This chapter describes standard tasks such as adding new software packages, extending or customizing images or porting the Yocto Project to new hardware (adding a new machine). The chapter also describes ways to modify package source code, combine multiple versions of library files into a single image, and handle a package name alias. Finally, the chapter contains advice about how to make changes to the Yocto Project to achieve the best results.

To add a package into the Yocto Project you need to write a recipe for it. Writing a recipe means creating a .bb file that sets some variables. For information on variables that are useful for recipes and for information about recipe naming issues, see the Required section for recipe variables. Before writing a recipe from scratch, it is often useful to check whether someone else has written one already. OpenEmbedded is a good place to look as it has a wider scope and range of packages. Because the Yocto Project aims to be compatible with OpenEmbedded, most recipes you find there should work in Yocto Project. For new packages, the simplest way to add a recipe is to base it on a similar pre-existing recipe. The sections that follow provide some examples that show how to add standard types of packages.

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. DESCRIPTION = "Simple helloworld application" SECTION = "examples" LICENSE = "MIT" LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://${COMMON_LICENSE_DIR}/MIT;md5=0835ade698e0bcf8506ecda2f7b4f302" PR = "r0" SRC_URI = "file://helloworld.c" S = "${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.

Applications that use Autotools such as autoconf and automake require a recipe that has a source archive listed in SRC_URI and also inherits Autotools, which instructs BitBake to use the autotools.bbclass file, 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) DESCRIPTION = "GNU Helloworld application" SECTION = "examples" LICENSE = "GPLv2+" LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://COPYING;md5=751419260aa954499f7abaabaa882bbe" PR = "r0" 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 Track License Change section. You can quickly create Autotool-based recipes in a manner similar to the previous example.

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 variable. BitBake passes these options into the make GNU 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 ${S}/include " In the following example, mtd-utils is a makefile-based package: DESCRIPTION = "Tools for managing memory technology devices." SECTION = "base" DEPENDS = "zlib lzo e2fsprogs util-linux" HOMEPAGE = "http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/" LICENSE = "GPLv2" LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://COPYING;md5=0636e73ff0215e8d672dc4c32c317bb3 \ file://include/common.h;beginline=1;endline=17;md5=ba05b07912a44ea2bf81ce409380049c" SRC_URI = "git://git.infradead.org/mtd-utils.git;protocol=git;tag=v${PV}" S = "${WORKDIR}/git/" EXTRA_OEMAKE = "'CC=${CC}' 'CFLAGS=${CFLAGS} -I${S}/include -DWITHOUT_XATTR' \ 'BUILDDIR=${S}'" do_install () { oe_runmake install DESTDIR=${D} SBINDIR=${sbindir} MANDIR=${mandir} \ INCLUDEDIR=${includedir} install -d ${D}${includedir}/mtd/ for f in ${S}/include/mtd/*.h; do install -m 0644 $f ${D}${includedir}/mtd/ done }

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 DESCRIPTION = "X11 Pixmap library" LICENSE = "X-BSD" LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://COPYING;md5=3e07763d16963c3af12db271a31abaa5" DEPENDS += "libxext libsm libxt" PR = "r3" 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.

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 contains ${PN}-staticdev, which includes all static library files. Previously released versions of the Yocto Project defined the static library files through ${PN}-dev. Following, is part of the BitBake configuration file. You can see where the static library files are defined: PACKAGES = "${PN}-dbg ${PN} ${PN}-doc ${PN}-dev ${PN}-staticdev ${PN}-locale" PACKAGES_DYNAMIC = "${PN}-locale-*" FILES = "" FILES_${PN} = "${bindir}/* ${sbindir}/* ${libexecdir}/* ${libdir}/lib*${SOLIBS} \ ${sysconfdir} ${sharedstatedir} ${localstatedir} \ ${base_bindir}/* ${base_sbindir}/* \ ${base_libdir}/*${SOLIBS} \ ${datadir}/${BPN} ${libdir}/${BPN}/* \ ${datadir}/pixmaps ${datadir}/applications \ ${datadir}/idl ${datadir}/omf ${datadir}/sounds \ ${libdir}/bonobo/servers" FILES_${PN}-doc = "${docdir} ${mandir} ${infodir} ${datadir}/gtk-doc \ ${datadir}/gnome/help" SECTION_${PN}-doc = "doc" FILES_${PN}-dev = "${includedir} ${libdir}/lib*${SOLIBSDEV} ${libdir}/*.la \ ${libdir}/*.o ${libdir}/pkgconfig ${datadir}/pkgconfig \ ${datadir}/aclocal ${base_libdir}/*.o" SECTION_${PN}-dev = "devel" ALLOW_EMPTY_${PN}-dev = "1" RDEPENDS_${PN}-dev = "${PN} (= ${EXTENDPKGV})" FILES_${PN}-staticdev = "${libdir}/*.a ${base_libdir}/*.a" SECTION_${PN}-staticdev = "devel" RDEPENDS_${PN}-staticdev = "${PN}-dev (= ${EXTENDPKGV})"

