Bering-uClibc 7.x
Contents
WARNING: Work in progress, the doc. is not complete
Overview
Bering-uClibc is one of the branches of the LEAF (Linux Embedded Appliance Framework) project, delivering on LEAF's ambition to provide a secure, feature-rich, customizable embedded Linux network appliance for use in a variety of network topologies. Although it can be used in other ways, its primary goal is as a Internet gateway, BRAS, router, firewall and wireless access point. The hardware running LEAF in these cases will require a minimum of 2 network interfaces.
Main Features
The key characteristics of Bering-uClibc 7.x are:
- Based on a recent long-term release of the Linux Kernel.
- Easy-to-use
- USB bootable images of a basic working firewall system
- Web browser access for quick and easier configuration, the traditional vga or serial display console is not required
- Hardware detection during boot, necessary modules enabling the hardware will be loaded automatically.
- Load modules when needed for various Packages - e.g. netfilter modules for
shorewall[6]. - Check for and receive updates with command line utility (
upgrade) or Web GUI (webconf) from the Packages repository.
- Targeted to run on industry standard devices even with non-x86 processors.
Bering-uClibc 5.0-prealpha running on an emulated ARM processor - Designed to perform well on relatively low-specification hardware. In particular:
- The system runs from an in-memory filesystem. Disk storage is only required for booting and for storing configuration settings.
- The uClibc-ng C library is used in place of the GNU C Library since uClibc-ng is much smaller in size.
- Considerable use is made of BusyBox utilities as replacements for larger applications.
- Focussed on providing excellent networking facilities.
- Designed to have high fault tolerance:
- There are no writes on HDD/flash during work (except saving configurations during maintenance) - so a power failure will not break file system.
- Corrupted/erased config file, or even 'rm -rf /' isn't a problem - changes are stored permanently only when user requires that, and reboot will restore all as it was before.
- Enabled by default watchdog, reboot on kernel panic and kernel soft-lockup detection will help to have minimum downtime of router.
- Backup scripts will help to restore system state on storage failure/operator mistake.
Development History
Bering-uClibc 7.x is basically Bering-uClibc 6.x brought up to date with the latest versions of the main software components and with reworked toolchain.
Bering-uClibc 7.0.0 provides in particular:
- gcc update to 8.3.0
- The Linux kernel has been upgraded to 5,4.x
- The uClibc library has been upgraded to uClibc-ng 1.0.35
- syslog-ng has been replaced by rsyslog
Version 7.0.0 was released in November 2020.
Version 7.0.1 was released in December 2020.
Version Changelog
Known Issues
Further Documentation
For further information see:
- Bering-uClibc 7.x - Developer Guide for Developers of new features or new application Packages.
