xref: /openbmc/u-boot/doc/README.x86 (revision 10491c83)
1#
2# Copyright (C) 2014, Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
3# Copyright (C) 2014, Bin Meng <bmeng.cn@gmail.com>
4#
5# SPDX-License-Identifier:	GPL-2.0+
6#
7
8U-Boot on x86
9=============
10
11This document describes the information about U-Boot running on x86 targets,
12including supported boards, build instructions, todo list, etc.
13
14Status
15------
16U-Boot supports running as a coreboot [1] payload on x86. So far only Link
17(Chromebook Pixel) and QEMU [2] x86 targets have been tested, but it should
18work with minimal adjustments on other x86 boards since coreboot deals with
19most of the low-level details.
20
21U-Boot also supports booting directly from x86 reset vector, without coreboot.
22In this case, known as bare mode, from the fact that it runs on the
23'bare metal', U-Boot acts like a BIOS replacement. The following platforms
24are supported:
25
26   - Bayley Bay CRB
27   - Congatec QEVAL 2.0 & conga-QA3/E3845
28   - Cougar Canyon 2 CRB
29   - Crown Bay CRB
30   - Galileo
31   - Link (Chromebook Pixel)
32   - Minnowboard MAX
33   - Samus (Chromebook Pixel 2015)
34   - QEMU x86
35
36As for loading an OS, U-Boot supports directly booting a 32-bit or 64-bit
37Linux kernel as part of a FIT image. It also supports a compressed zImage.
38U-Boot supports loading an x86 VxWorks kernel. Please check README.vxworks
39for more details.
40
41Build Instructions for U-Boot as coreboot payload
42-------------------------------------------------
43Building U-Boot as a coreboot payload is just like building U-Boot for targets
44on other architectures, like below:
45
46$ make coreboot-x86_defconfig
47$ make all
48
49Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot payload for the QEMU board.
50To build a coreboot payload against another board, you can change the build
51configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process.
52
53x86 architecture  --->
54	...
55	(qemu-x86) Board configuration file
56	(qemu-x86_i440fx) Board Device Tree Source (dts) file
57	(0x01920000) Board specific Cache-As-RAM (CAR) address
58	(0x4000) Board specific Cache-As-RAM (CAR) size
59
60Change the 'Board configuration file' and 'Board Device Tree Source (dts) file'
61to point to a new board. You can also change the Cache-As-RAM (CAR) related
62settings here if the default values do not fit your new board.
63
64Build Instructions for U-Boot as BIOS replacement (bare mode)
65-------------------------------------------------------------
66Building a ROM version of U-Boot (hereafter referred to as u-boot.rom) is a
67little bit tricky, as generally it requires several binary blobs which are not
68shipped in the U-Boot source tree. Due to this reason, the u-boot.rom build is
69not turned on by default in the U-Boot source tree. Firstly, you need turn it
70on by enabling the ROM build:
71
72$ export BUILD_ROM=y
73
74This tells the Makefile to build u-boot.rom as a target.
75
76---
77
78Chromebook Link specific instructions for bare mode:
79
80First, you need the following binary blobs:
81
82* descriptor.bin - Intel flash descriptor
83* me.bin - Intel Management Engine
84* mrc.bin - Memory Reference Code, which sets up SDRAM
85* video ROM - sets up the display
86
87You can get these binary blobs by:
88
89$ git clone http://review.coreboot.org/p/blobs.git
90$ cd blobs
91
92Find the following files:
93
94* ./mainboard/google/link/descriptor.bin
95* ./mainboard/google/link/me.bin
96* ./northbridge/intel/sandybridge/systemagent-r6.bin
97
98The 3rd one should be renamed to mrc.bin.
99As for the video ROM, you can get it here [3] and rename it to vga.bin.
100Make sure all these binary blobs are put in the board directory.
101
102Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom:
103
104$ make chromebook_link_defconfig
105$ make all
106
107---
108
109Chromebook Samus (2015 Pixel) instructions for bare mode:
110
111First, you need the following binary blobs:
112
113* descriptor.bin - Intel flash descriptor
114* me.bin - Intel Management Engine
115* mrc.bin - Memory Reference Code, which sets up SDRAM
116* refcode.elf - Additional Reference code
117* vga.bin - video ROM, which sets up the display
118
119If you have a samus you can obtain them from your flash, for example, in
120developer mode on the Chromebook (use Ctrl-Alt-F2 to obtain a terminal and
121log in as 'root'):
122
123   cd /tmp
124   flashrom -w samus.bin
125   scp samus.bin username@ip_address:/path/to/somewhere
126
127If not see the coreboot tree [4] where you can use:
128
129   bash crosfirmware.sh samus
130
131to get the image. There is also an 'extract_blobs.sh' scripts that you can use
132on the 'coreboot-Google_Samus.*' file to short-circuit some of the below.
133
134Then 'ifdtool -x samus.bin' on your development machine will produce:
135
136   flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin
137   flashregion_1_bios.bin
138   flashregion_2_intel_me.bin
139
140Rename flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin to descriptor.bin
141Rename flashregion_2_intel_me.bin to me.bin
142You can ignore flashregion_1_bios.bin - it is not used.
