[gentoo-embedded] small replacement for emerge for live package-management?

[gentoo-embedded] small replacement for emerge for live package-management?

[Christopher Friedt]

Hi everyone,

Are there any pointers for a light(er) weight package manager for 
embedded devices with <= 16 MB of flash storage ?

I've grown accustomed to using emerge to build binary packages for all 
of my boards. Up until now we've just blasted the binary packages onto 
our boards in the shop, but we're turning towards updates on live 
systems in the field.

Paludis has struck my interest but I'm just not sure what the runtime 
requirements are, and how well it deals with normal gentoo binary tbz2's 
(and their metadata). I think that libstdc++.so is a bit too big for our 
boards, so any options with C++ dependencies are likely out the door.

Having python on our boards is not really an option either, and 
therefore the factory 'emerge' also won't work (or will it??).

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm sure that some of you have dealt 
with the same problem before.


Cheers,

Chris

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Re: [gentoo-embedded] small replacement for emerge for live package-management?

[Christopher Friedt]

Something like iPkg is ideal because it was built specifically for this 
purpose - but I really have no interest in switching do a Debian based 
distro.

Christopher Friedt wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Are there any pointers for a light(er) weight package manager for 
> embedded devices with <= 16 MB of flash storage ?
> 
> I've grown accustomed to using emerge to build binary packages for all 
> of my boards. Up until now we've just blasted the binary packages onto 
> our boards in the shop, but we're turning towards updates on live 
> systems in the field.
> 
> Paludis has struck my interest but I'm just not sure what the runtime 
> requirements are, and how well it deals with normal gentoo binary tbz2's 
> (and their metadata). I think that libstdc++.so is a bit too big for our 
> boards, so any options with C++ dependencies are likely out the door.
> 
> Having python on our boards is not really an option either, and 
> therefore the factory 'emerge' also won't work (or will it??).
> 
> Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm sure that some of you have dealt 
> with the same problem before.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Chris
> 
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Re: [gentoo-embedded] small replacement for emerge for live package-management?

[01flipstar]

Hey,

Natanael Copa wrote a convert script for tbz2 -> apkg (alpinelinux.org).
Converting to ipkg is also possible if you make some changes to the script.

Cheers
--
flip

Christopher Friedt schrieb:
> Something like iPkg is ideal because it was built specifically for this 
> purpose - but I really have no interest in switching do a Debian based 
> distro.
> 
> Christopher Friedt wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> Are there any pointers for a light(er) weight package manager for 
>> embedded devices with <= 16 MB of flash storage ?
>>
>> I've grown accustomed to using emerge to build binary packages for all 
>> of my boards. Up until now we've just blasted the binary packages onto 
>> our boards in the shop, but we're turning towards updates on live 
>> systems in the field.
>>
>> Paludis has struck my interest but I'm just not sure what the runtime 
>> requirements are, and how well it deals with normal gentoo binary 
>> tbz2's (and their metadata). I think that libstdc++.so is a bit too 
>> big for our boards, so any options with C++ dependencies are likely 
>> out the door.
>>
>> Having python on our boards is not really an option either, and 
>> therefore the factory 'emerge' also won't work (or will it??).
>>
>> Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm sure that some of you have dealt 
>> with the same problem before.
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Chris
>>
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Re: [gentoo-embedded] small replacement for emerge for live package-management?

[Ned Ludd]

On Sun, 2008-02-03 at 15:30 +0100, Christopher Friedt wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Are there any pointers for a light(er) weight package manager for 
> embedded devices with <= 16 MB of flash storage ?
> 
> I've grown accustomed to using emerge to build binary packages for all 
> of my boards. Up until now we've just blasted the binary packages onto 
> our boards in the shop, but we're turning towards updates on live 
> systems in the field.
> 
> Paludis has struck my interest but I'm just not sure what the runtime 
> requirements are, and how well it deals with normal gentoo binary tbz2's 
> (and their metadata). I think that libstdc++.so is a bit too big for our 
> boards, so any options with C++ dependencies are likely out the door.
> 
> Having python on our boards is not really an option either, and 
> therefore the factory 'emerge' also won't work (or will it??).
> 
> Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm sure that some of you have dealt 
> with the same problem before.

Having has the same need myself I wrote in c a util called qmerge.
qmerge is apart of portage-utils. portage-utils provides applets much in
the same way as busybox does that can be disabled at compile time.
qmerge only deals with gentoo based binary.tbz2 files. 

