xref: /openbmc/u-boot/doc/README.gpt (revision 472d5460)
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2#  Copyright (C) 2012 Samsung Electronics
3#
4#  Lukasz Majewski <l.majewski@samsung.com>
5#
6#
7# See file CREDITS for list of people who contributed to this
8# project.
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10# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
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20# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
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22# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
23# MA 02111-1307 USA
24
25
26Glossary:
27========
28- UUID -(Universally Unique Identifier)
29- GUID - (Globally Unique ID)
30- EFI - (Extensible Firmware Interface)
31- UEFI - (Unified EFI) - EFI evolution
32- GPT (GUID Partition Table) - it is the EFI standard part
33- partitions - lists of available partitions (defined at u-boot):
34  ./include/configs/{target}.h
35
36Introduction:
37=============
38This document describes the GPT partition table format and usage of
39the gpt command in u-boot.
40
41
42UUID introduction:
43====================
44
45GPT for marking disks/partitions is using the UUID. It is supposed to be a
46globally unique value. A UUID is a 16-byte (128-bit) number. The number of
47theoretically possible UUIDs is therefore about 3 x 10^38.
48More often UUID is displayed as 32 hexadecimal digits, in 5 groups,
49separated by hyphens, in the form 8-4-4-4-12 for a total of 36 characters
50(32 digits and 4 hyphens)
51
52For instance, GUID of Linux data partition: EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
53
54Historically there are 5 methods to generate this number. The oldest one is
55combining machine's MAC address and timer (epoch) value.
56
57Successive versions are using MD5 hash, random numbers and SHA-1 hash. All major
58OSes and programming languages are providing libraries to compute UUID (e.g.
59uuid command line tool).
60
61GPT brief explanation:
62======================
63
64	Layout:
65	-------
66
67	--------------------------------------------------
68	LBA 0          |Protective MBR                   |
69	----------------------------------------------------------
70	LBA 1          |Primary GPT Header               | Primary
71	-------------------------------------------------- GPT
72	LBA 2          |Entry 1|Entry 2| Entry 3| Entry 4|
73	--------------------------------------------------
74	LBA 3          |Entries 5 - 128                  |
75		       |                                 |
76		       |                                 |
77	----------------------------------------------------------
78	LBA 34         |Partition 1                      |
79		       |                                 |
80		       -----------------------------------
81		       |Partition 2                      |
82		       |                                 |
83		       -----------------------------------
84		       |Partition n                      |
85		       |                                 |
86	----------------------------------------------------------
87	LBA -34        |Entry 1|Entry 2| Entry 3| Entry 4| Secondary
88	-------------------------------------------------- (bkp)
89	LBA -33        |Entries 5 - 128                  | GPT
90		       |                                 |
91		       |                                 |
92	LBA -2         |                                 |
93	--------------------------------------------------
94	LBA -1         |Secondary GPT Header             |
95	----------------------------------------------------------
96
97
98For a legacy reasons, GPT's LBA 0 sector has a MBR structure. It is called
99"protective MBR".
100Its first partition entry ID has 0xEE value, and disk software, which is not
101handling the GPT sees it as a storage device without free space.
102
103It is possible to define 128 linearly placed partition entries.
104
105"LBA -1" means the last addressable block (in the mmc subsystem:
106"dev_desc->lba - 1")
107
108Primary/Secondary GPT header:
109----------------------------
110Offset  Size    Description
111
1120       8 B     Signature ("EFI PART", 45 46 49 20 50 41 52 54)
1138       4 B     Revision (For version 1.0, the value is 00 00 01 00)
11412      4 B     Header size (in bytes, usually 5C 00 00 00 meaning 92 bytes)
11516      4 B     CRC32 of header (0 to header size), with this field zeroed
116		during calculation
11720      4 B     Reserved (ZERO);
11824      8 B     Current LBA (location of this header copy)
11932      8 B     Backup LBA (location of the other header copy)
12040      8 B     First usable LBA for partitions (primary partition table last
121		LBA + 1)
12248      8 B     Last usable LBA (secondary partition table first LBA - 1)
12356      16 B    Disk GUID (also referred as UUID on UNIXes)
12472      8 B     Partition entries starting LBA (always 2 in primary copy)
12580      4 B     Number of partition entries
12684      4 B     Size of a partition entry (usually 128)
12788      4 B     CRC32 of partition array
12892      *       Reserved; must be ZERO (420 bytes for a 512-byte LBA)
129
130TOTAL: 512 B
131
132
133
134IMPORTANT:
135
136GPT headers and partition entries are protected by CRC32 (the POSIX CRC32).
137
138Primary GPT header and Secondary GPT header have swapped values of "Current LBA"
139and "Backup LBA" and therefore different CRC32 check-sum.
140
141CRC32 for GPT headers (field "CRC of header") are calculated up till
142"Header size" (92), NOT 512 bytes.
143
144CRC32 for partition entries (field "CRC32 of partition array") is calculated for
145the whole array entry ( Number_of_partition_entries *
146sizeof(partition_entry_size (usually 128)))
147
148Observe, how Secondary GPT is placed in the memory. It is NOT a mirror reflect
149of the Primary.
150
151
152	   Partition Entry Format:
153	   ----------------------
154	   Offset  Size    Description
155
156	   0       16 B    Partition type GUID
157	   16      16 B    Unique partition GUID
158	   32      8  B    First LBA (Little Endian)
159	   40      8  B    Last LBA (inclusive)
160	   48      8  B    Attribute flags [+]
161	   56      72 B    Partition name (text)
162
163	   Attribute flags:
164	   Bit 0  - System partition
165	   Bit 60 - Read-only
166	   Bit 62 - Hidden
167	   Bit 63 - Not mount
168
169
170Creating GPT partitions in U-Boot:
171==============
172
173To restore GUID partition table one needs to:
1741. Define partition layout in the environment.
175   Format of partitions layout:
176     "partitions=uuid_disk=...;name=u-boot,size=60MiB,uuid=...;
177	name=kernel,size=60MiB,uuid=...;"
178     or
179     "partitions=uuid_disk=${uuid_gpt_disk};name=${uboot_name},
180	size=${uboot_size},uuid=${uboot_uuid};"
181
182   Fields 'name', 'size' and 'uuid' are mandatory for every partition.
183   The field 'start' is optional.
184
1852. Define 'CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION' and 'CONFIG_CMD_GPT'
186
1872. From u-boot prompt type:
188   gpt write mmc 0 $partitions
189
190
191Useful info:
192============
193
194Two programs, namely: 'fdisk' and 'parted' are recommended to work with GPT
195recovery. Parted is able to handle GUID partitions. Unfortunately the 'fdisk'
196hasn't got such ability.
197Please, pay attention at -l switch for parted.
198
199"uuid" program is recommended to generate UUID string. Moreover it can decode
200(-d switch) passed in UUID string. It can be used to generate partitions UUID
201passed to u-boot environment variables.
202