Teeny Linux

Based on Mitch Galgs instructions on how to build a Linux kernel for qemu. This awesome guy also updated his buildinstructions so expect some updates on my attempt if he updates too.

http://mgalgs.github.io/2015/05/16/how-to-build-a-custom-linux-kernel-for-qemu-2015-edition.html

• The kernel currently is: 8.8Mb
• The initramfs without other programs but busybox: 694K
• Added musl will grow the initramfs: 78Mb With carefull manipulation, the kernel can be made smaller, so does initramfs

My goals in non particular order are:

• Run Linux on any/most CPU (that qemu offers, and that intrests me ;) ).
• Crosscompile Linux (probably x86_64 as a base).
  • Partial functional
• Have Firewire terminal on PowerPC. (this is part of another project)
• Have small amount of scripts that can build and partialy test various goals
• get a update system working
• smaller compiler for inside (TCC, work has started in a branch)

Most of my research and/or playing is done on a x86_64 Arch Linux system, I asume the reader is skilled enough to translate any commands or hints to their own system or reading other resources to accomplish their own goals. This is never ment for production or replacing LFS for example.

I do not recommend this documentation or scripts as a teaching tool or seen as fact. this is just me playing arround. You can however learn from it, or teach how not to do things. user root, password root

news

Updated to the latest I know Kernel and applications

Package	Version	Date
Linux kernel	6.11.7	2024-11-08
BusyBox	1.37.0	2024-09-27
Drobbear	2024.86	2024-10-22

Latest TeenyLinux with (optional) Musl and networking turned on (slower startup due to 270mb extra musl compiler)

• fixed undocumented make iso script, added documentation
• Added time function, to measure compile time (no qemu)
• Made ((d)a)sh now default, including the profile, so no bash_profile/rc
• Since 5.18, Symbol CONFIG_WERROR is causing me trouble, added "fix" in config
• Added a ReqCheck.sh to check for basic program requirements and permisions.
• extracted the user variables to vars.sh, nomore main build.sh updates too often
• beta tools script, based on LFS.

Powerpc still fails, no other arch beside x86_64 work. see crosstools.sh for a ARM attempt, currently boots the kernel, and no busybox or temp init. Dropbear has been added as a extra one could compile. everything inside the build directory gets included network has been changed to reflect my current tap/bridge layout.

options

The build script knows the following commands passable as arguments:

./build.sh -d
./build.sh -delete
./build.sh -deleteall

deletes all but the tarbal files (handy to restart building without downloading the tarbals

./build.sh -arch [ppc|x86_64]
./build.sh -cpu [ppc|x86_64]

builds for the selected arch, x86_64 is default tho, x86 isnt tested(yet)

./build.sh -init
./build.sh -makeInit
./build.sh -makeinit

Builds or rebuilds only the initramfs and then tries to run qemu, handy when trying new init programs or other initramfs tests

./build.sh -k <kernel version>
./build.sh-kernel

Network

Build and start a instance with a mac adress of choice

./build.sh -net <macaddr>

for example

./build.sh -net 52:55:00:d1:55:01

Will run a VM with that specific macaddr (you need to change the ip inside or do DHCP trickery).

Useraccounts

Ive added a user called root inside the passwd file, to login, use password root to build without login prompt:

./build.sh -nl

or

./build.sh -nologin

this is like the old behavior.

Timed compilation

./build.sh -t 
or
./build.sh -time

The above function has been added to measure the compilation time for the whole project and seperate parts. already figured out the kernel compiles faster?!? by cleaning the sources. Busybox can use a precompiled sourcetree just fine. overall not much different. There will be no qemu running at the end. this option might change in the future.

Modules

before any module can be compiled, a first run without support has to be done, or atleast the linux kernel source folder should be compiled. The sample module is a git submodule, and you should init this if you havent already by:

git submodule init
git submodule update

for more submodule details, check: Cloning a Project with Submodules

Then first do a dry run build without modules:

./build

After building the kernel, termination of the qemu instance is posible, a simple test to see there are no mods also posible Right after compilation, go into the modules folder, delete the old initramfs and compile a new module. after completion, rebuild initramfs and test the installed module:

cd module
make clean
make
cd ..
./build -mod

alternativly this can also be used to make a new init, for instance to add other tools from the build dir.