143
144To get the rest, use 'cbfstool samus.bin print':
145
146samus.bin: 8192 kB, bootblocksize 2864, romsize 8388608, offset 0x700000
147alignment: 64 bytes, architecture: x86
148
149Name                           Offset     Type         Size
150cmos_layout.bin                0x700000   cmos_layout  1164
151pci8086,0406.rom               0x7004c0   optionrom    65536
152spd.bin                        0x710500   (unknown)    4096
153cpu_microcode_blob.bin         0x711540   microcode    70720
154fallback/romstage              0x722a00   stage        54210
155fallback/ramstage              0x72fe00   stage        96382
156config                         0x7476c0   raw          6075
157fallback/vboot                 0x748ec0   stage        15980
158fallback/refcode               0x74cd80   stage        75578
159fallback/payload               0x75f500   payload      62878
160u-boot.dtb                     0x76eb00   (unknown)    5318
161(empty)                        0x770000   null         196504
162mrc.bin                        0x79ffc0   (unknown)    222876
163(empty)                        0x7d66c0   null         167320
164
165You can extract what you need:
166
167   cbfstool samus.bin extract -n pci8086,0406.rom -f vga.bin
168   cbfstool samus.bin extract -n fallback/refcode -f refcode.rmod
169   cbfstool samus.bin extract -n mrc.bin -f mrc.bin
170   cbfstool samus.bin extract -n fallback/refcode -f refcode.bin -U
171
172Note that the -U flag is only supported by the latest cbfstool. It unpacks
173and decompresses the stage to produce a coreboot rmodule. This is a simple
174representation of an ELF file. You need the patch "Support decoding a stage
175with compression".
176
177Put all 5 files into board/google/chromebook_samus.
178
179Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom:
180
181$ make chromebook_link_defconfig
182$ make all
183
184If you are using em100, then this command will flash write -Boot:
185
186   em100 -s -d filename.rom -c W25Q64CV -r
187
188---
189
190Intel Crown Bay specific instructions for bare mode:
191
192U-Boot support of Intel Crown Bay board [4] relies on a binary blob called
193Firmware Support Package [5] to perform all the necessary initialization steps
194as documented in the BIOS Writer Guide, including initialization of the CPU,
195memory controller, chipset and certain bus interfaces.
196
197Download the Intel FSP for Atom E6xx series and Platform Controller Hub EG20T,
198install it on your host and locate the FSP binary blob. Note this platform
199also requires a Chipset Micro Code (CMC) state machine binary to be present in
200the SPI flash where u-boot.rom resides, and this CMC binary blob can be found
201in this FSP package too.
202
203* ./FSP/QUEENSBAY_FSP_GOLD_001_20-DECEMBER-2013.fd
204* ./Microcode/C0_22211.BIN
205
206Rename the first one to fsp.bin and second one to cmc.bin and put them in the
207board directory.
208
209Note the FSP release version 001 has a bug which could cause random endless
210loop during the FspInit call. This bug was published by Intel although Intel
211did not describe any details. We need manually apply the patch to the FSP
212binary using any hex editor (eg: bvi). Go to the offset 0x1fcd8 of the FSP
213binary, change the following five bytes values from orginally E8 42 FF FF FF
214to B8 00 80 0B 00.
215
216As for the video ROM, you need manually extract it from the Intel provided
217BIOS for Crown Bay here [6], using the AMI MMTool [7]. Check PCI option ROM
218ID 8086:4108, extract and save it as vga.bin in the board directory.
219
220Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
221
222$ make crownbay_defconfig
223$ make all
224
225---
226
227Intel Cougar Canyon 2 specific instructions for bare mode:
228
229This uses Intel FSP for 3rd generation Intel Core and Intel Celeron processors
230with mobile Intel HM76 and QM77 chipsets platform. Download it from Intel FSP
231website and put the .fd file (CHIEFRIVER_FSP_GOLD_001_09-OCTOBER-2013.fd at the
232time of writing) in the board directory and rename it to fsp.bin.
233
234Now build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
235
236$ make cougarcanyon2_defconfig
237$ make all
238
239The board has two 8MB SPI flashes mounted, which are called SPI-0 and SPI-1 in
240the board manual. The SPI-0 flash should have flash descriptor plus ME firmware
241and SPI-1 flash is used to store U-Boot. For convenience, the complete 8MB SPI-0
242flash image is included in the FSP package (named Rom00_8M_MB_PPT.bin). Program
243this image to the SPI-0 flash according to the board manual just once and we are
244all set. For programming U-Boot we just need to program SPI-1 flash.
245
246---
247
248Intel Bay Trail based board instructions for bare mode:
249
250This uses as FSP as with Crown Bay, except it is for the Atom E3800 series.
251Two boards that use this configuration are Bayley Bay and Minnowboard MAX.
252Download this and get the .fd file (BAYTRAIL_FSP_GOLD_003_16-SEP-2014.fd at
253the time of writing). Put it in the corresponding board directory and rename
254it to fsp.bin.
255
256Obtain the VGA RAM (Vga.dat at the time of writing) and put it into the same
257board directory as vga.bin.
