Build Your Own Kernel with Github Action

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This Github Action helps you build kernels. It reads multiple kernel sources from a configuration file and builds them using different toolchains. Additionally, it supports patching the kernel with KernelSU and uploading the built kernel image.

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  Configure  
   
  Quick Start  
   
  Local testing  
 

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Github Action

This action contains two jobs: Set-repos and Build-Kernel.

The Set-repos job reads the kernel sources from the configuration file and outputs them to the Build-Kernel job. The Build-Kernel job uses the outputted kernel sources to build the kernels and upload the built kernel images.

Trigger

Event name	Description
workflow_dispatch	Manually run

Workflow

Step	Description
Install prerequisites	Install the necessary dependencies for building the kernel
Setup Anykernel3	Clone the Anykernel3 repository to prepare for packaging the kernel
Clone kernel source	Clone the kernel source code repository for the Android device
Get toolchains	Obtain the required cross-compilation toolchains for building the kernel
Set args	Set the necessary build parameters for the kernel
Update KernelSU	Update the KernelSU tool to ensure compatibility with the new kernel
Make defconfig	Generate the kernel configuration file
Build kernel	Compile the kernel source code to create the kernel image
Upload Image	Upload the kernel image file to a designated location
Upload Image.gz	Upload the compressed kernel image file to a designated location
Upload dtb	Upload the device tree blob file to a designated location
Upload dtbo.img	Upload the device tree overlay image file to a designated location
Pack AnyKernel3.zip	Package the kernel image and device tree files into an Anykernel3 zip file
Upload AnyKernel3 image	Upload the Anykernel3 zip file to a designated location
Create GitHub Release	Create a new release on GitHub to share the kernel with the community

Configuration File Syntax

See repo configuration file guidance.

How to use

This project's basic usage is as follows:

1. Fork this project on GitHub.

2. Modify the repos/repos*.json file through the Github website or pull it to your local machine and commit the changes.

3. Go to the Action page on Github and find Build kernels, then Run workflow.

Notice

In this step, you may encounter the following error when executing softprops/action-gh-release@v1:

👩‍🏭 Creating new GitHub release for tag v20230619.7...
⚠️ GitHub release failed with status: 403
undefined
retrying... (2 retries remaining)
👩‍🏭 Creating new GitHub release for tag v20230619.7...
⚠️ GitHub release failed with status: 403
undefined
retrying... (1 retries remaining)
👩‍🏭 Creating new GitHub release for tag v20230619.7...
⚠️ GitHub release failed with status: 403
undefined
retrying... (0 retries remaining)
❌ Too many retries. Aborting...
Error: Too many retries.

The reason for this error is related to workflow permissions:

Complete the permission settings and then you can publish your own Release normally.

4. Wait for the compilation to finish, then download the compiled product from the corresponding page.

5. Use your preferred packaging software to package the kernel (AnyKernel3, Android-Image-Kitchen, MagiskBoot, etc.)

Local testing

If you don't want to run the action on Github, you can use nektos/act to test this workflow locally and output the files.

Normal local build (kernel source code is fetched using Git)

This is the recommended local testing process. Simply install nektos/act and run the following command:

# Collect artifacts to /tmp/artifacts folder:
act --artifact-server-path /tmp/artifacts

If you want to store the artifacts in a different location, change /tmp/artifacts to your preferred directory.

If there are errors, use the -v flag to generate an error report and submit an issue. Here's the command:

# Collect artifacts to /tmp/artifacts folder:
act --artifact-server-path /tmp/artifacts -v

Full local build (kernel source code is stored locally)

If you need to perform a completely local build, consider building as follows:

1. Set up a local Gitea or Gitlab Git service and modify the configuration file address to point to the local service address.

2. Use git daemon to create a secondary image locally.

This is just a suggestion, and we do not provide a specific guide.

TODO list

• Use MagiskBoot to generate boot.img
• Web page for configuring profiles

Acknowledgments

• weishu : Developer of KernelSU
• AKR Android Developer Community ： Provides build tutorials
• DogDayAndroid/KSU_Thyme_BuildBot : Predecessor of this project
• xiaoleGun/KernelSU_Action ： Drawing on some Github Actions
• UtsavBalar1231/Drone-scripts ： Drawing on some Github Actions

Contributor

Star history

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.