Genio 1200-EVK

tftpboot (POC)

tftpboot is a method for booting devices over a network using the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP). It allows devices to download files such as kernel images, configurations, and other data from a TFTP server over a network.

Genio 1200-EVK supports the Ethernet driver in U-Boot since IoT Yocto v24.0. It also provides support for booting via tftpboot natively in U-Boot.

There are many tutorials and how-to guides for tftpboot with U-Boot available on the Internet and on YouTube. Here, we provide a very simple example of network setup for tftpboot on U-Boot.

Prepare TFTP Server on PC Host

There are many TFTP server software options for Windows or Linux PC hosts. Developers will need a TFTP server on the PC host and prepare the image for the target EVK. For example, we suggest tftpd64 for Windows PC hosts, and tftpd for Linux PC hosts. Please refer to the documentation of these software for server settings and how to place the test.image in the folder accessible by the TFTP server.

Configuration Example on Genio 1200-EVK

After TFTP server has been installed, please ensure the Ethernet of Genio 1200-EVK and the PC host are in the same LAN network with the same IPv4 subnet. In the following example, the IP address of the PC host is 192.168.0.111, and the IP address of Genio 1200-EVK is 192.168.0.100. Prepare the test.image in the folder controlled by the TFTP server.

Enter the U-Boot shell on Genio 1200-EVK.
Input the following commands for network settings and check the network connection:

=> setenv serverip 192.168.0.111
=> setenv ipaddr 192.168.0.100
=> setenv gatewayip 192.168.0.255
=> setenv netmask 255.255.255.0
=> setenv ethaddr 08:00:00:00:22:01
=> ping 192.168.0.111

Developers should see the following output:

=> ping 192.168.0.111
Using ethernet@11021000 device
host 192.168.0.111 is alive

Transfer Test Image to Genio 1200-EVK

Transfer test.image from the PC host to Genio 1200-EVK:

=> tftpboot test.image
Using ethernet@11021000 device
TFTP from server 192.168.0.111: our IP address is 192.168.0.100
Filename 'test.image'.
Load address: 0x4c000000
Loading: ##################################################################
         ##################################################################
         ##########################################################
         11.4 MiB/s
done
Bytes transferred = 104857600 (6400000 hex)

Now the test.image has been transferred to the address 0x4c000000. If this is a fitImage, you can use the command bootm to boot the Linux kernel from this fitImage. However, there are many other settings that need to be taken care of, such as loading the device tree blob (DTB), etc. Please read the U-Boot script carefully and modify it as needed to ensure a successful boot.