To add a post-installation script to a package, add a pkg_postinst_PACKAGENAME() function to the .bb file and use PACKAGENAME as the name of the package you want to attach to the postinst script. Normally PN can be used, which automatically expands to PACKAGENAME. A post-installation function has the following structure: pkg_postinst_PACKAGENAME () { #!/bin/sh -e # 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. 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 () { #!/bin/sh -e 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 D variable 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.

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

One way to get additional software into an image is to create a custom image. The following example shows the form for the two lines you need: IMAGE_INSTALL = "task-core-x11-base package1 package2" inherit core-image By creating a custom image, a developer has 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. eglibc-dev instead of libc6-dev). The other method for creating a custom image is to modify an existing image. For example, if a developer wants to add strace into the core-image-sato image, they can use the following recipe: require core-image-sato.bb IMAGE_INSTALL += "strace"

For complex custom images, the best approach is to create a custom task package that is used to build the image or images. A good example of a tasks package is meta/recipes-sato/tasks/task-poky.bb. The PACKAGES variable lists the task packages to build along with the complementary -dbg and -dev packages. For each package added, you can use RDEPENDS and RRECOMMENDS entries to provide a list of packages the parent task package should contain. Following is an example: DESCRIPTION = "My Custom Tasks" PACKAGES = "\ task-custom-apps \ task-custom-apps-dbg \ task-custom-apps-dev \ task-custom-tools \ task-custom-tools-dbg \ task-custom-tools-dev \ " RDEPENDS_task-custom-apps = "\ dropbear \ portmap \ psplash" RDEPENDS_task-custom-tools = "\ oprofile \ oprofileui-server \ lttng-control \ lttng-viewer" RRECOMMENDS_task-custom-tools = "\ kernel-module-oprofile" In the previous example, two task packages are created with their dependencies and their recommended package dependencies listed: task-custom-apps, and task-custom-tools. To build an image using these task packages, you need to add task-custom-apps and/or task-custom-tools to IMAGE_INSTALL. For other forms of image dependencies see the other areas of this section.

Ultimately users might want to add extra image features to the set used by Yocto Project with the IMAGE_FEATURES variable. To create these features, the best reference is meta/classes/core-image.bbclass, which shows how the Yocto Project achieves this. In summary, the file looks at the contents of the IMAGE_FEATURES variable and then maps that into a set of tasks or packages. Based on this information the IMAGE_INSTALL variable is generated automatically. Users can add extra features by extending the class or creating a custom class for use with specialized image .bb files. You can also add more features by configuring the EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES variable in the local.conf file found in the Yocto Project files located in the build directory. The Yocto Project ships with two SSH servers you can use in 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-basic and core-image-lsb images both include OpenSSH. To change these defaults, edit the IMAGE_FEATURES variable so that it sets the image you are working with to include ssh-server-dropbear or ssh-server-openssh.

It is possible to customize image contents by using variables used by distribution maintainers in the local.conf found in the Yocto Project build directory. This method only allows the addition of packages and is not recommended. For example, to add the strace package into the image, you would add this package to the local.conf file: DISTRO_EXTRA_RDEPENDS += "strace" However, since the DISTRO_EXTRA_RDEPENDS variable is for distribution maintainers, adding packages using this method is not as simple as adding them using a custom .bb file. Using the local.conf file method could result in some packages needing to be recreated. For example, if packages were previously created and the image was rebuilt, then the packages would need to be recreated. Cleaning task-* packages are required because they use the DISTRO_EXTRA_RDEPENDS variable. You do not have to build them by hand because Yocto Project images depend on the packages they contain. This means dependencies are automatically built when the image builds. For this reason we do not use the rebuild task. In this case the rebuild task does not care about dependencies - it only rebuilds the specified package. $ bitbake -c clean task-boot task-base task-poky $ bitbake core-image-sato

Adding a new machine to the Yocto Project is a straightforward process. This section provides information that gives you an idea of the changes you must make. The information covers adding machines similar to those the Yocto Project already supports. Although well within the capabilities of the Yocto Project, adding a totally new architecture might require changes to gcc/eglibc 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 to the Yocto Project, see the BSP Development Example in Appendix A of The Yocto Project Development Manual.

