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] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Introduction
Design
Developing with OpenWrt
Deploying OpenWrt
Becoming a developper

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
Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework
 Introduction
Design
Developing with OpenWrt
Deploying OpenWrt
Becoming a developper

Summary II
Software architecture
System and package configuration
Developing with OpenWrt
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
Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework
 Introduction
Design
Developing with OpenWrt
Deploying OpenWrt
Becoming a developper

Summary III
The Image builder
The SDK

Becoming a developper

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Introduction
Design
What is OpenWrt
Developing with OpenWrt
Challenges
Deploying OpenWrt
Becoming a developper

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Introduction
Design
What is OpenWrt
Developing with OpenWrt
Challenges
Deploying OpenWrt
Becoming a developper

Challenges

◮ 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

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

uClibc buildroot heritage

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

Key directories

There are four key directories in the base:

◮ tools
◮ toolchain
◮ package
◮ target

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

Packages and external repositories

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

Software architecture

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

System and package configuration

OpenWrt uses UCI :

◮ Universal Configuration Interface
◮ MIB-like structure (config.section.key=value)
◮ Born from the lack of NVRAM on all supported hardware

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 What is OpenWrt
Getting OpenWrt
Introduction uClibc buildroot heritage
Design Key directories
Developing with OpenWrt Packages and external repositories
Deploying OpenWrt Packages feeds
Becoming a developper Toolchain
Toolchain
System and package configuration

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 <type> ["<name>"] # Section

option <name> "<value>" # Option

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Creating packages
Introduction
Package source download
Design
Creating kernel modules packages
Developing with OpenWrt
Adding support for a new target
Deploying OpenWrt
Using quilt
Becoming a developper
Building an external kernel tree

Creating packages

Typical package directory layout :

◮ package/<name> /Makefile
◮ package/<name> /patches
◮ package/<name> /files

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Creating packages
Introduction
Package source download
Design
Creating kernel modules packages
Developing with OpenWrt
Adding support for a new target
Deploying OpenWrt
Using quilt
Becoming a developper
Building an external kernel tree

Package source download

Support for different download methods :

◮ GIT
◮ Subversion
◮ CVS
◮ HTTP
◮ local source

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Creating packages
Introduction
Package source download
Design
Creating kernel modules packages
Developing with OpenWrt
Adding support for a new target
Deploying OpenWrt
Using quilt
Becoming a developper
Building an external kernel tree

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/

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Creating packages
Introduction
Package source download
Design
Creating kernel modules packages
Developing with OpenWrt
Adding support for a new target
Deploying OpenWrt
Using quilt
Becoming a developper
Building an external kernel tree

Creating kernel modules packages

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Creating packages
Introduction
Package source download
Design
Creating kernel modules packages
Developing with OpenWrt
Adding support for a new target
Deploying OpenWrt
Using quilt
Becoming a developper
Building an external kernel tree

Adding support for a new target

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Creating packages
Introduction
Package source download
Design
Creating kernel modules packages
Developing with OpenWrt
Adding support for a new target
Deploying OpenWrt
Using quilt
Becoming a developper
Building an external kernel tree

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Creating packages
Introduction
Package source download
Design
Creating kernel modules packages
Developing with OpenWrt
Adding support for a new target
Deploying OpenWrt
Using quilt
Becoming a developper
Building an external kernel tree

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Creating packages
Introduction
Package source download
Design
Creating kernel modules packages
Developing with OpenWrt
Adding support for a new target
Deploying OpenWrt
Using quilt
Becoming a developper
Building an external kernel tree

Building an external kernel tree

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Introduction
Design Supported root filesystems
Developing with OpenWrt The Image builder
Deploying OpenWrt The SDK
Becoming a developper

Supported root filesystems

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 ...)

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Introduction
Design Supported root filesystems
Developing with OpenWrt The Image builder
Deploying OpenWrt The SDK
Becoming a developper

The Image builder

◮ Deployment tools
◮ Contains compiled toolchain and kernel for your architecture
◮ Add custom files / IPKG packages to include in the rootfs

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Introduction
Design Supported root filesystems
Developing with OpenWrt The Image builder
Deploying OpenWrt The SDK
Becoming a developper

The SDK

◮ Contains the compiled toolchain

◮ Useful for packages upgrading and live testing
◮ Package maintainers tool

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Introduction
Design
Developing with OpenWrt
Deploying OpenWrt
Becoming a developper

Becoming a developper

◮ 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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Introduction
Design
Developing with OpenWrt
Deploying OpenWrt
Becoming a developper

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

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework

 Introduction
Design
Developing with OpenWrt
Deploying OpenWrt
Becoming a developper

Thank you very much

Thank you very much for your attention, question session is now
open.

Florian Fainelli [email protected] The OpenWrt embedded development framework