path: root/handbook/extendpoky.xml

<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">

<chapter id='extendpoky'>

<title>Extending Poky</title>

    <para>
        This section gives information about how to extend the functionality
        already present in Poky, documenting standard tasks such as adding new
        software packages, extending or customising images or porting poky to
        new hardware (adding a new machine). It also contains advice about how
        to manage the process of making changes to Poky to achieve best results.
    </para>

    <section id='usingpoky-extend-addpkg'>
        <title>Adding a Package</title>

        <para>
            To add package into Poky you need to write a recipe for it. 
            Writing a recipe means creating a .bb file which sets various
            variables. The variables
            useful for recipes are detailed in the <link linkend='ref-varlocality-recipe-required'>
                recipe reference</link> section along with more detailed information 
            about issues such as recipe naming.
        </para>

        <para>
            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 hence a wider range of packages.
            Poky aims to be compatible with OpenEmbedded so most recipes should
            just work in Poky.
        </para>

        <para>
            For new packages, the simplest way to add a recipe is to base it on a similar
            pre-existing recipe. There are some examples below of how to add 
            standard types of packages:
        </para>

        <section id='usingpoky-extend-addpkg-singlec'>
            <title>Single .c File Package (Hello World!)</title>

            <para>
                To build an application from a single file stored locally (e.g. under "files/")
                requires a recipe which has the file listed in the <glossterm><link
                linkend='var-SRC_URI'>SRC_URI</link></glossterm> variable. In addition 
                the <function>do_compile</function> and <function>do_install</function> 
                tasks need to be manually written. The <glossterm><link linkend='var-S'>
                S</link></glossterm> variable defines the directory containing the source 
                code which in this case is set equal to <glossterm><link linkend='var-WORKDIR'>
                WORKDIR</link></glossterm>, the directory BitBake uses for the build.
            </para>
            <programlisting>
DESCRIPTION = "Simple helloworld application"
SECTION = "examples"
LICENSE = "MIT"
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}
}
            </programlisting>

            <para>
                As a result of the build process "helloworld", "helloworld-dbg" and "hellworld-dev"
                packages will be built by default. It is possible to<link linkend='usingpoky-extend-addpkg-files'>
                customise the packaging process</link>.
            </para>
        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-extend-addpkg-autotools'>
            <title>Autotooled Package</title>

            <para>
                Applications which use autotools (autoconf, automake)
                require a recipe which has a source archive listed in 
                <glossterm><link
                        linkend='var-SRC_URI'>SRC_URI</link></glossterm> and 
                <command>inherit autotools</command> to instruct BitBake to use the
                <filename>autotools.bbclass</filename> which has 
                definitions of all the steps
                needed to build an autotooled application.
                The result of the build will be automatically packaged and if
                the application uses NLS to localise then packages with
                locale information will be generated (one package per
                language). Below is one example (hello_2.2.bb)
            </para>

            <programlisting>
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
            </programlisting>

            <para>
            <glossterm><link linkend='var-LIC_FILES_CHKSUM'>LIC_FILES_CHKSUM</link>
            </glossterm> is used to <link linkend='usingpoky-configuring-LIC_FILES_CHKSUM'>
                track source license change</link>. Autotool based recipe can be quickly
            created this way like above example.
            </para>

        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-extend-addpkg-makefile'>
            <title>Makefile-Based Package</title>

            <para>
                Applications which use GNU make require a recipe which has
                the source archive listed in <glossterm><link
                        linkend='var-SRC_URI'>SRC_URI</link></glossterm>. 
                Adding a <function>do_compile</function> step
                is not needed as by default BitBake will start the "make"
                command to compile the application. If there is a need for
                additional options to make then they should be stored in the
                <glossterm><link
                        linkend='var-EXTRA_OEMAKE'>EXTRA_OEMAKE</link></glossterm> variable - BitBake 
                will pass them into the GNU
                make invocation. A <function>do_install</function> task is required
                - otherwise BitBake will run an empty <function>do_install</function> 
                task by default. 
            </para>

            <para>
                Some applications may require extra parameters to be passed to
                the compiler, for example an additional header path. This can
                be done buy adding to the <glossterm><link
                        linkend='var-CFLAGS'>CFLAGS</link></glossterm> variable, as in the example below:
            </para>

            <programlisting>
CFLAGS_prepend = "-I ${S}/include "
            </programlisting>