To add a machine configuration you need to add a .conf file with details of the device being added to the conf/machine/ file. The name of the file determines the name the Yocto Project uses to reference the new machine. The most important variables to set in this file are as follows: TARGET_ARCH (e.g. "arm") PREFERRED_PROVIDER_virtual/kernel (see below) MACHINE_FEATURES (e.g. "kernel26 apm screen wifi") You might also need these variables: SERIAL_CONSOLE (e.g. "115200 ttyS0") KERNEL_IMAGETYPE (e.g. "zImage") IMAGE_FSTYPES (e.g. "tar.gz jffs2") You can find full details on these variables in the reference section. You can leverage many existing machine .conf files from meta/conf/machine/.

The Yocto Project 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 recipe. You can find several kernel examples in the Yocto Project file's meta/recipes-kernel/linux directory that you can use as references. If you are creating a new 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 configure task that configures the unpacked kernel with a defconfig. You can do this by using a make defconfig command or, more commonly, by copying in a suitable defconfig file and 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 the defaults of the class normally work well. If you are extending an existing kernel, 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. 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)'

A formfactor configuration file provides information about the target hardware for which the Yocto Project is building and information that the Yocto Project 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 Yocto Project uses reasonable defaults in most cases, but if customization is necessary you need to create a machconfig file in the Yocto Project file's 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: 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

Although the Yocto Project is usually used to build software, you can use it to modify software. During a build, source is available in the WORKDIR directory. The actual location depends on the type of package and the architecture of the target device. For a standard recipe not related to MACHINE, the location is tmp/work/PACKAGE_ARCH-poky-TARGET_OS/PN-PV-PR/. For target device-dependent packages, you should use the MACHINE variable instead of PACKAGE_ARCH in the directory name. Be sure the package recipe sets the S variable to something other than the standard WORKDIR/PN-PV/ value. After building a package, you can modify the package source code without problems. The easiest way to test your changes is by calling the compile task as shown in the following example: $ bitbake -c compile -f NAME_OF_PACKAGE The -f or --force option forces re-execution of the specified task. You can call other tasks this way as well. But note that all the modifications in WORKDIR are gone once you execute -c clean for a package.

By default Poky uses Quilt to manage patches in the do_patch task. This is a powerful tool that you can use to track all modifications to package sources. Before modifying source code, it is important to notify Quilt so it can track the changes into the new patch file: $ quilt new NAME-OF-PATCH.patch After notifying Quilt, add all modified files into that patch: $ quilt add file1 file2 file3 You can now start editing. Once you are done editing, you need to use Quilt to generate the final patch that will contain all your modifications. $ quilt refresh You can find the resulting patch file in the patches/ subdirectory of the source (S) directory. For future builds, you should copy the patch into the Yocto Project metadata and add it into the SRC_URI of a recipe. Here is an example: SRC_URI += "file://NAME-OF-PATCH.patch" Finally, don't forget to 'bump' the PR value in the same recipe since the resulting packages have changed.

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 use 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 other different sets of libraries. The libraries could differ in architecture, compiler options, or other optimizations. This section overviews the Multilib process only. For more details on how to implement Multilib, see the Multilib wiki page.

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 Yocto Project files directory to see how this is done using the BBCLASSEXTEND variable. Eventually, all recipes will be covered and this list will be unneeded. 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.

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 Yocto Project build directory. An example configuration would be as follows: MACHINE = "qemux86-64" require conf/multilib.conf MULTILIBS = "multilib:lib32" DEFAULTTUNE_virtclass-multilib-lib32 = "x86" MULTILIB_IMAGE_INSTALL = "lib32-connman" 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-connman 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-connman

Different packaging systems have different levels of native Multilib support. 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 Yocto Project 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.