258
259You still need two more binary blobs. For Bayley Bay, they can be extracted
260from the sample SPI image provided in the FSP (SPI.bin at the time of writing).
261
262   $ ./tools/ifdtool -x BayleyBay/SPI.bin
263   $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/bayleybay/descriptor.bin
264   $ cp flashregion_2_intel_me.bin board/intel/bayleybay/me.bin
265
266For Minnowboard MAX, we can reuse the same ME firmware above, but for flash
267descriptor, we need get that somewhere else, as the one above does not seem to
268work, probably because it is not designed for the Minnowboard MAX. Now download
269the original firmware image for this board from:
270
271http://firmware.intel.com/sites/default/files/2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
272
273Unzip it:
274
275   $ unzip 2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
276
277Use ifdtool in the U-Boot tools directory to extract the images from that
278file, for example:
279
280   $ ./tools/ifdtool -x MNW2MAX1.X64.0073.R02.1409160934.bin
281
282This will provide the descriptor file - copy this into the correct place:
283
284   $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
285
286Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
287Note: below are examples/information for Minnowboard MAX.
288
289$ make minnowmax_defconfig
290$ make all
291
292Checksums are as follows (but note that newer versions will invalidate this):
293
294$ md5sum -b board/intel/minnowmax/*.bin
295ffda9a3b94df5b74323afb328d51e6b4  board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
29669f65b9a580246291d20d08cbef9d7c5  board/intel/minnowmax/fsp.bin
297894a97d371544ec21de9c3e8e1716c4b  board/intel/minnowmax/me.bin
298a2588537da387da592a27219d56e9962  board/intel/minnowmax/vga.bin
299
300The ROM image is broken up into these parts:
301
302Offset   Description         Controlling config
303------------------------------------------------------------
304000000   descriptor.bin      Hard-coded to 0 in ifdtool
305001000   me.bin              Set by the descriptor
306500000   <spare>
3076ef000   Environment         CONFIG_ENV_OFFSET
3086f0000   MRC cache           CONFIG_ENABLE_MRC_CACHE
309700000   u-boot-dtb.bin      CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE
310790000   vga.bin             CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ADDR
3117c0000   fsp.bin             CONFIG_FSP_ADDR
3127f8000   <spare>             (depends on size of fsp.bin)
3137ff800   U-Boot 16-bit boot  CONFIG_SYS_X86_START16
314
315Overall ROM image size is controlled by CONFIG_ROM_SIZE.
316
317Note that the debug version of the FSP is bigger in size. If this version
318is used, CONFIG_FSP_ADDR needs to be configured to 0xfffb0000 instead of
319the default value 0xfffc0000.
320
321---
322
323Intel Galileo instructions for bare mode:
324
325Only one binary blob is needed for Remote Management Unit (RMU) within Intel
326Quark SoC. Not like FSP, U-Boot does not call into the binary. The binary is
327needed by the Quark SoC itself.
328
329You can get the binary blob from Quark Board Support Package from Intel website:
330
331* ./QuarkSocPkg/QuarkNorthCluster/Binary/QuarkMicrocode/RMU.bin
332
333Rename the file and put it to the board directory by:
334
335   $ cp RMU.bin board/intel/galileo/rmu.bin
336
337Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
338
339$ make galileo_defconfig
340$ make all
341
342---
343
344QEMU x86 target instructions for bare mode:
345
346To build u-boot.rom for QEMU x86 targets, just simply run
347
348$ make qemu-x86_defconfig
349$ make all
350
351Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot for the QEMU x86 i440FX
352board. To build a U-Boot against QEMU x86 Q35 board, you can change the build
353configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process like below:
354
355Device Tree Control  --->
356	...
357	(qemu-x86_q35) Default Device Tree for DT control
358
359Test with coreboot
360------------------
361For testing U-Boot as the coreboot payload, there are things that need be paid
362attention to. coreboot supports loading an ELF executable and a 32-bit plain
363binary, as well as other supported payloads. With the default configuration,
364U-Boot is set up to use a separate Device Tree Blob (dtb). As of today, the
365generated u-boot-dtb.bin needs to be packaged by the cbfstool utility (a tool
366provided by coreboot) manually as coreboot's 'make menuconfig' does not provide
367this capability yet. The command is as follows:
368
369# in the coreboot root directory
370$ ./build/util/cbfstool/cbfstool build/coreboot.rom add-flat-binary \
371  -f u-boot-dtb.bin -n fallback/payload -c lzma -l 0x1110000 -e 0x1110000
372
373Make sure 0x1110000 matches CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE, which is the symbol address
374of _x86boot_start (in arch/x86/cpu/start.S).
375
376If you want to use ELF as the coreboot payload, change U-Boot configuration to
377use CONFIG_OF_EMBED instead of CONFIG_OF_SEPARATE.
378
379To enable video you must enable these options in coreboot:
380
381   - Set framebuffer graphics resolution (1280x1024 32k-color (1:5:5))
382   - Keep VESA framebuffer
383
384At present it seems that for Minnowboard Max, coreboot does not pass through
385the video information correctly (it always says the resolution is 0x0). This
386works correctly for link though.