            <para>
            mtd-utils is an example as Makefile-based:
            </para>

            <programlisting>
DESCRIPTION = "Tools for managing memory technology devices."
SECTION = "base"
DEPENDS = "zlib lzo e2fsprogs util-linux"
HOMEPAGE = "http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/"
LICENSE = "GPLv2"

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
}
            </programlisting>

        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-extend-addpkg-files'>
            <title>Controlling packages content</title>

            <para>                        
                The variables <glossterm><link
                        linkend='var-PACKAGES'>PACKAGES</link></glossterm> and 
                <glossterm><link linkend='var-FILES'>FILES</link></glossterm> are used to split an
                application into multiple packages.
            </para>

            <para>
                Below the "libXpm" recipe (libxpm_3.5.7.bb) is used as an example. By
                default the "libXpm" recipe generates one package 
                which contains the library
                and also a few binaries. The recipe can be adapted to 
                split the binaries into separate packages.
            </para>

            <programlisting>
require xorg-lib-common.inc

DESCRIPTION = "X11 Pixmap library"
LICENSE = "X-BSD"
DEPENDS += "libxext libsm libxt"
PR = "r3"
PE = "1"

XORG_PN = "libXpm"

PACKAGES =+ "sxpm cxpm"
FILES_cxpm = "${bindir}/cxpm"
FILES_sxpm = "${bindir}/sxpm"
            </programlisting>

            <para>
                In this example we want to ship the "sxpm" and "cxpm" binaries 
                in separate packages. Since "bindir" would be packaged into the 
                main <glossterm><link linkend='var-PN'>PN</link></glossterm> 
                package as standard we prepend the <glossterm><link
                linkend='var-PACKAGES'>PACKAGES</link></glossterm> variable so
                additional package names are added to the start of list. The 
                extra <glossterm><link linkend='var-FILES'>FILES</link></glossterm>_*
                variables then contain information to specify which files and
                directories goes into which package. Files included by earlier
                package are skipped by latter packages, and thus main <glossterm>
                <link linkend='var-PN'>PN</link></glossterm> will not include 
                above listed files
            </para>
        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-extend-addpkg-postinstalls'>
            <title>Post Install Scripts</title>

            <para>
                To add a post-installation script to a package, add
                a <function>pkg_postinst_PACKAGENAME()</function> 
                function to the .bb file
                where PACKAGENAME is the name of the package to attach
                the postinst script to. Normally <glossterm><link
                linkend='var-PN'>PN</link></glossterm> can be used which expands
                to PACKAGENAME automatically. A post-installation function has the 
                following structure:
            </para>
            <programlisting>
pkg_postinst_PACKAGENAME () {
#!/bin/sh -e
# Commands to carry out
}
            </programlisting>
            <para>
                The script defined in the post installation function
                gets called when the rootfs is made. If the script succeeds,
                the package is marked as installed. If the script fails,
                the package is marked as unpacked and the script will be
                executed again on the first boot of the image.
            </para>

            <para>
                Sometimes it is necessary that the execution of a post-installation
                script is delayed until the first boot, because the script 
                needs to be executed on the device itself.  To delay script execution
                until boot time, the post-installation function should have the
                following structure:
            </para>
            
            <programlisting>
pkg_postinst_PACKAGENAME () {
#!/bin/sh -e
if [ x"$D" = "x" ]; then
	# Actions to carry out on the device go here
else
	exit 1
fi
}
            </programlisting>
            
            <para>
                The structure above delays execution until first boot 
                because the <glossterm><link
                        linkend='var-D'>D</link></glossterm> variable points
                to the 'image'
                directory when the rootfs is being made at build time but
                is unset when executed on the first boot. 
            </para>
        </section>

    </section>

    <section id='usingpoky-extend-customimage'>
        <title>Customising Images</title>

        <para>
        Poky images can be customised to satisfy 
        particular requirements. Several methods are detailed below 
        along with guidelines of when to use them.
        </para>

        <section id='usingpoky-extend-customimage-custombb'>
            <title>Customising Images through a custom image .bb files</title>

            <para>
                One way to get additional software into an image is by creating a
                custom image. The recipe will contain two lines:
            </para>

