U-Boot Finally Lands HTTP & TCP Support For Downloading Images

[phoronix]

Phoronix: U-Boot Finally Lands HTTP & TCP Support For Downloading Images

The U-Boot open-source bootloader that is widely used for embedded devices has finally landed support for HTTP and TCP along with a basic "wget" implementation for downloading images via HTTP/TCP...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/UBoot-HTTP-TCP-wget

[c117152]

Personally I found primitive ftpd got the job done: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.primftpd/

[rene]

I wonder why on this site everything is "finally". Why does the author not get into software development, it sounds like they would have ample,ented everything finally much much earlier, ..! A 10x engineer?

[TheMightyBuzzard]

What absolute nimrod sat down and thought to themselves "You know what would be an awesome idea? Having data we have no control over in the boot process!"?

[OneTimeShot]

All of these bootloaders grow bigger and bigger until they reinvent the Unix kernel…

[rene]

All of these bootloaders grow bigger and bigger until they reinvent the Unix kernel…

I'm, not satisfied until they finally add an Editor and Webbrowser to the boot loaded, ..!

[schmidtbag]

I wonder why on this site everything is "finally". Why does the author not get into software development, it sounds like they would have ample,ented everything finally much much earlier, ..! A 10x engineer?

A few things:
1. Saying "finally" doesn't necessarily imply impatience. I don't think most people really care that much about this feature, though, Michael might due to his search for automating everything. That being said...
2. Michael does get into software development, via PTS. Indirectly, he has also sparked a lot of development for a lot of open source projects due to the attention he brings them. I think he's done more for the open source community than the average kernel developer.
3. Seems to me most of all he does with his day is work on Phoronix. Does that give him the excuse to tell others to hurry up (if that is what he's doing)? Definitely not, but at least he's not a hypocrite to call someone lazy.

What absolute nimrod sat down and thought to themselves "You know what would be an awesome idea? Having data we have no control over in the boot process!"?

I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like a major security issue. Perhaps it's fine on an office LAN where each device can be easily regulated by their IT department, but I don't think devices running U-boot are all that common in offices. The device would probably have to be wired since wireless would be a logistical mess, but I figure most U-boot devices are primarily connected through wifi.
I don't see any harm in offering the feature, though it's not something I'd recommend.

[jabl]

All of these bootloaders grow bigger and bigger until they reinvent the Unix kernel…

Well yes, and at that point you'll start thinking why not start with a Linux kernel in the first place and gain a, for instance, high performance battle tested TCP implementation, boatloads of drivers, and so forth. Hence https://www.linuxboot.org/ (too bad it's not used very much).

[sinepgib]

I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like a major security issue.

It's 2022 and you can sign binaries.

[danboid]

Well I think this is great news and I'm happy to have another boot method available for my u-boot using SBCs.

I keep meaning to test LTSP on the RPi4 then try to get my RockPi4 working as a LTSP client. Will get round to that one day.