[U-Boot] [PATCH 00/30] binman: A tool for creating firmware images

[Simon Glass]

Hi,

On 25 July 2016 at 18:58, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> wrote:
> This series introduces binman, a tool designed to create firmware images.
> It provides a way to bring together various binaries and place them in an
> image, at particular positions and with configurable alignment.
>
> Packaging of firmware is quite a different task from building the various
> parts. In many cases the various binaries which go into the image come from
> separate build systems. For example, ARM Trusted Firmware is used on ARMv8
> devices but is not built in the U-Boot tree. If a Linux kernel is included
> in the firmware image, it is built elsewhere.
>
> It is of course possible to add more and more build rules to the U-Boot
> build system to cover these cases. It can shell out to other Makefiles and
> build scripts. But it seems better to create a clear divide between building
> software and packaging it.
>
> U-Boot supports a very large number of boards. Many of these have their own
> specific rules for how an image should be put together so that it boots
> correctly. At present these rules are described by manual instructions,
> different for each board. By turning these instructions into a standard
> format, we can support making valid images for any board without manual
> effort, lots of READMEs, etc.
>
> Images consist of a number of entries which are combined to make up the
> final image. The image is described in the device tree for the board, meaning
> that it can be accessed at run-time if desired.
>
> Binman is an extensible tool. A set of standard entries is provides, but
> new entries can be created fairly easily. Entries can be as simple as
> providing the name of a file to include. They can also handle more complex
> requirements, such as adjusting the input file or reading header information
> from one entry to control the position of another.
>
> U-Boot's mkimage builds FIT images and various other binaries. Binman
> augments this by allowing these binaries to be packed together. While FIT
> should be used where possible, it cannot be used everywhere. For example,
> many devices require executable code at a particular offset in the image.
> X86 machines require lots of binary blobs at particular places, and a
> microcode collection easily accessible at boot.
>
> So far binman has enough functionality to be useful, but apart from a few RFC
> patches, no attempt is made to switch boards over to use it. There should be
> enough material to permit review and comments.
>
> The series is available at u-boot-dm/binman-working
>
> Future work and missing features are documented in the README.

I'm going to apply the clean-up parts of this series to u-boot-dm/next
and then resend just the tool as a shorter series with some updates.

Regards,
Simon