387
388Note: coreboot framebuffer driver does not work on QEMU. The reason is unknown
389at this point. Patches are welcome if you figure out anything wrong.
390
391Test with QEMU for bare mode
392----------------------------
393QEMU is a fancy emulator that can enable us to test U-Boot without access to
394a real x86 board. Please make sure your QEMU version is 2.3.0 or above test
395U-Boot. To launch QEMU with u-boot.rom, call QEMU as follows:
396
397$ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom
398
399This will instantiate an emulated x86 board with i440FX and PIIX chipset. QEMU
400also supports emulating an x86 board with Q35 and ICH9 based chipset, which is
401also supported by U-Boot. To instantiate such a machine, call QEMU with:
402
403$ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -M q35
404
405Note by default QEMU instantiated boards only have 128 MiB system memory. But
406it is enough to have U-Boot boot and function correctly. You can increase the
407system memory by pass '-m' parameter to QEMU if you want more memory:
408
409$ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024
410
411This creates a board with 1 GiB system memory. Currently U-Boot for QEMU only
412supports 3 GiB maximum system memory and reserves the last 1 GiB address space
413for PCI device memory-mapped I/O and other stuff, so the maximum value of '-m'
414would be 3072.
415
416QEMU emulates a graphic card which U-Boot supports. Removing '-nographic' will
417show QEMU's VGA console window. Note this will disable QEMU's serial output.
418If you want to check both consoles, use '-serial stdio'.
419
420Multicore is also supported by QEMU via '-smp n' where n is the number of cores
421to instantiate. Note, the maximum supported CPU number in QEMU is 255.
422
423The fw_cfg interface in QEMU also provides information about kernel data,
424initrd, command-line arguments and more. U-Boot supports directly accessing
425these informtion from fw_cfg interface, which saves the time of loading them
426from hard disk or network again, through emulated devices. To use it , simply
427providing them in QEMU command line:
428
429$ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024 -kernel /path/to/bzImage
430    -append 'root=/dev/ram console=ttyS0' -initrd /path/to/initrd -smp 8
431
432Note: -initrd and -smp are both optional
433
434Then start QEMU, in U-Boot command line use the following U-Boot command to
435setup kernel:
436
437 => qfw
438qfw - QEMU firmware interface
439
440Usage:
441qfw <command>
442    - list                             : print firmware(s) currently loaded
443    - cpus                             : print online cpu number
444    - load <kernel addr> <initrd addr> : load kernel and initrd (if any) and setup for zboot
445
446=> qfw load
447loading kernel to address 01000000 size 5d9d30 initrd 04000000 size 1b1ab50
448
449Here the kernel (bzImage) is loaded to 01000000 and initrd is to 04000000. Then,
450'zboot' can be used to boot the kernel:
451
452=> zboot 01000000 - 04000000 1b1ab50
453
454CPU Microcode
455-------------
456Modern CPUs usually require a special bit stream called microcode [8] to be
457loaded on the processor after power up in order to function properly. U-Boot
458has already integrated these as hex dumps in the source tree.
459
460SMP Support
461-----------
462On a multicore system, U-Boot is executed on the bootstrap processor (BSP).
463Additional application processors (AP) can be brought up by U-Boot. In order to
464have an SMP kernel to discover all of the available processors, U-Boot needs to
465prepare configuration tables which contain the multi-CPUs information before
466loading the OS kernel. Currently U-Boot supports generating two types of tables
467for SMP, called Simple Firmware Interface (SFI) [9] and Multi-Processor (MP)
468[10] tables. The writing of these two tables are controlled by two Kconfig
469options GENERATE_SFI_TABLE and GENERATE_MP_TABLE.
470
471Driver Model
472------------
473x86 has been converted to use driver model for serial, GPIO, SPI, SPI flash,
474keyboard, real-time clock, USB. Video is in progress.
475
476Device Tree
477-----------
478x86 uses device tree to configure the board thus requires CONFIG_OF_CONTROL to
479be turned on. Not every device on the board is configured via device tree, but
480more and more devices will be added as time goes by. Check out the directory
481arch/x86/dts/ for these device tree source files.
482
483Useful Commands
484---------------
485In keeping with the U-Boot philosophy of providing functions to check and
486adjust internal settings, there are several x86-specific commands that may be
487useful:
488
489fsp  - Display information about Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP).
490	 This is only available on platforms which use FSP, mostly Atom.
491iod  - Display I/O memory
492iow  - Write I/O memory
493mtrr - List and set the Memory Type Range Registers (MTRR). These are used to
494	 tell the CPU whether memory is cacheable and if so the cache write
495	 mode to use. U-Boot sets up some reasonable values but you can
496	 adjust then with this command.
497
498Booting Ubuntu
499--------------
500As an example of how to set up your boot flow with U-Boot, here are
501instructions for starting Ubuntu from U-Boot. These instructions have been
502tested on Minnowboard MAX with a SATA drive but are equally applicable on
503other platforms and other media. There are really only four steps and it's a
504very simple script, but a more detailed explanation is provided here for
505completeness.
506
507Note: It is possible to set up U-Boot to boot automatically using syslinux.
