Re: kernel configuration management tool

[maximilian attems <max@stro.at>]

heya,

On Tue, Apr 03, 2007 at 11:53:04AM +0200, guillaume.lopes@etu.univ-paris7.fr wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> At the occasion of the Google Summer of Code, I have to create a  kernel
> configuration management tool.
> The tool  will make is possible to give a tree of the possible options of
> configuration and the list of the modules which can be created by these options
> (either even those which are removed or renamed for example).
> 
> I think that the project is divided in two parts.
> First, we have to create a Lexer and a Parser, to do so I will use 
> Ocaml.(thanks to OcamlLex and Ocamlyacc) for the following files:
>              the .config files,
>               files which are organize in a hierarchy version in the
>             Debian package source (Debian/arch/)
>             and kconfig files of the kernel
> 
>  The Lexer and the Parser are easily built because the files configuration
>  syntax is simple and his grammar is given in the documentation:
>  Kconfig-language.txt.
> For every kind of files (.config, debian/arch/ et Kconfig), we have an
> Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) of the possible options.
>  After we will just have to combine the three AST obtained which will allow
> us to obtain the AST of  the all possible options by arch/subarch/flavour.

nack for ocaml stuff..
build an interface on top of menuconfig so that one could throw
for example:
make debianconfig
make debianconfig ARCH=i386
make debianconfig ARCH=i386 FLAVOUR=k7

the first one should allow to modify the top config
and allow to browse into the specific archs,
while the more specific one would only show a restricted view.

i don't see how ocaml would help there.

 
>  The final AST will be convertible i.e at the end we will have a version
>  which will be easily understood by the developer.
> 
>  Then, we will have to create a Lexer and a Parser for the kernel's Makefile.
> 
>  As a result we will be able to use the AST we created and the AST of the
>  all possible options to create the modules list which were created by the
> different options.
> I think this tool will be used in an important way within the management of the
> kernel.
well the project ist distribution specific,
as most probable no other distro has the same conf organisation.
but it should still have a focus on a possible acceptance upstream.
so first focus needs to be understanding of kbuild.

> What do you think about this project ?
that i'd like a ncurses interface like usual menuconfig,
that seems the most natural.
of course extensions like make olddebianconfig would be cool too!!

> Do you have some suggestions ?
see above.

regards

-- 
maks