1 # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
2 # Copyright (c) 2016 Google, Inc
7 Firmware often consists of several components which must be packaged together.
8 For example, we may have SPL, U-Boot, a device tree and an environment area
9 grouped together and placed in MMC flash. When the system starts, it must be
10 able to find these pieces.
12 So far U-Boot has not provided a way to handle creating such images in a
13 general way. Each SoC does what it needs to build an image, often packing or
14 concatenating images in the U-Boot build system.
16 Binman aims to provide a mechanism for building images, from simple
17 SPL + U-Boot combinations, to more complex arrangements with many parts.
23 Binman reads your board's device tree and finds a node which describes the
24 required image layout. It uses this to work out what to place where. The
25 output file normally contains the device tree, so it is in principle possible
26 to read an image and extract its constituent parts.
32 So far binman is pretty simple. It supports binary blobs, such as 'u-boot',
33 'spl' and 'fdt'. It supports empty entries (such as setting to 0xff). It can
34 place entries at a fixed location in the image, or fit them together with
35 suitable padding and alignment. It provides a way to process binaries before
36 they are included, by adding a Python plug-in. The device tree is available
37 to U-Boot at run-time so that the images can be interpreted.
39 Binman does not yet update the device tree with the final location of
40 everything when it is done. A simple C structure could be generated for
41 constrained environments like SPL (using dtoc) but this is also not
44 Binman can also support incorporating filesystems in the image if required.
45 For example x86 platforms may use CBFS in some cases.
47 Binman is intended for use with U-Boot but is designed to be general enough
48 to be useful in other image-packaging situations.
54 Packaging of firmware is quite a different task from building the various
55 parts. In many cases the various binaries which go into the image come from
56 separate build systems. For example, ARM Trusted Firmware is used on ARMv8
57 devices but is not built in the U-Boot tree. If a Linux kernel is included
58 in the firmware image, it is built elsewhere.
60 It is of course possible to add more and more build rules to the U-Boot
61 build system to cover these cases. It can shell out to other Makefiles and
62 build scripts. But it seems better to create a clear divide between building
63 software and packaging it.
65 At present this is handled by manual instructions, different for each board,
66 on how to create images that will boot. By turning these instructions into a
67 standard format, we can support making valid images for any board without
68 manual effort, lots of READMEs, etc.
71 - Each binary can have its own build system and tool chain without creating
72 any dependencies between them
73 - Avoids the need for a single-shot build: individual parts can be updated
74 and brought in as needed
75 - Provides for a standard image description available in the build and at
77 - SoC-specific image-signing tools can be accomodated
78 - Avoids cluttering the U-Boot build system with image-building code
79 - The image description is automatically available at run-time in U-Boot,
80 SPL. It can be made available to other software also
81 - The image description is easily readable (it's a text file in device-tree
82 format) and permits flexible packing of binaries
88 Binman uses the following terms:
90 - image - an output file containing a firmware image
91 - binary - an input binary that goes into the image
97 FIT is U-Boot's official image format. It supports multiple binaries with
98 load / execution addresses, compression. It also supports verification
99 through hashing and RSA signatures.
101 FIT was originally designed to support booting a Linux kernel (with an
102 optional ramdisk) and device tree chosen from various options in the FIT.
103 Now that U-Boot supports configuration via device tree, it is possible to
104 load U-Boot from a FIT, with the device tree chosen by SPL.
106 Binman considers FIT to be one of the binaries it can place in the image.
108 Where possible it is best to put as much as possible in the FIT, with binman
109 used to deal with cases not covered by FIT. Examples include initial
110 execution (since FIT itself does not have an executable header) and dealing
111 with device boundaries, such as the read-only/read-write separation in SPI
114 For U-Boot, binman should not be used to create ad-hoc images in place of
118 Relationship to mkimage
119 -----------------------
121 The mkimage tool provides a means to create a FIT. Traditionally it has
122 needed an image description file: a device tree, like binman, but in a
123 different format. More recently it has started to support a '-f auto' mode
124 which can generate that automatically.
126 More relevant to binman, mkimage also permits creation of many SoC-specific
127 image types. These can be listed by running 'mkimage -T list'. Examples
128 include 'rksd', the Rockchip SD/MMC boot format. The mkimage tool is often
129 called from the U-Boot build system for this reason.