./build -module

feel free to do this diferently when requirements change currently loads a test module and supports

modprobe [module name]
lsmod
modprobe -r [module name]

check buildscipt where to place module or change code to load yours. default script copies the hello.ko to /lib/module/[arch]/

building

run the buildscript :D

select arch support comming this feature is being worked on. I want 1 scritp to do all, altho I might consider building the crosstools externaly. so you might need to run that first.

A temporarely ARM target inside crosstools is in the work. requires arm-none-eabi- set of build tools as well as a fake init static compiled

busybox TC

Linux kernel 6.8 removed a number of traffic control related symbols. a easy fix has been applied: https://bugs.busybox.net/show_bug.cgi?id=15934 but more elegant untill Busybox fixes the TC command would be: https://bugs.gentoo.org/926872

Adding new programs

For new programs to be added, there are multiple ways to do so. The easiest I think is to either manualy or using a script to build and copy the required files into the to be made initramfs.

Everything inside the $TOP/bin/build/ will be copied over to the new initramfs. Dropbear is an example build script that will build dropbear (an SSH server/client) staticly compiled.

In case of dropbear, if the right keys are in place, starting with network support:

./build.sh -net 52:55:00:d1:55:01

then inside the system:

dropbear -R

You should now be able to ssh into this (maybe remove the old known host ip and key from your hosts .ssh/known_hosts)

ssh root@192.168.66.6

tip add the following to prevent a bloating knownhosts file.

-o "UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null"

Musl

Based on Dropbear, Musl precompiled installer script has been added. More information and the tarfile can be found here: https://musl.cc/ Run to install:

./musl.sh

Dont forget to rebuild init, with for example

./build.sh -init

Now compilation using gcc inside the envirement should be posible. the included C source should compile succesfully to hello and display hello world using:

g++ -o hello hello.cpp
./hello

Uninstalling, or actualy deleting. It will delete the complete /build/ contents, rerun other tools if needed to keep:

./musl.sh -d

Iso creation

For a while it was possible to generate an bootable iso, it should now work with the latest kernel. After succesfull building of teenylinux, one can run:

mkiso.sh

this will produce a boot.iso in the ../obj/ folder ($TOP). and try to boot it in qemu aswell. The mkiso file will check if mkrescue and xorriso are installed on your system, reqcheck will not check for this.

If you want Musl and or dropbear to be included or any other tool in the iniramfs, please add them to the build folder as described in chapter Adding new programs . the ../bin/iso/ folder isnt removed, one could add files there aswell to be included with the iso file (grub modules maybe?). checking mkiso.sh and making appropiate modifications is probably best.

Network

To get basic network working, the current buildscipt and setup of qemu will use basic networking. The IP will be 10.0.2.15 and you can reach the internet if your host and qemu allows other virtual machines aswell.

To use a bridge setup (wich I wanted to try anyway) and be able to ping another virtual machine do the following: Create a bridge and 2 taps (1 tap for a virual machine, either eth0/or wireless for internet, or another tap for another virtual machine). As root (or use sudo)

ip tuntap add tap0 mode tap
ip tuntap add tap1 mode tap

Create the actual bridge

brctl  addbr br0

Add the two taps to the bridge

brctl addif br0 tap0
brctl addif br0 tap1

Bring the interfaces up, so they actualy work.

ifconfig tap0 up
ifconfig tap1 up
ifconfig br0 up

then add a network device to your qemu instance, if using my buildscript, run the following

./build -net 52:55:00:d1:55:01

The system should get an IP from your dhcp server (you can also add one using dnsmasq)

sometimes you need to change the ip of an instance, then inside one of the qemu instances, change to static ip for example:

ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 up 10.0.2.16 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

And now you should be able to ping eachother and do stuff. If you setup a DHCP server or add the bridge to a network with a DHCP server, you can set the instances to recieve a IP from the said DHCP server, which in the current version is the case.

SSH

To ssh into your freshly build TeenyLinux, you simply type:

$ ssh root@192.168.66.6 -o "UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null"

The added -o option redirects the known host key to /dev/null, because each rerun of dropbear generates a new hostkey. These steps are not nececairy when reusing the hostkey (by supplying it during the init build fase etc.)

Removing

To remove interfaces and shutdown stuff delete a tap (also for tap1 or eth0) and deteling the tap

brctl delif br0 tap0
tunctl -d tap0

Bring the bridge down and remove it:

ifconfig br0 down
brctl delbr br0

Now you can up your eth0 or wirelless again for internets or use a VM without these bridges and use usermode networking.

