xFLASH version 13 migration manual

This document describes how to migrate from xTIMEcompser 12 to xTIMEcomposer 13 when using xFLASH.

In most cases, you can generate an XFLASH upgrade image using xTIMEcomposer 13 when the factory image was generated using xTIMEcomposer 12. This lets you take advantage of the wealth of new features available in xTIMEcomposer 13 without obsoleting your existing deployments. The only exception to this is the use of overlay regions.

What has changed?

The format of the routing id’s and routing tables has changed. The flash loader is written to flash at the time as the factory image and it is the flash loader that is responsible for setting up the network. All upgrade images must therefore use the same routing id’s and routing tables that were specified by the factory image.

The image header used to identify images within flash has changed. It is therefore not possible for a flash loader built by xTIMEcomposer 12 to identify an xTIMEcomposer 13 upgrade image header in flash. When creating an upgrade image using the xTIMEcomposer 13 tools you must specify the the version of tools used to create the factory image that will be upgraded.

No overlay memory regions can be supported within the xTIMEcomposer 12 compatible upgrade images.

Using xTIMEcomposer 13 to create an xTIMEcomposer 12 compatible upgrade image

Firstly, the old routing id’s and routing tables must be defined within the XN file. To do this, use the following command to populate your XN file with xTIMEcomposer version 12 compatible routing id’s and routing tables:

xntools --add-routing-12 myfile.xn

The output file myfile.xn will now contain the routing id’s and routing tables as xTIMEcomposer 12 would have defined. This XN file can now be compiled within an xTIMEcomposer 13 project.

Secondly, the command line argument --factory-version must be included in the call to xFLASH to generate the xTIMEcomposer 12 compatible upgrade image.

xflash --upgrade 1 upgrade.xe --factory-version 12 -o upgrade.bin

This upgrade.bin image can then be successfully used to upgrade an xTIMEcomposer 12 factory image.