[U-Boot] Need FTP client support in U-Boot

[Simon Glass]

Hi Giles,

On 1 November 2014 04:10, Gilles Chanteperdrix
<gilles.chanteperdrix at xenomai.org> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Nov 01, 2014 at 10:50:06AM +0100, Gilles Chanteperdrix wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 12:35:18PM +0400, Antony Pavlov wrote:
> > > On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 08:08:44 +0100
> > > Gilles Chanteperdrix <gilles.chanteperdrix at xenomai.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 03:49:15PM +0100, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> > > > > Dear Madhu,
> > > > >
> > > > > In message <23c3598d8b87452eb6a3d1f52afb8a34 at SG2PR01MB0394.apcprd01.prod.exchangelabs.com> you wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > We are looking for FTP client command in U-boot commands, So that, we
> > > > > > can boot the O.S kernel-image through ftp-client(instead of tftpboot
> > > > > > over network).
> > > > >
> > > > > It would have been usful if you had told us whyyou thing the existing
> > > > > network protocols (TFTP, NFS) are not sufficient for your use cases?
> > > >
> > > > Hi Wolfgang,
> > > >
> > > > if you do not mind me interfering, I have started using HTTP with
> > > > pxelinux recently, and I can answer this question: for large files
> > > > (such as large initramfs files,  which are practical nowadays since
> > > > even some embedded boards have gigabytes of RAM), TCP based
> > > > protocols are much, much faster than TFTP. That is because TFTP is a
> > > > request/response protocol, which takes one round trip time for every
> > > > packet asked. TCP based protocols, on the other hand benefit from
> > > > sending several packets before getting an acknowledge, which means
> > > > there is a "pipelining" effect.
> > >
> > > Hmm.
> > >
> > > low speed of TFTP protocol in U-boot is not a problem of TFTP protocol itself,
> > > but problem of TFTP protocol setup.
> >
> > That is because you are running your tests with a network with a
> > small round-trip time, and yes, if you augment the block size, you
> > reduce the number of round-trips, so you reduce the duration. TCP on
> > the other hand, will adapt the window size automatically and try and
> > fill the pipe before waiting for an ack.
> >
>
> Besides, as far as I can tell the TFTP blocksize option is not part
> of the TFTP protocol, it is an option described in an RFC which has
> the "draft standard" status, so, this is not standard.

I know that my IP phones have full ftp for various reasons. If you
want to add this support to U-Boot I would be happy to review it and
test it. It will need some TCP/IP stack code.

Regards,
Simon