In order to run the Toaster Django web application, your host machine needs to be set up as follows:

$ sudo apt-get install python3-pip
$ pip3 install --user -r /opt/yocto/poky/bitbake/toaster-requirements.txt

Toaster can be started with the following commands:

$ cd /opt/yocto/poky$ source oe-init-build-env$ source toaster start

/opt/yocto/poky/bitbake/bin/toaster is a shell script that will set up Toaster's environment, load the default configuration and database migrations, connect to the OpenEmbedded Layer Index, and download information about the metadata layers it has available for the current release, as well as starting the web server and the runbuilds poller process.

To access the web user interface, go to http://127.0.0.1:8000.

By default, Toaster binds to localhost on port 8000, but this can be specified as follows:

$ source toaster start webport=<IP>:<PORT>

$ cd /opt/yocto/poky/build$ ../bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py createsuperuser

Starting a build

Toaster can run two different types of builds:

1. You can manually start a build on the terminal and Toaster will monitor it. You can then use the Toaster web UI to explore the build results. The following image shows the command line builds page:

Toaster command line builds

2. You can also use the Toaster web interface to create a new project. This will be named build-toaster-<project_id> and will be created inside the Poky directory:

Toaster's create a new project wizard

You can use the TOASTER_DIR configuration variable to specify a different build directory for Toaster.

When creating a Toaster project, you can choose between two different types:

• Local builds: This uses the local Poky clone on your computer. Using this build type limits the build to the layers available on the Yocto Project, openembedded-core, meta-poky, and meta-yocto-bsp. Other layers would need to be manually imported using the Import Layer page.
• Yocto Project builds: When a Yocto Project release is chosen, Toaster fetches the source from the Yocto Project upstream Git repositories, and updates it every time you run a build. In this mode, compatible layers can be selected, including BSP layers that allow you to build for different machines. The Toaster project configuration page looks like the following:

Toaster's project configuration page

core-image-base:populate_sdk 

core-image-base:populate_sdk_ext 

The version of Django that Toaster uses is specified on the /opt/yocto/poky/bitbake/toaster-requirements.txt file, for example:

Django>1.8,<1.9.9 

Django and hence Toaster store data in a relational database. The backend configuration is done in the /opt/yocto/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/toastermain/settings.py file as follows:

TOASTER_SQLITE_DEFAULT_DIR = os.environ.get('TOASTER_DIR') 
DATABASES = {                                                                       
    'default': {                                                                    
        # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.                
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',                                     
        # DB name or full path to database file if using sqlite3.                   
        'NAME': "%s/toaster.sqlite" % TOASTER_SQLITE_DEFAULT_DIR,                   
        'USER': '',                                                                 
        'PASSWORD': '',                                                             
        #'HOST': '127.0.0.1', # e.g. mysql server                                   
        #'PORT': '3306', # e.g. mysql port                                          
    }                                                                               
} 

By default, Toaster will create a toaster.sqlite database on the configured TOASTER_DIR path. For production servers, MySQL is the recommended backend.

Django has a built in object-relational mapper, Django ORM, which automates the transfer of data from the relational database to Python objects and allows database accesses in Python code. The initial state of the database is created from a set of fixtures (data dumps) under /opt/yocto/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/orm/fixtures. Toaster fixtures are in XML format:

When Toaster is launched, these Django fixtures are used to populate its database with initial data.

Toaster has extended the Django manage.py command with some custom Toaster-specific options. The manage.py management script needs to be invoked from the build directory, which contains the Toaster database:

$ cd /opt/yocto/poky/build$ /opt/yocto/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/manage.py <command> [<command option>]

The commands can be the following:

From /opt/yocto/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/toastermain/managements/commands/:

From /opt/yocto/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/orm/managements/commands/:

From /opt/yocto/poky/bitbake/lib/toaster/bldcontrol/managements/commands/:

Toaster enables you to set up a build server on a shared hosted/cloud environment that allows you to:

Typically, when setting up Toaster on a shared hosted environment, the Apache web server and MySQL as a database backend are used.

Installation instructions for this type of production server can be found in the Yocto Project's Toaster User Manual. The installation can be spread across different hosts for load sharing.