Build Options

KERNEL_ONLY (yes|no):
- leave empty to display selection dialog each time
- set to “yes” to compile only kernel, u-boot and other packages for installing on existing Armbian system
- set to “no” to build complete OS image for writing to SD card
KERNEL_CONFIGURE (yes|no):
- leave empty to display selection dialog each time
- set to “yes” to configure kernel (add or remove modules or features). Kernel configuration menu will be brought up before compilation
- set to “no” to compile kernel without changing default or custom provided configuration
CLEAN_LEVEL (comma-separated list): defines what should be cleaned. Default value is "make,debs" - clean sources and remove all packages. Changing this option can be useful when rebuilding images or building more than one image
- “make” = execute make clean for selected kernel and u-boot sources,
- “images” = delete output/images (complete OS images),
- “debs” = delete packages in output/debs for current branch and device family,
- “alldebs” = delete all packages in output/debs,
- “cache” = delete cache/rootfs (rootfs cache),
- “oldcache” = remove old cache/rootfs except for the newest 8 files,
- “sources” = delete cache/sources (all downloaded sources),
- “extras” = delete additional packages for current release in output/debs/extra
REPOSITORY_INSTALL (comma-separated list): list of core packages which will be installed from repository
- “u-boot”, “kernel”, “bsp”, “armbian-config”, “armbian-firmware”
- ”” = packages will be built from sources or use the one from local cache
KERNEL_KEEP_CONFIG (yes|no):
- set to “yes” to use kernel config file from previous compilation for the same branch, device family and version
- set to “no” to use default or user-provided config file
BUILD_MINIMAL (yes|no):
- set to “yes” to build bare CLI image suitable for application deployment. This option is not compatible with BUILD_DESKTOP=”yes” and BUILD_EXTERNAL=”yes”
BUILD_DESKTOP (yes|no):
- set to “yes” to build image with minimal desktop environment
- set to “no” to build image with console interface only
EXTERNAL (yes|no):
- set to “yes” to compile and install extra applications and firmware
BSPFREEZE (no|yes): freeze (from update) armbian packages when building images (u-boot, kernel, dtb)
INSTALL_HEADERS (no|yes): install kernel headers package
EXTERNAL_NEW (no|prebuilt|compile):
- set to “prebuilt” to install extra applications from repository
- set to “compile” to compile extra applications in chroot
CREATE_PATCHES (yes|no):
- set to “yes” will prompt you right before the compilation starts to make changes to the source code. Separate for u-boot and kernel. It will also create a patch out of this. If you want that this patch is included in the normal run, you need to copy it to appropriate directory
- set to “no” compilation will run uninterrupted
BUILD_ALL (yes|no|demo): cycle through all available board and kernel configurations and make images for all combinations
LIB_TAG (master|“branchname”):
- set to “master” to compile from the master branch (default)
- set to “branchname” to compile from any other branch available (“next” & “second” are deprecated and not recommended to use).
CARD_DEVICE (/dev/sdx) set to the device of your SD card. The image will be burned and verified using Etcher for CLI.
CRYPTROOT_ENABLE (yes|no): set to enable LUKS encrypted rootfs. You must also provide unlock password CRYPTROOT_PASSPHRASE=”MYSECRECTPASS” and optional CRYPTROOT_SSH_UNLOCK=yes CRYPTROOT_SSH_UNLOCK_PORT=2222 CRYPTROOT_PARAMETERS=”custom cryptsetup options” Function might not work well with all distributions. Debian Buster and Stretch were tested. For building under the Docker you have to use privilege mode which can be enable in userpatches/config-docker. Warning: This feature was added as community contribution and mostly functional. Under some circumstances though the prompt will not be shown. Therefore it should be considered experimental.

