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Build options

These parameters are meant to be applied to the ./compile.sh command. They are all optional. They can also be added to your build configuration file to save time. Default values are marked bold if applicable.

Main options

  • BUILD_ONLY (comma-separated list): defines what artifacts should be built. Default value is empty string - will build all artifacts. Changing this option can be useful to build partial artifacts only.
    • u-boot: build U-Boot
    • kernel: build Kernel
    • armbian-config: build Armbian config
    • armbian-zsh: build Armbian zsh
    • plymouth-theme-armbian: build Armbian Plymouth theme
    • armbian-firmware: build Armbian firmware
    • armbian-bsp: build Armbian board support package
    • chroot: build additional packages
    • bootstrap: build bootstrap package
    • default: build full OS image for flashing
  • KERNEL_ONLY ( yes | no ) ⚠ Warning: This option is deprecated and may be removed in future releases - use BUILD_ONLY instead
    • yes: compiles only kernel, U-Boot and other packages for installation on existing Armbian system
      Note: This will enforce BUILD_ONLY being set as "u-boot,kernel,armbian-config,armbian-zsh,plymouth-theme-armbian,armbian-firmware,armbian-bsp"
    • no: build complete OS image for writing to SD card
      Note: This will enforce BUILD_ONLY being cleared to empty string.
    • leave empty to display selection dialog each time
  • KERNEL_CONFIGURE ( string or boolean ):
    • prebuilt: Use precompiled packages (only for maintained hardware)
    • yes: Automatically call kernel’s make menuconfig (add or remove modules or features)
    • no: Use provided kernel configuration provided by Armbian
    • leave empty to display selection dialog each time
  • 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 eight 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
    • Available options: u-boot, kernel, bsp, armbian-bsp-cli,armbian-bsp-desktop,armbian-desktop,armbian-config, armbian-firmware
    • Set to “” to use packages one from local output or build if not available
  • KERNEL_KEEP_CONFIG ( yes | no ):
    • yes: use kernel config file from previous compilation for the same branch, device family and version
    • no: use default or user-provided config file
  • BUILD_MINIMAL ( yes | no ):
    • yes: build bare CLI image suitable for application deployment. This option is not compatible with BUILD_DESKTOP="yes" and BUILD_EXTERNAL="yes"
    • no: default CLI package selection
  • BUILD_DESKTOP ( yes | no ):
    • yes: build image with minimal desktop environment
    • no: build image with console interface only
  • EXTERNAL ( yes | no ):
    • yes: compile and install extra applications and firmware
  • BSPFREEZE ( yes | no ):
    • yes: freeze (from update) armbian packages when building images (U-Boot, kernel, DTB)
  • INSTALL_HEADERS ( no | yes ):
    • yes: install kernel headers
  • EXTERNAL_NEW ( no | prebuilt | compile ):
    • prebuilt: install extra applications from repository
    • compile: compile extra applications in chroot
  • CREATE_PATCHES ( yes | no ) ⚠ Warning: This option is deprecated and may be removed in future releases - use the new kernel-patch / uboot-patch / atf-patch CLI commands instead.
    • yes: prompt right before the compilation starts to make changes to the source code for both U-Boot and kernel. From these changes patch files will be created and placed in output directory. If you want these patches included in a normal run (without CREATE_PATCHES to say) these files need to be copied to the appropriate directories. Also see user provided patches.
  • 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 another “branchname” to compile from any other branch available. Check here for available branches
  • CARD_DEVICE ( /dev/sdX ): set to the device of your SD card. The image will be burned and verified using Etcher for CLI.
  • EXT=rkdevflash to flash Rockchip images to eMMC either during image build or separately with flash CLI command (only works bare Linux, not Docker)
  • CRYPTROOT_ENABLE ( yes | no ): enable LUKS encrypted rootfs
    • CRYPTROOT_PASSPHRASE="MYSECRECTPASS" mandatory
    • CRYPTROOT_SSH_UNLOCK=yes Default: yes
    • CRYPTROOT_SSH_UNLOCK_PORT=2222 Default: 2022
    • CRYPTROOT_PARAMETERS="custom cryptsetup options" Default: --pbkdf pbkdf2 (May not contain =; separate with spaces)
    • Note: This function might not work well with all distributions. Debian Buster and Stretch were tested. For building under Docker you have to use privileged 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. Check here and here
    • Hint: If you want to do the encryption part from scratch check out this forum post.

