Browser VM

A custom Buildroot config for a Linux x86 VM, meant to be run in the browser as part of XRSH The resulting Linux ISO is meant to be run under emulation in the browser via v86, and includes:

• a custom Linux 4.15 kernel, which strips out many unnecessary drivers, modules, etc. and adds Plan 9 filesystem sharing
• a root filesystem and Unix commands via BusyBox
• an ISO-based bootloader (i.e., we create a "DVD" that is booted by v86)

Following the Buildroot customization docs we create a folder buildroot-v86/ with all the necessary config files, filesystem overlay, and scripts necessary to build our distribution.

Running ISO via qemu

qemu-system-i386 -cdrom dist/v86-linux.iso

or with nix:

nix-shell -p qemu --run 'qemu-system-i386 -cdrom dist/v86-linux.iso'

Building via Docker

To build the Docker image use the build.sh script, or:

$ docker build -t buildroot .

And then to run the build:

$ docker run \
    --rm \
    --name build-v86 \
    -v $PWD/dist:/build \
    -v $PWD/buildroot-v86/:/buildroot-v86 \
    buildroot

NOTE: we define two volumes to allow the container to access the v86 config, and also to write the ISO once complete. In the above I've used $PWD, but you can use any absolute path.

When the build completes, an ISO file will be places in ./dist/v86-linux.iso in your source tree (i.e., outside the container).

If you need to re-configure things, instead of just running the build, do the following:

$ docker run \
    --rm \
    --name build-v86 \
    -v $PWD/dist:/build \
    -v $PWD/buildroot-v86/:/buildroot-v86 \
    -ti \
    --entrypoint "bash" \
    buildroot

Now in the resulting bash terminal, you can run make menuconfig and other make commands.

buildroot-v86/ Layout

We define a v86 buildroot "board" via the following files and directories:

+-- board/
    +-- v86
        +-- linux.config        # our custom Linux kernel config (make linux-menuconfig)
        +-- post_build.sh       # script to copy ISO file out of docker container
        +-- rootfs_overlay/     # overrides for files in the root filesystem
            +-- etc/
                +-- inittab     # we setup a ttyS0 console terminal to auto-login
                +-- fstab       # we auto-mount the Plan 9 Filer filesystem to /mnt
    +-- configs/
        +-- v86_defconfig       # our custom buildroot config (make menuconfig)
    +-- Config.in               # empty, but required https://buildroot.org/downloads/manual/manual.html#outside-br-custom
    +-- external.mk             # empty, but required https://buildroot.org/downloads/manual/manual.html#outside-br-custom
    +-- external.desc           # our v86 board config for make
    +-- build-v86.sh            # entrypoint for Docker to run our build

If you need or want to update these config files, do the following:

method 1 (auto-guide via shellscript)

$ ./build.sh --edit

method 2 (manually)

$ make BR2_EXTERNAL=/buildroot-v86 v86_defconfig
$ make menuconfig
...
$ make savedefconfig
$ make linux-menuconfig
...
$ make linux-savedefconfig
$ mkdir output/legal-info && touch output/legal-info/{host-licenses,licenses,buildroot.config}
$ make

Configuration Notes

These are the options I set when configuring buildroot for v86. I'm only specifying the things I set.

$ cd buildroot-2018.02
$ make menuconfig

Then follow these config steps in the buildroot config menu (NOTE: these docs may have drifted from the actual config in the source, so consult that first):

Target options

• Target Architecture: i386
• Target Architecture Variant: pentium mobile (Pentium with MMX, SSE)

Build options

• Enable compiler cache (not strictly necessary, but helps with rebuilds)

Toolchain

• C library: uLibc-ng (I'd like to experiment with musl too)

System configuration

• remount root filesystem read-write during boot (I think this is unnecessary)
• Root filesystem overlay directories: /build/overlay-fs (for etc/inittab)

Kernel

• Linux Kernel: true
• Defconfig name: i386
• Kernel binary format: bzImage (vmlinux seemed to break on boot)

Target packages

Need to figure this out. I tried adding imagemagik, git, uemacs, but they are all adding too much size to the image.

Filesystem images

• cpio the root filesystem (for use as an initial RAM filesystem)
• initial RAM filesystem linked into the linux kernel (not sure I need this, trying without...)
• iso image
  • Use initrd
• tar the root filesystem Compression method (no compression)

Bootloaders

• syslinux
  • install isolinux

Linux configuration

Now configure the Linux Kernel:

$ make linux-menuconfig

And set the following options to accomplish this:

CONFIG_NET_9P=y
CONFIG_NET_9P_VIRTIO=y
CONFIG_9P_FS=y
CONFIG_9P_FS_POSIX_ACL=y
CONFIG_PCI=y
CONFIG_VIRTIO_PCI=y
CONFIG_PCI=y
CONFIG_VIRTIO_PCI=y

Processor type and features

• Processor family (Pentium-Pro) also tried Pentium M before.

Bus options (PCI, etc.)

• PCI Debugging: true (I want to see what's happening with PCI errors, normally not needed)

Networking support

• Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support (9P2000) (built into kernel * vs. M)
  • 9P Virtio Transport (* - make this is on, it won't exist if virtio is off)
  • Debug information (* - optional)

Device Drivers

• Virtio drivers
  • PCI driver for virtio devices (built into kernel * vs. M)
    • Support for legacy virtio draft 0.9.X and older devices (New)
  • Platform bus driver for memory mapped virtio devices (* vs. M) - not sure I need this...
    • Memory mapped virtio devices parameter parsing - or this...

Filesystems

• Caches

  • General filesystem local caching manager (*)
    • Filesystem caching on files (*)

• Network File Systems

  • Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support (9P2000) (*)
    • Enable 9P client caching support
    • 9P Posic Access Control Lists

Now run make

When it finishes, the built image is in ./output/images.