# Setup basic embedded ROOT...

uClibc shm  # mkdir ROOT; cd ROOT ; mkdir proc root sys dev
uClibc ROOT # \
  INSTALL_MASK="*.a /bin/bb /usr/lib/*.o /usr/include" \
  ROOT=$PWD/ \
  emerge -KOq uclibc busybox portage-utils

uClibc ROOT # tar -xf /usr/share/busybox/busybox-links.tar
uClibc ROOT # rm -rf usr/share/busybox
uClibc ROOT # du -hcs . 
2.2M    .
uClibc ROOT # mkdir usr/portage/packages/ var/tmp/portage/portage
uClibc ROOT # cp /etc/resolv.conf  etc/
uClibc ROOT # mount -obind /proc/ proc/ ; mount -obind /sys/ sys/ ;
mount -obind /dev/ dev/

uClibc ROOT # chroot . /bin/sh --login

# Inside of the chroot or on an embedded device with networking.
/ # export QMERGE=1
/ # qmerge -KOq dropbear
MD5:  [OK] 4176096ccf8680d595de20514e65d928 net-misc/dropbear-0.50

/ # dbclient 
dbclient: can't load library 'libz.so.1'
/ # qmerge -K zlib
Connecting to tinderbox.dev.gentoo.org (140.211.166.181:80)
zlib-1.2.3-r1.tbz2   100% |
***************************************************************************************************************************************************|   139k --:--:-- ETA
MD5:  [OK] 5db12eac15c6910c179e4be1fd7bf030 sys-libs/zlib-1.2.3-r1
=== sys-libs/zlib-1.2.3-r1
+++ sys-libs/zlib-1.2.3-r1 == sys-libs/zlib-1.2.3-r1
>>> //lib/libz.so.1.2.3
>>> //usr/lib/libz.so
>>> //usr/lib/libz.a
>>> //usr/include/zconf.h
>>> //usr/include/zlib.h
>>> //var/db/pkg/sys-libs/zlib-1.2.3-r1


# opps looks like we never set up a make.conf and made sure to set an
INSTALL_MASK=..

/ # dbclient 
Dropbear client v0.50
Usage: dbclient [options] [user@]host [command]
Options are:
-p <remoteport>
-l <username>
-t    Allocate a pty
-T    Don't allocate a pty
-N    Don't run a remote command
-f    Run in background after auth
-y    Always accept remote host key if unknown
-i <identityfile>   (multiple allowed)
-L <listenport:remotehost:remoteport> Local port forwarding
-g    Allow remote hosts to connect to forwarded ports
-R <listenport:remotehost:remoteport> Remote port forwarding
-W <receive_window_buffer> (default 24576, larger may be faster, max
1MB)
-K <keepalive>  (0 is never, default 0)



# well there we go.. One portage gentoo pkg built on a remote host and
installed on the local one that we did not have to alter server side in
any way..


/ # qsize portage-utils
app-portage/portage-utils-0.1.29: 17 files, 2 non-files, 163.667 KB


###########
Few notes.. These can be mounted by the embedded device as a tmpfs.
$ROOT/usr/portage/packages/ var/tmp/portage. You can/should delete the
contents in there on embedded devices.

1) Never make/allow qmerge to touch the libc
2) Never make/allow qmerge to touch the *busybox*/bin/sh..

Final note.. It's still an applet in development. If you find a bug in
it. I'd much would rather have a patch that fixes it up vs a bugzilla
entry telling me whats wrong with it. Good luck.



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Re: [gentoo-embedded] small replacement for emerge for live package-management?

[Christopher Friedt]

Ned, can I just say something quickly ...

You're awesome !

That's exactly what I was looking for ;-)

At some point a long time ago I used qmerge on my old desktop machine 
but I completely forgot that it existed !! I think that was even before 
I started working with arm boards ;-)

Ned Ludd wrote:
> Few notes.. These can be mounted by the embedded device as a tmpfs.
> $ROOT/usr/portage/packages/ var/tmp/portage. You can/should delete the
> contents in there on embedded devices.
> 
> 1) Never make/allow qmerge to touch the libc
> 2) Never make/allow qmerge to touch the *busybox*/bin/sh..
> 
> Final note.. It's still an applet in development. If you find a bug in
> it. I'd much would rather have a patch that fixes it up vs a bugzilla
> entry telling me whats wrong with it. Good luck.

Thank you! Will do,

Chris
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