liminix/doc/development.adoc

= For Developers

In any Nix-based system the line between "configuration"
and "development" is less of a line and more of a continuum.
This section covers some topics further towards the latter end.

== Writing modules and services

It helps here to know NixOS! Liminix uses the NixOS module
infrastructure code, meaning that everything that has been written for
NixOS about the syntax, the type system, and the rules for combining
configuration values from different sources is just as applicable
here.

=== Services

For the most part, for common use cases, we hope that Liminix modules
provide service templates for all the services you will need, and you
will only have to pass the right parameters to `+build+`.

But if you're reading this then our hopes are in vain.  To create a
custom service of your own devising, use the [.title-ref]#oneshot# or
[.title-ref]#longrun# functions:

* a "longrun" service is the "normal" service concept: it has a `+run+`
action which describes the process to start, and it watches that process
to restart it if it exits. The process should not attempt to daemonize
or "background" itself, otherwise s6-rc will think it died. Whatever it
prints to standard output/standard error will be logged.

[source,nix]
----
config.services.cowsayd = pkgs.liminix.services.longrun {
  name = "cowsayd";
  run = "${pkgs.cowsayd}/bin/cowsayd --port 3001 --breed hereford";
  # don't start this until the lan interface is ready
  dependencies = [ config.services.lan ];
}
----

* a "oneshot" service doesn't have a process attached. It consists of
`+up+` and `+down+` actions which are bits of shell script that are run
at the appropriate points in the service lifecycle

[source,nix]
----
config.services.greenled = pkgs.liminix.services.oneshot {
  name = "greenled";
  up = ''
    echo 17 > /sys/class/gpio/export
    echo out > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/direction
    echo 0   > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/value
  '';
  down = ''
    echo 0   > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/value
  '';
}
----

Services may have dependencies: as you see above in the `+cowsayd+`
example, it depends on some service called `+config.services.lan+`,
meaning that it won't be started until that other service is up.

===== Service outputs

Outputs are a mechanism by which a service can provide data which may be
required by other services. For example:

* the DHCP client service can expect to receive nameserver address
information as one of the fields in the response from the DHCP server:
we provide that as an output which a dependent service for a stub name
resolver can use to configure its upstream servers.
* a service that creates a new network interface (e.g. ppp) will provide
the name of the interface (`+ppp0+`, or `+ppp1+` or `+ppp7+`) as an
output so that a dependent service can reference it to set up a route,
or to configure firewall rules.

A service `+myservice+` should write its outputs as files in
`+/run/services/outputs/myservice+`: you can look around this directory
on a running Liminix system to see how it's used currently. Usually we
use the `+in_outputs+` shell function in the `+up+` or `+run+`
attributes of the service:

[source,shell]
----
(in_outputs ${name}
 for i in lease mask ip router siaddr dns serverid subnet opt53 interface ; do
   (printenv $i || true) > $i
 done)
----

The outputs are just files, so technically you can read them using
anything that can read a file. Liminix has two "preferred" mechanisms,
though:

===== One-off lookups

In any context that ends up being evaluated by the shell, use `+output+`
to print the value of an output

[source,nix]
----
services.defaultroute4 = svc.network.route.build {
  via = "$(output ${services.wan} address)";
  target = "default";
  dependencies = [ services.wan ];
};
----

===== Continuous updates

The downside of using shell functions in downstream service startup
scripts is that they only run when the service starts up: if a service
output _changes_, the downstream service would have to be restarted to
notice the change. Sometimes this is OK but other times the downstream
has no other need to restart, if it can only get its new data.

For this case, there is the `+anoia.svc+` Fennel library, which allows
you to write a simple loop which is iterated over whenever a service's
outputs change. This code is from
`+modules/dhcp6c/acquire-wan-address.fnl+`

[source,fennel]
----
(fn update-addresses [wan-device addresses new-addresses exec]
  ;; run some appropriate "ip address [add|remove]" commands
  )

(fn run []
  (let [[state-directory wan-device] arg
        dir (svc.open state-directory)]
    (accumulate [addresses []
                 v (dir:events)]
      (update-addresses wan-device addresses
			(or (v:output "address") []) system))))
----

The `+output+` method seen here accepts a filename (relative to the
service's output directory), or a directory name. It returns the first
line of that file, or for directories it returns a table (Lua's
key/value datastructure, similar to a hash/dictionary) of the outputs in
that directory.