            <programlisting>
IMAGE_INSTALL = "task-poky-x11-base package1 package2"

inherit poky-image
            </programlisting>

            <para>
                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 <glossterm><link
                linkend='var-IMAGE_INSTALL'>IMAGE_INSTALL</link></glossterm> variable. 
                The names must be in 
                the OpenEmbedded notation instead of Debian notation, for example
                "glibc-dev" instead of "libc6-dev" etc.
            </para>

            <para>
                The other method of creating a new image is by modifying
                an existing image. For example if a developer wants to add
                "strace" into "poky-image-sato" the following recipe can
                be used:
            </para>

            <programlisting>
require poky-image-sato.bb

IMAGE_INSTALL += "strace"
            </programlisting>

        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-extend-customimage-customtasks'>
            <title>Customising Images through custom tasks</title>

            <para>
                For complex custom images, the best approach is to create a custom 
                task package which is then used to build the image (or images). A good
                example of a tasks package is <filename>meta/packages/tasks/task-poky.bb
                </filename>. The <glossterm><link linkend='var-PACKAGES'>PACKAGES</link></glossterm> 
                variable lists the task packages to build (along with the complementary
                -dbg and -dev packages). For each package added,
                <glossterm><link linkend='var-PACKAGES'>RDEPENDS</link></glossterm> and
                <glossterm><link linkend='var-PACKAGES'>RRECOMMENDS</link></glossterm> 
                entries can then be added each containing a list of packages the parent 
                task package should contain. An example would be:
            </para>

            <para>
            <programlisting>
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"
</programlisting>
            </para>

            <para>
                In this example, two task packages are created, task-custom-apps and 
                task-custom-tools with the dependencies and recommended package dependencies 
                listed. To build an image using these task packages, you would then add 
                "task-custom-apps" and/or "task-custom-tools" to <glossterm><link 
                linkend='var-IMAGE_INSTALL'>IMAGE_INSTALL</link></glossterm> or other forms 
                of image dependencies as described in other areas of this section.
            </para>
        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-extend-customimage-imagefeatures'>
            <title>Customising Images through custom <glossterm><link linkend='var-IMAGE_FEATURES'>IMAGE_FEATURES</link></glossterm></title>

            <para>
                Ultimately users may want to add extra image "features" as used by Poky with the 
                <glossterm><link linkend='var-IMAGE_FEATURES'>IMAGE_FEATURES</link></glossterm>
                variable. To create these, the best reference is <filename>meta/classes/poky-image.bbclass</filename>
                which illustrates how poky achieves this. In summary, the file looks at the contents of the 
                <glossterm><link linkend='var-IMAGE_FEATURES'>IMAGE_FEATURES</link></glossterm>
                variable and then maps this into a set of tasks or packages. Based on this then the 
                <glossterm><link linkend='var-IMAGE_INSTALL'> IMAGE_INSTALL</link></glossterm> 
                variable is generated automatically. Extra features can be added by 
                extending the class or creating a custom class for use with specialised image .bb files.
            </para>
        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-extend-customimage-localconf'>
            <title>Customising Images through local.conf</title>

            <para>
                It is possible to customise image contents by abusing
                variables used by distribution maintainers in local.conf.
                This method only allows the addition of packages and 
                is not recommended.
            </para>

            <para>
                To add an "strace" package into the image the following is 
                added to local.conf:
            </para>

            <programlisting>
DISTRO_EXTRA_RDEPENDS += "strace"
            </programlisting>

            <para>
                However, since the <glossterm><link linkend='var-DISTRO_EXTRA_RDEPENDS'>
                DISTRO_EXTRA_RDEPENDS</link></glossterm> variable is for
                distribution maintainers this method does not make
                adding packages as simple as a custom .bb file. Using
                this method, a few packages will need to be recreated if they have been
                created before and then the image is rebuilt.
            </para>
            <programlisting>
bitbake -c clean task-boot task-base task-poky
bitbake poky-image-sato
            </programlisting>

            <para>
                Cleaning task-* packages is required because they use the
                <glossterm><link linkend='var-DISTRO_EXTRA_RDEPENDS'>
                DISTRO_EXTRA_RDEPENDS</link></glossterm> variable. There is no need to
                build them by hand as Poky images depend on the packages they contain so
                dependencies will be built automatically when building the image. For this reason we don't use the
                "rebuild" task in this case since "rebuild" does not care about
                dependencies - it only rebuilds the specified package.
            </para>

