VyOS toplevel build

This repository is for building the VyOS versions 1.2.x and above. For VyOS 1.1, use the build-iso repository.

For the most up-to-date documentation, please read the online build guide at docs.vyos.io.

What is VyOS

VyOS is an open source operating system for network devices (routers, firewalls and so on). If you want to use it in your network, check out download and installation instructions at https://vyos.io

If you want to modify VyOS and/or join its development, read on.

VyOS is not new. It is a fork of Vyatta Core that was created when the open source version of it was discontinued. If you are a Vyatta Core user, you can upgrade your installation to VyOS.

What is this repository?

VyOS is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian. Just like any other distribution, it consists of multiple packages.

Some packages are taken from the upstream, while other are modified or written from scratch by VyOS developers. Every package maintained by the VyOS team has its own git repository. VyOS image build is therefore a multi-step process. Packages are compiled first, then an ISO is built from Debian packages and our own packages.

This is the top level repository that contains links to repositories with VyOS specific packages (organized as Git submodules) and scripts and data that are used for building those packages and the installation image.

Structure of this repository

There are several directories with their own purpose:

build/ Used for temporary files used for the build and for build artifacts scripts/ Scripts that are used for the build process data/ Data required for building the ISO (such as boot splash) tools/ Scripts that are used for maintainer's tasks automation and other purposes, but not during ISO build process

Building VyOS installation images

Prerequisites

To build a VyOS 1.2.0 image, you need Debian 8 "Jessie" environment (with jessie-backports repository).

If you do not have a Debian Jessie machine, you may create a chroot environment with the debootstrap tool.

For example, on another version of Debian or another Debian-based distro, these commands will work:

$ sudo apt-get install debootstrap
$ sudo debootstrap jessie vyos-chroot
$ sudo chroot vyos-chroot

$ echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
$ apt-get update

If you are working on a Debian Jessie machine, no special preparation is needed, you only need to enable jessie-backports and install build dependencies. An up-to-date dependency list can be found in our Dockerfile.

Several packages are required for building the ISO:

• python3
• live-build
• pbuilder
• python3-pystache

The ./configure script will warn you if any dependencies are missing. Individual packages may have other build dependencies. If some dependencies are missing, package build scripts will tell you.

Building the ISO image inside a docker container

Using our Dockerfile you create your own Docker container that is used to build a VyOS ISO image or other required VyOS packages. The Dockerfile contains some of the most used packages needed to build a VyOS ISO, a qemu image, and several of the submodules. Please note that this is not complete and only gives you a brief overview!

squashfs-tools           # Required for squashfs file system
git                      # Required, for cloning the source
autoconf                 # Required, for generating build scripts
dpkg-dev                 # Required, used in build scripts
live-build               # Required, for ISO build
syslinux                 # Required, for ISO build
genisoimage              # Required, for ISO build
make                     # Required, for ISO build
lsb-release              # Required, used by configure script
fakechroot               # Required, for ISO build
devscripts               # Optional, for building submodules (kernel etc)
kernel-package           # Optional, for building the kernel
libtool                  # Optional, for building certain packages (vyatta-op-vpn)
libglib2.0-dev           # Optional, for building vyatta-cfg
libboost-filesystem-dev  # Optional, for building vyatta-cfg
libapt-pkg-dev           # Optional, for building vyatta-cfg
flex                     # Optional, for building vyatta-cfg
bison                    # Optional, for building vyatta-cfg
libperl-dev              # Optional, for building vyatta-cfg
libnfnetlink-dev         # Optional, for building vyatta-cfg-vpn
vim                      # Optional, vim, vi, nano or other text editor
jq                       # Optional, for qemu build
qemu-system-x86          # Optional, for qemu build
qemu-utils               # Optional, for qemu build
packer                   # Optional, for qemu build
quilt                    # Optional, for building vyos-1x
python3-lxml             # Optional, for building vyos-1x
python3-setuptools       # Optional, for building vyos-1x
python3-nose             # Optional, for building vyos-1x
python3-coverage         # Optional, for building vyos-1x
...

