Bug 13681

Summary: syslinux build install tools
Product: buildroot Reporter: moelzerjens
Component: OtherAssignee: unassigned
Status: RESOLVED MOVED    
Severity: normal CC: buildroot, yann.morin.1998
Priority: P5    
Version: 2021.02   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Host: Target:
Build:
Attachments: Draft patch installing syslinux mtools for the host

Description moelzerjens 2021-03-30 13:40:44 UTC 
The way the syslinux install tools are currently built doesn't make a lot of sense imho: The only tool that's installed is extlinux and that is only built for the host. That's not really useful as extlinux needs root, so it can't cleanly be used to automatically generate disk images on the host. The syslinux/mtools-syslinux tools that could be used for disk image generation without root on the host are only built for the target and not installed (they can be found in the build folder).

Therefore I propose the following improvements:

1) Provide an option to build extlinux for the target like the grub2 package "install tools" option (BR2_TARGET_GRUB2_INSTALL_TOOLS).

2) Build the syslinux/mtools-syslinux installer for the host to facilitate scripted disk image generation. It might be beneficial to integrate the syslinux patches from Yocto Project [1] that extend syslinux support to ext2/3/4 as well.

[1] http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi/poky/plain/meta/recipes-devtools/syslinux/syslinux/
Comment 1 Thomas Petazzoni 2021-03-30 19:44:09 UTC 
Created attachment 8841 [details]
Draft patch installing syslinux mtools for the host

In case it helps, here is a patch I never had the time to clean up and submit properly to Buildroot, but it does build the syslinux mtools installer for the host.
Comment 2 Yann E. MORIN 2024-06-15 14:58:02 UTC 
Thank you for your report.

The issue tracker for the Buildroot project has been moved to
the Gitlab.com issue tracker:
    https://gitlab.com/buildroot.org/buildroot/-/issues

We are taking this opportunity to close old issues in this old
tracker. If you believe your issue is still relevant, please
open one in the new issue tracker.

Thank you!