mknod is not in the distro as far as I can tell so that would be a problem. we'd have to do it manually somehow.
Also, from what I can tell, progpld is the CPLDs programmer software and it uses prog.bif as the file to program the CPLD, which is called by 51d or phatd I cant tell which.
prog.bif is signed but I dont know if the phatbox really checks that sig or not.