Previous version launched the image it had just received, which is the one
thing that cannot be made safe: a broken build hangs the console and the
checks can only catch a truncated or non-DOL image, never a plausible but
broken one.
The flow is now receive -> write to SD -> boot /boot.dol:
- netboot_sd_write() mounts the card (auto-detecting SD2SP2, then SD Gecko
slot B, then slot A), writes the image to the path the host asked for,
and READS IT BACK AND COMPARES. A half-written .dol that still parses is
exactly the failure this design exists to avoid, and the card is the one
component here with no other integrity check.
- netboot_boot_file() then loads /boot.dol -- a known-good Swiss -- and
launches that instead.
So the only image this ever jumps into is one that was already known good. A
broken test build costs nothing: Swiss comes up and can load anything,
including the previous build. If the SD write or verify fails, nothing is
launched at all and the menu is still there.
The destination path travels in the DONE frame rather than being baked in, so
the host decides where the build lands (send-dol.py --dest, default
/gc_bba_test.dol).
libfat is unmounted before the jump: leaving the card mounted hands the next
image a filesystem libfat still thinks it owns, on an EXI channel it is about
to reinitialise.
Note the SD Gecko in memory-card slot A shares EXI channel 0 with the BBA
(channel 0, device 2). libogc arbitrates, but SD2SP2 is on its own channel
and avoids the question -- hence the detection order.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Copying to SD and rebooting is now the slowest part of the loop. Z in the
test app pulls a new .dol over the adapter and launches it.
Deliberately NOT built on an IP stack. Frames carry a private ethertype
(0x88B5, IEEE 802 local experimental 1) and a 12-byte header, so there is no
ARP, no IP, no checksums, and no libogc network driver competing with our raw
driver for the EXI channel. It reuses exactly the two paths the suite already
proves on hardware: bba_tx_bytes() for TX and the SPRAM ring at RRP for RX.
A side benefit is that each update is a few hundred round trips through that
path -- a soak test we did not have.
STOP-AND-WAIT is load-bearing, not laziness. The gateware does not consume
RRP, so RXFrameAssembler can overwrite ring pages the GC has not read yet;
there is no overflow protection. One block in flight means the ring never
holds more than one unread frame, so the missing protection cannot bite. Both
the header and the README say not to make this a sliding window without adding
RBFI-style protection first.
Failure behaviour, so a bad update never costs a power cycle:
- 30 s idle with no frames, or 5 s mid-transfer, aborts to the menu rather
than hanging.
- A duplicate block is RE-ACKed rather than ignored, because a duplicate
means our previous ACK was lost and re-ACKing is what lets the host move
on.
- netboot_receive() re-asserts the NCRA SR bit first: an earlier test may
have left receive disabled, and then this would wait forever for frames
the gateware is not storing.
- netboot_launch() refuses an image whose entry point or first text section
is not in MEM1 instead of jumping into a mis-parsed header.
The jump itself is the one unavoidable risk: once sections are copied and
interrupts are off, a bad image hangs the console hard enough to need a power
cycle. The MEM1 check is what stands between a truncated transfer and that.
Host side is scripts/send-dol.py (AF_PACKET, needs sudo). The GC's MAC is
discovered from its first ACK, so neither side needs an address configured.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Remaining after the bit-phase fix was a SPEED-DEPENDENT failure -- the GC read
correctly at 1/2/4/8/16 MHz and failed only at index 5 (27 MHz), returning
0B 80 = 0x17 late by exactly ONE bit. Opposite signature to the phase slip it
was hiding under, and this one really is propagation delay.
MISO is source-synchronous: driven on the falling edge, sampled by the GC on
the next rising edge, so the whole path must fit a HALF period -- 18.5 ns at
27 MHz -- minus global-buffer insertion, pad, connector and the GC's setup.
The failing build measured ~10.5 ns of that internally. Critical path:
clk-to-q 1.39 tx_shift (3,12)
routing 3.60 tx_shift[7] (3,12) -> (5,5) to the CS mux
logic 1.21 Mux(cs_n, 1, ...) LUT
routing 4.79 miso (5,5) -> (17,0) to the J4 MISO pad
10.99 ns (2.60 logic, 8.39 routing)
Two removals, both of things that were pure cost here:
1. EXI_J4 is GONE entirely (exi_j4.py, the resource, the AND merge, the docs
section, scripts/pi-exi-wirecheck.py) -- recoverable from git history. The
AND put a LUT in the CLOCK path, denying the EXI clock pad its dedicated
global-buffer route, and MISO fanned out to the J4 pad at die (17,0) which
was the far end of the critical output path: 4.79 ns of routing to a header
with nothing plugged into it. 10.2-11.5 ns -> 9.3-9.6 ns.
