[yocto] how to execute bitbake menuconfig from ssh server

[Alex Lennon]

Hi Yahia,

On 13/09/2017 12:24, Aaron Schwartz wrote:
> Tmux [0] also works well for this, and I've never tried it with Screen 
> (a similar utility) so here's instructions using Tmux:
>
> You need to install Tmux on the server you are using SSH to connect 
> to, then as soon as you SSH into the server run `$ tmux`.  Then when 
> you run `$ bitbake -c menuconfig ...` it will automatically open a 
> second pane on the bottom half of your screen where you can edit your 
> kernel config.  That pane will close automatically when you exit the 
> menuconfig application.
>
> I hope that helps!
> Aaron
>
>
>

I mostly remote into my server via SSH too. And I use the screen method 
to run menuconfig and devshell and so forth. Works well.

As Yusuke says you can install screen on the server (if it is Ubuntu or 
similar) if you need to with

$ sudo apt install screen

You might need to tell the bitbake tooling to use the screen utility 
which you can do with something like

$ export  OE_TERMINAL=screen

I see there are some notes here

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yNi6BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=yocto+OE_TERMINAL+screen&source=bl&ots=HYab5gQgCg&sig=-qLFfrNLtglXCKwagcbU2Uqg1WM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie667diqLWAhUkLcAKHfXDBZwQ6AEIQzAD#v=onepage&q=yocto%20OE_TERMINAL%20screen&f=false

...

I hadn't heard of tmux. Thanks Aaron - I will have a look into that...

...

Sometimes I need a graphical environment. For example when I want to run 
up a Yocto Poky build for testing on a QEmu emulated machine easily.

For this I have VNC Server installed on the build box. I then run this 
up and it creates a new desktop. Your default desktop is usually :0 and 
in my case VNC then creates a :1 desktop

This usually ends up on build box local port 5901 as I recall (if not it 
will be a similar number, you can check with netstat -anp)

You can then port forward the VNC TCP port 5901 over SSH and use a VNC 
client on your client local port.

I often use Windows as a client so use Putty for the port forwarding and 
TightVNC for the VNC client.

This could well sound quite fiddly but it's fine when you get it setup.

There are some notes here which might be useful

https://www.theurbanpenguin.com/creating-an-ssh-tunnel-with-putty-to-secure-vnc/

Cheers,

Alex