4.3.11. Using Headers to Interface with Devices

If your recipe builds an application that needs to communicate with some device or needs an API into a custom kernel, you will need to provide appropriate header files. Under no circumstances should you ever modify the existing meta/recipes-kernel/linux-libc-headers/linux-libc-headers.inc file. These headers are used to build libc and must not be compromised with custom or machine-specific header information. If you customize libc through modified headers all other applications that use libc thus become affected.

Warning

Never copy and customize the libc header file (i.e. meta/recipes-kernel/linux-libc-headers/linux-libc-headers.inc).

The correct way to interface to a device or custom kernel is to use a separate package that provides the additional headers for the driver or other unique interfaces. When doing so, your application also becomes responsible for creating a dependency on that specific provider.

Consider the following:

For example, suppose you want to modify an existing header that adds I/O control or network support. If the modifications are used by a small number programs, providing a unique version of a header is easy and has little impact. When doing so, bear in mind the guidelines in the previous list.

Note

If for some reason your changes need to modify the behavior of the libc, and subsequently all other applications on the system, use a .bbappend to modify the linux-kernel-headers.inc file. However, take care to not make the changes machine specific.

Consider a case where your kernel is older and you need an older libc ABI. The headers installed by your recipe should still be a standard mainline kernel, not your own custom one.

When you use custom kernel headers you need to get them from STAGING_KERNEL_DIR, which is the directory with kernel headers that are required to build out-of-tree modules. Your recipe will also need the following:

     do_configure[depends] += "virtual/kernel:do_shared_workdir"