Build for OpenWrt

IoT.js for OpenWrt build guide

❗ This document describes an experimental feature and considerations. Please be aware that every experimental feature may change, be broken, or be removed in the future without any notice.

The document presents the steps required to compile the IoT.js for OpenWrt. For target device, the TP-Link WR1043ND v1.x router is used. Please be advised, that if you have a different one, minor modifications to this document could be required.

IMPORTANT!

As the TP-Link WR1043ND is a mips based device and mips is a big-endian architecture. A JerryScipt snapshot which was built on an little-endian system will not work correctly. Thus the IoT.js must be built with disabled snaphost mode.

OpenWrt notes

Since January 2018 the OpenWrt and LEDE project have merged into one and thus the old OpenWrt parts are now usable only from an archived repository: https://github.com/openwrt/archive

OpenWrt toolchain setup

To build the IoT.js for OpenWrt, a toolchain is required for the target router/device. The toolchain setup in this document was tested on an Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS Linux.

Steps required for toolchain creation:

0. Install OpenWrt build requirements

$ sudo apt-get install git-core build-essential libssl-dev libncurses5-dev unzip gawk zlib1g-dev subversion mercurial

1. Clone OpenWrt (Chaos Calmer version)

$ git clone https://github.com/openwrt/archive openwrt -b chaos_calmer
$ cd openwrt

2. Run Menuconfig and configure the OpenWrt

$ make menuconfig

Options which should be set:

• Set "Target System" to "Atheros AR7xxx/AR9xxx".
• Set "Target Profile" to "TP-LINK TL-WR1043N/ND".

Save the configuration (as .config) and exit from the menuconfig.

3. Configure the environment variables

$ export BUILDROOT=$(pwd) # where the openwrt root dir is
$ export STAGING_DIR=${BUILDROOT}/staging_dir/ # required by the compiler
$ export PATH=$PATH:${STAGING_DIR}/host/bin:${STAGING_DIR}/toolchain-mips_34kc_gcc-4.8-linaro_uClibc-0.9.33.2/bin/

The name toolchain-mips_34kc_gcc-4.8-linaro_uClibc-0.9.33.2 is created based on the menuconfig. This changes depending on the target device!

4. Build the OpenWrt

$ make

5. Check if the compiler was built

$ mips-openwrt-linux-gcc --version # running this should print out the version information

At this point we have the required compiler for OpenWrt.

Build IoT.js for OpenWrt

0. Check environment

Please check if the STAGING_DIR is configured correctly and that the toolchain binary is on the PATH.

1. Run the build with the OpenWrt toolchain file

$ ./tools/build.py --experimental --target-os openwrt --target-arch mips --no-snapshot --buildtype=release

It is advised to use release build as it is smaller than the debug build and can fit on the target router device.

2. Copy the binary

After a successful build, the build/mips-openwrt/release/bin/iotjs binary file can be copied to the target device. On how to copy a binary file to an OpenWrt target device, please see the OpenWrt manual(s).