Currently I am in the processes of extending the ELF boot loader so that if you have an appropriate ELF note is in the ELF image we can verify the checksum of the Image. I have seen enough corrupt network downloads (when the ram is at fault) that I don't want to see anymore.
My first implementation will use a 2 byte 1's complement checksum. Which has many very nice properties the nicest is that you can add or subtract portions of the image and simply modify the checksum (not recompute it), allow the checksum to be end-to-end even in the presence of modification. Modification is important for the case of editing the command line or adding a ramdisk to an already compiled kernel. Currently I checksum over a stream of bytes consisting of: The ELF header + the ELF program header + the PT_LOAD segments in the order the are listed in the program header. I was vague on how to do this when I speced it all so I need to update my draft on this point. Adam for the work on trusted booting I would like to include it as a compile option. Since this is very similiar to what you are doing any feedback would be appreciated. Eric
