Imagebuilder

Imagebuilder for GL.iNet devices. The Image Builder (previously called the Image Generator) is a pre-compiled environment suitable for creating custom images without having to compile the entire OpenWRT build environment.

System requirements

x86_64 platform
Ubuntu or another linux distro

Running Imagebuilder under Windows can be done using the Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL) with Ubuntu installed to it. Follow the guide bellow, installing Ubuntu 18.04 LTS from the Microsoft Store:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10

Preparing your build environment

To use the Imagebuilder on your system will usually require you to install some extra packages.

For Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, run the following commands to install the required packages:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install device-tree-compiler gawk gcc git g++ make ncurses-dev python unzip -y

Clone the Imagebuilder to your system

git clone https://github.com/gl-inet/imagebuilder gl_imagebuilder
cd gl_imagebuilder

Note for Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL) users:

The Imagebuilder requires a "case sensitive" system, Windows is unfortunately not. To run the Imagebuilder in WSL you MUST clone the repo to the linux folder tree, ie: /home/<username>/ or any other folder you choose. This is required, you CAN NOT run it from /mnt/c/ or any other windows native drive mounted in WSL. Running the Imagebuilder from a Windows mounted disk will result in a failed build with cryptic messages.

Usage

To build all the device firmwares, run ./gl_image -a. To build a specific firmware, run ./gl_image -p <image_name>. You can list all the device names by running ./gl_image -l.

Run ./gl_image -h to see more details and advanced options.

Complete usage example

To make an image for the Mifi with some extra packages included:

./gl_image -p mifi -e "openssh-sftp-server nano htop"

You'll find the compiled firmware image in bin/gl-mifi/openwrt-mifi-ar71xx-generic-gl-mifi-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

For other firmwares, the compiled firmware file is in bin/<device_name>/

Docker build environment

You can also use a docker container as build environment.

Install Docker to your system, here is how to do it for Ubuntu:

sudo apt install docker.io -y
sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

After cloning the Imagebuilder to your system as in the previous section, build the Docker image by running the following:

sudo docker build --rm -t gl_imagebuilder - < Dockerfile

To list all the possible device names:

sudo docker run -v "$(pwd)":/src gl_imagebuilder -l

And to make a firmware image for the Mifi with some extra packages included:

sudo docker run -v "$(pwd)":/src gl_imagebuilder -p mifi -e openssh-sftp-server nano htop

You'll find the compiled firmware image in bin/gl-mifi/openwrt-mifi-ar71xx-generic-gl-mifi-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

For other firmwares, the compiled firmware file is in bin/<device_name>/

Advanced configuration

All the GL device package configuration is done with the images.json file. The following options control the configuration:

packages: The default packages included in all firmwares
profiles: Configuration for each firmware
{
    <image_name>:
    {
        profile: The name of the device. Run "make info" for a list of available devices.
        version: Firmware version. Generates a version file called /etc/glversion and overrides /etc/opk/distfeeds.conf with the version number
        imagebuilder: Image builder folder
        packages: Packages in the firmware. Variables include the default packages. Add the package name to include. "-" appended to the package name excludes the package, eg: "-mwan3"
        files: Files folder, it allows customized configuration files to be included in images built with Image Generator, all files from the folder will be copied into device's rootfs("/").
    }
}

Assuming that we have a helloworld.ipk created by the SDK here:

https://github.com/gl-inet/sdk

And we want to create a clean customized firmware for our AR150 device that includes this ipk, here is an example of a user-defined configuration file. We name it myfirst.json:

{
    "profiles":
    {
        "helloworld":
	{
            "profile": "gl-ar150",
            "version": "3.001",
            "imagebuilder": "3.0/openwrt-imagebuilder-ar71xx-generic",
            "packages": "luci helloworld"
        }
    }
}

Placing the helloworld.ipk in the glinet/ar71xx folder and running ./gl_image -c myfirst.json -p helloworld will build our clean image with our helloworld.ipk included.

gl-inet/imagebuilder_archive