[U-Boot] Firmware upgrade possibilites technikes in uboot.
Hi
Im working on a target where I use the u-boot and think a little about good techniques for upgrade the BSP on the target and to make it fails saft.
Is ther any helpeful things I can use in uboot for this.?
My plan is to split my flash I 4 levels.
High Filesystem BSP_2 BSP_1 uBoot Low
And then let uBoot make a checksum on BSP_2 and boot this. If it's not is possible then boot BSP_1.
Another option is to build in a telnet session or something in the bootloader so ist possible to upgrade remote on only a Ethernet connection. But it think the best is to keep the bootloader "simple".
/Lasse
On Thu, 5 Aug 2010 15:41:35 +0200, Lasse Skov lasko@kk-electronic.com wrote:
Hi
Im working on a target where I use the u-boot and think a little about good techniques for upgrade the BSP on the target and to make it fails saft.
Is ther any helpeful things I can use in uboot for this.?
My plan is to split my flash I 4 levels.
High Filesystem BSP_2 BSP_1 uBoot Low
And then let uBoot make a checksum on BSP_2 and boot this. If it's not is possible then boot BSP_1.
Another option is to build in a telnet session or something in the bootloader so ist possible to upgrade remote on only a Ethernet
connection.
But it think the best is to keep the bootloader "simple".
/Lasse
You could add a command to u-boot to do checksum stuff and store the result in an environment variable. Then you have the boot command be something like:
bootcmd='check_boot; bootm $(pref_bsp_addr)'
Le 05/08/2010 16:22, Bas Mevissen a écrit :
On Thu, 5 Aug 2010 15:41:35 +0200, Lasse Skovlasko@kk-electronic.com wrote:
Hi
Im working on a target where I use the u-boot and think a little about good techniques for upgrade the BSP on the target and to make it fails saft.
Is ther any helpeful things I can use in uboot for this.?
My plan is to split my flash I 4 levels.
High Filesystem BSP_2 BSP_1 uBoot Low
And then let uBoot make a checksum on BSP_2 and boot this. If it's not is possible then boot BSP_1.
Another option is to build in a telnet session or something in the bootloader so ist possible to upgrade remote on only a Ethernet
connection.
But it think the best is to keep the bootloader "simple".
/Lasse
You could add a command to u-boot to do checksum stuff and store the result in an environment variable. Then you have the boot command be something like:
bootcmd='check_boot; bootm $(pref_bsp_addr)'
If the BSPs are in uImage format (i.e., supposed to be copied to RAM then booted), for which integrity checking already exists. A dirty test on my edminiv2 says that the bollowing u-boot command:
bootm 200000; bootm 300000
tries to boot an uImage from address 200000 and if it fails, tries to boot from 300000. Of course there may be smarter ways, but the basics are there already. Note that this does not protect agains the first BSP being buggy once booted, though, but there's little one can do against this.
As for the remote telnet, the existing netconsole might fit the bill.
Amicalement,
On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:02:31 +0200, Albert ARIBAUD
wrote:
Note that this does not protect agains the first BSP being buggy once booted, though, but there's little one can do against this.
Even then, there is a lot you can do. For example, U-Boot can detect being started by a watchdog reset, find out what image was started previously, mark it invalid and take the other one.
It is just a matter of how much effort one wants to spend. U-Boot is a rich boot loader that can easily be extended to your needs.
Dear Bas Mevissen,
In message 79b14f2465df4acec1e67a710d13ce63@localhost you wrote:
Note that this does not protect agains the first BSP being buggy once booted, though, but there's little one can do against this.
Even then, there is a lot you can do. For example, U-Boot can detect being started by a watchdog reset, find out what image was started previously, mark it invalid and take the other one.
It is just a matter of how much effort one wants to spend. U-Boot is a rich boot loader that can easily be extended to your needs.
Actually you don;t even have to extend if for this - it's supported out of the box (at least on several architectures); see the "bootcount" feature => http://www.denx.de/wiki/view/DULG/UBootBootCountLimit
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk
participants (4)
-
Albert ARIBAUD -
Bas Mevissen -
Lasse Skov -
Wolfgang Denk