131 Binman considers the output files created by mkimage to be binary blobs
132 which it can place in an image. Binman does not replace the mkimage tool or
133 this purpose. It would be possible in some situations to create a new entry
134 type for the images in mkimage, but this would not add functionality. It
135 seems better to use the mkimage tool to generate binaries and avoid blurring
136 the boundaries between building input files (mkimage) and packaging then
137 into a final image (binman).
140 Example use of binman in U-Boot
141 -------------------------------
143 Binman aims to replace some of the ad-hoc image creation in the U-Boot
146 Consider sunxi. It has the following steps:
148 1. It uses a custom mksunxiboot tool to build an SPL image called
149 sunxi-spl.bin. This should probably move into mkimage.
151 2. It uses mkimage to package U-Boot into a legacy image file (so that it can
152 hold the load and execution address) called u-boot.img.
154 3. It builds a final output image called u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin which
155 consists of sunxi-spl.bin, some padding and u-boot.img.
157 Binman is intended to replace the last step. The U-Boot build system builds
158 u-boot.bin and sunxi-spl.bin. Binman can then take over creation of
159 sunxi-spl.bin (by calling mksunxiboot, or hopefully one day mkimage). In any
160 case, it would then create the image from the component parts.
162 This simplifies the U-Boot Makefile somewhat, since various pieces of logic
163 can be replaced by a call to binman.
166 Example use of binman for x86
167 -----------------------------
169 In most cases x86 images have a lot of binary blobs, 'black-box' code
170 provided by Intel which must be run for the platform to work. Typically
171 these blobs are not relocatable and must be placed at fixed areas in the
174 Currently this is handled by ifdtool, which places microcode, FSP, MRC, VGA
175 BIOS, reference code and Intel ME binaries into a u-boot.rom file.
177 Binman is intended to replace all of this, with ifdtool left to handle only
178 the configuration of the Intel-format descriptor.
184 First install prerequisites, e.g.
186 sudo apt-get install python-pyelftools python3-pyelftools lzma-alone \
191 binman -b <board_name>
193 to build an image for a board. The board name is the same name used when
194 configuring U-Boot (e.g. for sandbox_defconfig the board name is 'sandbox').
195 Binman assumes that the input files for the build are in ../b/<board_name>.
197 Or you can specify this explicitly:
199 binman -I <build_path>
201 where <build_path> is the build directory containing the output of the U-Boot
204 (Future work will make this more configurable)
206 In either case, binman picks up the device tree file (u-boot.dtb) and looks
207 for its instructions in the 'binman' node.
209 Binman has a few other options which you can see by running 'binman -h'.
212 Enabling binman for a board
213 ---------------------------
215 At present binman is invoked from a rule in the main Makefile. Typically you
216 will have a rule like:
218 ifneq ($(CONFIG_ARCH_<something>),)
219 u-boot-<your_suffix>.bin: <input_file_1> <input_file_2> checkbinman FORCE
220 $(call if_changed,binman)
223 This assumes that u-boot-<your_suffix>.bin is a target, and is the final file
224 that you need to produce. You can make it a target by adding it to ALL-y
225 either in the main Makefile or in a config.mk file in your arch subdirectory.
227 Once binman is executed it will pick up its instructions from a device-tree
228 file, typically <soc>-u-boot.dtsi, where <soc> is your CONFIG_SYS_SOC value.
229 You can use other, more specific CONFIG options - see 'Automatic .dtsi
233 Image description format
234 ------------------------
236 The binman node is called 'binman'. An example image description is shown
240 filename = "u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin";
243 filename = "spl/sunxi-spl.bin";
246 offset = <CONFIG_SPL_PAD_TO>;
251 This requests binman to create an image file called u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin
252 consisting of a specially formatted SPL (spl/sunxi-spl.bin, built by the
253 normal U-Boot Makefile), some 0xff padding, and a U-Boot legacy image. The
254 padding comes from the fact that the second binary is placed at
255 CONFIG_SPL_PAD_TO. If that line were omitted then the U-Boot binary would
256 immediately follow the SPL binary.
258 The binman node describes an image. The sub-nodes describe entries in the
259 image. Each entry represents a region within the overall image. The name of
260 the entry (blob, u-boot) tells binman what to put there. For 'blob' we must
261 provide a filename. For 'u-boot', binman knows that this means 'u-boot.bin'.