===== Design considerations for outputs

For preference, outputs should be short and simple, and not require
downstream services to do complicated parsing in order to use them.
Shell commands in Liminix are run using the Busybox shell which doesn't
have the niceties evel of an advanced shell like Bash, let alone those of a
real programming language.

Note also that the Lua `+svc+` library only reads the first line of each
output.


=== Modules

Modules in Liminix conventionally live in
`+modules/somename/default.nix+`. If you want or need to write your own,
you may wish to refer to the examples there in conjunction with reading
this section.

A module is a function that accepts `+{lib, pkgs, config, ... }+` and
returns an attrset with keys `+imports, options, config+`.

* `+imports+` is a list of paths to the other modules required by this
one
* `+options+` is a nested set of option declarations
* `+config+` is a nested set of option definitions

The NixOS manual section
https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/#sec-writing-modules[Writing NixOS
Modules] is a quite comprehensive reference to writing NixOS modules,
which is also mostly applicable to Liminix except that it doesn't cover
service templates.


==== Service templates

Although you can define services "ad hoc" using `longrun` or `oneshot`
<<_writing_services,as above>>, this approach has limitations if
you're writing code intended for wider use. Services in the
modules bundled with Liminix are implemented following a pattern we
call "service templates": functions that accept a _type-checked_
attrset and return an appropriately configured service that can be
assigned by the caller to a key in ``config.services``.

To expose a service template in a module, it needs the following:

* an option declaration for `+system.service.myservicename+` with the
type of `+liminix.lib.types.serviceDefn+`

[source,nix]
----
options = {
  system.service.cowsay = mkOption {
    type = liminix.lib.types.serviceDefn;
  };
};
----

* an option definition for the same key, which specifies where to import
the service template from (often `+./service.nix+`) and the types of its
parameters.

[source,nix]
----
config.system.service.cowsay = config.system.callService ./service.nix {
  address = mkOption {
    type = types.str;
    default = "0.0.0.0";
    description = "Listen on specified address";
    example = "127.0.0.1";
  };
  port = mkOption {
    type = types.port;
    default = 22;
    description = "Listen on specified TCP port";
  };
  breed = mkOption {
    type = types.str;
    default = "British Friesian"
    description = "Breed of the cow";
  };
};
----

Then you need to provide the service template itself, probably in
`+./service.nix+`:

[source,nix]
----
{
  # any nixpkgs package can be named here
  liminix
, cowsayd
, serviceFns
, lib
}:
# these are the parameters declared in the callService invocation
{ address, port, breed} :
let
  inherit (liminix.services) longrun;
  inherit (lib.strings) escapeShellArg;
in longrun {
  name = "cowsayd";
  run = "${cowsayd}/bin/cowsayd --address ${address} --port ${builtins.toString port} --breed ${escapeShellArg breed}";
}
----

TIP: Not relevant to module-based services specifically, but a common gotcha
when specifiying services is forgetting to transform "rich" parameter
values into text when composing a command for the shell to execute. Note
here that the port number, an integer, is stringified with `+toString+`,
and the name of the breed, which may contain spaces, is escaped with
`+escapeShellArg+`

=== Types

All of the NixOS module types are available in Liminix. These
Liminix-specific types also exist in `+pkgs.liminix.lib.types+`:

* `+service+`: an s6-rc service
* `+interface+`: an s6-rc service which specifies a network interface
* `+serviceDefn+`: a service "template" definition

In the future it is likely that we will extend this to include other
useful types in the networking domain: for example; IP address, network
prefix or netmask, protocol family and others as we find them.