2. The Mux(cs_n, 1, ...) LUT is gone from the MISO data path. It only parked
MISO high when deselected, which the flop's own reset value does for free:
tx_shift now has init=0xFF and CS is that domain's async reset, so MISO is
tx_shift[7] with nothing in between. Removes 1.21 ns of logic plus the
3.60 ns route feeding it and lets the placer sit the flop by the pad.
synth.py now PARSES AND RANKS BY the MISO clock-to-pad delay. Ranking by fmax
was how a board that failed at 27 MHz passed every seed at >=1.29x margin --
fmax was never the binding constraint for this design.
--seeds 8: clk 28.7-32.5 MHz, EXI 49.6-62.1 MHz, MISO 8.38-10.22 ns, 8/8 PASS.
Best seed 8 (clk 30.35, EXI 49.56, MISO 8.38 ns), flashed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Sets the PC to 10.0.0.50/24 so the GC test suite's RX test can pass: its TX
test ARPs for that address and the kernel answers ARP for an address it
actually holds, so no listener process is needed. Without it RX fails
legitimately for lack of traffic.
Handles the NetworkManager trap -- NM silently strips a hand-added address
within seconds, so the device is set unmanaged first and handed back on
'down'. Warns that this drops any existing connection on that NIC.
up / down / status / watch, with wired-interface auto-detection (prefers one
with a carrier) and a status readout that flags no-carrier along with the
likely cause: the W5100S rail is gated off GC_ON, so it is dead whenever the
console is off.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
First silicon proof of the EXI capture path. A Pi bit-banging EXI into J4
reads the device ID 04 02 02 00 21/21, NWAYS 0x17, HIPR 0x01, writes and reads
back PAR0-3, writes IMR, and sees NCRA's reset bit self-clear.
Fixes two host-side bugs found getting there:
- exi_devid_rpi.py sampled MISO just after the rising edge, racing the slave's
own update and landing one bit early (04 came back as 08). Sample in the
CLK-low phase, as the simulation does.
- pi-exi-wirecheck.py's bridge scan drove HIGH against pull-downs, but the
FPGA's SB_IO pull-up out-pulls the Pi's internal pull-down, so every pin
reported as bridged. The aggressor now drives LOW against pull-ups.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Verifies the harness before attempting a real EXI transfer. Keyed on the
EXI_J4 build's SB_IO pull-ups: an FPGA input with PULLUP=1 reads HIGH when
connected, follows the Pi's pull when open, and reads a hard 0 only when
shorted -- so all three cases are distinguishable from the Pi alone.
Includes a T0 control on known-unwired pins; without it a broken pull
mechanism would turn every 'connected' verdict into a false pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Reverts the 0x8000/0xC000 change from 162dbf7, which was WRONG and actively
broke transmission. The W5100S datasheet pseudo-code quotes 0x8000 (TX) /
0xC000 (RX) for the memory blocks, but the PARALLEL/indirect (IDM) interface
only decodes a 15-bit offset. Bench-proven with an address-aliasing probe:
writing distinct values to each candidate base and reading them back showed
0xC000 and 0x4000 are the SAME cell (0xC000 & 0x7FFF == 0x4000) while 0x6000
holds its own value.
Consequence of the bad base: every payload byte written to 0x9800+i aliased
down onto 0x0000+i, landing on SHAR (0x09-0x0E) and SIPR (0x0F-0x12) and
overwriting them with the payload. The chip then transmitted frames with a
garbage source MAC/IP, which the peer NIC drops without counting -- the
"SEND_OK but rx_packets=0" symptom, and the bogus SIPR0 readback (0x50 was
literally payload byte 15, 'P').
The NETLCKR unlock from 9c4bc7a is a genuine W5100S requirement and stays.
Also:
- w5100_udptest.py: self-contained configure+send+readback probe (and the
address-aliasing probe that found this), reports over UART.
- scripts/build-flash.sh: sweep N seeds and flash the best (capture timing is
seed-dependent, so the sweep is mandatory).
- scripts/uart-console.py: interactive UART console, plus --send/--read
one-shot modes for scripting.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Roflin