263 Entries are normally placed into the image sequentially, one after the other.
264 The image size is the total size of all entries. As you can see, you can
265 specify the start offset of an entry using the 'offset' property.
267 Note that due to a device tree requirement, all entries must have a unique
268 name. If you want to put the same binary in the image multiple times, you can
269 use any unique name, with the 'type' property providing the type.
271 The attributes supported for entries are described below.
274 This sets the offset of an entry within the image or section containing
275 it. The first byte of the image is normally at offset 0. If 'offset' is
276 not provided, binman sets it to the end of the previous region, or the
277 start of the image's entry area (normally 0) if there is no previous
281 This sets the alignment of the entry. The entry offset is adjusted
282 so that the entry starts on an aligned boundary within the image. For
283 example 'align = <16>' means that the entry will start on a 16-byte
284 boundary. Alignment shold be a power of 2. If 'align' is not
285 provided, no alignment is performed.
288 This sets the size of the entry. The contents will be padded out to
289 this size. If this is not provided, it will be set to the size of the
293 Padding before the contents of the entry. Normally this is 0, meaning
294 that the contents start at the beginning of the entry. This can be
295 offset the entry contents a little. Defaults to 0.
298 Padding after the contents of the entry. Normally this is 0, meaning
299 that the entry ends at the last byte of content (unless adjusted by
300 other properties). This allows room to be created in the image for
301 this entry to expand later. Defaults to 0.
304 This sets the alignment of the entry size. For example, to ensure
305 that the size of an entry is a multiple of 64 bytes, set this to 64.
306 If 'align-size' is not provided, no alignment is performed.
309 This sets the alignment of the end of an entry. Some entries require
310 that they end on an alignment boundary, regardless of where they
311 start. This does not move the start of the entry, so the contents of
312 the entry will still start at the beginning. But there may be padding
313 at the end. If 'align-end' is not provided, no alignment is performed.
316 For 'blob' types this provides the filename containing the binary to
317 put into the entry. If binman knows about the entry type (like
318 u-boot-bin), then there is no need to specify this.
321 Sets the type of an entry. This defaults to the entry name, but it is
322 possible to use any name, and then add (for example) 'type = "u-boot"'
326 Indicates that the offset of this entry should not be set by placing
327 it immediately after the entry before. Instead, is set by another
328 entry which knows where this entry should go. When this boolean
329 property is present, binman will give an error if another entry does
330 not set the offset (with the GetOffsets() method).
333 This cannot be set on entry (or at least it is ignored if it is), but
334 with the -u option, binman will set it to the absolute image position
335 for each entry. This makes it easy to find out exactly where the entry
336 ended up in the image, regardless of parent sections, etc.
339 Expand the size of this entry to fit available space. This space is only
340 limited by the size of the image/section and the position of the next
343 The attributes supported for images and sections are described below. Several
344 are similar to those for entries.
347 Sets the image size in bytes, for example 'size = <0x100000>' for a
351 This is similar to 'offset' in entries, setting the offset of a section
352 within the image or section containing it. The first byte of the section
353 is normally at offset 0. If 'offset' is not provided, binman sets it to
354 the end of the previous region, or the start of the image's entry area
355 (normally 0) if there is no previous region.
358 This sets the alignment of the image size. For example, to ensure
359 that the image ends on a 512-byte boundary, use 'align-size = <512>'.
360 If 'align-size' is not provided, no alignment is performed.
363 This sets the padding before the image entries. The first entry will
364 be positioned after the padding. This defaults to 0.
367 This sets the padding after the image entries. The padding will be
368 placed after the last entry. This defaults to 0.
371 This specifies the pad byte to use when padding in the image. It
372 defaults to 0. To use 0xff, you would add 'pad-byte = <0xff>'.
375 This specifies the image filename. It defaults to 'image.bin'.
378 This causes binman to reorder the entries as needed to make sure they
379 are in increasing positional order. This can be used when your entry
380 order may not match the positional order. A common situation is where
381 the 'offset' properties are set by CONFIG options, so their ordering is
384 This is a boolean property so needs no value. To enable it, add a
385 line 'sort-by-offset;' to your description.