508It could also use the grub.cfg file (/efi/ubuntu/grub.cfg) to obtain the
509GUID. If you figure these out, please post patches to this README.
510
511Firstly, you will need Ubuntu installed on an available disk. It should be
512possible to make U-Boot start a USB start-up disk but for now let's assume
513that you used another boot loader to install Ubuntu.
514
515Use the U-Boot command line to find the UUID of the partition you want to
516boot. For example our disk is SCSI device 0:
517
518=> part list scsi 0
519
520Partition Map for SCSI device 0  --   Partition Type: EFI
521
522   Part	Start LBA	End LBA		Name
523	Attributes
524	Type GUID
525	Partition GUID
526   1	0x00000800	0x001007ff	""
527	attrs:	0x0000000000000000
528	type:	c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
529	guid:	9d02e8e4-4d59-408f-a9b0-fd497bc9291c
530   2	0x00100800	0x037d8fff	""
531	attrs:	0x0000000000000000
532	type:	0fc63daf-8483-4772-8e79-3d69d8477de4
533	guid:	965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059
534   3	0x037d9000	0x03ba27ff	""
535	attrs:	0x0000000000000000
536	type:	0657fd6d-a4ab-43c4-84e5-0933c84b4f4f
537	guid:	2c4282bd-1e82-4bcf-a5ff-51dedbf39f17
538   =>
539
540This shows that your SCSI disk has three partitions. The really long hex
541strings are called Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs). You can look up the
542'type' ones here [11]. On this disk the first partition is for EFI and is in
543VFAT format (DOS/Windows):
544
545   => fatls scsi 0:1
546               efi/
547
548   0 file(s), 1 dir(s)
549
550
551Partition 2 is 'Linux filesystem data' so that will be our root disk. It is
552in ext2 format:
553
554   => ext2ls scsi 0:2
555   <DIR>       4096 .
556   <DIR>       4096 ..
557   <DIR>      16384 lost+found
558   <DIR>       4096 boot
559   <DIR>      12288 etc
560   <DIR>       4096 media
561   <DIR>       4096 bin
562   <DIR>       4096 dev
563   <DIR>       4096 home
564   <DIR>       4096 lib
565   <DIR>       4096 lib64
566   <DIR>       4096 mnt
567   <DIR>       4096 opt
568   <DIR>       4096 proc
569   <DIR>       4096 root
570   <DIR>       4096 run
571   <DIR>      12288 sbin
572   <DIR>       4096 srv
573   <DIR>       4096 sys
574   <DIR>       4096 tmp
575   <DIR>       4096 usr
576   <DIR>       4096 var
577   <SYM>         33 initrd.img
578   <SYM>         30 vmlinuz
579   <DIR>       4096 cdrom
580   <SYM>         33 initrd.img.old
581   =>
582
583and if you look in the /boot directory you will see the kernel:
584
585   => ext2ls scsi 0:2 /boot
586   <DIR>       4096 .
587   <DIR>       4096 ..
588   <DIR>       4096 efi
589   <DIR>       4096 grub
590            3381262 System.map-3.13.0-32-generic
591            1162712 abi-3.13.0-32-generic
592             165611 config-3.13.0-32-generic
593             176500 memtest86+.bin
594             178176 memtest86+.elf
595             178680 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
596            5798112 vmlinuz-3.13.0-32-generic
597             165762 config-3.13.0-58-generic
598            1165129 abi-3.13.0-58-generic
599            5823136 vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic
600           19215259 initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic
601            3391763 System.map-3.13.0-58-generic
602            5825048 vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic.efi.signed
603           28304443 initrd.img-3.13.0-32-generic
604   =>
605
606The 'vmlinuz' files contain a packaged Linux kernel. The format is a kind of
607self-extracting compressed file mixed with some 'setup' configuration data.
608Despite its size (uncompressed it is >10MB) this only includes a basic set of
609device drivers, enough to boot on most hardware types.
610
611The 'initrd' files contain a RAM disk. This is something that can be loaded
612into RAM and will appear to Linux like a disk. Ubuntu uses this to hold lots
613of drivers for whatever hardware you might have. It is loaded before the
614real root disk is accessed.
615
616The numbers after the end of each file are the version. Here it is Linux
617version 3.13. You can find the source code for this in the Linux tree with
618the tag v3.13. The '.0' allows for additional Linux releases to fix problems,
619but normally this is not needed. The '-58' is used by Ubuntu. Each time they
620release a new kernel they increment this number. New Ubuntu versions might
621include kernel patches to fix reported bugs. Stable kernels can exist for
622some years so this number can get quite high.
623
624The '.efi.signed' kernel is signed for EFI's secure boot. U-Boot has its own
625secure boot mechanism - see [12] [13] and cannot read .efi files at present.
626
627To boot Ubuntu from U-Boot the steps are as follows:
628
6291. Set up the boot arguments. Use the GUID for the partition you want to
630boot:
631
632   => setenv bootargs root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro
633
634Here root= tells Linux the location of its root disk. The disk is specified
635by its GUID, using '/dev/disk/by-partuuid/', a Linux path to a 'directory'
636containing all the GUIDs Linux has found. When it starts up, there will be a
637file in that directory with this name in it. It is also possible to use a
638device name here, see later.
