[U-Boot] Network based logging with U-Boot

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Matthew Lear,

In message <4A896ED5.3010807 at bubblegen.co.uk> you wrote:
> 
> Is U-Boot able to log its actives etc to a machine accessible via the
> network?

U-Boot has support for netconsole, if that is what you are looking
for.

> Desirable -> U-Boot being able to log all its boot up info and details
> regarding booting it's OS image etc (ie everything sent to stdout) to a
> file on a remote machine.

Note that netconsole does not output _all_ of U-Boot boot messages; it
takes a lot of initialization until the network interface becomes
operational, but this is usually only an issue during the port of
U-Boot to new hardware. For normal deployment of a known-to-be-working
image it's OK.

> Scenario - multiple deployments all housed in sealed units on a LAN.
> Network based monitoring is the only option.

No problem. Use netconsole.

> I'm sure I read somewhere that UDP logging is available in U-Boot but
> information on this doesn't seem to be hugely available.

Well, it's documented. Just read doc/README.NetConsole

> I've got netconsole running via netcat on a host pc but this is console
> only and is not ideal for a multi-platform deployment model. Although,

"not ideal"? What exactly are you missing?

> saying that, I suppose that doing 'set ncip <server ip>' and 'set stdout
> nc' and running netcat on a host pc would provide some level of diagnostics.
> 
> Is anybody able to offer any advice or strategy here for similar
> requirements?

Try to explain what your exact problems with netconsole are.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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