Hi Eric, Hi Johny,
Thank you all for the answer! I still need to digest the information, for
example, I don't know if in TinyOS we can generate a linking library. Are
you suggesting writing c code instead of tos components?
To answer Eric's question, what I want to do is to add some bootstrapping
code to receive data over the network and fill up all the writable memory
of the device (external flash, eeprom, most of the internal flash) with the
received data. This does the job of secure erasure of the device in order
to later get a clean system image and boot up. And I think this
bootstrapping code should reside in the bootloader section along with
TOSBoot. In theory all seems easy until it comes to the real device. I
don't even know if my questions are in the right direction to achieve that.
Thanks again!
Vivien
On 30 April 2015 at 06:18, Eric Decker <cire...@gmail.com> wrote:
> cool. thanks Johny.
>
> Any chance you can finish writing/documenting this up and possibly add it
> to the mainline?
>
> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 6:02 PM, Johny Mattsson <jmatts...@dius.com.au>
> wrote:
>
>> On 30 April 2015 at 04:03, Eric Decker <cire...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 9:06 AM, Li, Wenting <luth...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> 1. I want to put an application in the bootloader section and the other
>>>> part in the applicatioin section, because I need the capability to write to
>>>> internal flash. But the whole TOS image is too big to fit in bootloader
>>>> section. So can I selectively choose a component to stay in bootloader
>>>> section, and the other parts outside.
>>>>
>>>
>>> no
>>>
>>
>> Make that a "no, not easily" :)
>>
>> For what you're wanting to do, you'll definitely want to use TosBoot.
>> Even so, with an AVR you'll need a few extra tweaks to work with/around the
>> flash programming restrictions. It's been a few years since I worked in
>> this area, but as a very brief summary, for remote firmware upgrade you
>> need to:
>>
>> - Use TosBoot to provider basic loader functionality, and get ensure it's
>> installed in the privileged/bootloader area of the flash.
>>
>> - Put the flash writing/erasing routines for the AVR into TosBoot, and
>> the function prototypes for them in some header file somewhere.
>>
>> - Generate a linking library from the TosBoot binary, containing only the
>> symbols for your flash read/write functions.
>>
>> - Create the volumes-{something}.xml to specify partitioning of your
>> flash - you'll need at least two application volumes to allow downloading
>> and switching to new firmware. There's a TEP or intro on how all that bit
>> works (I've forgotten most of it by now *cough*); It's probably together
>> with the rest of the TosBoot information.
>>
>> - Add "-Wl,-R$(path_to_above_generated.lib)" to your application
>> Makefile's LDFLAGS, to allow the linker to resolve your flash read/write
>> functions.
>>
>> - Include the header file for the flash read/write in whichever module
>> handles receiving new firmware data, and call them from there. Since these
>> functions actually reside in the boot loader area of the flash, they're
>> allowed to do the reprogramming. You're effectively sharing these functions
>> between both TosBoot and your application. This is the key to making it all
>> work.
>>
>> - All the other details that I've glossed over or forgotten about :)
>>
>> - And finally, be very very very careful if you ever need to make changes
>> to your TosBoot, since if you change the address of the read/write
>> functions, Things Will Break(tm). If possible, place those functions at
>> fixed addresses to avoid such headaches.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> How can I do it if TinyOS only allows the upload of one packaged system
>>>> image?
>>>>
>>>
>>> you can't in the context of TinyOS. The question above is outside the
>>> scope of how TinyOS gets built.
>>>
>>> You are actually asking a question about how to you make use of the
>>> embedded atmel environment. And how do you load two different pieces of
>>> code into the Atmel flash and have them cooperate in some fashion.
>>>
>>> TinyOS doesn't directly support doing those kinds of things.
>>>
>>
>> While, as Eric says, there's no direct support for it, the structure does
>> work quite well for slotting it in though, largely thanks to TosBoot.
>>
>>
>>
>>> You can do this but it is outside the scope of how TinyOS works. So it
>>> is something that you would have to figure out.
>>>
>>
>> Having been in the position of having to figure those things out, allow
>> me to point you at our (now somewhat outdated) TinyOS fork with support for
>> the atxm256, including the above mentioned boot loader / reprogramming
>> support. The most interesting file to peruse is probably the TosBoot
>> Makefile:
>>
>>
>> https://github.com/DiUS/tinyos-siflex02/blob/master/tos/lib/tosboot/Makefile
>>
>> The siflex02 & modflex related targets have the relevant bits.
>>
>> Getting it all to work isn't what I'd call trivial, but it *is* doable if
>> you're willing to put the time into it!
>>
>>
>> Good luck,
>> /Johny
>> --
>> Johny Mattsson
>> Senior Software Engineer
>>
>> DiUS Computing Pty. Ltd.
>>
>> *where ideas are engineered *
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Eric B. Decker
> Senior (over 50 :-) Researcher
>
>
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