mvebu: bootscript fixes & enhancements

[djurny]

Description

1. Avoid oboe overlap trip during loading of images
   • Add switch to turn avoidance on/off
   • Increment base address before alignment to resolve the oboe
   • oboe observed in U-Boot v2021.04 and in particular with DT loading
2. Add early exits for critical errors
   • Check all load actions
   • Add optional early exit with explanation in case a load fails
3. Bootscript enhancements
   • Added FDT resize/trim to allow big DT and overlays and still use
     configured load addresses in case setexpr not available
   • Moved FDT resize and next load address alignment
   • Added filename information to load instructions
   • Moved all "global" variable determinations to the top of the
     bootscript

GitHub issue reference: 8178
Jira reference number AR-2680

Documentation summary for feature / change

If documentation entry is predicted, please provide key elements for further implementation into main documentation and set label to "Needs Documentation". You are welcome to open a PR to documentation or you can leave following information for technical writer:

• overlap oboe avoidance

  • short description (copy / paste of PR title)
    [Bug]: U-Boot load address calculation bug and DT overlap oobe
  • summary (description relevant for end users)
    In U-Boot v2021.04 the bootm_find_images() function has an oboe when checking for overlap. To avoid this, a setting was added to simply add 1 to the load address during alignment.
  • example of usage (how to see this in function)
    The overlap avoidance is enabled per default, but it can be disabled by adding align_overlap_oboe_avoidance=off to armbianEnv.txt.

• ease boot issue troubleshooting

  • short description (copy / paste of PR title)
    Stop processing the bootscript whenever a situation arises that cannot be recovered from.
  • summary (description relevant for end users)
    The bootscript will continue even when certain mandatory/required things fail to process. To speed up advancin to the next bootmeth[od], add early exits in these situations. Such as, if device tree cannot be loaded, if device tree cannot be restored after an overlay failed to apply, when kernel image fails to load, initial ramdisk fails to load.
  • example of usage (how to see this in function)
    The early exit is enabled per default, but can be disabled by adding exit_on_critical_errors=off to armbianEnv.txt.

How Has This Been Tested?

• Test A
  Good weather tested updated boot.scr on 25.5.0-trunk.435.

  U-Boot 2019.04 (May 10 2025 - 20:29:15 -0700)
  
  SoC:   MV88F6828-A0 at 1600 MHz
  DRAM:  2 GiB (800 MHz, 32-bit, ECC enabled)
  MMC:   mv_sdh: 0
  Loading Environment from MMC... *** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment
  
  Model: Helios4
  Board: Helios4
  SCSI:  MVEBU SATA INIT
  Target spinup took 0 ms.
  Target spinup took 0 ms.
  AHCI 0001.0000 32 slots 2 ports 6 Gbps 0x3 impl SATA mode
  flags: 64bit ncq led only pmp fbss pio slum part sxs 
  
  Net:   
  Warning: ethernet@70000 (eth1) using random MAC address - c2:92:1b:ee:5a:8e
  eth1: ethernet@70000
  Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
  switch to partitions #0, OK
  mmc0 is current device
  Scanning mmc 0:1...
  Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr
  6586 bytes read in 418 ms (14.6 KiB/s)
  ## Executing script at 00200000
  Boot script loaded from mmc
  Loading environment /boot/armbianEnv.txt from mmc to 0x00300000 ...
  177 bytes read in 403 ms (0 Bytes/s)
  Loading DT /boot/dtb/armada-388-helios4.dtb from mmc to 0x02040000 ...
  28834 bytes read in 843 ms (33.2 KiB/s)
  Trimming DT ...
  Loading kernel /boot/zImage from mmc to 2049000 ...
  8858728 bytes read in 2051 ms (4.1 MiB/s)
  Loading initial ramdisk /boot/uInitrd from mmc to 28bc000 ...
  11504566 bytes read in 2451 ms (4.5 MiB/s)
  Booting kernel from 2049000 ...
  ## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 028bc000 ...
     Image Name:   uInitrd
     Image Type:   ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
     Data Size:    11504502 Bytes = 11 MiB
     Load Address: 00000000
     Entry Point:  00000000
     Verifying Checksum ... OK
  ## Flattened Device Tree blob at 02040000
     Booting using the fdt blob at 0x2040000
     Loading Ramdisk to 0f507000, end 0ffffb76 ... OK
     Loading Device Tree to 0f4fc000, end 0f506fff ... OK
  
  Starting kernel ...
  

