What a Packagegroup Is

A packagegroup is a special recipe whose sole purpose is to declare a named collection of packages. It has no source to fetch or compile — only runtime dependencies.

Why use it: Instead of listing 20 individual packages in every image recipe and in local.conf, you maintain one packagegroup. Every image that needs those 20 packages just includes the one packagegroup.

Minimal Packagegroup Recipe

# meta-myproduct/recipes-core/packagegroups/packagegroup-my-iot-core.bb

SUMMARY = "Core packages for my IoT product"
LICENSE  = "MIT"

# Mandatory: inherit the packagegroup class
inherit packagegroup

# RDEPENDS:${PN} lists every package this group pulls in
RDEPENDS:${PN} = " \
    myapp \
    nginx \
    python3 \
    openssh \
    curl \
    tzdata \
"

# Optional: conditionally include packages based on DISTRO_FEATURES
RDEPENDS:${PN}:append = " \
    ${@bb.utils.contains('DISTRO_FEATURES', 'x11', 'matchbox-wm', '', d)} \
    ${@bb.utils.contains('DISTRO_FEATURES', 'wayland', 'weston', '', d)} \
"

Sub-package Splitting in Packagegroups

A packagegroup recipe can define multiple packages, each with its own dependency list. This lets images include only the subset they need:

# packagegroup-my-debug.bb
SUMMARY = "Debug tools packagegroup"
LICENSE  = "MIT"
inherit packagegroup

# Define multiple sub-packages
PACKAGES = "${PN} ${PN}-extended ${PN}-profile"

# Base debug set
RDEPENDS:${PN} = "\
    gdb \
    strace \
    ltrace \
"

# Extended debug set (includes the base)
RDEPENDS:${PN}-extended = "\
    ${PN} \
    valgrind \
    tcpdump \
    iperf3 \
"

# Profiling set
RDEPENDS:${PN}-profile = "\
    perf \
    lttng-tools \
    babeltrace2 \
"

Usage in an image:

IMAGE_INSTALL:append = " packagegroup-my-debug-extended"

RDEPENDS vs RRECOMMENDS vs RSUGGESTS

Variable	Behaviour
RDEPENDS:${PN}	Hard dependency — the package manager requires these to be installed when this package is installed
RRECOMMENDS:${PN}	Soft dependency — installed automatically if available, but the install succeeds without them
RSUGGESTS:${PN}	Informational only — not installed automatically; surfaced as suggestions by the package manager
RCONFLICTS:${PN}	Cannot be installed at the same time as these packages
RREPLACES:${PN}	This package replaces (and can uninstall) these packages

# In a packagegroup or any recipe:
RDEPENDS:${PN}    = "libssl"        # MUST be present
RRECOMMENDS:${PN} = "ca-certificates"  # installed if available
RSUGGESTS:${PN}   = "curl"          # just a hint

Packagegroup Best Practices

# 1. Use packagegroups to build logical product compositions:
#    packagegroup-product-core     ← always installed
#    packagegroup-product-debug    ← included in dev builds
#    packagegroup-product-ota      ← OTA update client packages

# 2. Refence from the image recipe:
IMAGE_INSTALL = " \
    packagegroup-core-boot \
    packagegroup-my-iot-core \
    ${@bb.utils.contains('IMAGE_FEATURES', 'tools-debug', \
        'packagegroup-my-debug', '', d)} \
"

# 3. Build and inspect:
bitbake packagegroup-my-iot-core
# Check what would be installed:
bitbake -e packagegroup-my-iot-core | grep ^RDEPENDS

Contributors: Vasu Grover

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