is not:

Note

Due to these lengthy examples, the paths are artificially broken across lines for readability.

     /home/maxtothemax/poky-bootchart2/build/tmp/work/i586-poky-linux/zlib/
        1.2.8-r0/sysroot-destdir/usr/bin

     /home/maxtothemax/poky-bootchart2/build/tmp/work/x86_64-linux/
        zlib-native/1.2.8-r0/sysroot-destdir/home/maxtothemax/poky-bootchart2/
        build/tmp/sysroots/x86_64-linux/usr/bin
                

Even if the paths look unusual, they both are correct - the first for a target and the second for a native recipe. These paths are a consequence of the DESTDIR mechanism and while they appear strange, they are correct and in practice very effective.

34.25.

The files provided by my *-native recipe do not appear to be available to other recipes. Files are missing from the native sysroot, my recipe is installing to the wrong place, or I am getting permissions errors during the do_install task in my recipe! What is wrong?

This situation results when a build system does not recognize the environment variables supplied to it by BitBake. The incident that prompted this FAQ entry involved a Makefile that used an environment variable named BINDIR instead of the more standard variable bindir. The makefile's hardcoded default value of "/usr/bin" worked most of the time, but not for the recipe's -native variant. For another example, permissions errors might be caused by a Makefile that ignores DESTDIR or uses a different name for that environment variable. Check the the build system to see if these kinds of issues exist.

Chapter 35. Contributing to the Yocto Project

35.1. Introduction

The Yocto Project team is happy for people to experiment with the Yocto Project. A number of places exist to find help if you run into difficulties or find bugs. To find out how to download source code, see the "Yocto Project Release" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

35.2. Tracking Bugs

If you find problems with the Yocto Project, you should report them using the Bugzilla application at http://bugzilla.yoctoproject.org.

35.3. Mailing lists

A number of mailing lists maintained by the Yocto Project exist as well as related OpenEmbedded mailing lists for discussion, patch submission and announcements. To subscribe to one of the following mailing lists, click on the appropriate URL in the following list and follow the instructions:

For more Yocto Project-related mailing lists, see the Yocto Project community mailing lists page here.

35.4. Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

Two IRC channels on freenode are available for the Yocto Project and Poky discussions:

  • #yocto

  • #poky

Here is a list of resources you will find helpful:

  • The Yocto Project website: The home site for the Yocto Project.

  • OpenEmbedded: The upstream, generic, embedded distribution used as the basis for the build system in the Yocto Project. Poky derives from and contributes back to the OpenEmbedded project.

  • BitBake: The tool used to process metadata.

For more links, see the "Other Information" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

35.6. Contributions

The Yocto Project gladly accepts contributions. You can submit changes to the project either by creating and sending pull requests, or by submitting patches through email. For information on how to do both as well as information on how to identify the maintainer for each area of code, see the "How to Submit a Change" section in the Yocto Project Development Manual.

Chapter 36. Introduction

Toaster is a web interface to the Yocto Project's OpenEmbedded build system. The interface enables you to configure and run your builds. Information about builds is collected and stored in a database. You can use Toaster to configure and start builds on multiple remote build servers.

36.1. Toaster Features

Toaster allows you to configure and run builds, and it provides extensive information about the build process.

  • Configure and Run Builds: You can use the Toaster web interface to configure and start your builds. Builds started using the Toaster web interface are organized into projects. When you create a project, you are asked to select a release, or version of the build system you want to use for the project builds. As shipped, Toaster supports Yocto Project releases 1.8 and beyond. With the Toaster web interface, you can:

    • Browse layers listed in the various layer sources that are available in your project (e.g. the OpenEmbedded Metadata Index at http://layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/).

    • Browse images, recipes, and machines provided by those layers.

    • Import your own layers for building.

    • Add and remove layers from your configuration.

    • Set configuration variables.

    • Select a target or multiple targets to build.

    • Start your builds.

    Toaster also allows you to configure and run your builds from the command line, and switch between the command line and the web interface at any time. Builds started from the command line appear within a special Toaster project called "Command line builds".

  • Information About the Build Process: Toaster also records extensive information about your builds. Toaster collects data for builds you start from the web interface and from the command line as long as Toaster is running.

    Note

    You must start Toaster before the build or it will not collect build data.

    With Toaster you can:

    • See what was built (recipes and packages) and what packages were installed into your final image.

    • Browse the directory structure of your image.

    • See the value of all variables in your build configuration, and which files set each value.

    • Examine error, warning, and trace messages to aid in debugging.

    • See information about the BitBake tasks executed and reused during your build, including those that used shared state.

    • See dependency relationships between recipes, packages, and tasks.

    • See performance information such as build time, task time, CPU usage, and disk I/O.

For an overview of Toaster shipped with the Yocto Project 2.3.3 Release, see the "Toaster - Yocto Project 2.2" video.

36.2. Installation Options

You can set Toaster up to run as a local instance or as a shared hosted service.

When Toaster is set up as a local instance, all the components reside on a single build host. Fundamentally, a local instance of Toaster is suited for a single user developing on a single build host.

Toaster as a hosted service is suited for multiple users developing across several build hosts. When Toaster is set up as a hosted service, its components can be spread across several machines:

Chapter 37. Preparing to Use Toaster

This chapter describes how you need to prepare your system in order to use Toaster.