        </section>

    </section>

<section id="platdev-newmachine">
    <title>Porting Poky to a new machine</title>
    <para>
        Adding a new machine to Poky is a straightforward process and
        this section gives an idea of the changes that are needed. This guide is
        meant to cover adding machines similar to those Poky already supports. 
        Adding a totally new architecture might require gcc/glibc changes as 
        well as updates to the site information and, whilst well within Poky's 
        capabilities, is outside the scope of this section.
    </para>

    <section id="platdev-newmachine-conffile">
        <title>Adding the machine configuration file</title>
        <para>
            A .conf file needs to be added to conf/machine/ with details of the
            device being added. The name of the file determines the name Poky will
            use to reference this machine.
        </para>

        <para>
            The most important variables to set in this file are <glossterm>
            <link linkend='var-TARGET_ARCH'>TARGET_ARCH</link></glossterm> 
            (e.g. "arm"), <glossterm><link linkend='var-PREFERRED_PROVIDER'>
            PREFERRED_PROVIDER</link></glossterm>_virtual/kernel (see below) and 
            <glossterm><link linkend='var-MACHINE_FEATURES'>MACHINE_FEATURES
            </link></glossterm> (e.g. "kernel26 apm screen wifi"). Other variables
            like <glossterm><link linkend='var-SERIAL_CONSOLE'>SERIAL_CONSOLE
            </link></glossterm> (e.g. "115200 ttyS0"), <glossterm> 
            <link linkend='var-KERNEL_IMAGETYPE'>KERNEL_IMAGETYPE</link>
            </glossterm> (e.g. "zImage") and <glossterm><link linkend='var-IMAGE_FSTYPES'>
            IMAGE_FSTYPES</link></glossterm> (e.g. "tar.gz jffs2") might also be 
            needed. Full details on what these variables do and the meaning of
            their contents is available through the links. There're lots of existing
            machine .conf files which can be easily leveraged from meta/conf/machine/.
        </para>
    </section>

    <section id="platdev-newmachine-kernel">
        <title>Adding a kernel for the machine</title>
        <para>
             Poky 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. There are plenty of kernel examples in the 
             meta/recipes-kernel/linux directory which can be used as references.
        </para>
        <para>
             If creating a new recipe the "normal" recipe writing rules apply 
             for setting up a <glossterm><link linkend='var-SRC_URI'>SRC_URI
             </link></glossterm> including any patches and setting <glossterm>
             <link linkend='var-S'>S</link></glossterm> to point at the source 
             code. You will need to create a configure task which configures the 
             unpacked kernel with a defconfig be that through a "make defconfig" 
             command or more usually though copying in a suitable defconfig and 
             running "make oldconfig". By making use of "inherit kernel" and also 
             maybe some of the linux-*.inc files, most other functionality is 
             centralised and the the defaults of the class normally work well.
        </para>
        <para>
            If extending an existing kernel it is usually a case of adding a 
            suitable defconfig file in a location similar to that used by other 
            machine's defconfig files in a given kernel, possibly listing it in
            the SRC_URI and adding the machine to the expression in <glossterm>
            <link linkend='var-COMPATIBLE_MACHINE'>COMPATIBLE_MACHINE</link>
            </glossterm>:
        </para>
        <programlisting>
COMPATIBLE_MACHINE = '(qemux86|qemumips)'
        </programlisting>
    </section>

    <section id="platdev-newmachine-formfactor">
        <title>Adding a formfactor configuration file</title>
        <para>
            A formfactor configuration file provides information about the 
            target hardware on which Poky is running, and that Poky 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 
            screen resolution.
        </para>
        <para>
            Sane defaults should be used in most cases, but if customisation is 
            necessary you need to create a <filename>machconfig</filename> file 
            under <filename>meta/packages/formfactor/files/MACHINENAME/</filename>
            where <literal>MACHINENAME</literal> is the name for which this infomation
            applies. For information about the settings available and the defaults, please see 
            <filename>meta/packages/formfactor/files/config</filename>. Below is one
            example for qemuarm:
        </para>
        <programlisting>
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
        </programlisting>
    </section>
</section>

<section id='usingpoky-changes'>
        <title>Making and Maintaining Changes</title>

