[oe] why rootfs directory in temp is empty

[Khem Raj]

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 2:46 PM, Philip Balister <philip at balister.org> wrote:
> On 12/22/2009 05:25 PM, Frans Meulenbroeks wrote:
>>
>> 2009/12/22 Denys Dmytriyenko<denis at denix.org>:
>>>
>>> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 09:05:31AM -0600, Mike Westerhof wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Guo Hongruan wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi guys,
>>>>>   Today, I build an base-image using OE. And I want to check the
>>>>> content
>>>>> of rootfs, but I found the directory rootfs in building directory is
>>>>> empty. I remember there was the ontent of the target root filesystem.
>>>>> Why have to remove them? Does it means the rootfs directory is
>>>>> unuseful?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks a lot!
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Add IMAGE_KEEPROOTFS = "1" to your local.conf file.
>>>> I'm not sure why the change was made to clean it out every build,
>>>> though.
>>>
>>> To prevent people from using it as an NFS share and having problems.
>>
>> Ehm, can you please clarify why this would cause a problem?
>> (btw if I recall correctly the rootfs is still there in the work dir,
>> and anyway you can build a rootfs in a tar.gz file and untar that).
>
> Someone correct me if I get this wrong ...
>
> Since OE does not run as root, the file ownership are not suitable for use
> as a true rootfs. During the assembly of the tarball, the file owner
> information is "fixed" so that if you unpack the tarball as root, the files
> have the proper owners.
>
> So the temporary root file system will not do what people expect.

This is the real cause. Always use the tar file to populate the
root file system even if it is to be nfs mounted

-Khem