U-Boot is an open source bootloader,Mainly used in embedded systems.itMany different architectures are supported, including PPC, ARM, AVR32, MIPS, x86, 68k, Nios, and MicroBlaze.

Previously, the U-Boot bootloader only supported the UDP protocol, limiting file transfers via tftp (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) or NFS (Network File System). Under the long-term efforts of developers, U-Boot finally provides TCP protocol support, which can download files or other content through HTTP.

After five years of development and 20 rounds of modifications, the TCP basic support patch for U-Boot network was finally completed and merged into the mainline. In addition to compatibility with the TCP protocol, this series of patches also adds a basic wget application. The wget application on U-Boot is a command-line downloader that allows downloading files from an HTTP server to a specified memory address via TCP. Currently, wget only supports HTTP servers on port 80 and does not support HTTPS.

Providing HTTP and TCP support means that U-Boot can download kernel or other files from HTTP server, not limited to remote loading using NFS or TFTP, which can simplify the deployment of some U-Boot embedded devices.