Add TARGET_MACHINE to /etc/os-release
Joseph Reynolds
joseph-reynolds at charter.net
Sat Nov 17 04:30:34 AEDT 2018
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Proposal to add TARGET_MACHINE to /etc/os-release.
In an OpenBMC image, the /etc/os-release file includes distro
("openbmc-phosphor") and version (as a git tag or commit). It should
also include the target machine (the kind of device the OpenBMC image is
intended to control). This is needed to be able to track the image back
to its source code: the distro and version indicate the exact source
code that was used, and the target says which Bitbake layer
configuration within that source was used.
Specifically, the proposal is to enhance the generated /etc/os-release
file with a new OS identification parameter like:
OPENBMC_PHOSPHOR_TARGET_MACHINE="$MACHINE"
where MACHINE="romulus", for example.
All OpenBMC images should define this os-release parameter.
Proposed documentation for the new parameter: Indicates the kind of
device the OpenBMC image is targeted to control.
... tl;dr details follow ... snip ...
The MACHINE is set in
openbmc/meta-COMPANY/meta-MACHINE/conf/local.conf.sample. (This is
where TEMPLATECONF points to.)
Note MACHINE is not guaranteed to be unique across all future OpenBMC
layer configurations. (That is, meta-A/meta-B/conf and
meta-X/meta-Y/conf may inadvertently define the same machine name.) To
guarantee uniqueness, an alternate design would be to use the
TEMPLATECONF parameter as the machine name. (e.g.,
"meta-ibm/meta-romulus/conf"). In practice I expect the machine name
will be sufficiently unique: as unique as different company's brand and
model names.
The manual page for "os-release" recommends prefixing the parameter name
with the distro name. Ideas for alternate parameter names are welcome
("OBMC_TARGET_HARDWARE" anyone?). See
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/os-release.html.
The os-release file is generated by the os-release.bb and
os-release.bbappend recipes.
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