[flashrom] Support for intel card eeproms

[Stefan Tauner]

On Wed, 4 Sep 2013 18:47:19 +0200
Ricardo Ribalda Delgado <ricardo.ribalda at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello
> 
> We are building a set of cameras with intel 82580 Gigabit chipset.
> 
> Instead of using the intel eeupdate tool to init the card and the mac I
> plan to use flashrom.
> 
> The eeprom is accessed with something similar to spi, but AFAIK it does not
> follow the jedec standard.
> 
> To probe it, there are some bits on the network card that I can use, that
> will tell me if the chip is there and the size.
> 
> I havent digged too much into the code, but I believe that I have to make a
> new chip and a new programmer.
> 
> Before starting the work I would like to know if there is something similar
> on flashrom that I can use as a example, and if you are interested on such
> a patch.

There is 0 code for EEPROMs in flashrom yet and we do not plan to work
actively on supporting them, but for your approach adding two files, one
for the programmer and one for the chip might be a good start :)
In the past support for single chips or chip families converged into
files with generic functions that support a wide range of different
manufacturers, so there is probably no exact template for what you need
to do regarding the chip, but that shouldnt be a big issue, just
implement the needed functions in a new file, hook it up in
chipdrivers.h and add a new entry to flashchips.c.

The programmer code will be harder to get right without understanding
flashrom's architecture, but maybe you can use Carl-Daniel's script
or at least be inspired by it:
http://patchwork.coreboot.org/patch/3836/
Alternatively you could take one of the two existing intel nic drivers
and just change it where needed. That would not lead to a mergeable
patch but might be easier for you (OTOH you would miss to see some
implementation details of a new programmer that are under the hood, for
example where it needs to be hooked up). I am not sure if we would
merge an EEPROM driver anyway, so getting something that works for you
should be priority. There might be pre-existing alternatives for what
you want... the Intel cards are very widespread and eeupdate is a PITA
AFAIK, but I have never looked for a linux application to replace
eeupdate...

HTH for now. I am looking forward to see any results.
-- 
Kind regards/Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Stefan Tauner