Redomat -- Environment for reproducable building, integration, testing

SYNOPSIS

Redomat is a tool which provides an environment for doing reproducable builds, integration and testing of targets. A target usually is a Linux based system designed for a special purpose.

Reproducability is achieved by employing Docker (including its Python-API and GIT, and Yocto for actually building. The target specification is provided as XML file which may reference additional files. The declaration may define build-stages (like build milestones) which will be accessible as docker-commits/images. Using a certain milestone when building makes sense for software-development to spare the time of a full rebuild but still have the same effect.

DEPENDENCIES

• python
• docker homepage
• GNUmake

How to install

make install

redomat gets installed into /usr/local per default; provide the DESTDIR variable to change the default location.

How to use

To use Redomat to build a target from a declaration, execute:

redomat <REDOMAT.XML>

Optionally you can specify a stage/milestone from a previous build (BUILDID) as a starting point for the build:

redomat -e <STAGE> -b <BUILDID> <REDOMAT.XML>

How to serve build artifacts

The result of a build is what we call build artifacts. Build artifacts can be build logs, filesystem images, packages and more. It is possible to serve these build artifacts via the Docker container used for building:

docker run --rm -ti -p <hostport>:80 <IMAGE> /REDO/results/serve.sh

This will make the build artifacts accessible on http://localhost:<hostport>

REDOMAT.XML reference guide

To declare the Yocto layers

Redomat uses repo-tool to checkout respective GIT revisions of different repositories, to form the used Yocto layers. The redomat XML nodes for this are very similar to repo-tool XML-syntax:

  <layer_declaration>
    <remote fetch="REPO_URL" name="REPO_NAME" />
    <layer remote="REMOTE_NAME" revision="REPO_REVISION" reponame="REPO_URL" />
    <layer remote="REMOTE_NAME" revision="REPO_REVISION" reponame="REPO_URL" />
    <layer remote="REMOTE_NAME" revision="REPO_REVISION" reponame="REPO_URL" />
  </layer_declaration>

A bblayers.conf will be automatically generated from the declaration.

To declare build stages use:

  <buildstage id='STAGE_NAME'>
    <prestage> STAGE_NAME </prestage>
    <dockerline> DOCKERFILE COMMAND </dockerline>
    <bitbake_target command="BITBAKE COMMAND"> BITBAKE_TARGET </bitbake_target> 
  <buildstage>

to declare additional configuration:

Additional configuration can be put in the <local_conf> node and will end up in a generated local.conf.

  <local_conf>
    <BB_NUMBER_THREADS>NUMBER OF CPU CORES</BB_NUMBER_THREADS>
    <PARALLEL_MAKE>NUMBER OF MAKE THEADS</PARALLEL_MAKE>
    <MACHINE>MACHINE</MACHINE>
    <DISTRO>DISTRO</DISTRO>
  </local_conf>