639
6402. Load the kernel. Since it is an ext2/4 filesystem we can do:
641
642   => ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic
643
644The address 30000000 is arbitrary, but there seem to be problems with using
645small addresses (sometimes Linux cannot find the ramdisk). This is 48MB into
646the start of RAM (which is at 0 on x86).
647
6483. Load the ramdisk (to 64MB):
649
650   => ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic
651
6524. Start up the kernel. We need to know the size of the ramdisk, but can use
653a variable for that. U-Boot sets 'filesize' to the size of the last file it
654loaded.
655
656   => zboot 03000000 0 04000000 ${filesize}
657
658Type 'help zboot' if you want to see what the arguments are. U-Boot on x86 is
659quite verbose when it boots a kernel. You should see these messages from
660U-Boot:
661
662   Valid Boot Flag
663   Setup Size = 0x00004400
664   Magic signature found
665   Using boot protocol version 2.0c
666   Linux kernel version 3.13.0-58-generic (buildd@allspice) #97-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 8 02:56:15 UTC 2015
667   Building boot_params at 0x00090000
668   Loading bzImage at address 100000 (5805728 bytes)
669   Magic signature found
670   Initial RAM disk at linear address 0x04000000, size 19215259 bytes
671   Kernel command line: "root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro"
672
673   Starting kernel ...
674
675U-Boot prints out some bootstage timing. This is more useful if you put the
676above commands into a script since then it will be faster.
677
678   Timer summary in microseconds:
679          Mark    Elapsed  Stage
680             0          0  reset
681       241,535    241,535  board_init_r
682     2,421,611  2,180,076  id=64
683     2,421,790        179  id=65
684     2,428,215      6,425  main_loop
685    48,860,584 46,432,369  start_kernel
686
687   Accumulated time:
688                  240,329  ahci
689                1,422,704  vesa display
690
691Now the kernel actually starts: (if you want to examine kernel boot up message
692on the serial console, append "console=ttyS0,115200" to the kernel command line)
693
694   [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
695   [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
696   [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
697   [    0.000000] Linux version 3.13.0-58-generic (buildd@allspice) (gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) ) #97-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 8 02:56:15 UTC 2015 (Ubuntu 3.13.0-58.97-generic 3.13.11-ckt22)
698   [    0.000000] Command line: root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro console=ttyS0,115200
699
700It continues for a long time. Along the way you will see it pick up your
701ramdisk:
702
703   [    0.000000] RAMDISK: [mem 0x04000000-0x05253fff]
704...
705   [    0.788540] Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...
706   [    1.540111] Freeing initrd memory: 18768K (ffff880004000000 - ffff880005254000)
707...
708
709Later it actually starts using it:
710
711   Begin: Running /scripts/local-premount ... done.
712
713You should also see your boot disk turn up:
714
715   [    4.357243] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      ADATA SP310      5.2  PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
716   [    4.366860] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 62533296 512-byte logical blocks: (32.0 GB/29.8 GiB)
717   [    4.375677] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
718   [    4.381859] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
719   [    4.387452] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
720   [    4.399535]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
721
722Linux has found the three partitions (sda1-3). Mercifully it doesn't print out
723the GUIDs. In step 1 above we could have used:
724
725   setenv bootargs root=/dev/sda2 ro
726
727instead of the GUID. However if you add another drive to your board the
728numbering may change whereas the GUIDs will not. So if your boot partition
729becomes sdb2, it will still boot. For embedded systems where you just want to
730boot the first disk, you have that option.
731
732The last thing you will see on the console is mention of plymouth (which
733displays the Ubuntu start-up screen) and a lot of 'Starting' messages:
734
735 * Starting Mount filesystems on boot                                    [ OK ]
736
737After a pause you should see a login screen on your display and you are done.
738
739If you want to put this in a script you can use something like this:
740
741   setenv bootargs root=UUID=b2aaf743-0418-4d90-94cc-3e6108d7d968 ro
742   setenv boot zboot 03000000 0 04000000 \${filesize}
743   setenv bootcmd "ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic; ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic; run boot"
744   saveenv
745
746The \ is to tell the shell not to evaluate ${filesize} as part of the setenv
747command.
748
749You can also bake this behaviour into your build by hard-coding the
750environment variables if you add this to minnowmax.h:
751
752#undef CONFIG_BOOTARGS
753#undef CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND
754
755#define CONFIG_BOOTARGS		\
756	"root=/dev/sda2 ro"
757#define CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND	\
758	"ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic; " \
759	"ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic; " \
760	"run boot"
761
762#undef CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS
763#define CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS "boot=zboot 03000000 0 04000000 ${filesize}"
764
765Test with SeaBIOS
766-----------------
767SeaBIOS [14] is an open source implementation of a 16-bit x86 BIOS. It can run
768in an emulator or natively on x86 hardware with the use of U-Boot. With its
769help, we can boot some OSes that require 16-bit BIOS services like Windows/DOS.
770
771As U-Boot, we have to manually create a table where SeaBIOS gets various system
772information (eg: E820) from. The table unfortunately has to follow the coreboot
773table format as SeaBIOS currently supports booting as a coreboot payload.