37.1. Setting Up the Basic System Requirements

Before you can use Toaster, you need to first set up your build system to run the Yocto Project. To do this, follow the instructions in the "The Build Host Packages" and "Yocto Project Release" sections in the Yocto Project Quick Start. For Ubuntu/Debian, you might also need to do an additional install of pip3.

     $ sudo apt-get install python3-pip
                

37.2. Establishing Toaster System Dependencies

Toaster requires extra Python dependencies in order to run. A Toaster requirements file named toaster-requirements.txt defines the Python dependencies. The requirements file is located in the bitbake directory, which is located in the root directory of the Source Directory (e.g. poky/bitbake/toaster-requirements.txt). The dependencies appear in a pip, install-compatible format.

37.2.1. Install Toaster Packages

You need to install the packages that Toaster requires. Use this command:

     $ $ pip3 install --user -r bitbake/toaster-requirements.txt
                

The previous command installs the necessary Toaster modules into a local python 3 cache in your $HOME directory. The caches is actually located in $HOME/.local. To see what packages have been installed into your $HOME directory, do the following:

     $ pip3 list installed --local
                

If you need to remove something, the following works:

     $ pip3 uninstall PackageNameToUninstall
                

Chapter 38. Setting Up and Using Toaster

38.1. Starting Toaster for Local Development

Once you have set up the Yocto Project and installed the Toaster system dependencies as described in "Preparing to Use Toaster", you are ready to start Toaster.

Navigate to the root of your Source Directory (e.g. poky):

     $ cd poky
            

Once in that directory, source the build environment script:

     $ source oe-init-build-env
            

Next, from the build directory (e.g. poky/build), start Toaster using this command:

     $ source toaster start
            

You can now run your builds from the command line, or with Toaster as explained in section "Using the Toaster Web Interface".

To access the Toaster web interface, open your favorite browser and enter the following:

     http://127.0.0.1:8000
            

38.2. Setting a Different Port

By default, Toaster starts on port 8000. You can use the WEBPORT parameter to set a different port. For example, the following command sets the port to "8400":

     $ source toaster start webport=8400
            

38.3. Setting a Different Address

By default, Toaster binds to the loop back address (i.e. localhost). You can use the WEBPORT parameter to set a different host. For example, the following command sets the host and port to "0.0.0.0:8400":

     $ source toaster start webport=0.0.0.0:8400
            

38.4. The Directory for Cloning Layers

Toaster creates a _toaster_clones directory inside your Source Directory (i.e. poky) to clone any layers needed for your builds.

Alternatively, if you would like all of your Toaster related files and directories to be in a particular location other than the default, you can set the TOASTER_DIR environment variable, which takes precedence over your current working directory. Setting this environment variable causes Toaster to create and use $TOASTER_DIR./_toaster_clones.

38.5. The Build Directory

Toaster creates a build directory within your Source Directory (e.g. poky) to execute the builds.

Alternatively, if you would like all of your Toaster related files and directories to be in a particular location, you can set the TOASTER_DIR environment variable, which takes precedence over your current working directory. Setting this environment variable causes Toaster to use $TOASTER_DIR/build as the build directory.

38.6. Creating a Django Superuser

Toaster is built on the Django framework. Django provides an administration interface you can use to edit Toaster configuration parameters.

To access the Django administration interface, you must create a superuser by following these steps:

  1. If you used pip3, which is recommended, to set up the Toaster system dependencies, you need be sure the local user path is in your PATH list. To append the pip3 local user path, use the following command:

       $ export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin
                      

  2. From the directory containing the Toaster database, which by default is the Build Directory, invoke the createsuperuser command from manage.py:

       $ cd ~/poky/build
       $ ../bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py createsuperuser
                      

  3. Django prompts you for the username, which you need to provide.

  4. Django prompts you for an email address, which is optional.

  5. Django prompts you for a password, which you must provide.

  6. Django prompts you to re-enter your password for verification.

After completing these steps, the following confirmation message appears:

   Superuser created successfully.
          

Creating a superuser allows you to access the Django administration interface through a browser. The URL for this interface is the same as the URL used for the Toaster instance with "/admin" on the end. For example, if you are running Toaster locally, use the following URL:

   http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin
          

You can use the Django administration interface to set Toaster configuration parameters such as the build directory, layer sources, default variable values, and BitBake versions.

38.7. Setting Up a Production Instance of Toaster

You can use a production instance of Toaster to share the Toaster instance with remote users, multiple users, or both. The production instance is also the setup that can handle heavier loads on the web service. Use the instructions in the following sections to set up Toaster to run builds through the Toaster web interface.

38.7.1. Requirements

Be sure you meet the following requirements:

Note

You must comply with all Apache, mod-wsgi, and Mysql requirements.

  • Have all the build requirements as described in "Setting Up the Basic System Requirements" chapter.

  • Have an Apache webserver.

  • Have mod-wsgi for the Apache webserver.

  • Use the Mysql database server.

