openthread-border-router: init at unstable-2024-10-18

[mrene]

Description of changes

This adds OpenThread's open source border router component along with a NixOS service.

Thread is a mesh networking technology based on 6LoWPAN (ipv6-based) and 802.15.4. The border router component bridges the mesh network to an ipv6 network on a local interface. If no ipv6 connectivity exists, it'll advertise a new prefix for the local network so communication is possible.

Once setup, it can be used to bridge a Thread network with the local network to expose IoT devices to other systems like Home Assistant, Apple Home, etc..

I've been using this implementation along with Home Assistant and some Nanoleaf light bulbs using both Matter and their proprietary "ltpdu" protocol for about a week now. It's pretty stable.

For the SkyConnect specifically, some options have to be used (see example). There doesn't seem to be a lot of hardware-specific options in nixpkgs so I chose not to include an option for this. Do let me know if there is an appropriate pattern to use here.

 services.openthread-border-router = {
   enable = true;
   radio =  {
     device = "/dev/serial/by-id/.....";
     baudRate = 460800;
     flowControl = true;
   };
 };

Things done

• Built on platform(s)
  • x86_64-linux
  • aarch64-linux
  • x86_64-darwin
  • aarch64-darwin
• For non-Linux: Is sandboxing enabled in nix.conf? (See Nix manual)
  • sandbox = relaxed
  • sandbox = true
• Tested, as applicable:
  • NixOS test(s) (look inside nixos/tests)
  • and/or package tests
  • or, for functions and "core" functionality, tests in lib/tests or pkgs/test
  • made sure NixOS tests are linked to the relevant packages
• Tested compilation of all packages that depend on this change using nix-shell -p nixpkgs-review --run "nixpkgs-review rev HEAD". Note: all changes have to be committed, also see nixpkgs-review usage
• Tested basic functionality of all binary files (usually in ./result/bin/)
• 24.11 Release Notes (or backporting 23.11 and 24.05 Release notes)
  • (Package updates) Added a release notes entry if the change is major or breaking
  • (Module updates) Added a release notes entry if the change is significant
  • (Module addition) Added a release notes entry if adding a new NixOS module
• Fits CONTRIBUTING.md.

---

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[Pandapip1]

Move the changelog addition to its own commit

[mrene]

I pushed a few changes:

• Bumped the package to its latest commit
• Added the packaged otbr-firewall script (with patches) in order to setup ip6tables rules referencing the otbr ipset
• Added the included otbr-web service which provides a web interface
• Cleaned up some of the cmake options which were already set by default
• Split the changelog entry in its own commit
• Rebased over master

[SuperSandro2000]

LGTM

[mrene]

Pushed:

• Applied suggestions
• Convert log level to an enum

[mrene]

Rebased over master to resolve conflicts in changelog.

[Pandapip1]

Diff LGTM; not tested

[nixos-discourse]

This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/prs-already-reviewed/2617/2060

[milas]

I have been running this on arm64 / NixOS 24.11 for the past month:

  services.openthread-border-router = {
    enable = true;
    backboneInterface = "end1";
    radio = {
      device = "/dev/serial/by-id/<your-device-id-here>";
      baudRate = 460800;
      flowControl = true;
    };
  };

It's been working great and stable.

[mrene]

Thanks for testing!

Rebased over master and moved the changelog entry to rl-2505.

[Pandapip1]

How many of those patches have been upstreamed? The "don't install systemd units" patch can be easily modified to look at a variable:

if (SYSTEMD_FOUND AND (NOT DEFINED INSTALL_SYSTEMD_UNIT OR INSTALL_SYSTEMD_UNIT))
    pkg_get_variable(OTBR_SYSTEMD_UNIT_DIR systemd systemdsystemunitdir)
endif()

and then lib.cmakeBool "INSTALL_SYSTEMD_UNIT" false could be added to cmakeFlags

The static libs patch can instead be changed to:

if (NOT DEFINED Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS)
    set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS ON)
endif()

and then lib.cmakeBool "Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS" stdenv.targetPlatform.isStatic could be added to cmakeFlags.

I'm not sure if the firewall script or the home assistant patch could be upstreamed, but any progress in that direction would be useful.