images installing other images and artifacts

images installing other images and artifacts

[Andrea Galbusera]

Hi!
I'm building an image for a production system, let's call it
'production-image'. All required artifacts (kernel, dtbs, bootloader
and the image itself) are built by the process as expected and
available in tmp/deploy/images. The production machine is configured
to boot from flash.

As a production tool, I use a variation of the final target, the main
difference being it boots from SD card. The image it boots (i.e.
'flasher-image'), runs a tool for flashing SOMs (the hardware is
modular) with the production artifacts.

It would be nice to have a package installed in flasher-image that
provides all the artifacts required by the flasher tool in order to
flash production-image together with other binaries it needs. Having
such a package available through a package feed would simplify future
upgrades of artifacts on potentially many (and distributed) such
flashing stations. Being that package, say
'production-image-mymachine-artifacts' the same or not as the one
providing the flashing tool should not be the real issue here.

I've being reasoning and doing some trial mostly following a couple
approaches. At first I've considered building the package as a sort of
'side-effect' of building production-image itself but it seems like an
awkward idea since image recipes are not designed to build packages. I
then crafted a separate recipe, which depends on 'production-image'
and that I can use to package artifacts. Before trying to refine this
last approach, currently very rough (it uses hardcoded names for all
the artifacts) but somewhat promising, I stopped by to ask for some
community wisdom.

Does anyone know of any custom layer doing something similar to what
I'm looking for? Do you even think this is something
reasonable/feasible with the current tooling? I don't know of any
other part of the build system, other than the wic utility, that's
designed to use artifacts as inputs for further processing.

In the hope I've been clear enough in explaining my needs. TIA for any
clue or suggestions.

Re: images installing other images and artifacts

[Stefano Babic]

Hi Andrea,

On 07/01/2016 16:30, Andrea Galbusera wrote:
> Hi!
> I'm building an image for a production system, let's call it
> 'production-image'. All required artifacts (kernel, dtbs, bootloader
> and the image itself) are built by the process as expected and
> available in tmp/deploy/images. The production machine is configured
> to boot from flash.
> 
> As a production tool, I use a variation of the final target, the main
> difference being it boots from SD card. The image it boots (i.e.
> 'flasher-image'), runs a tool for flashing SOMs (the hardware is
> modular) with the production artifacts.
> 
> It would be nice to have a package installed in flasher-image that
> provides all the artifacts required by the flasher tool in order to
> flash production-image together with other binaries it needs. Having
> such a package available through a package feed would simplify future
> upgrades of artifacts on potentially many (and distributed) such
> flashing stations. Being that package, say
> 'production-image-mymachine-artifacts' the same or not as the one
> providing the flashing tool should not be the real issue here.
> 
> I've being reasoning and doing some trial mostly following a couple
> approaches. At first I've considered building the package as a sort of
> 'side-effect' of building production-image itself but it seems like an
> awkward idea since image recipes are not designed to build packages. I
> then crafted a separate recipe, which depends on 'production-image'
> and that I can use to package artifacts. Before trying to refine this
> last approach, currently very rough (it uses hardcoded names for all
> the artifacts) but somewhat promising, I stopped by to ask for some
> community wisdom.
> 
> Does anyone know of any custom layer doing something similar to what
> I'm looking for? Do you even think this is something
> reasonable/feasible with the current tooling? I don't know of any
> other part of the build system, other than the wic utility, that's
> designed to use artifacts as inputs for further processing.
> 
> In the hope I've been clear enough in explaining my needs. TIA for any
> clue or suggestions.

I am not sure I have really understood what you are planning to do.
Anyway, I had a similar issue becuase I need to build a compound image
(not as package) for the target that contains all components to be
installed on the target (kernel, dtb, rootfs, ..). You can take a look
at meta-swupdate and at the swupdate.bbclass. It could be a starting
point for you.

I hope this helps,
Stefano Babic


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