        <para>
            We recognise that people will want to extend/configure/optimise Poky for
            their specific uses, especially due to the extreme configurability and 
            flexibility Poky offers. To ensure ease of keeping pace with future 
            changes in Poky we recommend making changes to Poky in a controlled way.
        </para>
        <para>
            Poky supports the idea of <link
                linkend='usingpoky-changes-layers'>"layers"</link> which when used
            properly can massively ease future upgrades and allow segregation
            between the Poky core and a given developer's changes. Some other advice on 
            managing changes to Poky is also given in the following section.
        </para>

        <section id="usingpoky-changes-layers">
          <title>Bitbake Layers</title>

          <para>
                Often, people want to extend Poky either through adding packages
                or overriding files contained within Poky 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.
           </para>

           <para>
               The Poky tree includes several additional layers which demonstrate
               this functionality, such as meta-emenlow and meta-extras.
               The meta-emenlow layer is an example layer enabled by default. The meta-extras 
               repostory is not enabled by default but enabling any layer is as easy as adding
               the layers path to the BBLAYERS variable in your bblayers.conf. this is how 
               meta-extras are enabled in Poky builds:
          </para>
          <para>
               <literallayout class='monospaced'>LCONF_VERSION = "1"

BBFILES ?= ""
BBLAYERS = " \
  /path/to/poky/meta \
  /path/to/poky/meta-moblin \
  /path/to/poky/meta-emenlow \
  /path/to/poky/meta-extras \
  "
</literallayout>
           </para>

          <para>
               Bitbake parses the conf/layer.conf of each of the layers in BBLAYERS
               to add the layers packages, classes and configuration to Poky.
               To create your own layer, independent of the main Poky repository,
               you need only create a directory with a conf/layer.conf file and
               add the directory to your bblayers.conf.
          </para>

          <para>
               The meta-emenlow/conf/layer.conf demonstrates the required syntax:
               <literallayout class='monospaced'># We have a conf and classes directory, add to BBPATH
BBPATH := "${BBPATH}:${LAYERDIR}"

# We have a packages directory, add to BBFILES
BBFILES := "${BBFILES} ${LAYERDIR}/packages/*/*.bb \
        ${LAYERDIR}/packages/*/*.bbappend"

BBFILE_COLLECTIONS += "emenlow"
BBFILE_PATTERN_emenlow := "^${LAYERDIR}/"
BBFILE_PRIORITY_emenlow = "6"
               </literallayout>
          </para>

          <para>
                As can be seen, the layers recipes are added to 
                <glossterm> <link linkend='var-BBFILES'>BBFILES</link></glossterm>. The
                BBFILE_COLLECTIONS variable is then appended to with the
                layer name. The BBFILE_PATTERN variable is immediately expanded
                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. This is useful
                in situations where the same package might appear in multiple
                layers and allows you to choose which layer should 'win'.
                Note the use of <glossterm><link linkend='var-LAYERDIR'>
                LAYERDIR</link></glossterm> with the immediate expansion operator.
                <glossterm><link linkend='var-LAYERDIR'>LAYERDIR</link></glossterm>
                expands to the directory of the current layer and
                requires use of the immediate expansion operator so that Bitbake
                does not lazily expand the variable when it's parsing a
                different directory.
            </para>

            <para>
                Additional bbclass and configuration files can be locationed by 
                bitbake through the addition to the BBPATH
                environment variable. In this case, the first file with the
                matching name found in BBPATH is the one that is used, just
                like the PATH variable for binaries. It is therefore recommended
                that you use unique bbclass and configuration file names in your
                custom layer.
            </para>

            <para>
                The recommended approach for custom layers is to store them in a
                git repository of the format meta-prvt-XXXX and have this repository
                cloned alongside the other meta directories in the Poky tree.
                This way you can keep your Poky tree and it's configuration entirely
                inside POKYBASE.
            </para>
        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-changes-commits'>
            <title>Committing Changes</title>

            <para>
                Modifications to Poky are often managed under some kind of source
                revision control system. The policy for committing to such systems
                is important as some simple policy can significantly improve 
                usability. The tips below are based on the policy followed for the 
                Poky core.
            </para>

            <para>
                It helps to use a consistent style for commit messages when committing 
                changes. We've found a style where the first line of a commit message 
                summarises the change and starts with the name of any package affected
                work well. Not all changes are to specific packages so the prefix could 
                also be a machine name or class name instead. If a change needs a longer 
                description this should follow the summary:
            </para>