  • If you are using Ubuntu 16.04, run the following:

       $ sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi-py3 mysql-server python3-pip libmysqlclient-dev
                          

  • If you are using Fedora 24 or a RedHat distribution, run the following:

       $ sudo dnf install httpd python3-mod_wsgi python3-pip mariadb-server mariadb-devel python3-devel
                          

  • If you are using openSUSE Leap 42.1, run the following:

       $ sudo zypper install apache2 apache2-mod_wsgi-python3 python3-pip mariadb mariadb-client python3-devel
                          

38.7.2. Installation

Perform the following steps to install Toaster:

  1. Create toaster user and set its home directory to /var/www/toaster:

        $ sudo /usr/sbin/useradd toaster -md /var/www/toaster -s /bin/false
        $ sudo su - toaster -s /bin/bash
                          

  2. Checkout a copy of poky into the web server directory. You will be using /var/www/toaster:

       $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky
       $ git checkout pyro
                          

  3. Install Toaster dependencies using the --user flag which keeps the Python packages isolated from your system-provided packages:

       $ cd /var/www/toaster/
       $ pip3 install --user -r ./poky/bitbake/toaster-requirements.txt
       $ pip3 install --user mysqlclient
                          

    Note

    Isolating these packages is not required but is recommended. Alternatively, you can use your operating system's package manager to install the packages.

  4. Configure Toaster by editing /var/www/toaster/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/toastermain/settings.py as follows:

    • Edit the DATABASE settings:

         DATABASES = {
             'default': {
                 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
                 'NAME': 'toaster_data',
                 'USER': 'toaster',
                 'PASSWORD': 'yourpasswordhere',
                 'HOST': 'localhost',
                 'PORT': '3306',
            }
         }
                                    

    • Edit the SECRET_KEY:

         SECRET_KEY = 'your_secret_key'
                                    

    • Edit the STATIC_ROOT:

         STATIC_ROOT = '/var/www/toaster/static_files/'
                                    

  5. Add the database and user to the mysql server defined earlier:

       $ mysql -u root -p
       mysql> CREATE DATABASE toaster_data;
       mysql> CREATE USER 'toaster'@'localhost' identified by 'yourpasswordhere';
       mysql> GRANT all on toaster_data.* to 'toaster'@'localhost';
       mysql> quit
                          

  6. Get Toaster to create the database schema, default data, and gather the statically-served files:

       $ cd  /var/www/toaster/poky/
       $ ./bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py migrate
       $ TOASTER_DIR=`pwd` TOASTER_CONF=./meta-poky/conf/toasterconf.json \
         ./bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py checksettings
       $ ./bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py collectstatic
                          

    For the above set of commands, after moving to the poky directory, the migrate command ensures the database schema has had changes propagated correctly (i.e. migrations).

    The next line sets the Toaster root directory TOASTER_DIR and the location of the Toaster configuration file TOASTER_CONF, which is relative to the Toaster root directory TOASTER_DIR. For more information on the Toaster configuration file TOASTER_CONF, see the JSON Files section of this manual.

    This line also runs the checksettings command, which configures the location of the Toaster Build directory. The Toaster root directory TOASTER_DIR determines where the Toaster build directory is created on the file system. In the example above, TOASTER_DIR is set as follows:

       /var/www/toaster/poky
                              

    This setting causes the Toaster build directory to be:

       /var/www/toaster/poky/build
                              

    Finally, the collectstatic command is a Django framework command that collects all the statically served files into a designated directory to be served up by the Apache web server as defined by STATIC_ROOT.

  7. Add an Apache configuration file for Toaster to your Apache web server's configuration directory. If you are using Ubuntu or Debian, put the file here:

       /etc/apache2/conf-available/toaster.conf
                          

    If you are using Fedora or RedHat, put it here:

       /etc/httpd/conf.d/toaster.conf
                          

    If you are using OpenSUSE, put it here:

       /etc/apache2/conf.d/toaster.conf
                          

    Following is a sample Apache configuration for Toaster you can follow:

       Alias /static /var/www/toaster/static_files
       <Directory /var/www/toaster/static_files>
               <IfModule mod_access_compat.c>
                       Order allow,deny
                       Allow from all
               </IfModule>
               <IfModule !mod_access_compat.c>
                       Require all granted
               </IfModule>
       </Directory>
    
       <Directory /var/www/toaster/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/toastermain>
               <Files "wsgi.py">
                  Require all granted
               </Files>
       </Directory>
    
       WSGIDaemonProcess toaster_wsgi python-path=/var/www/toaster/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster:/var/www/toaster/.local/lib/python3.4/site-packages
    
       WSGIScriptAlias / "/var/www/toaster/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/toastermain/wsgi.py"
       <Location />
           WSGIProcessGroup toaster_wsgi
       </Location>
                          

    If you are using Ubuntu or Debian, you will need to enable the config and module for Apache:

       $ sudo a2enmod wsgi
       $ sudo a2enconf toaster
       $ chmod +x bitbake/lib/toaster/toastermain/wsgi.py
                          

    Finally, restart Apache to make sure all new configuration is loaded. For Ubuntu, Debian, and OpenSUSE use:

       $ sudo service apache2 restart
                          

    For Fedora and RedHat use:

