[PATCH v2 2/2] ARM: OMAP2+: Pad SPL binary to 8-byte alignment before DTB

[Tom Rini]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2026 at 03:40:57PM +0100, Marek Vasut wrote:
> On 1/12/26 11:11 AM, Beleswar Padhi wrote:
> > The OMAP2 SPL linker script (also used for K3 platforms) currently uses
> > a 4-byte alignment directive after the __u_boot_list section. This
> > alignment directive only advances the location counter without padding
> > the actual binary output.
> > 
> > When objcopy extracts u-boot-spl-nodtb.bin, it includes only actual
> > data, stopping at the last byte of __u_boot_list (e.g., 0x41c359fc),
> > not an aligned address (e.g., 0x41c35a00). So, when the FIT image
> > containing device trees is concatenated to the SPL binary, it gets
> > appended at this unaligned file size, causing libfdt validation failure.
> > 
> > To fix this, move the alignment directive into the __u_boot_list section
> > itself and make it 8-byte aligned as per DT spec. This forces the linker
> > to include padding as part of the section data, ensuring objcopy
> > includes the padding bytes in the binary and the appended FIT image
> > starts at an 8-byte aligned boundary.
> > 
> > Reported-by: Anshul Dalal <anshuld at ti.com>
> > Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/u-boot/DFJ950O0QM0D.380U0N16ZO19E@ti.com
> > Fixes: 0535e46d55d7 ("scripts/dtc: Update to upstream version v1.7.2-35-g52f07dcca47c")
> > Signed-off-by: Beleswar Padhi <b-padhi at ti.com>
> > ---
> > v2: Changelog:
> > 1. Get rid of extra ALIGN() directive, replace it with a comment
> > 2. Carry Reported-by, Closes and Fixes tag.
> > 
> > Link to v1:
> > https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260109190026.58464-3-b-padhi@ti.com/
> > 
> >   arch/arm/mach-omap2/u-boot-spl.lds | 6 +++++-
> >   1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/arch/arm/mach-omap2/u-boot-spl.lds b/arch/arm/mach-omap2/u-boot-spl.lds
> > index 3bb759d8a1c..5ad169a37b7 100644
> > --- a/arch/arm/mach-omap2/u-boot-spl.lds
> > +++ b/arch/arm/mach-omap2/u-boot-spl.lds
> > @@ -35,9 +35,13 @@ SECTIONS
> >   	. = ALIGN(4);
> >   	__u_boot_list : {
> >   		KEEP(*(SORT(__u_boot_list*)));
> > +		/*
> > +		 * Ensure 8-byte alignment at the end of the last section before
> > +		 * DTB is appended, to satisfy DT spec alignment requirements
> > +		 */
> > +		. = ALIGN(8);
> >   	} >.sram
> Does this work even if the __u_boot_list section is empty ?

I'm not sure it can be empty, but it should still work.

> I think what you need is unconditional alignment of the end of the binary,
> that has to be 8 bytes aligned.

We might need to look harder at what Anshul was suggesting in his reply,
yeah. I'll chime in over there next.

-- 
Tom
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