Extra handy network commands and links

To flush the ip and be able to add eth0 of your host to the bridge:

ip addr flush dev eth0

Checking out if the bridge has the right and all taps or interfaces you wanted:

brctl show

More details and tips can be found at:

• https://gist.github.com/extremecoders-re/e8fd8a67a515fee0c873dcafc81d811c
• https://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/Networking#Tap
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_bridge#With_bridge-utils

cross compiling

UPDATE, changed a few things arround. Crosstools would now only make the tools (test it) and then youd use build with a arch command.

as seen in picture, my static linked init dint get compiled against 5.0.5 kernel headers but to 3.2.0, ill fix that someday maybe

this is work in progress

To do crosscompiling ive made a script called "crosstools.sh" that will add crosscompile tools if you dont have any. From here on the variable arch can be set to the arch you made crostools for.

crosscompile.sh will build a arm based kernel and tries to boot it using qemu, for succesfull compiling, requires: arm-none-eabi- series.

./crosscompile.sh

or to delete the compile attempt (without removing large downloaded files)

./crosscompile.sh -d

How to build Powerpc crosstools on Arch

needed GPG keys for linux, patch and glibc headers:

79BE3E4300411886
38DBBDC86092693E
16792B4EA25340F8

gpg --keyserver hkps://pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 79BE3E4300411886 38DBBDC86092693E 16792B4EA25340F8

These tools are 32bit, and for Powerpc G5 we need 64bits. And browsing the Arch forums... yeah, general public intrests.... they go with the dodo. Lets make our own Distro, with Doom and Anime... I mean documentries on space and sciense.

64bit

powerpc64-linux-gnu-binutils

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/powerpc64-linux-gnu-binutils.git
cd powerpc64-linux-gnu-binutils/
makepkg -si
cd ..

32bit

powerpc-linux-gnu-binutils

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/powerpc-linux-gnu-binutils.git
cd powerpc-linux-gnu-binutils/
makepkg -si
cd ..

powerpc-linux-gnu-linux-api-headers

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/powerpc-linux-gnu-linux-api-headers.git
cd powerpc-linux-gnu-linux-api-headers/
makepkg -si
cd ..

powerpc-linux-gnu-gcc-stage1

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/powerpc-linux-gnu-gcc-stage1.git
cd powerpc-linux-gnu-gcc-stage1/
makepkg -si
cd ..

powerpc-linux-gnu-glibc-headers

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/powerpc-linux-gnu-glibc-headers.git
cd powerpc-linux-gnu-glibc-headers/
makepkg -si
cd ..

powerpc-linux-gnu-gcc-stage2

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/powerpc-linux-gnu-gcc-stage2.git
cd powerpc-linux-gnu-gcc-stage2/
makepkg -si
cd ..

powerpc-linux-gnu-glibc

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/powerpc-linux-gnu-glibc.git
cd powerpc-linux-gnu-glibc/
makepkg -si
cd ..

powerpc-linux-gnu-gcc

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/powerpc-linux-gnu-gcc.git
cd powerpc-linux-gnu-gcc/
makepkg -si
cd ..

Testing the compiler

Write a file containing:

#include<stdio.h>

int main () {
        printf("Hello PowerPC!\n");
        return 0;
}

powerpc-linux-gnu-gcc -static -g hello.cpp -o hello 
qemu-ppc hello

Building bare kernel

this is work in progress

git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux raspberrypi-linux
cd raspberrypi-linux
cp arch/arm/configs/bcmrpi_cutdown_defconfig .config
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- oldconfig
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- menuconfig
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- -k

or do some defconfig for ppc

make -j 4 [u|z]Image dtbs modules
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-none-linux-gnueabi-

export ARCH:=arm
export CROSS_COMPILE:=arm-none-linux-gnueabi-


ARCH=arm
COMPILER=arm-none-linux-gnueabi
obj-m := Hello.o
KERNELDIR := /home/ravi/workspace/hawk/linux-omapl1
PWD := $(shell pwd)
default:
    $(MAKE) -C $(KERNELDIR) M=$(PWD) ARCH=$(ARCH) CROSS_COMPILE=$(COMPILER) modules

clean:
    $(MAKE) -C $(KERNELDIR) M=$(PWD) ARCH=$(ARCH) clean
    
    
ARCH := arm
CROSS_COMPILE := arm-none-linux-gnueabi-
obj-m := Hello.o
KDIR := /home/ravi/workspace/hawk/linux-omapl1
PWD := $(shell pwd)
export
default:
          $(MAKE) -C $(KDIR) M=$(PWD) modules
clean:
          $(MAKE) -C $(KDIR) M=$(PWD) clean

a device tree database is required for proper functioning arm targets, for my example ive used versatile-pb.dtb that is also provided after compiling the kernel.