       $ sudo service httpd restart
                          

  8. Prepare the systemd service to run Toaster builds. Here is a sample configuration file for the service:

       [Unit]
       Description=Toaster runbuilds
    
       [Service]
       Type=forking
       User=toaster
       ExecStart=/usr/bin/screen -d -m -S runbuilds /var/www/toaster/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/runbuilds-service.sh start
       ExecStop=/usr/bin/screen -S runbuilds -X quit
       WorkingDirectory=/var/www/toaster/poky
    
       [Install]
       WantedBy=multi-user.target
                          

    Prepare the runbuilds-service.sh script that you need to place in the /var/www/toaster/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/ directory by setting up executable permissions:

       #!/bin/bash
    
       #export http_proxy=http://proxy.host.com:8080
       #export https_proxy=http://proxy.host.com:8080
       #export GIT_PROXY_COMMAND=$HOME/bin/gitproxy
    
       cd ~/poky/
       source ./oe-init-build-env build
       source ../bitbake/bin/toaster $1 noweb
       [ "$1" == 'start' ] && /bin/bash
                          

  9. Run the service:

       # service runbuilds start
                          

    Since the service is running in a detached screen session, you can attach to it using this command:

       $ sudo su - toaster
       $ screen -rS runbuilds
                          

    You can detach from the service again using "Ctrl-a" followed by "d" key combination.

You can now open up a browser and start using Toaster.

38.8. Using the Toaster Web Interface

The Toaster web interface allows you to do the following:

  • Browse published layers in the OpenEmbedded Metadata Index that are available for your selected version of the build system.

  • Import your own layers for building.

  • Add and remove layers from your configuration.

  • Set configuration variables.

  • Select a target or multiple targets to build.

  • Start your builds.

  • See what was built (recipes and packages) and what packages were installed into your final image.

  • Browse the directory structure of your image.

  • See the value of all variables in your build configuration, and which files set each value.

  • Examine error, warning and trace messages to aid in debugging.

  • See information about the BitBake tasks executed and reused during your build, including those that used shared state.

  • See dependency relationships between recipes, packages and tasks.

  • See performance information such as build time, task time, CPU usage, and disk I/O.

38.8.1. Toaster Web Interface Videos

Following are several videos that show how to use the Toaster GUI:

  • Build Configuration: This video overviews and demonstrates build configuration for Toaster.

  • Build Custom Layers: This video shows you how to build custom layers that are used with Toaster.

  • Toaster Homepage and Table Controls: This video goes over the Toaster entry page, and provides an overview of the data manipulation capabilities of Toaster, which include search, sorting and filtering by different criteria.

  • Build Dashboard: This video shows you the build dashboard, a page providing an overview of the information available for a selected build.

  • Image Information: This video walks through the information Toaster provides about images: packages installed and root file system.

  • Configuration: This video provides Toaster build configuration information.

  • Tasks: This video shows the information Toaster provides about the tasks run by the build system.

  • Recipes and Packages Built: This video shows the information Toaster provides about recipes and packages built.

  • Performance Data: This video shows the build performance data provided by Toaster.

38.8.2. Additional Information About the Local Yocto Project Release

This section only applies if you have set up Toaster for local development, as explained in the "Starting Toaster for Local Development" section.

When you create a project in Toaster, you will be asked to provide a name and to select a Yocto Project release. One of the release options you will find is called "Local Yocto Project".

When you select the "Local Yocto Project" release, Toaster will run your builds using the local Yocto Project clone you have in your computer: the same clone you are using to run Toaster. Unless you manually update this clone, your builds will always use the same Git revision.

If you select any of the other release options, Toaster will fetch the tip of your selected release from the upstream Yocto Project repository every time you run a build. Fetching this tip effectively means that if your selected release is updated upstream, the Git revision you are using for your builds will change. If you are doing development locally, you might not want this change to happen. In that case, the "Local Yocto Project" release might be the right choice.

However, the "Local Yocto Project" release will not provide you with any compatible layers, other than the three core layers that come with the Yocto Project:

If you want to build any other layers, you will need to manually import them into your Toaster project, using the "Import layer" page.

38.8.3. Building a Specific Recipe Given Multiple Versions

Occasionally, a layer might provide more than one version of the same recipe. For example, the openembedded-core layer provides two versions of the bash recipe (i.e. 3.2.48 and 4.3.30-r0) and two versions of the which recipe (i.e. 2.21 and 2.18). The following figure shows this exact scenario:

By default, the OpenEmbedded build system builds one of the two recipes. For the bash case, version 4.3.30-r0 is built by default. Unfortunately, Toaster as it exists, is not able to override the default recipe version. If you would like to build bash 3.2.48, you need to set the PREFERRED_VERSION variable. You can do so from Toaster, using the "Add variable" form, which is available in the "BitBake variables" page of the project configuration section as shown in the following screen:

To specify bash 3.2.48 as the version to build, enter "PREFERRED_VERSION_bash" in the "Variable" field, and "3.2.48" in the "Value" field. Next, click the "Add variable" button:

After clicking the "Add variable" button, the settings for PREFERRED_VERSION are added to the bottom of the BitBake variables list. With these settings, the OpenEmbedded build system builds the desired version of the recipe rather than the default version:

Chapter 39. Concepts and Reference

In order to configure and use Toaster, you should understand some concepts and have some basic command reference material available. This final chapter provides conceptual information on layer sources, releases, and JSON configuration files. Also provided is a quick look at some useful manage.py commands that are Toaster-specific. Information on manage.py commands does exist across the Web and the information in this manual by no means attempts to provide a command comprehensive reference.