Hidden options to minimize user input for build automation

  • BOARD ( string ): set name of board manually to skip dialog prompt
  • BRANCH ( legacy | current | edge ): set kernel and U-Boot branch manually to skip dialog prompt; some options may not be available for all devices
  • RELEASE ( bullseye | bookworm | jammy ): set OS release manually to skip dialog prompt; use this option with KERNEL_ONLY=yes to create board support package
  • ARMBIAN_CACHE_ROOTFS_PATH ( string ): bind mount cache/rootfs to defined folder
  • ARMBIAN_CACHE_TOOLCHAIN_PATH ( string ): bind mount cache/toolchain path to defined folder

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

  • EXPERT ( yes | no ): Show development features and boards regardless of its status 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
  • SKIP_EXTERNAL_TOOLCHAINS ( yes | no ) don’t download and use Linaro toolchains, by default placed in cache/toolchain (and configurable with ARMBIAN_CACHE_TOOLCHAIN_PATH)
  • 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
  • NO_APT_CACHER ( yes | no ): disable usage of APT cache. Default yes in containers, but can be overridden
  • DISABLE_IPV6 ( true | false ): The distant future, the year Two-Thousand. Set false to allow Aria2c to use a modern ip protocol.
  • NO_HOST_RELEASE_CHECK ( yes | no ): overrides the check for a supported host system
  • 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
  • SYNC_CLOCK ( yes | no ): sync system clock on builder before start image creation process
  • 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
  • BOOTSIZE ( integer 96 ): set size (in megabytes) for separate /boot filesystem. Used if ROOTFS_TYPE set to non-ext4
  • 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 while building…
  • INSTALL_KSRC ( yes | no ): … and pre-install these kernel sources on the image
  • ROOTFS_TYPE ( ext4 | f2fs | btrfs | nilfs2 | xfs | 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 | none | zlib | zstd ): when choosing ROOTFS_TYPE=btrfs select btrfs filesystem compression method and compression level. By default the compression is zlib.
    When selecting zstd or setting zlib compression level(zlib:[1-9]) user must ensure kernel version is >=4.14.x.
    When selecting zstd compression level (zstd:[1-15]) both the host and the target kernel version must be >=5.1.x since kernel started supporting zstd compression ratio only from 5.1 on.
    Note: The script does not check the legality of input variable (compression ratio). Input like zlib:1234 is legal to the script but illegal to the kernel. Beware that setting this option does affect image creation only (shrinking disk size) and will not adjust /etc/fstab so it is up to the user to later edit /etc/fstab if compression in daily operation is also wanted (beware of serious performance penalties with random IO patterns and heavy compression algorithms!).
  • FORCE_BOOTSCRIPT_UPDATE ( yes | no ):
    • yes: 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 ( china | bfsu ): select download mirror for toolchain and debian/ubuntu packages
    • china: use mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn, it will be very fast thanks to Tsinghua University
    • bfsu: use mirrors.bfsu.edu.cn, mirror of Beijing Foreign Studies University
    • leave empty to use official source
  • ARMBIAN_MIRROR (auto): override automated mirror selection, example ‘ARMBIAN_MIRROR=”https://yourlocalmirror.com”’
  • MAINLINE_MIRROR ( google | tuna | bfsu ): select mainline mirror of linux-stable.git
    • google: use mirror provided by Google, the same as USE_MAINLINE_GOOGLE_MIRROR=yes
    • tuna: use mirror provided by Tsinghua University
    • bfsu: use mirror provided by Beijing Foreign Studies University which is similar to tuna
    • leave empty to use offical git.kernel.org, may be very slow for mainland China users
  • UBOOT_MIRROR （ github | gitee : select mainline mirror of u-boot.git
    • github: use mirror provided by github, the same as USE_GITHUB_UBOOT_MIRROR=yes
    • gitee: use mirror provided by Gitee, a Chinese git services
    • leave empty to use offical source.denx.de, may be very slow for mainland China users
  • GITHUB_MIRROR ( fastgit | gitclone | cnpmjs ): select download mirror for GitHub hosted repository
    • fastgit: use mirror provided by fastgit.org
    • gitclone: use mirror provided by gitclone.com
    • cnpmjs: use mirror provided by cnpmjs.org
    • leave empty to connect directly to GitHub, may be very slow for mainland China users
  • REGIONAL_MIRROR ( china ): select mirrors based on regional setting, will not overwrite explicitly specified mirror option
    • china: MAINLINE_MIRROR=tuna, UBOOT_MIRROR=gitee, GITHUB_MIRROR=fastgit, DOWNLOAD_MIRROR=china
    • leave empty to use default settings
  • USE_TORRENT ( yes | no ): use torrent to download toolchains and rootfs
  • ROOT_FS_CREATE_ONLY ( yes | no ): set to yes to force local cache creation
  • EXTRAWIFI ( yes | no ): include several drivers for WiFi adapters
  • WIREGUARD ( yes | no ): include Wireguard for kernels before it got upstreamed to mainline. Will lose functionality soon.
  • AUFS ( yes | no ): Include support for AUFS
  • SKIP_BOOTSPLASH ( yes | no ): Use kernel bootsplash. Disable in case of troubles
  • CONSOLE_AUTOLOGIN ( yes | no ): Automatically login as root for local consoles. Disable if your security threat model requires.
  • EXT (fake-vcgencmd): execute extension during the build