AKI-H8: RedBoot

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Oct 042010
 
AKI-H8: RedBoot

RedBoot is what is installed on the AKI-H8 board I have. I put it there myself, taking the image from http://sourceforge.jp/projects/ecos-h8/ . It can configure its startup behaviour as I know from several routers which use RedBoot. But I’ve never done that. So far no need, but recently I use that board a lot as it has lots of memory and loading a file via network beats XModem upload. But when you want to boot off the microcontroller without a network connection… Time to figure out how RedBoot handles the FLASH memory.

The first test was using fconfig, which is supposed to configure RedBoot:

RedBoot> fconfig -i
Initialize non-volatile configuration - continue (y/n)? y
Run script at boot: false
Use BOOTP for network configuration: false
Gateway IP address: 192.168.11.1
Local IP address: 192.168.11.55
Local IP address mask: 255.255.255.0
Default server IP address: 192.168.11.53
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
linux boot command:
Network debug at boot time: false
Default network device: dp83902a_eth0
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration - continue (y/n)? y


Looked good! But then:

... Erase from 0x00070000-0x00080000:
Error erasing FIS directory at 0x00070000: Device/region is write-protected

Well, it’s not that easy it seems. Turns out 2 things are needed first:

  1. Make the flash not read-only (DIP switch 4 to on I think)
  2. fis init -f to initialize flash

Afterwards:

RedBoot> fis init -f
About to initialize [format] FLASH image system - continue (y/n)? y
*** Initialize FLASH Image System
... Erase from 0x00020000-0x00070000: .....
... Erase from 0x00080000-0x00080000:
... Erase from 0x00070000-0x00080000: .
... Program from 0x005e4000-0x005f4000 at 0x00070000: .

to initialize flash. And then change the boot up configuration to configure the IP address to the one I like:

RedBoot> fconfig
Run script at boot: false
Use BOOTP for network configuration: false
Gateway IP address: 192.168.11.1
Local IP address: 192.168.11.55
Local IP address mask: 255.255.255.0
Default server IP address: 192.168.11.53
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
linux boot command:
Network debug at boot time: false
Default network device: dp83902a_eth0
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration - continue (y/n)? y
... Erase from 0x00070000-0x00080000: .
... Program from 0x005e4000-0x005f4000 at 0x00070000: .

This sets its own IP address to 192.168.11.55/24 and the TFTP server where to get its programs from to 192.168.11.53. I could even run a script (which is not more than commands I’d otherwise enter manually) at boot time and load a program from the TFTP server or from flash and execute it. See here for examples. I seriously start to like RedBoot. At least if you have plenty of FLASH and a network connection.