Cross Compile Environment for DNS-323

If, for whatever reason, you cannot compile the source code below, pre-compiled binaries are available from the uClibc website here as of May 17th. You can also download a native compiler, to compile programs for the device, on the device here. The cross-compiler is around 55MB when unpacked, and the native compiler around 35MB.

To set up the build environment, you simply need to un-tar the files and add the necessary folders to the PATH:

For the cross-compiler ('user' is an example username):

cd /home/user
tar xjf cross-compiler-armv5l.tar.bz2
rm cross-compiler-armv5l.tar.bz2
export PATH=/home/user/cross-compiler-armv5l/bin:$PATH

Then you would compile programs with armv5l-tool, e.g. armv5l-gcc

For the native compiler:

cd /mnt/HD_a2
tar xjf mini-native-armv5l.tar.bz2
rm mini-native-armv5l.tar.bz2
export PATH=/mnt/HD_a2/mini-native-armv5l/usr/bin:$PATH

Then you would compile programs simply with the normal tool name e.g. gcc

The native compiler, although slow, can actually be quite useful if your cross compiler fails a sanity check, for example.

Oh, I might point out, these images actually use newer versions of the source components than D-Link used.

This was done with http://tsd.dlink.com.tw/temp/download/3034/dns323_GPL_v1.05_05052008.tgz . Untar this tarball. You should find another one inside which holds the actual source. Untar that one as well.

wget http://tsd.dlink.com.tw/temp/download/3034/dns323_GPL_v1.05_05052008.tgz
tar zxvf dns323_GPL_v1.05_05052008.tgz
cd dns323_GPL
tar zxvf dns323_GPL.tgz
cd dns323_GPL

This was done with

• gcc (GCC) 3.4 (Ubuntu 3.4.6-6unbuntu2)
• bison (GNU Bison) 2.3
• flex 2.5.34
• gettext (GNU gettext-runtime) 0.17 (0.16.1 also works)
• and some small utilities like: make, bzip2, libncurses5-dev, patch

To install these using apt do something like

sudo apt-get install gcc-3.4 bison flex gettext make bzip2 libncurses5-dev patch

If you are using ubuntu 9.04 you should set an symbolic link, since the build of the toolchain will be done using /usr/bin/gcc. If this is the default ubuntu gcc (for ubuntu 9.04 it is 4.3) then the build fails.

sudo rm /usr/bin/gcc
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gcc-3.4 /usr/bin/gcc

Now you are ready to build the toolchain, but dont forget to set a symbolic link back to /usr/bin/gcc-4.3 when it's finished.

The toolchain didn't quite compile out-of-the-box…

  note (2009-10-24) Somebody should note where to get the tarball for uclibc described below?
  -> As for me, the tarball was found inside the downloaded file (dns323_GPL.tgz).

# untar everything
tar xzf uclibc-toolchain-src-20040609.tgz
cd uclibc-toolchain-src-20040609/gcc-3.3.x
 
# fix broken link
#sed -i.old -e 's%ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/releases/gcc-%ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/gcc-%' -e 's/gdb //' 
#
# above link to ftp-site refuses to connect, http-site would answer
sed -i.old -e 's%ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/releases/gcc-%http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/gcc-%' -e 's/gdb //' make/gcc-uclibc-3.3.mk
 
# fix linux headers versioning
sed -i.old -e 's/UTS_RELEASE ­­­\\"2\.4\.21\\"/UTS_RELEASE \\"2.6.12.6-arm1\\"/' -e 's/LINUX_VERSION_CODE 132117/LINUX_VERSION_CODE 132620/' make/kernel-headers.mk
 
# do not build gdb.
# building gdb did not work for me. you might want give it a shot, if you really need the debugger..
# to do so just leave out these steps. if it fails, just retry from this point
sed -i.old 's/gdb #ccache$/# gdb #ccache/' Makefile
mv make/gdb-uclibc.mk make/gdb-uclibc.mk.dontinclude
 
# build a clean toolchain
# if some error occurs, try to fix it, drop a note somewhere and redo these two steps
make dirclean
yes "" | make

Voila, you just have built your cross-compiler. Note: this does not compile with gcc-4.2, but works with gcc-3.4

Use crosstools-env.sh, which is in [http://www.inreto.de/dns323/source/fw103-scripts-0.3-2007-07-29.tar.bz2], and fix the CWD variable to suit your needs.

