On Wed, 2009-04-22 at 19:52 +0200, Øyvind Harboe wrote: > One annoying problem is that all target hardware is > not available to all OpenOCD developers. > > For development purposes, this could perhaps be > addressed by creating a JTAG over TCP/IP protocol. > > The idea is that OpenOCD adds a TCP/IP server > that accepts JTAG commands. > > Those with target hardware can then make this hardware > available over the internet. > > On the other end an OpenOCD developer uses the > new "tcipip interface" to connect to the target hardware. > > This will of course be dog slow, but it hopefully will beat > not having the hardware available.... > > There is a non-trivial amount of programming that needs > to be done, but I believe setting up and maintaining the > test farm would be a bigger problem. Zylin is interested > in stepping up here and offering the physical space > / servers required. > > I'd expect to make these targets avaiable via SSH & port > forwarding to OpenOCD developers... > > Thoughts?
I love it. Positively love it. I have a strong networking background, so I could whip up an example some free afternoon. I do not see why it would be slow. Even 10Mbit/s easily gives 50kB/s+ over the wire, and I bet many of us are running at least 100Mbit/s. I think the JTAG interface will remain the bottleneck if this runs on a local network. Incidentally, I seem to recall reading about an official IEEE JTAG-over-ethernet protocol somewhere. Of course, you say that you want to do this for remote development over the internet. Ummm.... I have to reach over and physically reset my target or JTAG interface on occasion. I love the enthusiasm, but there are some limits to the power of remote software control. Or do you have a remote telepresence solution on hand that you failed to mention? More practically, this would allow companies to use dumb programmer PCs on the factory floor that are controlled by a (distantly) remote station; much easier to secure the proprietary sources from industrial espionage. That begs me to ask: does anyone here worry about this type of issue? If you do, would you even be able to tell us about it? ;) Nevertheless, this idea allows me to introduce the full potential that you have just presented to the OpenOCD project: Given the cost of a netbook plus USB JTAG dongle, wouldn't these features undercut the price of ethernet-based JTAG programmer/debuggers out on the market today? Why not just use this proposed TCP/IP JTAG layer between a PC and commodity part devices? If my reading of this is correct, you are interested in offering your resources to an endeavor that might cannibalize your sales. Whoops. Talk about looking the gift horse in the mouth. But if you are still interested, I think it's a great idea and worth pursuing. It has made it on The List, and it's not going away without a pay-off. ;) Kidding! Rick's points about clean-up and testing do apply, though. I would not want to start that without a lot of additional low-level grunt work. Cheers, Zach _______________________________________________ Openocd-development mailing list Openocd-development@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/openocd-development