To build the docker image ensure you have a working Docker environment and then run the following commands:

$ docker build -t vyos-builder docker

Run the newly built container:

$ docker run --rm -it --privileged -v $(pwd):/vyos -w /vyos vyos-builder bash

This will drop you into a bash shell with this vyos-build repo mounted at /vyos. Then follow the instructions bellow to build the VyOS ISO and QEMU image.

vyos_bld@948a2be7c52c:/vyos$ uname -a
Linux 948a2be7c52c 3.16.0-7-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.59-1 (2018-10-03) x86_64 GNU/Linux

NOTE:

• Docker container must be run with --privileged flag
• We recommended to run the container with a volume mapped in order to easy export built VyOS ISO images to the "external" world
• UNIX ownership is automatically inherited from your host directory but can be altered by specifying the following environment variables when running the container: -e GOSU_UID=$(id -u) and/or -e GOSU_GID=$(id -g)

After the Docker container is running you can follow up the instructions below in order to build the VyOS ISO image.

Building subpackages inside Docker

Prior to building packages you need to checkout and update the submodules you want to compile

$ git submodule update --init packages/PACKAGENAME
$ cd packages/PACKAGENAME
$ git checkout BRANCH

PACKAGENAME is the name of the package you want to compile BRANCH is crux for VyOS 1.2.x, latest rolling releases use current

Fetching all submodules at once and update them to the recent remote branches HEAD is done by calling:

$ git submodule update --init --recursive
$ git submodule update --remote

Building packages

The scripts/build-submodules script is used to automate the process of building (in the future) all VyOS related packages that are not part of the upstream Debian version. Execute it in the root of the vyos-build directory to start compilation on all supported packages that are checked out.

The easiest way to compile is with the above mentioned Docker container, it includes all dependencies for compiling supported packages.

$ docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):/vyos -w /vyos \
             --sysctl net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6=0 \
             vyos-builder \
             ./scripts/build-submodules

NOTE: --sysctl net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6=0 is required to build the vyos-strongswan package

NOTE: Prior to executing this script you need to create or build the Docker container and checkout all packages you want to compile.

Building a single package

The script above runs all package build inside the Docker container, this is also possible to do by hand using:

Executed from the root of vyos-build

$ docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):/vyos -w /vyos/packages/PACKAGENAME \
             --sysctl net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6=0 \
             vyos-builder \
             dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -tc -b

NOTE: --sysctl net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6=0 is only needed when building vyos-strongswan and can be ignored on other packages.

NOTE: Prior to executing this you need to checkout and update the submodules you want to recompile!

NOTE: vyos-strongswan will only compile on a Linux system, running on macOS or Windows might result in a unittest deadlock (it never exits).

Packages that are known to not build using this procedure (as of now):

vyatta-util     - Not needed anymore
vyatta-quagga   - Not needed anymore
vyos-1x         - Unmet build dependencies: whois libvyosconfig0
vyos-frr        - A lot of requirements, scary stuff...
vyos-kernel     - Need special build instructions
vyos-wireguard  - Needs special build instructions

Building the ISO image

Before you can build an image, you need to configure your build.

To build an image, use the following commands:

$ ./configure
$ make iso

The ./configure script has a number of options that you can see by calling it with --help

Building the images for virtualization platforms

QEMU

Run following command after building the ISO image.

$ make qemu

VMware

Run following command after building the QEMU image.

$ make vmware

Development process

Git branches

The default branch that contains the most recent VyOS code is called current rather than master. We know it's confusing, but it's not easy to fix. In a nutshell, the code we inherited from Vyatta Core had its master branch so out of sync with everything it was beyond any repair. Vyatta developers used to create a new branch not when a release is ready for code freeze, but rather before starting to work on a new release. This is hard to change in existing code, so this is just the way it is, for now.

All new code goes to the current branch. When it's time for a code freeze, a new branch is created for the release, and new code from current is backported to the release branch as needed.

In packages that originate from VyOS the master branch is kept in sync with current, but we still use current as default branch for uniformity. When the last legacy package is gone, we will switch to using the master branch and retire current.

For branch naming we switched to use constellations:

• crux
• ...