Now you should be able to compile whatever you need.

For example:

# create a directory for this and copy all the files that you need there
mkdir ~/arm
cd ~/arm

# copy the toolchain_arm directory here. The directory is something like: dns323_GPL/dns323_GPL/uclibc-toolchain-src-20040609/gcc-3.3.x/toolchain_arm
cp -R $PATH_TO_DNS323_toolchain_arm .

# get the crossentools-env.sh with bunch of other stuff. We only need crosstools-env.sh
wget http://www.inreto.de/dns323/source/fw103-scripts-0.3-2007-07-29.tar.bz2
tar xvjf fw103-scripts-0.3-2007-07-29.tar.bz2
cp fw103-0.3/crosstools-env.sh .

This is what crosstools-env.sh looks like

#!/bin/sh

#CWD=$(pwd)
#CWD=/opt/dns323/fw103-0.3
CWD=/home/dns323_GPL/dns323_GPL/uclibc-toolchain-src-20040609/gcc-3.3.x

# I've changed this line:
#export CROSSTOOLS=$CWD/crosstools/gcc-3.3.x/toolchain_arm
# to:
export CROSSTOOLS=~/arm/toolchain_arm

# compile-time

export PATH=$CROSSTOOLS/bin:$PATH

export BUILD="-Os -mtune=arm9e -march=armv5te"

export CROSS_TARGET=arm-linux-uclibc

export CC="${CROSS_TARGET}-gcc"
export CXX="${CROSS_TARGET}-g++"
export AR="${CROSS_TARGET}-ar"
export AS="${CROSS_TARGET}-as"
export LD="${CROSS_TARGET}-ld"
export RANLIB="${CROSS_TARGET}-ranlib"
export READELF="${CROSS_TARGET}-readelf"
export STRIP="${CROSS_TARGET}-strip"

Now, to compile your own program, do:

# bring the environment variables from crosstools-env.sh into our current shell
source crosstools-env.sh

# check the CC environment variable has been set
echo $CC

# output should be: arm-linux-uclibc-gc

# create a sample hello-world program:
echo '#include<stdio.h>
int main()
{
   printf("Hello, World\n");
return 0;
}' > hello.C

# now compile it
$CC -O2 hello.C -o hello

#or
arm-linux-cc -O2 hello.C -o hello

# now copy the hello executable to your DNS-323, and try it there

For firmware 1.06 all you have to do is get another tarball from ftp://ftp.dlink.com/GPL/DNS-323/106/dns323_GPL_v1.06_12032008.tgz

# get and unpack toolchain files
wget ftp://ftp.dlink.com/GPL/DNS-323/106/dns323_GPL_v1.06_12032008.tgz
tar zxvf dns323_GPL_v1.06_12032008.tgz
cd dns323_GPL
tar zxvf dns323_GPL.tgz
cd dns323_GPL

then continue with instructions for firmware 1.05 above.

- didn't work for me, it generated “32-bit, no machine” executables, which of course, can't be executed on i686.

# workaround (just remove --build= and --host= from ./configure options):
sed -i.old 's/--build=$(GNU_HOST_NAME) \//g' make/gcc-uclibc-3.3.mk
sed -i.old 's/--host=$(GNU_HOST_NAME) \//g' make/gcc-uclibc-3.3.mk

# for binutils too
sed -i.old 's/--build=$(GNU_HOST_NAME) \//g' make/binutils-uclibc.mk
sed -i.old 's/--host=$(GNU_HOST_NAME) \//g' make/binutils-uclibc.mk

Note: to compile (optware-)packages for the DNS323, the correct ./configure parameter is – –host=arm-linux-uclibc. at least that worked for me…

Another note: i set this up with ubuntu 9.04 in a virtual machine (vmware, any other flavour should do too) and did a snapshot of the working environment. gives me a fully operational and (in a certain way) portable solution for cross compiling.