774
775To support loading SeaBIOS, U-Boot should be built with CONFIG_SEABIOS on.
776Booting SeaBIOS is done via U-Boot's bootelf command, like below:
777
778   => tftp bios.bin.elf;bootelf
779   Using e1000#0 device
780   TFTP from server 10.10.0.100; our IP address is 10.10.0.108
781   ...
782   Bytes transferred = 122124 (1dd0c hex)
783   ## Starting application at 0x000ff06e ...
784   SeaBIOS (version rel-1.9.0)
785   ...
786
787bios.bin.elf is the SeaBIOS image built from SeaBIOS source tree.
788Make sure it is built as follows:
789
790   $ make menuconfig
791
792Inside the "General Features" menu, select "Build for coreboot" as the
793"Build Target". Inside the "Debugging" menu, turn on "Serial port debugging"
794so that we can see something as soon as SeaBIOS boots. Leave other options
795as in their default state. Then,
796
797   $ make
798   ...
799   Total size: 121888  Fixed: 66496  Free: 9184 (used 93.0% of 128KiB rom)
800   Creating out/bios.bin.elf
801
802Currently this is tested on QEMU x86 target with U-Boot chain-loading SeaBIOS
803to install/boot a Windows XP OS (below for example command to install Windows).
804
805   # Create a 10G disk.img as the virtual hard disk
806   $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 disk.img 10G
807
808   # Install a Windows XP OS from an ISO image 'winxp.iso'
809   $ qemu-system-i386 -serial stdio -bios u-boot.rom -hda disk.img -cdrom winxp.iso -smp 2 -m 512
810
811   # Boot a Windows XP OS installed on the virutal hard disk
812   $ qemu-system-i386 -serial stdio -bios u-boot.rom -hda disk.img -smp 2 -m 512
813
814This is also tested on Intel Crown Bay board with a PCIe graphics card, booting
815SeaBIOS then chain-loading a GRUB on a USB drive, then Linux kernel finally.
816
817If you are using Intel Integrated Graphics Device (IGD) as the primary display
818device on your board, SeaBIOS needs to be patched manually to get its VGA ROM
819loaded and run by SeaBIOS. SeaBIOS locates VGA ROM via the PCI expansion ROM
820register, but IGD device does not have its VGA ROM mapped by this register.
821Its VGA ROM is packaged as part of u-boot.rom at a configurable flash address
822which is unknown to SeaBIOS. An example patch is needed for SeaBIOS below:
823
824diff --git a/src/optionroms.c b/src/optionroms.c
825index 65f7fe0..c7b6f5e 100644
826--- a/src/optionroms.c
827+++ b/src/optionroms.c
828@@ -324,6 +324,8 @@ init_pcirom(struct pci_device *pci, int isvga, u64 *sources)
829         rom = deploy_romfile(file);
830     else if (RunPCIroms > 1 || (RunPCIroms == 1 && isvga))
831         rom = map_pcirom(pci);
832+    if (pci->bdf == pci_to_bdf(0, 2, 0))
833+        rom = (struct rom_header *)0xfff90000;
834     if (! rom)
835         // No ROM present.
836         return;
837
838Note: the patch above expects IGD device is at PCI b.d.f 0.2.0 and its VGA ROM
839is at 0xfff90000 which corresponds to CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ADDR on Minnowboard MAX.
840Change these two accordingly if this is not the case on your board.
841
842Development Flow
843----------------
844These notes are for those who want to port U-Boot to a new x86 platform.
845
846Since x86 CPUs boot from SPI flash, a SPI flash emulator is a good investment.
847The Dediprog em100 can be used on Linux. The em100 tool is available here:
848
849   http://review.coreboot.org/p/em100.git
850
851On Minnowboard Max the following command line can be used:
852
853   sudo em100 -s -p LOW -d u-boot.rom -c W25Q64DW -r
854
855A suitable clip for connecting over the SPI flash chip is here:
856
857   http://www.dediprog.com/pd/programmer-accessories/EM-TC-8
858
859This allows you to override the SPI flash contents for development purposes.
860Typically you can write to the em100 in around 1200ms, considerably faster
861than programming the real flash device each time. The only important
862limitation of the em100 is that it only supports SPI bus speeds up to 20MHz.
863This means that images must be set to boot with that speed. This is an
864Intel-specific feature - e.g. tools/ifttool has an option to set the SPI
865speed in the SPI descriptor region.
866
867If your chip/board uses an Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP) it is fairly
868easy to fit it in. You can follow the Minnowboard Max implementation, for
869example. Hopefully you will just need to create new files similar to those
870in arch/x86/cpu/baytrail which provide Bay Trail support.
871
872If you are not using an FSP you have more freedom and more responsibility.
873The ivybridge support works this way, although it still uses a ROM for
874graphics and still has binary blobs containing Intel code. You should aim to
875support all important peripherals on your platform including video and storage.
876Use the device tree for configuration where possible.
