Hello TF-A mail list,

I’m new here, so I quickly introduce myself.
I am Florian Manoel, working as firmware developer at Siemens in Karlsruhe, Germany. Recently, we decided to start some development based on ARM processor, the theme TF-A is new for us.

Currently, we have a custom board equipped with the processor NXP Layerscape LS1043a. So far, everything is working as planned, the PreBootLoader (TF-A) boots the bootloader (U-Boot) that’s boots linux on top.
However, we want to have the possibility to boot an alternative u-boot FIP image, I explain:
We use as boot source a QSPI NOR memory. In this memory are stored ‘bl2_qspi.pbl’, 2 times ‘fip.bin’, the u-boot environment and some micro-code.
We want to select the u-boot image to be booted according to the value of a specific variable stored in the u-boot environment ‘u-boot-select’.
The algo is, for my eye, relatively simple :

Start
- Check value of the u-boot variable ‘u-boot-select’

- Check if the corresponding u-boot image is valid, if not select the alternative one
- Boot selected u-boot image
End

We want this functionality in case an u-boot image is broken (ex: power OFF during U-Boot update).

I already went through the source code and it rose more question than it answered. For example:
I noticed that TF-A is designed to load FIP Image but the U-Boot Environment have a different format. How to access the QSPI NOR memory? NXP specific driver?
The bl2 is designed to load only one FIP image, is it possible to add an additional entry ?
On top of it come the question of the reliability and what will happen if we want to use a secure boot in the future..

I am looking for advice and support on this specific topic.
Thanks for your support,

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Florian Manoël

Siemens AG
Digital Industries
Process Automation
Software House Khe
DI PA CI R&D 2
Östliche Rheinbrückenstr. 50
76187 Karlsruhe, Deutschland
Tel.: +49 721 595-1433
mailto:florian.manoel@siemens.com
www.siemens.com/ingenuityforlife

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