=== Emulated devices

Unless your changes depend on particular hardware devices, you may
want to test your new/changed module with one of the emulated
"devices" which runn on your build machine using the free
http://www.qemu.org[QEMU machine emulator]. They are

* `qemu`(MIPS)
* `qemu-armv7l`(32 bit ARM)
* `qemu-aarch64` (64 bit ARM)

This means you don't need to keep flashing or messing with U-Boot: it
also enables testing against emulated network peers using
https://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/Networking#Socket[QEMU socket
networking], which may be preferable to letting Liminix loose on your
actual LAN. To build,

[source,console]
----
nix-build -I liminix-config=path/to/your/configuration.nix --arg device "import ./devices/qemu" -A outputs.default
----

This creates a `+result/+` directory containing a `+vmlinux+` and a
`+rootfs+`, and a shell script `+run.sh+` which invokes QEMU to run
that kernel with that filesystem. It connects the Liminix serial console
and the https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/system/monitor.html[QEMU
monitor] to stdin/stdout. Use `^P` (not `^A`) to switch to the monitor.

// FIXME should add a `connect.sh` script instead of requiring nix-shell here

If you run with `+--background /path/to/some/directory+` as the first
parameter, it will fork into the background and open Unix sockets in
that directory for console and monitor. Use `+nix-shell --run
connect-vm+` to connect to either of these sockets, and ^O to
disconnect.

[[qemu-networking]]
===== Networking

VMs can network with each other using QEMU socket networking. We observe
these conventions, so that we can run multiple emulated instances and
have them wired up to each other in the right way:

* multicast 230.0.0.1:1234 : access (interconnect between router and
"isp")
* multicast 230.0.0.1:1235 : lan
* multicast 230.0.0.1:1236 : world (the internet)

Any VM started by a `+run.sh+` script is connected to "lan" and
"access". The emulated upstream (see below) runs PPPoE and is
connected to "access" and "world".

===== Upstream connection

In pkgs/routeros there is a derivation to install and configure
https://mikrotik.com/software[Mikrotik RouterOS] as a PPPoE access
concentrator connected to the `+access+` and `+world+` networks, so that
Liminix PPPoE client support can be tested without actual hardware.

This is made available as the `+routeros+` command in `+buildEnv+`, so
you can do something like:

....
mkdir ros-sockets
nix-shell
nix-shell$ routeros ros-sockets
nix-shell$ connect-vm ./ros-sockets/console
....

to start it and connect to it. Note that by default it runs in the
background. It is connected to "access" and "world" virtual networks and
runs a PPPoE service on "access" - so a Liminix VM with a PPPOE client
can connect to it and thus reach the virtual internet. [ check, but
pretty sure this is not the actual internet ]

[.title-ref]#Liminix does not provide RouterOS licences and it is your
own responsibility if you use this to ensure you're compliant with the
terms of Mikrotik's licencing. It may be supplemented or replaced in
time with configurations for RP-PPPoE and/or Accel PPP.#

== Hardware hacking/porting to new device

The steps to port to a new hardware device are largely undocumented at
present (although this hasn't stopped people from figuring it out
already). As an outline I would recommend

* choose hardware that OpenWrt already supports, otherwise you will
probably spend a lot of time writing kernel code.  The OpenWrt kernel
supports many network interfaces and other hardware for a lot of
hardware boards that might only just about be able to boot Linux on a
serial port if you stick to mainline Linux

* work out how to get a serial console on it. You are unlikely to get
  working networking on your first go at boulding a kernel

* find the most similar device in Liminiux and copy
  `devices/existing-similar-device` to `devices/cool-new-device` as a
  starting point

* use the kernel configuration (`/proc/config.gz`) from OpenWrt as a
 reference for the kernel config you'll need to specify
 in `devices/cool-new-device/default.nix`

* break it down into achieveable goals. Your first goal should be
  something that can TFTP boot the kernel as far as a running
  userland. Networking is harder, Wifi often much harder - it
  sometimes also depends on having working flash _even if_ you're TFTP
  booting because the driver expects to load wifi firmware or
  calibration data from the flash

* ask on IRC!

=== TFTP

[[tftpserver]]
How you get your image onto hardware will vary according to the device,
but is likely to involve taking it apart to add wires to serial console
pads/headers, then using U-Boot to fetch images over TFTP. The OpenWrt
documentation has a
https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/hardware/port.serial[good explanation]
of what you may expect to find on the device.

