nProbe Cross-Compilation Problem

I've settled on buildroot-2013.02 as this is the current version and consistent with the current documentation.  Version 2011.08 was used to build the original FRITZ!Box but there are differences with the current documentation which make things a little tricky.

I've now got the basic configuration of the nProbe package created however I struck problems caused by the nProbe autoconf configuration not working nicely when cross compiling.  This is a problem that others have struck previously when trying to cross compile nProbe, not just within the Buildroot environment, so hopefully I'll be able to build on their experience and comments.

Introduction

A couple of weeks ago we had our fibre to the home connection installed. Part of the package supplied by our ISP included a FRITZ!Box 7390.  I was a bit skeptical about this device having previously been use to Cisco kit for our ADSL2+ connections.  From the outside the FRITZ!Box looks very much a consumer device - bright colours, odd shape.  But it has some great features including the DECT base station.  The one thing I miss though is the detailed network traffic analysis.  I really miss the NetFlow data that the Cisco could generate.

A little bit of research reveals that there are ways to extend the functionality of the FB.  I came across Christian Pötzsch's blog on FRITZ!Box Tuning.  This opened up the possibility of accessing the command line of the FB, and how to get started with BuildRoot to add new packages.  I've since discovered that BuildRoot doesn't include nProbe by default, so the next task that I'm now working on is how to add the nProbe package to BuildRoot.  I'm currently in the process of making my first BuildRoot, including nProbe.  The next post will include details of what I've had to do to get nProbe integrated into BuildRoot, and how successful or not this has been.