            <literallayout class='monospaced'>
    bitbake/data.py: Add emit_func() and generate_dependencies() functions
    
    These functions allow generation of dependency data between funcitons 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 rpurdie@linux.intel.com
            </literallayout>

            <para>
                Any commit should be self contained in that it should leave the 
                metadata in a consistent state, buildable before and after the 
                commit. This helps ensure the autobuilder test results are valid 
                but is good practice regardless.
            </para>
        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-changes-prbump'>
            <title>Package Revision Incrementing</title>

            <para>
                If a committed change will result in changing the package output
                then the value of the <glossterm><link linkend='var-PR'>PR</link>
                </glossterm> variable needs to be increased (commonly referred to 
                as 'bumped') as part of that commit. Only integer values are used
                and <glossterm><link linkend='var-PR'>PR</link></glossterm> = 
                "r0" should be added into new recipes as, while this is the
                default value, not having the variable defined in a recipe makes
                it easy to miss incrementing it when updating the recipe.
                When upgrading the version of a package (<glossterm><link 
                linkend='var-PV'>PV</link></glossterm>), the <glossterm><link 
                linkend='var-PR'>PR</link></glossterm> variable should be reset to "r0".
            </para>

            <para>
                The aim is that the package version will only ever increase. If 
                for some reason <glossterm><link linkend='var-PV'>PV</link></glossterm> 
                will change and but not increase, the <glossterm><link 
                linkend='var-PE'>PE</link></glossterm> (Package Epoch) can 
                be increased (it defaults to '0'). The version numbers aim to 
                follow the <ulink url='http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html'>
                Debian Version Field Policy Guidelines</ulink> which define how 
                versions are compared and hence what "increasing" means.
            </para>

            <para>
                There are two reasons for doing this, the first is to ensure that 
                when a developer updates and rebuilds, they get all the changes to
                the repository and don't have to remember to rebuild any sections.
                The second is to ensure that target users are able to upgrade their
                devices via their package manager such as with the <command>
                opkg upgrade</command> commands (or similar for 
                dpkg/apt or rpm based systems). The aim is to ensure Poky has 
                upgradable packages in all cases.
            </para>
        </section>
        <section id='usingpoky-changes-collaborate'>
            <title>Using Poky in a Team Environment</title>

            <para>
                It may not be immediately clear how Poky can work in a team environment, 
                or scale to a large team of developers. The specifics of any situation
                will determine the best solution and poky offers immense flexibility in 
                that aspect but there are some practises that experience has shown to work
                well.
            </para>

            <para>
                The core component of any development effort with Poky is often an 
                automated build testing framework and image generation process. This 
                can be used to check that the metadata is buildable, highlight when 
                commits break the builds and provide up to date images allowing people 
                to test the end result and use them as a base platform for further 
                development. Experience shows that buildbot is a good fit for this role 
                and that it works well to configure it to make two types of build - 
                incremental builds and 'from scratch'/full builds. The incremental builds 
                can be tied to a commit hook which triggers them each time a commit is 
                made to the metadata and are a useful acid test of whether a given commit 
                breaks the build in some serious way. They catch lots of simple errors 
                and whilst they won't catch 100% of failures, the tests are fast so 
                developers can get feedback on their changes quickly. The full builds
                are builds that build everything from the ground up and test everything. 
                They usually happen at preset times such as at night when the machine 
                load isn't high from the incremental builds.
                <ulink url='http://autobuilder.pokylinux.org:8010'>poky autobuilder</ulink>
                is an example implementation with buildbot.
            </para>

            <para>
                Most teams have pieces of software undergoing active development. It is of
                significant benefit to put these under control of a source control system 
                compatible with Poky such as git or svn. The autobuilder can then be set to 
                pull the latest revisions of these packages so the latest commits get tested 
                by the builds allowing any issues to be highlighted quickly. Poky easily
                supports configurations where there is both a stable known good revision 
                and a floating revision to test. Poky can also only take changes from specific
                source control branches giving another way it can be used to track/test only
                specified changes.
            </para>
            <para>
                Perhaps the hardest part of setting this up is the policy that surrounds 
                the different source control systems, be them software projects or the Poky 
                metadata itself. The circumstances will be different in each case but this is
                one of Poky's advantages - the system itself doesn't force any particular policy
                unlike a lot of build systems, allowing the best policy to be chosen for the 
                circumstances.
            </para>
        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-changes-updatingimages'>
            <title>Updating Existing Images</title>

