User:RemDogKap/SandBox/Update XSPI Flash SPL and U-Boot

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Warning: Attempting these instructions may permanently brick (make nonfunctional) your device. Do not attempt unless you know what you are doing.

Warning: These instructions have not been tested or verified. Use at your own risk.

The Star64 ships with an integrated 128 megabit (16 megabyte) xSPI NOR flash. Loaded on this flash from the factory is firmware called U-Boot and SPL but an old version designed for the StarFive VisionFive 2 SBC which may have incompatibilities with the Star64. The SPL or Secondary Program Loader is the software that loads U-Boot, which in turn loads the Linux kernel. The firmware on this flash is known as Das U-Boot, commonly just U-Boot which is an open-source primary boot loader. It performs similar functions to the BIOS on x86 platforms.

There are two main ways to update the xSPI flash. The first uses the flashcp command which requires the Star64 to first boot into an OS. This method may not work on older versions of [firmware, OS, something else????]. The other method requires only the ability to load U-Boot and uses TFTP and the U-Boot tftpboot command.

Prerequisites

Required:

• Star64 SBC
• Computer running Linux, MacOS, or Windows

Possibly required:

• Ability to communicate over TTL (transistor to transistor logic) UART
• Ability to network the Star64 to a computer over ethernet

flashcp

First, connect to your Star64 over UART or with a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. Next, install the mtd-utils package onto the Star64 if not already installed. This package is a set of tools that allow access to raw flash storage devices such as the xSPI flash. Also install wget if not already installed. These instructions assume that you are using the deb package manager.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install mtb-utils wget

Next, using wget download the .bin.normal.out SPL file and the .img U-Boot image onto the.

$ wget https://pine64.my-ho.st:8443/[fishwaldo SPL file goes here]
$ wget https://pine64.my-ho.st:8443/[fishwaldo U-Boot image goes here]

Next, print out the list of MTD (Memory Technology Device) raw flash devices using cat.

$ cat /proc/mtd

The output should look something like this:

dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00020000 00001000 "spl"
mtd1: 00300000 00001000 "uboot"
mtd2: 00100000 00001000 "data"

Finally, write the .bin.normal.out SPL file and the .img U-Boot image. to the respective partitions using flashcp, a command which writes to raw flash devices with more protections than dd.

$ flashcp -v [fishwaldo spl file name here].bin.normal.out /dev/<SPL Partition>
$ flashcp -v [fishwaldo uboot img file name here].img /dev/<U-Boot Partition>

Where <SPL Partition> is the partition name found under the "dev" column for the row "spl" from the cat printout, in this case mtd0 and <U-Boot Partition> is the partition name found under the "dev" column for the row "uboot" in the cat printout, in this case mtd1.

At this point your xSPI flash has been rewritten and only a system restart is needed for the changes to take effect.

tftpboot

The tftpboot method uses a TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol, a protocol which allows for basic file transfer functionality without authentication) server to transfer the SPL file and U-Boot image from a host computer to the Star64 running U-Boot and using the tftpboot command and then written to flash using the sf command which is a U-Boot command used to access SPI flash.

Preparing The TFTP Server

Linux

First, on your computer (not the Star64) install a TFTP server and wget if you do not already have it.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install tftpd-hpa wget

Next, check that the TFPT server is running using systemctl.

$ sudo systemctl status tftpd-hpa

This should output somethng like

● tftpd-hpa.service - LSB: HPA's tftp server
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa; generated)
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2023-06-10 20:51:28 CDT; 17min ago
       Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
    Process: 1016 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
      Tasks: 1 (limit: 2306)
     Memory: 588.0K
        CPU: 23ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/tftpd-hpa.service
            └─1023 /usr/sbin/in.tftpd --listen --user tftp --address :69 --secure /srv/tftp

Jun 10 20:51:28 debian-bookworm systemd[1]: Starting tftpd-hpa.service - LSB: HPA's tftp server...
Jun 10 20:51:28 debian-bookworm tftpd-hpa[1016]: Starting HPA's tftpd: in.tftpd.
Jun 10 20:51:28 debian-bookworm systemd[1]: Started tftpd-hpa.service - LSB: HPA's tftp server.           

If the service is not running, try

$ sudo systemctl start tftpd-hpa

and check the status again. If it is still not running please join the #star64 channel in the Pine64 IRC, Discord, or Matrix.

Next, edit the configuration file for tftpd-hpa.