Sometimes a package name you are using might exist under an alias or as a similarly named package in a different distribution. The Yocto Project implements a distro_check task that automatically connects to major distributions and checks for these situations. If the package exists under a different name in a different distribution, you get a distro_check mismatch. You can resolve this problem by defining a per-distro recipe name alias using the DISTRO_PN_ALIAS variable. Following is an example that shows how you specify the DISTRO_PN_ALIAS variable: DISTRO_PN_ALIAS_pn-PACKAGENAME = "distro1=package_name_alias1 \ distro2=package_name_alias2 \ distro3=package_name_alias3 \ ..." If you have more than one distribution alias, separate them with a space. Note that the Yocto Project currently automatically checks the Fedora, OpenSuSE, Debian, Ubuntu, and Mandriva distributions for source package recipes without having to specify them using the DISTRO_PN_ALIAS variable. For example, the following command generates a report that lists the Linux distributions that include the sources for each of the Yocto Project recipes. $ bitbake world -f -c distro_check The results are stored in the build/tmp/log/distro_check-${DATETIME}.results file found in the Yocto Project files area.

Because the Yocto Project is extremely configurable and flexible, we recognize that developers will want to extend, configure or optimize it for their specific uses. To best keep pace with future Yocto Project changes, we recommend you make controlled changes to the Yocto Project. The Yocto Project supports a "layers" concept. If you use layers properly, you can ease future upgrades and allow segregation between the Yocto Project core and a given developer's changes. The following section provides more advice on managing changes to the Yocto Project.

Often, developers want to extend the Yocto Project either by adding packages or by overriding files contained within the Yocto Project to add their own functionality. BitBake has a powerful mechanism called "layers", which provides a way to handle this extension in a fully supported and non-invasive fashion. The Yocto Project files include several additional layers such as meta-rt and meta-yocto that demonstrate this functionality. The meta-rt layer is not enabled by default. However, the meta-yocto layer is. To enable a layer, you simply add the layer's path to the BBLAYERS variable in your bblayers.conf file, which is found in the Yocto Project file's build directory. The following example shows how to enable the meta-rt: LCONF_VERSION = "1" BBFILES ?= "" BBLAYERS = " \ /path/to/poky/meta \ /path/to/poky/meta-yocto \ /path/to/poky/meta-rt \ " BitBake parses each conf/layer.conf file for each layer in BBLAYERS and adds the recipes, classes and configurations contained within the layer to the Yocto Project. To create your own layer, independent of the Yocto Project files, simply create a directory with a conf/layer.conf file and add the directory to your bblayers.conf file. The meta-yocto/conf/layer.conf file demonstrates the required syntax: # We have a conf and classes directory, add to BBPATH BBPATH := "${BBPATH}:${LAYERDIR}" # We have a packages directory, add to BBFILES BBFILES := "${BBFILES} ${LAYERDIR}/recipes-*/*/*.bb \ ${LAYERDIR}/recipes-*/*/*.bbappend" BBFILE_COLLECTIONS += "yocto" BBFILE_PATTERN_yocto := "^${LAYERDIR}/" BBFILE_PRIORITY_yocto = "5" In the previous example, the recipes for the layers are added to BBFILES. The BBFILE_COLLECTIONS variable is then appended with the layer name. The BBFILE_PATTERN variable immediately expands with a regular expression used to match files from BBFILES into a particular layer, in this case by using the base pathname. The BBFILE_PRIORITY variable then assigns different priorities to the files in different layers. Applying priorities is useful in situations where the same package might appear in multiple layers and allows you to choose what layer should take precedence. Note the use of the LAYERDIR variable with the immediate expansion operator. The LAYERDIR variable expands to the directory of the current layer and requires the immediate expansion operator so that BitBake does not wait to expand the variable when it's parsing a different directory. BitBake can locate where other .bbclass and configuration files are applied through the BBPATH environment variable. For these cases, BitBake uses the first file with the matching name found in BBPATH. This is similar to the way the PATH variable is used for binaries. We recommend, therefore, that you use unique .bbclass and configuration file names in your custom layer. We also recommend the following: Store custom layers in a Git repository that uses the meta-prvt-XXXX format. Clone the repository alongside other meta directories in the Yocto Project source files area. Following these recommendations keeps your Yocto Project files area and its configuration entirely inside the Yocto Project's core base.

