OpenWRT
is an open-source project for embedded operating systems based on Linux, primarily used on embedded devices to route network traffic. The main components are Linux, util-linux, musl, and BusyBox. All components have been optimized to be small enough to fit into the limited storage and memory available in home routers. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWrt)
ImageBuilder
OpenWRT provides different possibilities (https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-developer/imagebuilder_frontends) to build custom images for your devices. There is also a little helper tool suggested on IRC called "autobuild" (https://johannes.truschnigg.info/code/openwrt_autobuild/) which helps to manage/keep track of image-configurations for your devices. It's also working with the nix-shell below - please note that there is currently some misbehavior when "make_clean" is set to "True" the system says build is triggered but there are no files/logs/processes running then.
Using ImageBuilder in nix-shell
Get a copy of: https://github.com/nix-community/nix-environments/blob/master/envs/openwrt/shell.nix
Currently (01/2022) I've tested builds using nixpkgs-21.11 and unstable, and both worked. This could possibly break/behave different in the future so you can e.g. pin to an older nixpkgs-revision by replacing the first lines of the above code with this:
{ opkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
let
pkgs = import (opkgs.fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "NixOS";
repo = "nixpkgs";
rev = "<revision>";
sha256 = "<hash>";
}) {};
...
Using ImageBuilder in a Nix Derivation
See https://github.com/astro/nix-openwrt-imagebuilder/
OpenWRT buildroot
It is possible to build OpenWRT from source with buildroot under NixOS too.
You can use the following dev shell with the official OpenWRT build guide:
Make sure you disable the nixpkgs compiler hardening, as the OpenWRT toolchain sources aren't as clean as required by nixpkgs defaults.
{
inputs = {
nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable";
};
outputs = { self, nixpkgs, ... }: {
devShells."x86_64-linux".default = let
pkgs = import nixpkgs {
system = "x86_64-linux";
};
in pkgs.mkShell {
nativeBuildInputs = with pkgs; [
git
pkg-config
ncurses
unzip
python3
cdrtools
];
hardeningDisable = [ "all" ];
};
};
}