GSoC

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Our website is https://www.flashrom.org, instructions on how to add or update documentation are here

All wiki content available in read-only mode at wiki.flashrom.org

The flashrom project participates in GSoC under the patronage of coreboot's GSoC administration. Depending on the number and quality of applications (for both projects) and available mentors, there will be usually one or two slots for flashrom projects. Most of the information on their site is also valid for flashrom students, please read them.

If you want to apply, it is probably a good idea to subscribe to our mailing list look at our page with easy projects. You can show us that you are able to work with our codebase and/or read datasheets by solving some of the problems noted there. It is a good idea to talk to us before you start though (list items may be outdated or worked on by someone else already for example).

The list below is an idea collection. Individual list items are too simple to serve as complete GSoC task on their own, but they are grouped to reasonable tasks. If you're interested, please talk to us on the flashrom mailing list and/or on IRC irc://irc.freenode.net/#flashrom

libflashrom - Multiple UIs for flashrom

libflashrom is the name for the part of flashrom's code that forms its core and should eventually be independent from any user interface. This allows easy creation of user interfaces and integration to existing applications. The separation has not been completed yet:

  • code cleanup (e.g. removal of stray exit() calls and returning proper error codes instead)
  • API design
    It is not enough to separate the code from the existing user interface. There must also be added some glue code so that the separate parts can be developed independently. For example there has to be a generic way to query programmer modules for their available options so that UI code can present them to the user without knowing about that specific programmer before. You can find a few thoughts at libflashrom.

It is probably a good idea to work in parallel on a user interface so that you become aware of problems and missing API bits. It is also an easy way to evaluate your work. If we see that your UI code can work independent of the libflashrom code in the way it should while providing the interaction possibilities we deem useful, you have been definitely successful.

Some obvious UI ides are:

  • flashrom TUI (text mode user interface) (for command line and flashrom-as-payload)
  • flashrom GUI (graphics mode user interface) (should be cross-platform, has been tried a few times and may be based on those attempts)

Recovery of dead boards and onboard flash updates

  • flashrom as payload
  • flashrom remote flashing for coreboot panic room mode
  • flashrom remote flashing with modified SerialICE

SPI bitbanging hardware support

  • flashrom support for Nvidia SPI chipset hardware (DONE)
  • flashrom support for RayeR SPIPGM hardware (DONE)
  • flashrom support for Paraflasher hardware
  • flashrom support for Willem hardware (unfinished patch exists)
  • flashrom support for some-yet-uninvented cheap universal LPC/FWH/SPI flasher hardware (e.g. Raspberry Pi, patch exists)
  • flashrom support for bitbanging LPC/FWH (code exists, Uwe Hermann needs to post it somewhere)
  • flashrom support for bitbanging Parallel

Generic flashrom infrastructure improvements

  • Automatic recovery in case something goes wrong
  • Partial reflashing
  • Bytewise flashing (similar to the point above)

Locking and Unlocking

Many chips support some kind of write protection. Currently flashrom just tries to disable it if needed to be able to write freely. Google's flashrom branch has some further support, which was not accepted upstream. Your task would be to design and implement acceptable data structures, APIs and user interfaces to make a generic approach to lock and unlock of flash regions possible.

Laptop support - Support for ECs (Embedded Controllers)

This one is really HARD. If you're lucky and if you have datasheets, you can add support for a single laptop in maybe 1 month. If you're unlucky, it can take the whole GSoC or more. If there is interest, we'll try to find an embedded controller which won't cause you to give up in frustration. Still, it might be beneficial if you're willing to solder (to recover from a bricked board).

Support more chips - Implement (obscure and) unsupported features - Try to make flashrom write EEPROMs

Most unsupported chips need some architectural work in flashrom's core because they behave substantially different to most other chips. The same applies to EEPROMs. Some yet unsupported features like OTP, locking or GPIO control may have been seen too obscure and not in the scope of flashrom. It might be fun to work on them and evaluate the resulting changes to flashrom's core. The main objective here is not to produce mergeable code for upstream, but to show what changes to the existing code would have to be done. If those are sustainable without breaking anything and do not bloat flashrom too much, integrating the code is of course a subgoal.