39.1. Layer Source

In general, a "layer source" is a source of information about existing layers. In particular, we are concerned with layers that you can use with the Yocto Project and Toaster. This chapter describes a particular type of layer source called a "layer index."

A layer index is a web application that contains information about a set of custom layers. A good example of an existing layer index is the OpenEmbedded Metadata Index. A public instance of this layer index exists at http://layers.openembedded.org. You can find the code for this layer index's web application at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/layerindex-web/.

When you tie a layer source into Toaster, it can query the layer source through a REST API, store the information about the layers in the Toaster database, and then show the information to users. Users are then able to view that information and build layers from Toaster itself without worrying about cloning or editing the BitBake layers configuration file bblayers.conf.

Tying a layer source into Toaster is convenient when you have many custom layers that need to be built on a regular basis by a community of developers. In fact, Toaster comes pre-configured with the OpenEmbedded Metadata Index.

Note

You do not have to use a layer source to use Toaster. Tying into a layer source is optional.

39.1.1. Setting Up and Using a Layer Source

To use your own layer source, you need to set up the layer source and then tie it into Toaster. This section describes how to tie into a layer index in a manner similar to the way Toaster ties into the OpenEmbedded Metadata Index.

39.1.1.1. Understanding Your Layers

The obvious first step for using a layer index is to have several custom layers that developers build and access using the Yocto Project on a regular basis. This set of layers needs to exist and you need to be familiar with where they reside. You will need that information when you set up the code for the web application that "hooks" into your set of layers.

For general information on layers, see the "BSP Layers" and "Using the Yocto Project's BSP Tools" sections in the Yocto Project Board Support Package (BSP) Developer's Guide.

39.1.1.2. Configuring Toaster to Hook Into Your Layer Index

If you want Toaster to use your layer index, you must host the web application in a server to which Toaster can connect. You also need to give Toaster the information about your layer index. In other words, you have to configure Toaster to use your layer index. This section describes two methods by which you can configure and use your layer index.

In the previous section, the code for the OpenEmbedded Metadata Index (i.e. http://layers.openembedded.org) was referenced. You can use this code, which is at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/layerindex-web/, as a base to create your own layer index.

39.1.1.2.1. Use the Administration Interface

Access the administration interface through a browser by entering the URL of your Toaster instance and adding "/admin" to the end of the URL. As an example, if you are running Toaster locally, use the following URL:

     http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin
                        

The administration interface has a "Layer sources" section that includes an "Add layer source" button. Click that button and provide the required information. Make sure you select "layerindex" as the layer source type.

39.1.1.2.2. Use the toasterconf.json File

If you do not want to use the Administration Interface, you can edit the toasterconf.json file and reload it to Toaster.

The Toaster startup script in /bitbake/bin/toaster specifies the location of a Toaster configuration file toasterconf.json as the value of the TOASTER_CONF variable. This configuration file is used to set up the initial configuration values within the Toaster database including the layer sources. Two versions of the configuration file exist:

  • The first version of the file is found in the conf directory of the meta-poky layer (i.e. meta-poky/conf/toasterconf.json). This version contains the default Yocto Project configuration for Toaster.

  • The second version of the file is in the conf directory of the openembedded-core layer (i.e. meta/conf/toasterconf.json). This version contains the default OpenEmbedded configuration for Toaster.

39.1.1.2.3. Edit the Configuration File

Edit the version of the toasterconf.json file you used to set up your Toaster instance. In the file, you will find a section for layer sources such as the following:

    "layersources": [
        {
            "name": "Local Yocto Project",
            "sourcetype": "local",
            "apiurl": "../../",
            "branches": ["HEAD" ],
            "layers": [
                {
                    "name": "openembedded-core",
                    "local_path": "meta",
                    "vcs_url": "remote:origin",
                    "dirpath": "meta"
                },
                {
                    "name": "meta-poky",
                    "local_path": "meta-poky",
                    "vcs_url": "remote:origin",
                    "dirpath": "meta-poky"
                },
                {
                    "name": "meta-yocto-bsp",
                    "local_path": "meta-yocto-bsp",
                    "vcs_url": "remote:origin",
                    "dirpath": "meta-yocto-bsp"
                }

            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "OpenEmbedded",
            "sourcetype": "layerindex",
            "apiurl": "http://layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/api/",
            "branches": ["master", "jethro" ,"fido"]
        },
        {
            "name": "Imported layers",
            "sourcetype": "imported",
            "apiurl": "",
            "branches": ["master", "jethro","fido", "HEAD"]

        }
    ],
                        

You should add your own layer source to this section by following the same format used for the "OpenEmbedded" layer source shown above.

Give your layer source a name, provide the URL of your layer source API, use the source type "layerindex", and indicate which branches from your layer source you want to make available through Toaster. For example, the OpenEmbedded layer source makes available only its "master", "fido", and "jethro" branches.

