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Packages

The NethSecurity build system is based on OpenWrt, which uses the concept of packages to manage software components. NethSecurity includes two different sets of packages: NethSecurity packages and OpenWrt packages.

NethSecurity packages

NethSecurity packages are added to a special nspackages feed, which is included in the image at every build. This feed is used to include custom packages that are not part of the OpenWrt.

To add a new package, just create a new directory inside the packages directory. All packages inside this directory will be automatically available inside make menuconfig. Make sure to enable it on build time adding the correct configuration file inside conf dir.

Conventions:

  • the name of the package should always start with ns- prefix. Example: ns-myapp
  • set the CATEGORY to NethSecurity and SECTION to base, the package will show up under NethSecurity section when executing make menuconfig

When creating a new package which includes all the code, do not set PKG_SOURCE_URL and PKG_SOURCE variables.

Example:

PKG_NAME:=ns-myapp
PKG_VERSION:=0.0.1
PKG_RELEASE:=1

PKG_BUILD_DIR:=$(BUILD_DIR)/ns-myapp-$(PKG_VERSION)
include $(INCLUDE_DIR)/package.mk

define Package/ns-myapp
	SECTION:=base
	CATEGORY:=NethSecurity
	TITLE:=My mighty myapp
	URL:=<app_url>
	DEPENDS:=+firstdepend
	PKGARCH:=all
endef

To compile only the package, launch the shell inside the container then use:

make package/feeds/nethsecurity/ns-myapp/{download,compile} V=sc

Or, using a one-liner:

./run bash -- -c "make package/feeds/nethsecurity/ns-myapp/{download,compile} V=sc"

The package will be available inside bin/packages/x86_64/nethsecurity/ns-myapp_<version>_all.ipk.

For more info, see upstream guide

OpenWrt packages

OpenWrt packages are included in the NethSecurity image only when creating the image builder. The image builder is container used to create the final NethSecurity image.

There is a packages repository inside GitHub that contains all the packages. Please note that the branches inside this repository, like openwrt-23.05 are not the ones used by the build system.

The version of the packages repository used in the build is the one indicated in the feeds.conf.default file. You can find it by running ./run bash.

Example of the content of feeds.conf.default:

src-git packages https://git.openwrt.org/feed/packages.git^b5ed85f6e94aa08de1433272dc007550f4a28201
src-git luci https://git.openwrt.org/project/luci.git^63ba3cba5b7bfb803a875d4d8f01248634687fd5
src-git routing https://git.openwrt.org/feed/routing.git^e351d1e623e9ef2ab78f28cb1ce8d271d28c902d
src-link nethsecurity /home/build/openwrt/nspackages

This file indicates that the packages repository is used at commit b5ed85f6e94aa08de1433272dc007550f4a28201. Since the image builder is created only once per release, the packages are not updated at every build, but only when a new release is created.

Every build produces a Packages.manifest file that contains the list of all the packages included in the image. Note that a manifest can change between builds, even if the packages are not updated. This means that builds are not reproducible, but it is not a problem if the version of the packages does not change.

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