[U-Boot] [PATCH 1/1] omap4: use plain text env file instead boot scripts

[Javier Martinez Canillas]

On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 9:00 PM, Wolfgang Denk <wd at denx.de> wrote:
> Dear Javier Martinez Canillas,
>

Dear Wolfgang,

> In message <1356444923-16737-1-git-send-email-javier.martinez at collabora.co.uk> you wrote:
>> Based on commit cf073e49bc3502be1b48a0e3faf0cde9edbb89db for beagleboard
>>
>> Using the new env import command it is possible to use plain text files instead
>> of script-images. Plain text files are much easier to handle.
>
> Are you sure you want to do this in a production environment? The
> ease of use may be helpful during development, but please note that
> there is no validation of the content passed to env import in any way
> - and feeding it crap you can even crash the system - not to mention
> from the problems that can result from corrupted environment settings.
>
> Script images are checksum protected, which appears to be a
> significant advantage to me - also, they carry information like name
> and timestamp, which in production environments are often very helpful
> to diagnose problems (like asking your customers: which exact version
> of the environment script are you loading?).
>

I understand your concern and I do agree that for production
environments boot scripts are both better and more secure than just
importing a plain text with environment variables.

But the Panda board and the Beagle board are not meant to be used to
build products but to be evaluation boards for OMAP technology.

The official Panda board web site [1] advertise the board as an
development platform:

"PandaBoard is intended to be used as a platform for software development."

And even the Panda board FAQ [2] has an answer for this question:

"PandaBoard is designed to be a vehicle for mobile software
development. PandaBoard is neither an end product nor is designed to
be directly included in an end product."

So, If someone wants to use a test/development platform to build a
product I think he/she should already have bigger things to worry
about.

I think this change makes sense not only to be consistent with the
OMAP3 Beagle board boot sequence but also to make it easier for
developers to modify U-Boot environment variables.

But yes, it's not hard to execute mkimage -T script too, so is your call :-)

> Best regards,
>
> Wolfgang Denk
>

Thanks a lot and best regards,
Javier

[1]:http://pandaboard.org/content/platform
[2]:http://omappedia.org/wiki/PandaBoard_FAQ#Is_PandaBoard_an_end_product.3F_Or.2C_can_I_use_PandaBoard_in_my_end_product.3F