The branches must match the branch you set when configuring your releases. For example, if you configure one release in Toaster by setting its branch to "branch-one" and you configure another release in Toaster by setting its branch to "branch-two", the branches in your layer source should be "branch-one" and "branch-two" as well. Doing so creates a connection between the releases and the layer information from your layer source. Thus, when users create a project with a given release, they will see the appropriate layers from your layer source. This connection ensures that only layers that are compatible with the selected project release can be selected for building.

Once you have added this information to the toasterconf.json file, save your changes.

In a terminal window, navigate to the directory that contains the Toaster database, which by default is the root of the Yocto Project Source Directory. Once you are located in that directory, run the "loadconf" command, which takes as an argument the full path to the toasterconf.json file you just edited. For example, if you cloned the poky repository and you edited the meta-poky/conf/toasterconf.json file, you would type something like the following:

     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py loadconf /home/scottrif/poky/meta-poky/conf/toasterconf.json
                        

After entering this command, you need to update the Toaster database with the information coming from your new layer source. To do that, you should run the "lsupdates" command from the directory that contains the Toaster database. Here is an example:

     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py lsupdates
                        

If Toaster can reach the API URL, you should see a message telling you that Toaster is updating the layer source information.

Once the information has been updated, verify the new layer information is available by using the Toaster web interface. To do that, visit the "All compatible layers" page inside a Toaster project. The layers from your layer source should be listed there.

39.2. Releases

When you create a Toaster project using the web interface, you are asked to choose a "Release." In the context of Toaster, the term "Release" refers to a set of layers and a BitBake version the OpenEmbedded build system uses to build something. As shipped, Toaster is pre-configured with releases that correspond to Yocto Project release branches. However, you can modify, delete, and create new releases according to your needs. This section provides some background information on releases.

39.2.1. Pre-Configured Releases

As shipped, Toaster is configured to use a specific set of releases. Of course, you can always configure Toaster to use any release. For example, you might want your project to build against a specific commit of any of the "out-of-the-box" releases. Or, you might want your project to build against different revisions of OpenEmbedded and BitBake.

As shipped, Toaster is configured to work with the following releases:

39.2.2. What Makes Up a Release?

A release consists of the following:

  • Name: The name of the release (name). This release name never appears in the the Toaster web interface. Consequently, a user never sees the release name.

  • Description: The textual description of the release (description). This description is what users encounter when creating projects with the Toaster web interface. When you configure your release, be sure to use a description that sufficiently describes and is understandable. If Toaster has more than one release configured, the release descriptions appear listed in a drop down menu when a user creates a new project. If Toaster has only one release configured, all projects created using the web interface take that release and the drop down menu does not display in the Toaster web interface.

  • BitBake: The Bitbake version (bitbake) used to build layers set in the current release. This version is described by a name, a Git URL, a branch in the Git URL, and a directory path in the Git repository. As an example, consider the following snippet from a Toaster JSON configuration file. This BitBake version uses the master branch from the OpenEmbedded repository:

         "bitbake" : [
             {
                 "name": "master",
                 "giturl": "git://git.openembedded.org/bitbake",
                 "branch": "master",
                 "dirpath": ""
             }
         ]
                            

    Here is more detail on each of the items that comprise the BitBake version:

    • Name: A string (name) used to refer to the version of BitBake you are using with Toaster. This name is never exposed through Toaster.

    • Git URL: The URL (giturl) for the BitBake Git repository cloned for Toaster projects.

    • Branch: The Git branch, or revision, (branch) of the BitBake repository used with Toaster.

    • Directory Path: The sub-directory of the BitBake repository (dirpath). If the Git URL includes more than one repository, you need to set this directory. If the URL does not include more than a single repository, you can set dirpath to a null string (i.e. "").

  • Branch: The branch for the layer source (branch) used with the release. For example, for the OpenEmbedded layer source, the "master", "fido", and "jethro" branches are available.

  • Default Layers: The set of default layers (defaultlayers) automatically added to the project configuration when a project is created.

  • Layer Source Priorities A specification of layer source priorities (layersourcepriority). In order for Toaster to work as intended, the "Imported layers" layer source should have the highest priority, which means that layers manually imported by users with the "Import layer" functionality will always be visible and available for selection.

  • Help Text: Help text (helptext) that explains what the release does when selected. This help text appears below the release drop-down menu when you create a Toaster project. The help text should assist users in making the correct decision regarding the release to use for a given project.

To summarize what comprises a release, consider the following example from a Toaster JSON file. The configuration names the release "master" and uses the "master" branch provided by the layer source of type "layerindex", which is called "OpenEmbedded", and sets the openembedded-core layer as the one to be added by default to any projects created in Toaster. The BitBake version used would be defined as shown earlier in the previous list:

     "releases": [
         {
             "name": "master",
             "description": "OpenEmbedded master",
             "bitbake": "master",
             "branch": "master",
             "defaultlayers": [ "openembedded-core" ],
             "layersourcepriority": { "Imported layers": 99, "Local OpenEmbedded" : 10, "OpenEmbedded" :  0 },
             "helptext": "Toaster will run your builds using the tip of the <a href=\"http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/log/\">Yocto Project master branch</a>, where active development takes place. This is not a stable branch, so your builds might not work as expected."
         }
     ]
                

39.3. JSON Files

You must configure Toaster before using it. Configuration customizes layer source settings and Toaster defaults for all users and is performed by the person responsible for Toaster Configuration (i.e the Toaster Administrator). The Toaster Administrator performs this configuration through the Django administration interface.

