Presentation On Openwrt

Introduction
Design
Developing with OpenWrt
Deploying OpenWrt
Becoming a developper
The OpenWrt embedded development framework

Florian Fainelli
[email protected]
Fosdem 2008
Brussels
Lenght : 1 hour
February 24, 2008
Florian Fainelli [email protected]
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Summary I
Introduction
What is OpenWrt
Challenges
Design
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
uClibc buildroot heritage
Key directories
Packages and external repositories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Summary II
Software architecture
System and package configuration
Creating packages
Package source download
Creating kernel modules packages
Adding support for a new target
Using quilt
Building an external kernel tree
Deploying OpenWrt
Supported root filesystems
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Summary III
The Image builder
The SDK
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Challenges
What is OpenWrt
Minimalistic Busybox/Linux distribution GPL licensed
Set of Makefiles and tools building an embedded rootfs
Packages and repositories
Hardware donators, package maintainers and kernel hackers

community
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Challenges
Challenges
Lots of different hardware platform can run Linux
Lots of binary drivers
Strong memory footprint constraints
Hardware configuration and maintenance abstraction
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
What is OpenWrt
OpenWrt is a set of Makefiles and sources that :
Builds the appropriate toolchain for your device
Compiles the appropriate kernel w/ patches and options
Provides software as IPKG packages
Builds the optionnal tools to flash your device
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
Getting OpenWrt
Subversion reposirotyr at
https://svn.openwrt.org/openwrt and Trac interface
trunk/ directory for development branch
kamikaze and whiterussian tags for stable versions
packages/ directory for non-kernel related packages
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
OpenWrt was created in late 2003, and used a modified uClibc

buildroot :
Needed to be hacked to have support for a package maintainer
Lots of Makefile writting to add support for a software
Could use more Makefile templating
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
Key directories
There are four key directories in the base:
tools
toolchain
package
target
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
OpenWrt uses IPKG as the package format and manager.
OpenWrt provides essential and kernel-related packages in

trunk/
Other packages are split into a different repository packages/

which subsections
Support for external repository can be done either in

/etc/ipkg.conf or in the feeds
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
Packages feeds
Package feeds allows you to provide your own set of packages :
Source feeds can be fetched using svn
They appear as packages while running make menuconfig
User can choose to build them directly into the rootfs or as

separate packages
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
Toolchain
Switch between binutils, gcc, kernel-headers versions and

uClibc tuples
Change compiler CFLAGS to tune/optimize size and features
Add custom patches to any of the above components
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
Software architecture
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
OpenWrt uses UCI :
Universal Configuration Interface
MIB-like structure (config.section.key=value)
Born from the lack of NVRAM on all supported hardware
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
UCI specificites
C library, easy to link with
program can interface with it to store their configuration
Config to MIB bridges to easily manage devices using SNMP
More configuration storage backends : LDAP, SQL
Web interface with integrated UCI support
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Key directories
Packages feeds
Toolchain
Toolchain
Add UCI configuration for your package
For instance adding a new configuration file is as simple as creating

a new file in /etc/config/package which should contain the
following lines:
config
option
<type> ["<name>"]
<name> "<value>"
# Section
# Option
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Creating packages
Using quilt
Creating packages
Typical package directory layout :
package/<name> /Makefile
package/<name> /patches
package/<name> /files
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Creating packages
Using quilt
Support for different download methods :
GIT
Subversion
CVS
HTTP
local source
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Creating packages
Using quilt
Example
For instance, if you wish to checkout a particular revision of a
package using Subversion, just define the following download
method in your package Makefile
PKG_VER:=963
PKG_BRANCH:=batman-adv-userspace
PKG_VERSION:=r\$(PKG\_REV)
PKG_SOURCE_PROTO:=svn
PKG_SOURCE_URL:=http://downloads.open-mesh.net/svn/batman/\
trunk/
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Creating packages
Using quilt
Extending the kernel/rootfs with modules is really easy within

