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In my ESP32 project I have the following platformio.io file:

[env:esp32-poe]
platform = espressif32
board = esp32-poe
framework = arduino
lib_deps = 
    openslab-osu/SSLClient@^1.6.7
    knolleary/PubSubClient@^2.8
    bblanchon/ArduinoJson@^6.16.1
monitor_speed = 115200

[env:custom_builtin_table]
board_build.partitions = default.csv

the default.csv table is this one:

# Name,   Type, SubType, Offset,  Size, Flags
nvs,      data, nvs,     0x9000,  0x5000,
otadata,  data, ota,     0xe000,  0x2000,
app0,     app,  ota_0,   0x10000, 0x140000,
app1,     app,  ota_1,   0x150000,0x140000,
spiffs,   data, spiffs,  0x290000,0x170000,

I noticed that when I upload the code to my ESP32 the output is like this:

[...]
Configuring flash size...
Auto-detected Flash size: 4MB
Compressed 17104 bytes to 11193...
Writing at 0x00001000... (100 %)
Wrote 17104 bytes (11193 compressed) at 0x00001000 in 0.3 seconds (effective 521.5 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.
Compressed 3072 bytes to 128...
Writing at 0x00008000... (100 %)
Wrote 3072 bytes (128 compressed) at 0x00008000 in 0.0 seconds (effective 5621.7 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.
Compressed 8192 bytes to 47...
Writing at 0x0000e000... (100 %)
Wrote 8192 bytes (47 compressed) at 0x0000e000 in 0.0 seconds (effective 27422.0 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.
Compressed 1003456 bytes to 585011...
Writing at 0x00010000... (2 %)
[...]

Hence, it writes at:

  • 0x1000
  • 0x8000
  • 0xe000 (otadata)
  • 0x10000 (app0)

But I cannot understand what are the first two writings.

Mark
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1 Answers1

4

0x1000 is the "second stage" bootloader. This is the code that is responsible for loading the code according to the layout specified in the partition table.

In ESP-IDF, the binary image which resides at offset 0x1000 in flash is the second stage bootloader. Second stage bootloader source code is available in components/bootloader directory of ESP-IDF. Note that this arrangement is not the only one possible with the ESP32 chip. It is possible to write a fully featured application which would work when flashed to offset 0x1000, but this is out of scope of this document. Second stage bootloader is used in ESP-IDF to add flexibility to flash layout (using partition tables), and allow for various flows associated with flash encryption, secure boot, and over-the-air updates (OTA) to take place.

0x8000 is the partition table itself.

Second stage bootloader reads the partition table found at offset 0x8000. See partition tables documentation for more information. The bootloader finds factory and OTA partitions, and decides which one to boot based on data found in OTA info partition.

All this is detailed in the ESP-IDF manual.

Majenko
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