To make it easier to initially start Toaster, you can import a pre-defined configuration file using the loadconf command.

Note

The configuration file is a JSON-formatted text file with specific fields that Toaster recognizes. It is not a data dump from the database, so it cannot be loaded directly in the database.

By convention, the supplied configuration files are named toasterconf.json. The Toaster Administrator can customize the file prior to loading it into Toaster. The TOASTER_CONF variable in the Toaster startup script at bitbake/bin/toaster specifies the location of the toasterconf.json file.

39.3.1. Configuration File Choices

Two versions of the configuration file exist:

  • The meta-poky/conf/toasterconf.json in the conf directory of the Yocto Project's meta-poky layer. This version contains the default Yocto Project configuration for Toaster. You are prompted to select this file during the Toaster set up process if you cloned the poky repository (i.e. http://git.yoctoproject.org/poky).

  • The meta/conf/toasterconf.json in the conf directory of the OpenEmbedded's openembedded-core layer. This version contains the default OpenEmbedded configuration for Toaster. You are prompted to select this file during the Toaster set up process if you had cloned the openembedded-core repository (i.e. git://git.openembedded.org/openembedded-core).

39.3.2. File Structure

The toasterconf.json file consists of easily readable areas: configuration, layer sources, BitBake, default release, and releases.

39.3.2.1. Configuration Area

This area of the JSON file sets which variables are exposed to users through the Toaster web interface. Users can easily edit these variables.

The variables you set here are displayed in the "Configuration variables" page in Toaster. Minimally, you should set the MACHINE variable, which appears to users as part of the project page in Toaster.

Here is the default config area:

     "config": {
         "MACHINE"      : "qemux86",
         "DISTRO"       : "poky",
         "IMAGE_FSTYPES": "ext3 jffs2 tar.bz2",
         "IMAGE_INSTALL_append": "",
         "PACKAGE_CLASSES": "package_rpm",
     },
                    

39.3.2.2. Layer Sources Area

This area of the JSON file defines the layer sources Toaster uses. Toaster reads layer information from layer sources. Three types of layer sources exist that Toaster recognizes: Local, LayerIndex, and Imported.

The Local layer source reads layers from Git clones available on your local drive. Using a local layer source enables you to easily test Toaster.

Note

If you are setting up a hosted version of Toaster, it does not make sense to have a local layer source.

The LayerIndex layer source uses a REST API exposed by instances of the Layer Index application (e.g the public http://layers.openembedded.org/) to read layer data.

The Imported layer source is reserved for layer data manually introduced by the user or Toaster Administrator through the GUI. This layer source lets users import their own layers and build them with Toaster. You should not remove the imported layer source.

Here is the default layersources area:

    "layersources": [
        {
            "name": "Local Yocto Project",
            "sourcetype": "local",
            "apiurl": "../../",
            "branches": ["HEAD" ],
            "layers": [
                {
                    "name": "openembedded-core",
                    "local_path": "meta",
                    "vcs_url": "remote:origin",
                    "dirpath": "meta"
                },
                {
                    "name": "meta-poky",
                    "local_path": "meta-poky",
                    "vcs_url": "remote:origin",
                    "dirpath": "meta-poky"
                },
                {
                    "name": "meta-yocto-bsp",
                    "local_path": "meta-yocto-bsp",
                    "vcs_url": "remote:origin",
                    "dirpath": "meta-yocto-bsp"
                }

            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "OpenEmbedded",
            "sourcetype": "layerindex",
            "apiurl": "http://layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/api/",
            "branches": ["master", "jethro" ,"fido"]
        },
        {
            "name": "Imported layers",
            "sourcetype": "imported",
            "apiurl": "",
            "branches": ["master", "jethro","fido", "HEAD"]

        }
    ],
                    

39.3.2.3. BitBake Area

This area of the JSON file defines the version of BitBake Toaster uses. As shipped, Toaster is configured to recognize four versions of BitBake: master, fido, jethro, and HEAD.

Note

HEAD is a special option that builds whatever is available on disk, without checking out any remote Git repositories.

Here is the default bitbake area:

     "bitbake" : [
         {
             "name": "master",
             "giturl": "remote:origin",
             "branch": "master",
             "dirpath": "bitbake"
         },
        {
             "name": "jethro",
             "giturl": "remote:origin",
             "branch": "jethro",
             "dirpath": "bitbake"
         },
         {
             "name": "fido",
             "giturl": "remote:origin",
             "branch": "fido",
            "dirpath": "bitbake"
        },
         {
             "name": "HEAD",
             "giturl": "remote:origin",
             "branch": "HEAD",
             "dirpath": "bitbake"
         }
     ],
                    

39.3.2.4. Default Area

This area of the JSON file establishes a default release used by Toaster. As shipped, Toaster uses the "master" release.

Here is the statement in the JSON file that establishes the default release:

     "defaultrelease": "master",
                    

39.3.2.5. Releases Area

This area of the JSON file defines the versions of the OpenEmbedded build system Toaster recognizes. As shipped, Toaster is configured to work with the four releases described in the "Pre-Configured Releases" section.

