OE Build Container

A Linux container for production OE/Yocto builds.

Why?

OE builds require a small number of dependencies that must be installed. This is not a huge deal, but can take 30-60 minutes to figure out what they all are and wait for them to install. This container gives you everything you need.

Additionally, production builds require a known build environment where package versions are not changing. Using a container for OE builds allows team members to use whatever Linux distro they want on their workstations, but all have access to a common build environment for OE builds.

Example

• install git and docker
• git clone https://github.com/cbrake/oe-build.git
• cd oe-build
• git checkout jethro
• source envsetup.sh
• oe_setup
• then run the following docker command:

docker run --rm -it \
  -v $(pwd):$(pwd) \
  -v ~/.ssh:/home/build/.ssh \
  -v ~/.gitconfig:/home/build/.gitconfig \
  cbrake/oe-build \
  /bin/bash -c "cd $(pwd) && source envsetup.sh && bitbake core-image-minimal"

Some notes on the above:

• The oe-build template that is cloned above is a simple wrapper around OE designed for product development needs. See https://github.com/cbrake/oe-build for more information. You can use your own OE/Yocto build tree -- this is just for example purposes.
• The build directory is mapped into the container at the same location as the host. This keeps things simple and ensures that any paths in generated config files are the same in the container, and on the host.
• Host ssh keys are mapped into container so that we can clone project git repos using ssh authentication.
• Host gitconfig is mapped into the container as well in case the build requires any git push operations (such as tagging).

This example illustrates several fundamental principals of Docker:

1. use Docker for apps/standard stuff, but keep data and build dirs in your host file system
2. don't work in the context of the container, only use it to run commands (bitbake in this case)
3. don't store state in the container -- keep that in your host file system

Details

This container is based on Debian Jessie. Debian has proven to be an excellent OS for production OE builds where you might need to generate builds for a project over a period of years. OE can be rather fussy about versions of host packages (such as gcc, make, etc) so having a build distro where these are locked down is essential.

Processes in the container run as the "build" user by default, so it may be necessary that the user in your host has UID 1000 so they match.

License

MIT

Author

Cliff Brake [email protected]

improvements/pull requests welcome!