OpenWrt :
Build-time update the kernel configuration based on your

kernel modules selection
External kernel modules are seen as packages, they use the

KernelPackage instead
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Creating packages
Using quilt
Adding support for a new kernel is made easy :
Create target/linux/<my target> directory
Define the kernel version you want to use
Add your additionnal patches in target/linux/<my

target>/ /patches
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Creating packages
Using quilt
Copying architecture files

You can also put your files in target/linux/<my
target>/ /files :
They will be copied at kernel build time
They should match the kernel directory structure

arch/mips/kernel/*
You can directly version C files that are part of your drivers,
architecture code ..
Only need to generate patches against Kconfig and Makefiles
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Creating packages
Using quilt
Using quilt
OpenWrt natively supports using quilt :
Refresh, create and update patches for any component
Test modifications with make

component/subcomponent/compile
Patches modifications are tracked with Subversion in your

local copy
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Creating packages
Using quilt
OpenWrt supports the building of an external kernel tree :
Test a git kernel tree with your board code
Use the OpenWrt toolchain to cross-compile for other

architectures
Test local modifications to a git subtree for later inclusion in

mainline
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt

The Image builder
The SDK
OpenWrt has currently support for :
JFFS2, SquashFS, Ext2/3, CPIO, TGZ
With LZMA, GZIP, BZIP2 compression (when applicable)
Binary firmware generation tools (Broadcom, ZyXEL,

Mikrotik ...)
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt

The Image builder
The SDK
The Image builder
Deployment tools
Contains compiled toolchain and kernel for your architecture
Add custom files / IPKG packages to include in the rootfs
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt

The Image builder
The SDK
The SDK
Contains the compiled toolchain
Useful for packages upgrading and live testing
Package maintainers tool
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Submit patches to the mainling-list

[email protected]
Do as much test and bugreport as you can
Port OpenWrt to a new device / architecture
Write documentation
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Promoting OpenWrt
Ideal firmware for Wireless communities, Wireless ISPs ..
Fastest embedded platform to port a new architecture on
Abstracted network and Wireless configuration for all

supported hardware
Introduction
Design
Deploying OpenWrt
Thank you very much
Thank you very much for your attention, question session is now
open.

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What is OpenWrt and what challenges does it address?

What is OpenWrt and what challenges does it address?

How does OpenWrt build firmware images?

How does OpenWrt build firmware images?

Introduction

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

February 24, 2008

Florian Fainelli [email protected]

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

Florian Fainelli [email protected]

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

Minimalistic Busybox/Linux distribution GPL licensed

Set of Makefiles and tools building an embedded rootfs

Packages and repositories

Hardware donators, package maintainers and kernel hackers

Florian Fainelli [email protected]

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

Lots of different hardware platform can run Linux

Lots of binary drivers

Strong memory footprint constraints

Hardware configuration and maintenance abstraction

Florian Fainelli [email protected]

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

OpenWrt is a set of Makefiles and sources that :

Builds the appropriate toolchain for your device

Compiles the appropriate kernel w/ patches and options

Provides software as IPKG packages

Builds the optionnal tools to flash your device

Florian Fainelli [email protected]

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

trunk/ directory for development branch

kamikaze and whiterussian tags for stable versions

packages/ directory for non-kernel related packages

Florian Fainelli [email protected]

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

uClibc buildroot heritage

OpenWrt was created in late 2003, and used a modified uClibc

Needed to be hacked to have support for a package maintainer

Lots of Makefile writting to add support for a software

Could use more Makefile templating

Florian Fainelli [email protected]

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

There are four key directories in the base:

Florian Fainelli [email protected]

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

Packages and external repositories

OpenWrt uses IPKG as the package format and manager.

OpenWrt provides essential and kernel-related packages in

Other packages are split into a different repository packages/

Support for external repository can be done either in

Florian Fainelli [email protected]

The OpenWrt embedded development framework

Package feeds allows you to provide your own set of packages :

Source feeds can be fetched using svn

They appear as packages while running make menuconfig

User can choose to build them directly into the rootfs or as