[[tufted]]
`tufted` is a rudimentary TFTP server which runs from the command
line, has an allowlist for client connections, and follows symlinks,
so you can have your device download images direct from the
`+./result+` directory without exposing `+/nix/store/+` to the
internet or mucking about copying files to `+/tftproot+`. If the
permitted device is to be given the IP address 192.168.8.251 you might
do something like this:

[source,console]
----
nix-shell --run "tufted -a 192.168.8.251 result"
----

Now add the device and server IP addresses to your configuration:

[source,nix]
----
boot.tftp = {
  serverip = "192.168.8.111";
  ipaddr = "192.168.8.251";
};
----

and then build the derivation for `+outputs.default+` or
`+outputs.mtdimage+` (for which it will be an alias on any device where
this is applicable). You should find it has created

* `+result/firmware.bin+` which is the file you are going to flash
* `+result/flash.scr+` which is a set of instructions to U-Boot to
download the image and write it to flash after erasing the appropriate
flash partition.

NOTE: TTL serial connections typically have no form of flow control and so
don't always like having massive chunks of text pasted into them - and
U-Boot may drop characters while it's busy. So don't necessarily expect
to copy-paste the whole of `+boot.scr+` into a terminal emulator and
have it work just like that. You may need to paste each line one at a
time, or even retype it.

=== Running from RAM

For a faster edit-compile-test cycle, you can build a TFTP-bootable
image which boots directly from RAM (using phram) instead of needing
to be flashed first. In your device configuration add

[source,nix]
----
imports = [
  ./modules/tftpboot.nix
];
----

and then build `+outputs.tftpboot+`. This creates a file `+result/boot.scr+`, which you can copy and paste into U-Boot to
transfer the kernel and filesystem over TFTP and boot the kernel from
RAM.

[[bng]]
=== Networking

You probably don't want to be testing a device that might serve DHCP,
DNS and routing protocols on the same LAN as you (or your colleagues,
employees, or family) are using for anything else, because it will
interfere. You also might want to test the device against an "upstream"
connection without having to unplug your regular home router from the
internet so you can borrow the cable/fibre/DSL.

`+bordervm+` is included for this purpose. You will need

* a Linux machine with a spare (PCI or USB) ethernet device which you
can dedicate to Liminix
* an L2TP service such as https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/l2tp-service/

You need to "hide" the Ethernet device from the host so that QEMU has
exclusive use of it. For PCI this means configuring it for VFIO
passthru; for USB you need to unload the module(s) it uses. I have
this segment in my build machine's `configuration.nix` which you may
be able to adapt:

[source,nix]
----
boot = {
  kernelParams = [ "intel_iommu=on" ];
  kernelModules = [
    "kvm-intel" "vfio_virqfd" "vfio_pci" "vfio_iommu_type1" "vfio"
  ];

  postBootCommands = ''
    # modprobe -i vfio-pci
    # echo vfio-pci > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.0/driver_override
  '';
  blacklistedKernelModules = [
    "r8153_ecm" "cdc_ether"
  ];
};
services.udev.extraRules = ''
  SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bda", ATTRS{idProduct}=="8153", OWNER="dan"
'';
----

Then you can execute `+run-border-vm+` in a `+buildEnv+` shell, which
starts up QEMU using the NixOS configuration in
`+bordervm-configuration.nix+`.

Inside the VM

* your Liminix checkout is mounted under `+/home/liminix/liminix+`
* TFTP is listening on the ethernet device and serving
`+/home/liminix/liminix+`. The server IP address is 10.0.0.1
* a PPPOE-L2TP relay is running on the same ethernet card. When the
connected Liminix device makes PPPoE requests, the relay spawns L2TPv2
Access Concentrator sessions to your specified L2TP LNS. Note that
authentication is expected at the PPP layer not the L2TP layer, so the
PAP/CHAP credentials provided by your L2TP service can be configured
into your test device - bordervm doesn't need to know about them.

To configure bordervm, you need a file called `+bordervm.conf.nix+`
which you can create by copying and appropriately editing
`+bordervm.conf-example.nix+`

NOTE: If you make changes to the bordervm configuration after executing
`+run-border-vm+`, you need to remove the `+border.qcow2+` disk image
file otherwise the changes won't get picked up.

== Contributing

Patches welcome! Also bug reports, documentation improvements,
experience reports/case studies etc etc all equally as welcome.

