-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Ashfield [mailto:bruce.ashfield@...]
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2012 8:53 PM
To: Venkata ramana gollamudi
Cc: yocto@...; Sanil kumar; Hatle, Mark
Subject: Re: [yocto] Need for offline binary configuration
On 12-11-20 10:09 AM, Venkata ramana gollamudi wrote:
Poky allows to build custom Linux for you, but we have cases where
the post build customization is required, like user-addition, network
configuration, service control. Even selecting the required packages
can be a post build activity.
The current model requires the image to be rebuilt to support these
configuration.
Offline Configuration tool (OCT), which allows a binary image
customization before making a final target image. This case will be
more evident in larger companies, where platform teams, product teams ,
application teams are distributed and Linux build from source will be
owned and lab tested by a single team, like platform team. Other teams
just configure to use it for product variants from same platform build.
Detailed use cases can be found in enhancement bug:3252
OCT should work on the binary pool of compiled packages generated
from poky.
The basic operations that can be supported includes
a) Select/deselect required packages from pool of binary packages
into final target image.
b) Provision to select external binary packages like ADT compiled
applications as input and add them to final target image.
c) Binary level Offline configuration can includes
Configure the users/passwords
Configure the network
Configure the host name
Select the services to be started by default
Security related configuration
Generate initrd in ramfs/ext3/... format
etc..
Considering the methods to support these in our current yocto model,
following changes can be done.
1) HOB can be the tool which can be extended to support these
Poky can generate a binary package pool as one if its output and
Hob can work on this package pool to select packages, configure and
generate image.
So HOB can support opening HOB in Binary(or OCT) mode i.e., without
build options but only with binary package selection. Configuration GUI
needs to be added to HOB.
Note:HOB+OCT is together or separate, needs a bit more thought and
overall organization as they will be intended for different users.
Is there some overlap between this point and the other ongoing
discussions
about image construction, deployment and package management ?
i.e. this thread:
[OE-core] RFC: OE-Core image creation and deployment
http://lists.linuxtogo.org/pipermail/openembedded-core/2012-
July/026938.html
These may already be coordinated, but I do see some common threads and
it would be nice to make sure everything will work together and that we
aren't duplicating effort!
Cheers,
Bruce
Bruce, Thanks for the information. After your reply, I have gone through the discussions and agree that binary pool is in similar lines. Great to see that the realization happening in yocto1.4.
Understood that package-feed can be used to generate the target image.
Is there any RFC/mail/wiki available explaining how the configuration(like fstype) during image generation will be realized?
I am looking for post build configuration tool, which allows the product team users also to configure users, network, services etc .
Image type, file system and Partition configuration can be one of them.
I expect the product team users who configures image and generates target image, will have a little or no knowledge of bitbake, also needs easy installation and less dependencies.
Can look in this context, how HOB will fit into this scenario or needs a new tool.
2) Binary package pool can be a minimal/partial sstate-cache, as
complete sstate-cache is quite big and not required for product teams
as they are not expected to build but just need to select and
configure.
I think it is sufficient to keep the minimal binaries from
sstate-cache which are required to execute image.bbclass, do_rootfs
task to generate image.
Point 2, No longer applicable as package-feed is a binary pool.
3) Along with specific configuration UI implementation, a generic
configuration model similar to kernel kconfig and menuconfig can be
considered, in cases where more detailed offline configurations is
required like detailed security configuration.
Point 3, still can be thought about.
Regards,
Ramana
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