And yet another note: For 1.6, you need also to comment out or remove the 'gdb' target in gcc-uclibc-3.3.mk, i.e. before making, run:

sed -i.old 's/gdb//' make/gcc-uclibc-3.3.mk

Please feel free to update, cleanup or correct this page

Note: The wget-gpl script now no longer works: instead the GPL directory has a readme file redirecting you here. The actual GPL files are found here, with the DNS-323 specific file here as of May 10th. Simply copy this file into GPL/zips and continue.

What is this? This document shows how to build the D-LINK DNS-323 GPL toolchain, kernel and u-boot loader

Things you will need first

• Development System x86-based Debian-based Ubuntu Linux "Dapper Drake" (6.06)
• You will need the following tools: bison flex gcc-3.4 byacc g++-3.4 gettext patch
  • Check your active compiler version with gcc -v
  • If your compiler is newer then gcc-3.4 then change the /usr/bin/gcc symlink to point to /usr/bin/gcc-3.4 for building the toolchain - restore it when you are done
  • If g++ is newer than version 3.4 also change the /usr/bin/g++ symlink accordingly.
• Make sure libncurses5-dev is installed or you'll get termcap not found error
• Create a directory to build your source in

mkdir GPL

• Create a directory to download the sources into

mkdir GPL/zips

• Change into the GPL directory

cd GPL

• Download and extract my build_dns323.tgz the GPL directory

tar xzf build_dns323.tgz

• Download the GPL sources:

./wget_GPL

• Build the ARM UCLIBC toolchain

Fix the bug in the script build_uclibc: on line 24, replace .tar.gz with .tgz (obviously the extension of the tarballs changed)

The path to the gcc sources has changed, so we need to fix it:

tar xzf zips/uclibc-toolchain-src-20040609.tgz

edit the file: uclibc-toolchain-src-20040609/gcc-3.3.x/make/gcc-uclibc-3.3.mk Change the so that the path defined on line 23 reads:

GCC_SITE:=ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/gcc-$(GCC_VERSION)
- note: I could not access the ftp server, but http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/gcc-$(GCC_VERSION) worked fine. – badwolf April 09

Now, since we have already uncompressed the tar file, we comment out lines 23 and 24 of build_uclibc by adding a # to that start of each line.
Save the modified file, then run the script:

./build_uclibc

And now you must fix your symlinks. cd to $GPL/uclibc-toolchain-src-20040609/gcc-3.3.x/toolchain_arm/arm-linux-uclibc/lib and fix all broken links:

   for lib in crypt dl m nsl pthread resolv rt thread_db util; do ln -sf lib${lib}-* lib${lib}.so; done
   ln -sf libuClibc-0.9.28.so libc.so

Note For each build script below - extract the corresponding file from the zips directory. Example:

   tar xzf zips/linux-2.6.12.6.tgz

This creates a directory called linux-2.6.12.6 that build_kernel knows about.

• Build the ARM kernel

fix bug in script build_kernel: on line 5, replace linux-2.6.6 by linux-2.6.12.6

./build_kernel

• Build the u-boot loader. The script defaults to u-boot_1_1_1, but newer boxes use 1.7.3 - If you want to do so, you have to change the directory in the build_u-boot file accordingly and remove all .depend files from the u-boot_1_7_3 directory and its subdirectories.

./build_u-boot

• Build busybox

The script needs a change; add line export CC=arm-linux-gcc, then execute.

./build_busybox

• Build at

./build_at

Notes:

The ./build_uclibc script creates a script called setpath that can be used to compile other ARM uclibc programs later on.

Many of the remaining D-LINK sources have not been configured for being cross-compiled. In fact, the “Readme.txt” file they supply with the GPL sources has instruction that are just plain wrong.