How do I write a yocto/bitbake recipe to copy a directory to the target root file system

Question

I have a directory of \'binary\' (i.e. not to be compiled) files and just want them to be installed onto my target root file system.

I have looked at several articles,

Answer 1

You just have to copy these files into your target rootfs. Do not forget to pakage them if they are not installed in standard locations.

SRC_URI += "file://myDir"

do_install() {
    install -d ${D}/path/to/dir/on/fs
    cp -r ${WORKDIR}/myDir ${D}/path/to/dir/on/fs
}
FILES_${PN} += "/path/to/dir/on/fs"

Answer 2

I think it did not work for you becuase you forgot to add mode value, after "install -m",

see man page of install command: https://linux.die.net/man/1/install

install -m [mode] src destination

Answer 3

For a recipe folder like this:

.
├── files
│   ├── a.txt
│   ├── b.c
│   └── Makefile
└── myrecipe.bb

You can use the following recipe to install it on a specific folder into your rootfs:

SRC_URI = " file://*"
do_install() {
    install -d ${WORKDIR}/my/dir/on/rootfs
    install -m 0755 ${S}/* ${WORKDIR}/my/dir/on/rootfs/*
}
FILES_${PN} = "/my/dir/on/rootfs/* "

Answer 4

Take care that with a simple recursive copy, you will end up having host contamination warnings so you would need to copy with the following parameters:

do_install() {
     [...]
     cp --preserve=mode,timestamps -R ${S}${anydir}/Data/* ${D}${anyotherdir}/Data
     [...]
}

As other recipes in poky do, or just follow the official recommendations to avoid problems with ownership and permissions.