[U-Boot-Users] Protect Flash from tftpboot typos

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <20040723102408.GB11790 at synertronixx3> you wrote:
> 
> I wonder if there is a solution possible to Protect the FLASH Chip from
> typos. 

No. I will not accept any submissions of an AI machine for U-Boot.

> I have physikal Ram at 0x8000000 to 0x8FFFFFF and FLASH from 0x10000000
> to 0x10FFFFFF.
...
> tftpboot should only put downloaded images to RAM.

Indeed this is what it does. At least in the  default  configuration,
i.  e.  if  you don't enable options like CFG_DIRECT_FLASH_TFTP which
are unsafe and officially deprecated.

> I had a customer recently who put 130.1.2.3 as the 1st argument to
> tftpboot and tftpboot tries to put the image to 0x130.

U-Boot follows Unix design here:

"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things,  because
that would also stop you from doing clever things."       - Doug Gwyn

> I also do typos there and an 0x0 as 1st Argument destroys contents of
> Flash though it is protected!

Seems you have configured U-Boot like that. On systems for which I am
responsible attempts to TFTP to flash will not do harm.

> I think an linux kernel Image for example contains code sequences who
> unlock, erase and write flash succesfully.

This may be, but a TFTP download will write to increasing  addresses,
while  the  programming sequence must be written to certain addresses
which are (1) not contiguous and (2)  which  must  be  written  in  a
special  sequence.  I  don't  think that TFTP (or a copy) to a memory
region can accidentally trigger a flash programming sequence,  unless
the  code  explicitely  attemts  to program the flash (like TFTP with
CFG_DIRECT_FLASH_TFTP option aenabled, or the  "cp"  command  with  a
target address in flash memory).

> I want to implement a mechanism which implements out of an config option
> a area where tftpboot acts (0x800000 to 0x8FFFFFF) and gives an error
> message otherway.

Such a feature is definitely not necessary. Don't  waste  your  time.
Instead, go and check what's going wrong on your system.


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd at denx.de
FORTRAN? The syntactically incorrect statement "DO 10 I = 1.10"  will
parse  and  generate  code  creating  a  variable, DO10I, as follows:
"DO10I = 1.10" If that doesn't terrify you, it should.