Resources

The following resources where used making this project or helped solve problems. "Attribution" as per stackoverflow. as some code might have evolved away from the "answers", I choose to put the links here under headings of general meaning. The link titles are describtive enough.

• https://gts3.org/2017/cross-kernel.html
• https://balau82.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/hello-world-for-bare-metal-arm-using-qemu/
• https://github.com/netbeast/docs/wiki/Cross-compile-test-application
• http://preshing.com/20141119/how-to-build-a-gcc-cross-compiler/
• http://www.clfs.org/view/CLFS-3.0.0-SYSTEMD/ppc64-64/materials/packages.html
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33450401/building-gcc-make-all-error-2
• https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-help/2012-07/msg00018.html
• https://www.computerhope.com/unix/ucpio.htm
• https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/56614/send-file-by-xmodem-or-kermit-protocol-with-gnu-screen/65362#65362
• https://www.computerhope.com/unix/ucpio.htm
• https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/56614/send-file-by-xmodem-or-kermit-protocol-with-gnu-screen/65362#65362
• https://www.lifewire.com/bash-for-loop-examples-2200575
• https://landley.net/aboriginal/bin/
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46695403/how-to-add-a-carriage-return-with-sed
• https://blog.christophersmart.com/2016/08/31/configuring-qemu-bridge-helper-after-access-denied-by-acl-file-error/

Bash vs Sh

Some people dislike bash, and set their default shell to something else then bash. This leads to incompatibilities between "scripts" and thus require minor and sometimes mayor code changes to support these different shells. I cannot test them all, but I try to make them compatible. for now, bash is the default. I might consider zsh.

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50832481/busybox-sh-wont-exhttps://stackoverflow.com/questions/50832481/busybox-sh-wont-execute-the-bash-scriptecute-the-bash-script

For teenylinux ive swapped to (d)ash (sh like) and this also required profile change:

• https://linux.die.net/man/1/ash
• https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/176027/ash-profile-configuration-file
• https://www.in-ulm.de/%7Emascheck/various/ash/

VSCode tricks and tips

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50569100/vscode-how-to-make-ctrlk-kill-till-the-end-of-line-in-the-terminal

Kernel compiling in general

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58924424/why-does-gdb-does-not-show-debug-symbols-of-kernel-with-debug-info
• https://github.com/amezin/vscode-linux-kernel
• https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.10/dev-tools/gdb-kernel-debugging.html
• https://elinux.org/Debugging_The_Linux_Kernel_Using_Gdb
• https://www.starlab.io/blog/using-gdb-to-debug-the-linux-kernel
• https://sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/gdb/Auto_002dloading-safe-path.html
• https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/dev-tools/gdb-kernel-debugging.rst

Compilers

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17939930/finding-out-what-the-gcc-include-path-is
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2188751/linking-iostream-h-in-linux-using-gcc/2188765#2188765

Crosscompile

• https://gts3.org/2017/cross-kernel.html
• https://balau82.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/hello-world-for-bare-metal-arm-using-qemu/
• https://github.com/netbeast/docs/wiki/Cross-compile-test-application
• https://balau82.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/compiling-linux-kernel-for-qemu-arm-emulator/
• https://designprincipia.com/compile-linux-kernel-for-arm-and-run-on-qemu/

For TinyC Compiler

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49391116/build-newlib-with-existing-cross-compiler
• https://wiki.osdev.org/Porting_Newlib
• https://github.com/john-tipper/Cross-compile-toolchain-for-linux-on-OSX/
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11307465/destdir-and-prefix-of-make
• https://www.monperrus.net/martin/compiling-c-code-with-dietlibc-and-tcc

Bash tricks

• https://linuxhandbook.com/bash-arrays/
• https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/finding-bash-shell-array-length-elements/

Resolved a init kernel problem: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15277570/simple-replacement-of-init-to-just-start-console

timing:

• https://linuxconfig.org/time-your-bash-scripts-and-procedures-from-inside-the-code

Dropbear

• http://wiki.andreas-duffner.de/index.php/Ssh%2C_error:_openpty:_No_such_file_or_directory
• https://serverfault.com/questions/963994/how-to-manually-setup-network-connection-from-busybox-shell-ash
• https://superuser.com/questions/141344/dont-add-hostkey-to-known-hosts-for-ssh