[U-Boot] recommended method of netbooting kernel/dtb in u-boot?

[Chris Friesen <chris.friesen@genband.com>]

Hi all,

We've got a Linux powerpc system that uses u-boot.  Generally in our 
environment on bootup the firmware does a DHCP to get networking info, 
then uses TFTP to get the kernel, which then does DHCP again and 
NFS-mounts the initial root filesystem.  The paths on the server vary 
depending on which slot is being booted, so it's not practical to 
hard-code anything in u-boot.

What's the standard practice for this sort of thing when using device 
tree blobs?  Do most people use multi-file images or do they TFTP 
scripts to load and execute separate kernel/dtb files?  Or is there some 
other option I'm overlooking?

For multi-part images is there an in-kernel way of generating a file 
containing a kernel and dtb combined?  I saw a patch proposed in 2008 to 
add a uImage.<dt> build target but it was shot down because it used the 
legacy multi-file format.  Is there an equivalent build target that uses 
the FIT format?

Thanks,
Chris

-- 

Chris Friesen
Software Designer

500 Palladium Drive, Suite 2100
Ottawa, Ontario K2N 1C2, Canada
www.genband.com
office:+1.343.883.2717
chris.friesen at genband.com