388 Normally only a single image is generated. To create more than one
389 image, put this property in the binman node. For example, this will
390 create image1.bin containing u-boot.bin, and image2.bin containing
391 both spl/u-boot-spl.bin and u-boot.bin:
409 For x86 machines the ROM offsets start just before 4GB and extend
410 up so that the image finished at the 4GB boundary. This boolean
411 option can be enabled to support this. The image size must be
412 provided so that binman knows when the image should start. For an
413 8MB ROM, the offset of the first entry would be 0xfff80000 with
414 this option, instead of 0 without this option.
417 This property specifies the entry offset of the first entry.
419 For PowerPC mpc85xx based CPU, CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE is the entry
420 offset of the first entry. It can be 0xeff40000 or 0xfff40000 for
421 nor flash boot, 0x201000 for sd boot etc.
423 'end-at-4gb' property is not applicable where CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE +
426 Examples of the above options can be found in the tests. See the
427 tools/binman/test directory.
429 It is possible to have the same binary appear multiple times in the image,
430 either by using a unit number suffix (u-boot@0, u-boot@1) or by using a
431 different name for each and specifying the type with the 'type' attribute.
434 Sections and hierachical images
435 -------------------------------
437 Sometimes it is convenient to split an image into several pieces, each of which
438 contains its own set of binaries. An example is a flash device where part of
439 the image is read-only and part is read-write. We can set up sections for each
440 of these, and place binaries in them independently. The image is still produced
441 as a single output file.
443 This feature provides a way of creating hierarchical images. For example here
444 is an example image with two copies of U-Boot. One is read-only (ro), intended
445 to be written only in the factory. Another is read-write (rw), so that it can be
446 upgraded in the field. The sizes are fixed so that the ro/rw boundary is known
447 and can be programmed:
465 This image could be placed into a SPI flash chip, with the protection boundary
468 A few special properties are provided for sections:
471 Indicates that this section is read-only. This has no impact on binman's
472 operation, but his property can be read at run time.
475 This string is prepended to all the names of the binaries in the
476 section. In the example above, the 'u-boot' binaries which actually be
477 renamed to 'ro-u-boot' and 'rw-u-boot'. This can be useful to
478 distinguish binaries with otherwise identical names.
484 For details on the various entry types supported by binman and how to use them,
485 see README.entries. This is generated from the source code using:
487 binman -E >tools/binman/README.entries
493 It is possible to ask binman to hash the contents of an entry and write that
494 value back to the device-tree node. For example:
504 Here, a new 'value' property will be written to the 'hash' node containing
505 the hash of the 'u-boot' entry. Only SHA256 is supported at present. Whole
506 sections can be hased if desired, by adding the 'hash' node to the section.
508 The has value can be chcked at runtime by hashing the data actually read and
509 comparing this has to the value in the device tree.
512 Order of image creation
513 -----------------------
515 Image creation proceeds in the following order, for each entry in the image.
517 1. AddMissingProperties() - binman can add calculated values to the device
518 tree as part of its processing, for example the offset and size of each
519 entry. This method adds any properties associated with this, expanding the
520 device tree as needed. These properties can have placeholder values which are
521 set later by SetCalculatedProperties(). By that stage the size of sections
522 cannot be changed (since it would cause the images to need to be repacked),
523 but the correct values can be inserted.
525 2. ProcessFdt() - process the device tree information as required by the
526 particular entry. This may involve adding or deleting properties. If the
527 processing is complete, this method should return True. If the processing
528 cannot complete because it needs the ProcessFdt() method of another entry to
529 run first, this method should return False, in which case it will be called
532 3. GetEntryContents() - the contents of each entry are obtained, normally by
533 reading from a file. This calls the Entry.ObtainContents() to read the
534 contents. The default version of Entry.ObtainContents() calls
535 Entry.GetDefaultFilename() and then reads that file. So a common mechanism
536 to select a file to read is to override that function in the subclass. The
537 functions must return True when they have read the contents. Binman will
538 retry calling the functions a few times if False is returned, allowing
539 dependencies between the contents of different entries.
541 4. GetEntryOffsets() - calls Entry.GetOffsets() for each entry. This can
542 return a dict containing entries that need updating. The key should be the
543 entry name and the value is a tuple (offset, size). This allows an entry to
544 provide the offset and size for other entries. The default implementation
545 of GetEntryOffsets() returns {}.
547 5. PackEntries() - calls Entry.Pack() which figures out the offset and
548 size of an entry. The 'current' image offset is passed in, and the function
549 returns the offset immediately after the entry being packed. The default
550 implementation of Pack() is usually sufficient.