* if you have an obvious bug fix, new package, documentation
  improvement or other uncontroversial small patch, send it straight
  in.

* if you have a large new feature or design change in mind, please
  please _get in touch_ to talk about it before you commit time to
  implementing it. Perhaps it isn't what we were expecting, almost
  certainly we will have ideas or advice on what it should do or how
  it should be done.

Liminix development is not tied to Github or any other particular
forge. How to send changes:

1. Push your Liminix repo with your changes to a git repository
somewhere on the Internet that I can clone from. It can be on Codeberg
or Gitlab or Sourcehut or Forgejo or Gitea or Github or a bare repo in
your own personal web space or any kind of hosting you like.

2. Email devel@liminix.org with the URL of the repo and the branch
name, and we will take a look.

If that's not an option, I’m also happy for you to send your changes
direct to the list itself, as an incremental git bundle or using git
format-patch. We'll work it out somehow.

The main development repo for Liminix is hosted at
<https://gti.telent.net/dan/liminix>, with a read-only mirror at
<https://github.com/telent/liminix>. If you're happy to use Github
then you can fork from the latter to make your changes, but please use
the mailing list one of the approved routes to tell me about your changes because I don't regularly go there to check PRs.

Remember that the <<_code_of_conduct>> applies to all Liminix spaces,
and anyone who violates it may be sanctioned or expelled from these
spaces at the discretion of the project leadership.

=== Nix language style

This section describes some Nix language style points that we attempt to
adhere to in this repo. Some are more aspirational than actual.

* indentation and style is according to `nixfmt-rfc-style`
* favour `+callPackage+` over raw `+import+` for calling derivations or
any function that may generate one - any code that might need `+pkgs+`
or parts of it.
* prefer `+let inherit (quark) up down strange charm+` over
`+with quark+`, in any context where the scope is more than a single
expression or there is more than one reference to `+up+`, `+down+` etc.
`+with pkgs; [ foo bar baz]+` is OK,
`+with lib; stdenv.mkDerivation { ... }+` is usually not.
* `+<liminix>+` is defined only when running tests, so don't refer to it
in "application" code
* the parameters to a derivation are sorted alphabetically, except for
`+lib+`, `+stdenv+` and maybe other non-package "special cases"
* where a `+let+` form defines multiple names, put a newline after the
token `+let+`, and indent each name two characters
* to decide whether some code should be a package or a module? Packages
are self-contained - they live in `+/nix/store/eeeeeee-name+` and don't
directly change system behaviour by their presence or absense. modules
can add to `+/etc+` or `+/bin+` or other global state, create services,
all that side-effecty stuff. Generally it should be a package unless it
can't be.

=== Copyright

The Nix code in Liminix is MIT-licenced (same as Nixpkgs), but the code
it combines from other places (e.g. Linux, OpenWrt) may have a variety
of licences. Copyright assignment is not expected:
just like when submitting to the Linux kernel you retain the copyright
on the code you contribute.

=== Automated builds

Automated builds are run on each push to the main branch. This tests
that (among other things)

* every device image builds
* the build for the “qemu” target is executed with a fake network upstream to test
  * PPPoE and DHCP service
  * hostap (wireless gateway)

You can view the build output at https://build.liminix.org . The tests
are defined in ci.nix.

Unfortunately there's no (easy) way I can make _my_ CI infrastructure
run _your_ code, other than merging it. But see <<_running_tests>>
for how to exercise the same code locally on your machine.


== Running tests

You can run all of the tests by evaluating `+ci.nix+`, which is the
input I use in Hydra.

[source,console]
----
nix-build -I liminix=`pwd`  ci.nix -A pppoe # run one job
nix-build -I liminix=`pwd`  ci.nix -A all # run all jobs
----

== Troubleshooting

=== Diagnosing unexpectedly large images

Sometimes you can add a package and it causes the image size to balloon
because it has dependencies on other things you didn't know about. Build
the `+outputs.manifest+` attribute, which is a JSON representation of
the filesystem, and you can run `+nix-store --query+` on it.

[source,console]
----
nix-build -I liminix-config=path/to/your/configuration.nix \
  --arg device "import ./devices/qemu" -A outputs.manifest \
  -o manifest
nix-store -q --tree manifest
----