BUILDING.md

Building esp-link

Before you build esp-link, consider that you can download ready-made firmware images! Just head over to the release section and download the tgz archive.

If you decide to build your own, there are a number of options:

• On linux x86 download the ready-built toolchain and patched SDK like the automated build does and compile the firmware
• On linux use a docker image with the toolchain and the SDK to compile the firmware
• On linux download and build the toolchain, download and patch the SDK, then compile the firmware
• On windows use a docker image with the toolchain and the SDK to compile the firmware
• On windows install mingw, python, java, and a slew of other tools and then build the firmware

Once you have built the firmware you will want to flash it to your esp8266 module. Assuming you already have esp-link running you can either go back to the initial flashing via the serial port or you can use the over-the-air (i.e. Wifi) update method, which is faster and more reliable (unless you have a non-booting version of esp-link). The OTA flashing is described at the end of this page, the serial flashing is described in FLASHING.md.

Automated builds

For every commit on github an automated build is made. This means that every branch, including master, and every pull request always has an up-to-date build. These builds are made by Travis using the instructions in .travis.yml, which basically consist of cloning the esp-link repo, downloading the compiler toolchain, downloading the Espressif SDK, and running make. If you're looking for how to build esp-link the travis instructions will always give you accurate pointers to what to download.

Docker (linux or windows)

The esp-link docker image contains all the tools to build esp-link as well as the appropriate Espressif SDK. It does not contain the esp-link source code!. You use the docker image just to build the firmware, you don't have to do your editing in there. The steps are:

• clone the esp-link github repo
• checkout the branch or tag you want (for example the tag v2.2.3 for that release)
• cd into the esp-link top directory
• run make in docker while mounting your esp-link directory into the container:
  • linux: docker run -v $PWD:/esp-link jeelabs/esp-link:latest
  • windows: docker run -v c:\somepath\esp-link:/esp-link jeelabs/esp-link:latest, where somepath is the path to where you cloned esp-link, you probably end up with something like -v c:\Users\tve\source\esp-link:/esp-link
• if you are not building esp-link master then read the release notes to see which version of the Espressif SDK you need and use that as tag for the container image, such as jeelabs/esp-link:SDK2.0.0.p1; you can see the list of available SDKs on dockerhubo

Sample steps to build esp-link v2.2.3 on a Win7 Pro x64 (these use the docker terminal, there are multiple way to skin the proverbial cat...):

1. Install Docker Toolbox ( http://www.docker.com/products/docker-toolbox )
2. Install Git Desktop ( https://desktop.github.com/ )
3. Clone esp-link from Github master to local repository ( https://github.com/jeelabs/esp-link )
4. Open Docker Quickstart Terminal
5. cd to local esp-link git repository ( C:\Users\xxxxx\Documents\GitHub\esp-link )
6. Run "docker run -v $PWD:/esp-link jeelabs/esp-link" command in Docker Quickstart Terminal window

Note: there has been one report of messed-up timestamps on windows, the symptom is that make complains about file modification times being in the future. This may be due to the different way Windows and Linux handle time zones and daylight savings time. PLease report if you encounter this or know a solution.

Linux

The firmware has been built using the https://github.com/pfalcon/esp-open-sdk[esp-open-sdk] on a Linux system. Create an esp8266 directory, install the esp-open-sdk into a sub-directory using the non-standalone install (i.e., there should not be an sdk directory in the esp-open-sdk dir when done installing, if you use the standalone install you will get compilation errors with std types, such as uint32_t).

Download the Espressif "NONOS" SDK (use the version mentioned in the release notes) from their http://bbs.espressif.com/viewforum.php?f=5[download forum] and also expand it into a sub-directory. Often there are patches to apply, in that case you need to download the patches from the same source and apply them.

You can simplify your life (and avoid the hour-long build time for esp-open-sdk) if you are on an x86 box by downloading the packaged and built esp-open-sdk and the fully patches SDKfrom the links used in the .travis.yaml.

Clone the esp-link repository into a third sub-directory and check out the tag you would like, such as git checkout v2.2.3. This way the relative paths in the Makefile will work. If you choose a different directory structure look at the top of the Makefile for the appropriate environment variables to define. Do not use the source tarballs from the release page on github, these will give you trouble compiling because the Makefile uses git to determine the esp-link version being built.

In order to OTA-update the esp8266 you should export ESP_HOSTNAME=... with the hostname or IP address of your module.

Now, build the code: make in the top-level of esp-link. If you want to se the commands being issued, use VERBOSE=1 make.

A few notes from others (I can't fully verify these):

• You may need to install zlib1g-dev and python-serial
• Make sure you have the correct version of the SDK
• Make sure the paths at the beginning of the makefile are correct
• Make sure esp-open-sdk/xtensa-lx106-elf/bin is in the PATH set in the Makefile

Windows

Please consider installing docker and using the docker image to save yourself grief getting all the tools installed and working. If you do want to compile "natively" on Windows it certainly is possible.

It is possible to build esp-link on Windows, but it requires a gaggle of software to be installed