552 6. CheckSize() - checks that the contents of all the entries fits within
553 the image size. If the image does not have a defined size, the size is set
554 large enough to hold all the entries.
556 7. CheckEntries() - checks that the entries do not overlap, nor extend
559 8. SetCalculatedProperties() - update any calculated properties in the device
560 tree. This sets the correct 'offset' and 'size' vaues, for example.
562 9. ProcessEntryContents() - this calls Entry.ProcessContents() on each entry.
563 The default implementatoin does nothing. This can be overriden to adjust the
564 contents of an entry in some way. For example, it would be possible to create
565 an entry containing a hash of the contents of some other entries. At this
566 stage the offset and size of entries should not be adjusted.
568 10. WriteSymbols() - write the value of symbols into the U-Boot SPL binary.
569 See 'Access to binman entry offsets at run time' below for a description of
570 what happens in this stage.
572 11. BuildImage() - builds the image and writes it to a file. This is the final
576 Automatic .dtsi inclusion
577 -------------------------
579 It is sometimes inconvenient to add a 'binman' node to the .dts file for each
580 board. This can be done by using #include to bring in a common file. Another
581 approach supported by the U-Boot build system is to automatically include
582 a common header. You can then put the binman node (and anything else that is
583 specific to U-Boot, such as u-boot,dm-pre-reloc properies) in that header
586 Binman will search for the following files in arch/<arch>/dts:
588 <dts>-u-boot.dtsi where <dts> is the base name of the .dts file
589 <CONFIG_SYS_SOC>-u-boot.dtsi
590 <CONFIG_SYS_CPU>-u-boot.dtsi
591 <CONFIG_SYS_VENDOR>-u-boot.dtsi
594 U-Boot will only use the first one that it finds. If you need to include a
595 more general file you can do that from the more specific file using #include.
596 If you are having trouble figuring out what is going on, you can uncomment
597 the 'warning' line in scripts/Makefile.lib to see what it has found:
599 # Uncomment for debugging
600 # This shows all the files that were considered and the one that we chose.
601 # u_boot_dtsi_options_debug = $(u_boot_dtsi_options_raw)
604 Access to binman entry offsets at run time (symbols)
605 ----------------------------------------------------
607 Binman assembles images and determines where each entry is placed in the image.
608 This information may be useful to U-Boot at run time. For example, in SPL it
609 is useful to be able to find the location of U-Boot so that it can be executed
610 when SPL is finished.
612 Binman allows you to declare symbols in the SPL image which are filled in
613 with their correct values during the build. For example:
615 binman_sym_declare(ulong, u_boot_any, offset);
617 declares a ulong value which will be assigned to the offset of any U-Boot
618 image (u-boot.bin, u-boot.img, u-boot-nodtb.bin) that is present in the image.
619 You can access this value with something like:
621 ulong u_boot_offset = binman_sym(ulong, u_boot_any, offset);
623 Thus u_boot_offset will be set to the offset of U-Boot in memory, assuming that
624 the whole image has been loaded, or is available in flash. You can then jump to
625 that address to start U-Boot.
627 At present this feature is only supported in SPL. In principle it is possible
628 to fill in such symbols in U-Boot proper, as well.
631 Access to binman entry offsets at run time (fdt)
632 ------------------------------------------------
634 Binman can update the U-Boot FDT to include the final position and size of
635 each entry in the images it processes. The option to enable this is -u and it
636 causes binman to make sure that the 'offset', 'image-pos' and 'size' properties
637 are set correctly for every entry. Since it is not necessary to specify these in
638 the image definition, binman calculates the final values and writes these to
639 the device tree. These can be used by U-Boot at run-time to find the location
646 Binman support compression for 'blob' entries (those of type 'blob' and
647 derivatives). To enable this for an entry, add a 'compression' property:
650 filename = "datafile";
654 The entry will then contain the compressed data, using the 'lz4' compression
655 algorithm. Currently this is the only one that is supported.
662 The -m option causes binman to output a .map file for each image that it
663 generates. This shows the offset and size of each entry. For example:
666 00000000 00000028 main-section
667 00000000 00000010 section@0
668 00000000 00000004 u-boot
669 00000010 00000010 section@1
670 00000000 00000004 u-boot
672 This shows a hierarchical image with two sections, each with a single entry. The
673 offsets of the sections are absolute hex byte offsets within the image. The
674 offsets of the entries are relative to their respective sections. The size of
675 each entry is also shown, in bytes (hex). The indentation shows the entries
676 nested inside their sections.