            <para>
                Often, rather than reflashing a new image you might wish to install updated 
                packages into an existing running system. This can be done by sharing the <filename class="directory">tmp/deploy/ipk/</filename> directory through a web server and then on the device, changing <filename>/etc/opkg/base-feeds.conf</filename> to point at this server, for example by adding:
            </para>
            <literallayout class='monospaced'>
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</literallayout>
        </section>
    </section>

    <section id='usingpoky-modifing-packages'>
        <title>Modifying Package Source Code</title>

        <para>
            Poky is usually used to build software rather than modifying
            it. However, there are ways Poky can be used to modify software. 
        </para>

        <para>
            During building, the sources are available in <glossterm><link
                    linkend='var-WORKDIR'>WORKDIR</link></glossterm> directory.
            Where exactly this is depends on the type of package and the
            architecture of target device. For a standard recipe not
            related to <glossterm><link
                    linkend='var-MACHINE'>MACHINE</link></glossterm> it will be
            <filename>tmp/work/PACKAGE_ARCH-poky-TARGET_OS/PN-PV-PR/</filename>.
            Target device dependent packages use <glossterm><link
                    linkend='var-MACHINE'>MACHINE
            </link></glossterm> 
            instead of <glossterm><link linkend='var-PACKAGE_ARCH'>PACKAGE_ARCH
            </link></glossterm> 
            in the directory name.
        </para>

        <tip>
            <para>
                Check the package recipe sets the <glossterm><link
                        linkend='var-S'>S</link></glossterm> variable to something
            other than standard <filename>WORKDIR/PN-PV/</filename> value.
            </para>
        </tip>
        <para>
            After building a package, a user can modify the package source code
            without problem. The easiest way to test changes is by calling the
            "compile" task:
        </para>

        <programlisting>
bitbake -c compile -f NAME_OF_PACKAGE
        </programlisting>

        <para>
            "-f" or "--force" is used to force re-execution of the specified task.
            Other tasks may also be called this way. But note that all the modifications
            in <glossterm><link linkend='var-WORKDIR'>WORKDIR</link></glossterm>
            are gone once you executes "-c clean" for a package.
        </para>

        <section id='usingpoky-modifying-packages-quilt'>
            <title>Modifying Package Source Code with quilt</title>

            <para>
                By default Poky uses <ulink
                    url='http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/quilt'>quilt</ulink>
                to manage patches in <function>do_patch</function> task. 
                It is a powerful tool which can be used to track all
                modifications done to package sources.
            </para>

            <para>
                Before modifying source code it is important to
                notify quilt so it will track changes into new patch
                file:
                <programlisting>
quilt new NAME-OF-PATCH.patch
                </programlisting>

                Then add all files which will be modified into that
                patch:
                <programlisting>
quilt add file1 file2 file3
                </programlisting>

                Now start editing. At the end quilt needs to be used
                to generate final patch which will contain all
                modifications:
                <programlisting>
quilt refresh
                </programlisting>

                The resulting patch file can be found in the
                <filename class="directory">patches/</filename> subdirectory of the source 
                (<glossterm><link linkend='var-S'>S</link></glossterm>) directory. For future builds it
                should be copied into
                Poky metadata and added into <glossterm><link
                        linkend='var-SRC_URI'>SRC_URI</link></glossterm> of a recipe:
                <programlisting>
SRC_URI += "file://NAME-OF-PATCH.patch"
                </programlisting>

                This also requires a bump of <glossterm><link
                        linkend='var-PR'>PR</link></glossterm> value in the same recipe as we changed resulting packages.
            </para>

        </section>

    </section>
    <section id='usingpoky-configuring-LIC_FILES_CHKSUM'>
        <title>Track license change</title>
        <para>
        The license of one upstream project may change in the future, and Poky provides
        one mechanism to track such license change - <glossterm>
        <link linkend='var-LIC_FILES_CHKSUM'>LIC_FILES_CHKSUM</link></glossterm> variable.
        </para>

        <section id='usingpoky-specifying-LIC_FILES_CHKSUM'>
            <title>Specifying the LIC_FILES_CHKSUM variable </title>