• Test B
  Changed DT filename to test DT load failure on 25.5.0-trunk.435.

  U-Boot 2019.04 (May 10 2025 - 20:29:15 -0700)
  
  SoC:   MV88F6828-A0 at 1600 MHz
  DRAM:  2 GiB (800 MHz, 32-bit, ECC enabled)
  MMC:   mv_sdh: 0
  Loading Environment from MMC... *** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment
  
  Model: Helios4
  Board: Helios4
  SCSI:  MVEBU SATA INIT
  Target spinup took 0 ms.
  Target spinup took 0 ms.
  AHCI 0001.0000 32 slots 2 ports 6 Gbps 0x3 impl SATA mode
  flags: 64bit ncq led only pmp fbss pio slum part sxs 
  
  Net:   
  Warning: ethernet@70000 (eth1) using random MAC address - c2:92:1b:ee:5a:8e
  eth1: ethernet@70000
  Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
  switch to partitions #0, OK
  mmc0 is current device
  Scanning mmc 0:1...
  Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr
  6413 bytes read in 409 ms (14.6 KiB/s)
  ## Executing script at 00200000
  Boot script loaded from mmc
  Loading environment from mmc to 0x00300000 ...
  177 bytes read in 395 ms (0 Bytes/s)
  Loading DT from mmc to 0x02040000 ...
  !! CRITICAL - Could not load DT from mmc to 0x02040000
  SCRIPT FAILED: continuing...
  starting USB...
  

Checklist:

• My code follows the style guidelines of this project
• I have performed a self-review of my own code
• I have commented my code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas
• My changes generate no new warnings
  Warnings have been added to boot-mvebu.cmd to ease boot issue investigation.
• Any dependent changes have been merged and published in downstream modules

[coderabbitai]

"""

Walkthrough

The changes enhance the boot-mvebu.cmd boot script by introducing improved error handling and more descriptive logging for all critical load operations. Two new environment variables, exit_on_critical_errors and align_overlap_oboe_avoidance, are added to control script exit behavior on critical errors and to refine address alignment logic, respectively. The script now conditionally checks the success of loading environment, device tree, overlays, fixup scripts, kernel, and ramdisk, providing detailed error messages and optionally exiting on failure. The device tree load and overlay application logic have been restructured for clarity and robustness.

Assessment against linked issues

Objective	Addressed	Explanation
Fix address alignment logic in align_addr_next to avoid overlap/oobe detection bug (AR-2680)	✅
Use itest instead of test for hex value comparisons in alignment logic (AR-2680)	✅
Add flag/logic to increment address before modulo for alignment (AR-2680)	✅
Improve error handling and logging for critical boot script operations (AR-2680)	✅

Possibly related PRs

• Update boot-mvebu.cmd #8166: Introduced address alignment, dynamic DT resizing, and load sequencing improvements, which are further extended by the current PR with robust error handling and logging.

Suggested labels

ready to merge

Suggested reviewers

• igorpecovnik
  """

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• config/bootscripts/boot-mvebu.cmd (3 hunks)

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• config/bootscripts/boot-mvebu.cmd

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[djurny]

Trying to work towards applying the same fixes to boot-sunxi.cmd as some people have reported similar overlap issues on Orangepi/Bananapi/allwinner images.

[igorpecovnik]

@djurny Wanna help covering this board officially? https://www.armbian.com/update-data/ Those are directions: https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Board-Support-Rules/#standard-support

Also you can prepare release images if you want:
https://docs.armbian.com/Process_CI/#automation-for-developers-and-maintainers

[igorpecovnik]

LGTM, tested, works.