679 Passing command-line arguments to entries
680 -----------------------------------------
682 Sometimes it is useful to pass binman the value of an entry property from the
683 command line. For example some entries need access to files and it is not
684 always convenient to put these filenames in the image definition (device tree).
686 The-a option supports this:
692 <prop> is the property to set
693 <value> is the value to set it to
695 Not all properties can be provided this way. Only some entries support it,
696 typically for filenames.
702 Binman can make use of external command-line tools to handle processing of
703 entry contents or to generate entry contents. These tools are executed using
704 the 'tools' module's Run() method. The tools generally must exist on the PATH,
705 but the --toolpath option can be used to specify additional search paths to
706 use. This option can be specified multiple times to add more than one path.
712 Binman is a critical tool and is designed to be very testable. Entry
713 implementations target 100% test coverage. Run 'binman -T' to check this.
715 To enable Python test coverage on Debian-type distributions (e.g. Ubuntu):
717 $ sudo apt-get install python-coverage python3-coverage python-pytest
723 Binman tries to run tests concurrently. This means that the tests make use of
724 all available CPUs to run.
728 $ sudo apt-get install python-subunit python3-subunit
730 Use '-P 1' to disable this. It is automatically disabled when code coverage is
731 being used (-T) since they are incompatible.
737 Sometimes when debugging tests it is useful to keep the input and output
738 directories so they can be examined later. Use -X or --test-preserve-dirs for
742 Advanced Features / Technical docs
743 ----------------------------------
745 The behaviour of entries is defined by the Entry class. All other entries are
746 a subclass of this. An important subclass is Entry_blob which takes binary
747 data from a file and places it in the entry. In fact most entry types are
748 subclasses of Entry_blob.
750 Each entry type is a separate file in the tools/binman/etype directory. Each
751 file contains a class called Entry_<type> where <type> is the entry type.
752 New entry types can be supported by adding new files in that directory.
753 These will automatically be detected by binman when needed.
755 Entry properties are documented in entry.py. The entry subclasses are free
756 to change the values of properties to support special behaviour. For example,
757 when Entry_blob loads a file, it sets content_size to the size of the file.
758 Entry classes can adjust other entries. For example, an entry that knows
759 where other entries should be positioned can set up those entries' offsets
760 so they don't need to be set in the binman decription. It can also adjust
763 Most of the time such essoteric behaviour is not needed, but it can be
764 essential for complex images.
766 If you need to specify a particular device-tree compiler to use, you can define
767 the DTC environment variable. This can be useful when the system dtc is too
770 To enable a full backtrace and other debugging features in binman, pass
771 BINMAN_DEBUG=1 to your build:
773 make sandbox_defconfig
780 Binman takes a lot of inspiration from a Chrome OS tool called
781 'cros_bundle_firmware', which I wrote some years ago. That tool was based on
782 a reasonably simple and sound design but has expanded greatly over the
783 years. In particular its handling of x86 images is convoluted.
785 Quite a few lessons have been learned which are hopefully applied here.
791 On the face of it, a tool to create firmware images should be fairly simple:
792 just find all the input binaries and place them at the right place in the
793 image. The difficulty comes from the wide variety of input types (simple
794 flat binaries containing code, packaged data with various headers), packing
795 requirments (alignment, spacing, device boundaries) and other required
796 features such as hierarchical images.
798 The design challenge is to make it easy to create simple images, while
799 allowing the more complex cases to be supported. For example, for most
800 images we don't much care exactly where each binary ends up, so we should
801 not have to specify that unnecessarily.
803 New entry types should aim to provide simple usage where possible. If new
804 core features are needed, they can be added in the Entry base class.
811 - Use of-platdata to make the information available to code that is unable
812 to use device tree (such as a very small SPL image)
813 - Allow easy building of images by specifying just the board name
814 - Produce a full Python binding for libfdt (for upstream). This is nearing
815 completion but some work remains
816 - Add an option to decode an image into the constituent binaries
817 - Support building an image for a board (-b) more completely, with a
818 configurable build directory
819 - Consider making binman work with buildman, although if it is used in the
820 Makefile, this will be automatic
823 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>