$ sudo nano /etc/default/tftpd-hpa

by default it should look like:

TFTP_USERNAME="tftp"
TFTP_DIRECTORY="/srv/tftp"
TFTP_ADDRESS=":69"
TFTP_OPTIONS="--secure"

Change TFTP_DIRECTORY="/srv/tftp" to TFTP_DIRECTORY="/home/user/tftp_share". The final file should look like:

TFTP_USERNAME="tftp"
TFTP_DIRECTORY="/home/<user>/tftp_share"
TFTP_ADDRESS=":69"
TFTP_OPTIONS="--secure"

Where user is your username. After that, save and close the file then restart the TFTP server.

$ sudo systemctl restart tftpd-hpa

Next in your home directory (/home/user) create a folder called tftp_share

$ mkdir /home/user/tftp_share

In this folder, download the .bin.normal.out SPL file and the .img U-Boot image using wget.

$ cd /home/user/tftp_share
$ wget https://pine64.my-ho.st:8443/[fishwaldo SPL file goes here]
$ wget https://pine64.my-ho.st:8443/[fishwaldo U-Boot image goes here]

Before connecting to the Star64 and updating the firmware install minicom, virtual console software, so it will be possible to communicate with the Star64.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install minicom 

Next connect the your USB to TTL UART adapter to the computer and list the connected serial devices.

$ dmesg | grep tty

Example output:

to be
filled in
later 

Find the address of the TTL UART to USB adapter in the list (example: ttyUSB0) and connect to the serial device with a baud rate of 115200.

$ sudo minicom -D /dev/<Device Address> -b 115200

Where <Device Address> is the address found in the step above. Example

$ sudo minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 115200

Windows

First, install two pieces of software, tftpd64, a TFTP server for windows, and Tera Term, a virtual console for interacting with the Star64 in U-Boot. Next on your desktop, create a folder called tftp_share In this folder, download the .bin.normal.out SPL file and the .img U-Boot image from here.

Next, load tftpd64 and configure the settings to have the "Current Directory" as the tftp_share folder on the desktop and "Server interfaces" is set to 127.0.0.1 Software Loopback Interface 1. The path should look something like C:\Users\${Username}\Desktop\tftp_share where ${Username} is your username on Windows.

Updating the SPI Flash

Next, connect a TTL UART to USB cable to to the Star64 with the GND cable on pin 6 of the GPIO header, TXD on pin 8, and RXD on pin 10 as well as ethernet. Note that depending on your UART adapter you may have to switch TXD and RXD. Now power on the Star64 and enter U-Boot. You will need to press a key to prevent it from autobooting and instead enter the U-Boot command prompt. Once you are in the U-Boot shell set some environment variables. First, set the IP address of the Star64 and connect it to the network using the dhcp command.

# dhcp 

Set an environment variable of the TFTP server to make future command easier. If you don't what the IP address of your TFTP server is you can see connected devices in your router's configuration which can usually be accessed by typing in the IP address found on the router itself.

# setenv serverip <server IP>

Where server IP is the IP address of the TFTP server. Example

# setenv serverip 192.168.1.199

Ping the TFTP server from the Star64 to make sure the connection works where <Server IP> refers to the IP address of your TFTP server. Note that if you are hosting the TFTP server on Windows, you may need to configure Windows firewall to allow ‘File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request – ICMPv4 – In)’. This is only needed to test the network connection with ping and not for the actual tftpboot command so if ping fails tftpboot may still succeed.

# ping <server IP>

Example

# ping 192.168.1.199

The result should look something like this:

Star64 # ping 192.168.1.199
Using ethernet@16030000 device
host 192.168.1.199 is alive

If ping fails, please try again or please join the #star64 channel in the Pine64 IRC, Discord, or Matrix for help.

Finally, it is time to update the xSPI flash.

First, initialize the flash with the sf probe command.

# sf probe

The output should be something like:

Star64 # sf probe
SF: Detected gd25lq128 with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 4 KiB, total 16 MiB

Next copy the SPL .bin.normal.out file to memory address 0xa0000000 from our TFTP server.

# tftpboot 0xa0000000 ${serverip}:[name of fishwaldo spl file]

Where ${serverip} is the environment variable we set earlier, no need to change it. Then use sf update to erase and update the SPI flash from memory. In this case we are copying from memory address 0xa0000000 which we wrote to earlier with an offset of 0x0.

# sf update 0xa0000000 0x0 $filesize

This should produce an output like:

To be 
filled
in later

Next, copy the U-Boot .img binary to memory address 0xa0000000 from the TFTP server.

# tftpboot 0xa0000000 ${serverip}:[name of fishwaldo uboot image]

Where ${serverip} is the environment variable we set earlier, no need to change it.

Finally, write the new U-Boot binary using sf update from memory address 0xa0000000 with an offset of 0x100000.

# sf update 0xa0000000 0x100000 $filesize

This should produce an output like:

To be 
filled
in later

Reboot the Star64 and the changes should have taken effect.