More info:

[1] https://github.com/armbian/build/commit/681e58b6689acda6a957e325f12e7b748faa8330

[2] https://github.com/armbian/build/issues/1183

Hidden options to minimize user input for build automation:¶

BOARD (string): you can set name of board manually to skip dialog prompt
BRANCH (legacy|current|dev): you can set kernel and u-boot branch manually to skip dialog prompt; some options may not be available for all devices
RELEASE (stretch|buster|bionic|focal): you can set OS release manually to skip dialog prompt; use this option with KERNEL_ONLY=yes to create board support package

Hidden options for advanced users (default values are marked bold):¶

EXPERT (yes|no): Show development features in interactive mode
USERPATCHES_PATH (userpatches/): set alternate path for location of userpatches folder
USE_CCACHE (yes|no): use a C compiler cache to speed up the build process
PRIVATE_CCACHE (yes|no) use $DEST/ccache as ccache home directory
PROGRESS_DISPLAY (none|plain|dialog): way to display output of verbose processes - compilation, packaging, debootstrap
PROGRESS_LOG_TO_FILE (yes|no): duplicate output, affected by previous option, to log files output/debug/*.log
USE_MAINLINE_GOOGLE_MIRROR (yes|no): use googlesource.com mirror for downloading mainline kernel sources, may be faster than git.kernel.org depending on your location
USE_GITHUB_UBOOT_MIRROR (yes|no): use unofficial Github mirror for downloading mainline u-boot sources, may be faster than git.denx.de depending on your location
OFFLINE_WORK (yes|no): skip downloading and updating sources as well as time and host check. Set to “yes” and you can collect packages without accessing the internet.
FORCE_USE_RAMDISK (yes|no): overrides autodetect for using tmpfs in new debootstrap and image creation process
FIXED_IMAGE_SIZE (integer): create image file of this size (in megabytes) instead of minimal
COMPRESS_OUTPUTIMAGE (comma-separated list): create compressed archive with image file and GPG signature for redistribution
- sha - generate SHA256 hash for image,
- gpg - sign image using gpg,
- 7z - compress image, hash and signature to 7z archive,
- gz - compress image only using gz format,
- yes - compatibility shorcut for sha,gpg,7z.
SEVENZIP (yes|no): create .7z archive with extreme compression ratio instead of .zip
BUILD_KSRC (yes|no): create kernel source packages
ROOTFS_TYPE (ext4|f2fs|btrfs|nfs|fel): create image with different root filesystems instead of default ext4. Requires setting FIXED_IMAGE_SIZE to something smaller than the size of your SD card for F2FS
BTRFS_COMPRESSION (lzo|zlib:3|zstd) select btrfs filesystem compression method and compression level. By default the compression is lzo, user must ensure kernel version is above 4.14 when selecting zstd or setting zlib compression level(zlib:[1-9]). Both the host and the target kernel version must above 5.1 when selecting zstd compression level (zstd:[1-15]), since kernel start supporting zstd compression ratio from 5.1. The script does not check the legality of input variable(compression ratio), input like zlib:1234 is legal to script, but illegal to kernel. When using microsd card, zstd is preferred because of the poor 4k I/O performance of microsd card.
FORCE_BOOTSCRIPT_UPDATE (yes|no): set to “yes” to force bootscript to get updated during bsp package upgrade
NAMESERVER (ipv4 address): the DNS resolver used inside the build chroot. Does not affect the final image. Default: 1.0.0.1
DOWNLOAD_MIRROR select download mirror for toolchain and debian/ubuntu packages.
- set to china to use mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn, it will be very fast thanks to tsinghua university.
- leave it empty to use official source.
MAINLINE_MIRROR select mainline mirror of linux-stable.git
- set to google to use mirror provided by Google, the same as USE_MAINLINE_GOOGLE_MIRROR=yes.
- set to tuna to use mirror provided by tsinghua university.
- leave it empty to use offical git.kernel.org, it may be very slow for mainland china users.
USE_TORRENT (yes|no): use torrent to download toolchains and rootfs
ROOT_FS_CREATE_ONLY set to FORCE to skip rootfs download and create locally