Here is the default releases area:

     "releases": [
         {
             "name": "master",
             "description": "Yocto Project master",
             "bitbake": "master",
             "branch": "master",
             "defaultlayers": [ "openembedded-core", "meta-poky", "meta-yocto-bsp"],
             "layersourcepriority": { "Imported layers": 99, "Local Yocto Project" : 10, "OpenEmbedded" :  0 },
             "helptext": "Toaster will run your builds using the tip of the <a href=\"http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/log/\">Yocto Project master branch</a>, where active development takes place. This is not a stable branch, so your builds might not work as expected."
         },
         {
             "name": "jethro",
             "description": "Yocto Project 2.0 Jethro",
             "bitbake": "jethro",
             "branch": "jethro",
             "defaultlayers": [ "openembedded-core", "meta-poky", "meta-yocto-bsp"],
             "layersourcepriority": { "Imported layers": 99, "Local Yocto Project" : 10, "OpenEmbedded" :  0 },
             "helptext": "Toaster will run your builds with the tip of the <a href=\"http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/log/?h=jethro\">Yocto Project 2.0 \"Jethro\"</a> branch."
         },
         {
             "name": "fido",
             "description": "Yocto Project 1.8 Fido",
             "bitbake": "fido",
             "branch": "fido",
             "defaultlayers": [ "openembedded-core", "meta-poky", "meta-yocto-bsp"],
             "layersourcepriority": { "Imported layers": 99, "Local Yocto Project" : 10, "OpenEmbedded" :  0 },
             "helptext": "Toaster will run your builds with the tip of the <a href=\"http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/log/?h=fido\">Yocto Project 1.8 \"Fido\"</a> branch."
         },
         {
             "name": "local",
             "description": "Local Yocto Project",
             "bitbake": "HEAD",
             "branch": "HEAD",
             "defaultlayers": [ "openembedded-core", "meta-poky", "meta-yocto-bsp"],
             "layersourcepriority": { "Imported layers": 99, "Local Yocto Project" : 10, "OpenEmbedded" :  0 },
             "helptext": "Toaster will run your builds with the version of the Yocto Project you have cloned or downloaded to your computer."
         }
     ]
                    

39.4. Useful Commands

In addition to the web user interface and the scripts that start and stop Toaster, command-line commands exist through the manage.py management script. You can find general documentation on manage.py at the Django site. However, several manage.py commands have been created that are specific to Toaster and are used to control configuration and back-end tasks. You can locate these commands in the Source Directory (e.g. poky) at bitbake/lib/manage.py. This section documents those commands.

Note

When using manage.py commands given a default configuration, you must be sure that your working directory is set to the Build Directory. Using manage.py commands from the Build Directory allows Toaster to find the toaster.sqlite file, which is located in the Build Directory.

For non-default database configurations, it is possible that you can use manage.py commands from a directory other than the Build directory. To do so, the toastermain/settings.py file must be configured to point to the correct database backend.

39.4.1. buildslist

The buildslist command lists all builds that Toaster has recorded. Access the command as follows:

     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py buildslist
                

The command returns a list, which includes numeric identifications, of the builds that Toaster has recorded in the current database.

You need to run the buildslist command first to identify existing builds in the database before using the builddelete command. Here is an example that assumes default repository and build directory names:

     $ cd ~/poky/build
     $ python ../bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py buildslist
                

If your Toaster database had only one build, the above buildslist command would return something like the following:

     1: qemux86 poky core-image-minimal
                

39.4.2. builddelete

The builddelete command deletes data associated with a build. Access the command as follows:

     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py builddelete build_id
                

The command deletes all the build data for the specified build_id. This command is useful for removing old and unused data from the database.

Prior to running the builddelete command, you need to get the ID associated with builds by using the buildslist command.

39.4.3. perf

The perf command measures Toaster performance. Access the command as follows:

     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py perf
                

The command is a sanity check that returns page loading times in order to identify performance problems.

39.4.4. checksettings

The checksettings command verifies existing Toaster settings. Access the command as follows:

     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py checksettings
                

Toaster uses settings that are based on the database to configure the building tasks. The checksettings command verifies that the database settings are valid in the sense that they have the minimal information needed to start a build.

In order for the checksettings command to work, the database must be correctly set up and not have existing data. To be sure the database is ready, you can run the following:

     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/mana​ge.py syncdb
     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/mana​ge.py migrate orm
     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/mana​ge.py migrate bldcontrol
                

After running these commands, you can run the checksettings command.

39.4.5. loadconf

The loadconf command loads an existing Toaster configuration file (JSON file). You must run this on a new database that does not have any data. Running this command on an existing database that has data results in errors. Access the command as follows:

     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py loadconf filepath
                

The loadconf command configures a database based on the supplied existing toasterconf.json file. For information on the toasterconf.json, see the "JSON Files" section.

39.4.6. runbuilds

The runbuilds command launches scheduled builds. Access the command as follows:

     $ bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py runbuilds
                

The runbuilds command checks if scheduled builds exist in the database and then launches them per schedule. The command returns after the builds start but before they complete. The Toaster Logging Interface records and updates the database when the builds complete.