Modifications to the Yocto Project are often managed under some kind of source revision control system. Because some simple practices can significantly improve usability, policy for committing changes is important. It helps to use a consistent documentation style when committing changes. The Yocto Project development team has found the following practices work well: The first line of the commit summarizes the change and begins with the name of the affected package or packages. However, not all changes apply to specific packages. Consequently, the prefix could also be a machine name or class name. The second part of the commit (if needed) is a longer more detailed description of the changes. Placing a blank line between the first and second parts helps with readability. Following is an example commit: bitbake/data.py: Add emit_func() and generate_dependencies() functions These functions allow generation of dependency data between functions and variables allowing moves to be made towards generating checksums and allowing use of the dependency information in other parts of BitBake. Signed-off-by: Richard Purdie richard.purdie@linuxfoundation.org All commits should be self-contained such that they leave the metadata in a consistent state that builds both before and after the commit is made. Besides being a good practice to follow, it helps ensure autobuilder test results are valid.

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. This means that for new recipes you must be sure to add the PR variable and set its initial value equal to "r0". Failing to define PR makes it easy to miss when you bump a package. Note that you can only use integer values following the "r" in the PR variable. 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 "$(INC_PR).0" initially, incrementing the last number when the recipe is changed. If the .inc file is changed then its INC_PR should be incremented. When upgrading the version of a package, assuming the PV changes, the PR variable should be reset to "r0" (or "$(INC_PR).0" if you are using INC_PR). Usually, version increases occur only to 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". Version numbering strives to follow the Debian Version Field Policy Guidelines. These guidelines define how versions are compared and what "increasing" a version means. There are two reasons for following the previously mentioned guidelines. First, to ensure that when a developer updates and rebuilds, they get all the changes to the repository and do not have to remember to rebuild any sections. Second, to ensure that target users are able to upgrade their devices using package manager commands such as opkg upgrade (or similar commands for dpkg/apt or rpm-based systems). The goal is to ensure the Yocto Project has packages that can be upgraded in all cases.

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. The specifics of any situation determine the best solution. Granted that the Yocto Project offers immense flexibility regarding this, practices do exist that experience has shown work well. The core component of any development effort with the Yocto Project is often an automated build and testing framework along with an image generation process. You can use these core components to check that the metadata can be built, highlight when commits break the build, and provide up-to-date images that allow developers to test the end result and use it as a base platform for further development. Experience shows that buildbot is a good fit for this role. What works well is to configure buildbot to make two types of builds: incremental and full (from scratch). See the buildbot for the Yocto Project for an example implementation that uses buildbot. You can tie incremental builds to a commit hook that triggers the build each time a commit is made to the metadata. This practice results in useful acid tests that determine whether a given commit breaks the build in some serious way. Associating a build to a commit can catch a lot of simple errors. Furthermore, the tests are fast so developers can get quick feedback on changes. Full builds build and test everything from the ground up. These types of builds usually happen at predetermined times like during the night when the machine load is low. Most teams have many pieces of software undergoing active development at any given time. You can derive large benefits by putting these pieces under the control of a source control system that is compatible with the Yocto Project (i.e. Git or Subversion (SVN). You can then set the autobuilder to pull the latest revisions of the packages and test the latest commits by the builds. This practice quickly highlights issues. The Yocto Project easily supports testing configurations that use both a stable known good revision and a floating revision. The Yocto Project can also take just the changes from specific source control branches. This capability allows you to track and test specific changes. Perhaps the hardest part of setting this up is defining the software project or the Yocto Project metadata policies that surround the different source control systems. Of course circumstances will be different in each case. However, this situation reveals one of the Yocto Project's advantages - the system itself does not force any particular policy on users, unlike a lot of build systems. The system allows the best policies to be chosen for the given circumstances.

Often, rather than re-flashing a new image, you might wish to install updated packages into an existing running system. You can do this by first sharing the tmp/deploy/ipk/ directory through a web server and then by changing /etc/opkg/base-feeds.conf to point at the shared server. Following is an example: $ src/gz all http://www.mysite.com/somedir/deploy/ipk/all $ src/gz armv7a http://www.mysite.com/somedir/deploy/ipk/armv7a $ src/gz beagleboard http://www.mysite.com/somedir/deploy/ipk/beagleboard