            <programlisting>
LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://COPYING; md5=xxxx \
                    file://licfile1.txt; beginline=5; endline=29;md5=yyyy \
                    file://licfile2.txt; endline=50;md5=zzzz \
                    ..."
            </programlisting>

            <para>
            <glossterm><link linkend='var-S'>S</link></glossterm> is the default directory
            for searching files listed in <glossterm><link linkend='var-LIC_FILES_CHKSUM'>
            LIC_FILES_CHKSUM</link></glossterm>. Relative path could be used too:
            </para>

            <programlisting>
LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://src/ls.c;startline=5;endline=16;\
                                    md5=bb14ed3c4cda583abc85401304b5cd4e"
LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://../license.html;md5=5c94767cedb5d6987c902ac850ded2c6"
            </programlisting>

            <para>
            The first line locates a file in <glossterm><link linkend='var-S'>
            S</link></glossterm>/src/ls.c, and the second line refers to a file in 
            <glossterm><link linkend='var-WORKDIR'>WORKDIR</link></glossterm>, which is the parent
            of <glossterm><link linkend='var-S'>S</link></glossterm>
            </para>

        </section>

        <section id='usingpoky-LIC_FILES_CHKSUM-explanation-of-syntax'>
            <title>Explanation of syntax</title>

            <para>
            This parameter lists all the important files containing the text 
of licenses for the
source code. It is also possible to specify on which line the license text
starts and on which line it ends within that file using the "beginline" and
"endline" parameters. If the "beginline" parameter is not specified then license
text begins from the 1st line is assumed. Similarly if "endline" parameter is
not specified then the license text ends at the last line in the file is
assumed. So if a file contains only licensing information, then there is no need
to specify "beginline" and "endline" parameters.
            </para>
            <para>
The "md5" parameter stores the md5 checksum of the license text. So if
the license text changes in any way from a file, then its md5 sum will differ and will not
match with the previously stored md5 checksum. This mismatch will trigger build
failure, notifying developer about the license text md5 mismatch, and allowing
the developer to review the license text changes. Also note that if md5 checksum
is not matched while building, the correct md5 checksum is printed in the build
log which can be easily copied to .bb file.
            </para>
            <para>
There is no limit on how many files can be specified on this parameter. But generally every
project would need specifying of just one or two files for license tracking.
Many projects would have a "COPYING" file which will store all the
license information for all the source code files. If the "COPYING" file
is valid then tracking only that file would be enough.
            </para>
            <tip>
                <para>
1. If you specify empty or invalid "md5" parameter; then while building
the package, bitbake will give md5 not matched error, and also show the correct
"md5" parameter value both on the screen and in the build log 
                </para>
                <para>
2. If the whole file contains only license text, then there is no need to
specify "beginline" and "endline" parameters. 
                </para>
            </tip>
        </section>
    </section>
    <section id='usingpoky-configuring-DISTRO_PN_ALIAS'>
        <title>Handle package name alias</title>
        <para>
Poky implements a distro_check task which automatically connects to major distributions
and checks whether they contains same package. Sometimes the same package has different 
names in different distributions, which results in a mismatch from distro_check task
This can be solved by defining per distro recipe name alias - 
<glossterm><link linkend='var-DISTRO_PN_ALIAS'>DISTRO_PN_ALIAS</link></glossterm>
        </para>

        <section id='usingpoky-specifying-DISTRO_PN_ALIAS'>
            <title>Specifying the DISTRO_PN_ALIAS variable </title>

            <programlisting>
DISTRO_PN_ALIAS_pn-PACKAGENAME = "distro1=package_name_alias1 \
                                  distro2=package_name_alias2 \
                                  distro3=package_name_alias3 \
                                  ..."
            </programlisting>
            <para>
Use space as the delimiter if there're multiple distro aliases
            </para>
            <tip>
                <para>
The current code can check if the src package for a recipe exists in the latest
releases of these distributions automatically.
                </para>
                <programlisting>
Fedora, OpenSuSE, Debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva
                </programlisting>
                <para>
For example, this command will generate a report, listing which linux distros include the
sources for each of the poky recipe.
                </para>
                <programlisting>
bitbake world -f -c distro_check
                </programlisting>
                <para>
The results will be stored in the build/tmp/log/distro_check-${DATETIME}.results file.
                </para>
            </tip>
        </section>
    </section>
</chapter>

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