[yocto] RFC: Post build configuration

[Rudolf Streif]

The process that you are describing is commonly called "device
provisioning." I have experienced this process from different angles:
working for a company making functional test equipment for electronics
production lines and working for a company providing software for set-top
boxes.

>From this experience provisioning is frequently done during production at
the end of the process when the automated functional test is performed.
During these tests the devices are fired up, get their device image
installed, receive their individual programming and are tested.

Dependent on the device there are many methods on how to do it. I have used
serial ports, networked provisioning servers, direct programming of OTP or
flash using the tester, etc.

It may be a cool thing to have for YP but it may also somewhat out of the
scope of YP. In one way or another you will always have to put your data
onto the root file system. Unfortunately, creating a root file system is
always somewhat expensive and time consuming. Many times when I am making
changes to my YP build environment just rebuilding a single package
creating the root file system is the most time consuming part of the
process.

My preferred way of provisioning is a networked provisioning server. In
most cases, you will have to store the configuration data anyway, so I
store it in a database on the provisioning server. I have not done this
with YP but if had to do it I would look into using TCF. When the device
boots it starts up TCF. The provisioning server connects to the TCF server
on the  device, pushes the files it needs, etc.

It's a fun project but if you look at it from that angle it's not that much
related to YP as a build system. It's like any other application package.
You build it with YP and add it to the root file system.

:rjs
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