877
878For the microcode you can create a suitable device tree file using the
879microcode tool:
880
881  ./tools/microcode-tool -d microcode.dat -m <model> create
882
883or if you only have header files and not the full Intel microcode.dat database:
884
885  ./tools/microcode-tool -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130673322.h \
886	-H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130679901.h \
887	-m all create
888
889These are written to arch/x86/dts/microcode/ by default.
890
891Note that it is possible to just add the micrcode for your CPU if you know its
892model. U-Boot prints this information when it starts
893
894   CPU: x86_64, vendor Intel, device 30673h
895
896so here we can use the M0130673322 file.
897
898If you platform can display POST codes on two little 7-segment displays on
899the board, then you can use post_code() calls from C or assembler to monitor
900boot progress. This can be good for debugging.
901
902If not, you can try to get serial working as early as possible. The early
903debug serial port may be useful here. See setup_internal_uart() for an example.
904
905During the U-Boot porting, one of the important steps is to write correct PIRQ
906routing information in the board device tree. Without it, device drivers in the
907Linux kernel won't function correctly due to interrupt is not working. Please
908refer to U-Boot doc [15] for the device tree bindings of Intel interrupt router.
909Here we have more details on the intel,pirq-routing property below.
910
911	intel,pirq-routing = <
912		PCI_BDF(0, 2, 0) INTA PIRQA
913		...
914	>;
915
916As you see each entry has 3 cells. For the first one, we need describe all pci
917devices mounted on the board. For SoC devices, normally there is a chapter on
918the chipset datasheet which lists all the available PCI devices. For example on
919Bay Trail, this is chapter 4.3 (PCI configuration space). For the second one, we
920can get the interrupt pin either from datasheet or hardware via U-Boot shell.
921The reliable source is the hardware as sometimes chipset datasheet is not 100%
922up-to-date. Type 'pci header' plus the device's pci bus/device/function number
923from U-Boot shell below.
924
925  => pci header 0.1e.1
926    vendor ID =			0x8086
927    device ID =			0x0f08
928    ...
929    interrupt line =		0x09
930    interrupt pin =		0x04
931    ...
932
933It shows this PCI device is using INTD pin as it reports 4 in the interrupt pin
934register. Repeat this until you get interrupt pins for all the devices. The last
935cell is the PIRQ line which a particular interrupt pin is mapped to. On Intel
936chipset, the power-up default mapping is INTA/B/C/D maps to PIRQA/B/C/D. This
937can be changed by registers in LPC bridge. So far Intel FSP does not touch those
938registers so we can write down the PIRQ according to the default mapping rule.
939
940Once we get the PIRQ routing information in the device tree, the interrupt
941allocation and assignment will be done by U-Boot automatically. Now you can
942enable CONFIG_GENERATE_PIRQ_TABLE for testing Linux kernel using i8259 PIC and
943CONFIG_GENERATE_MP_TABLE for testing Linux kernel using local APIC and I/O APIC.
944
945This script might be useful. If you feed it the output of 'pci long' from
946U-Boot then it will generate a device tree fragment with the interrupt
947configuration for each device (note it needs gawk 4.0.0):
948
949   $ cat console_output |awk '/PCI/ {device=$4} /interrupt line/ {line=$4} \
950	/interrupt pin/ {pin = $4; if (pin != "0x00" && pin != "0xff") \
951	{patsplit(device, bdf, "[0-9a-f]+"); \
952	printf "PCI_BDF(%d, %d, %d) INT%c PIRQ%c\n", strtonum("0x" bdf[1]), \
953	strtonum("0x" bdf[2]), bdf[3], strtonum(pin) + 64, 64 + strtonum(pin)}}'
954
955Example output:
956   PCI_BDF(0, 2, 0) INTA PIRQA
957   PCI_BDF(0, 3, 0) INTA PIRQA
958...
959
960Porting Hints
961-------------
962
963Quark-specific considerations:
964
965To port U-Boot to other boards based on the Intel Quark SoC, a few things need
966to be taken care of. The first important part is the Memory Reference Code (MRC)
967parameters. Quark MRC supports memory-down configuration only. All these MRC
968parameters are supplied via the board device tree. To get started, first copy
969the MRC section of arch/x86/dts/galileo.dts to your board's device tree, then
970change these values by consulting board manuals or your hardware vendor.
971Available MRC parameter values are listed in include/dt-bindings/mrc/quark.h.
972The other tricky part is with PCIe. Quark SoC integrates two PCIe root ports,
973but by default they are held in reset after power on. In U-Boot, PCIe
974initialization is properly handled as per Quark's firmware writer guide.
975In your board support codes, you need provide two routines to aid PCIe
976initialization, which are board_assert_perst() and board_deassert_perst().
977The two routines need implement a board-specific mechanism to assert/deassert
978PCIe PERST# pin. Care must be taken that in those routines that any APIs that
979may trigger PCI enumeration process are strictly forbidden, as any access to
980PCIe root port's configuration registers will cause system hang while it is
981held in reset. For more details, check how they are implemented by the Intel
982Galileo board support codes in board/intel/galileo/galileo.c.
983
984coreboot:
985
986See scripts/coreboot.sed which can assist with porting coreboot code into
987U-Boot drivers. It will not resolve all build errors, but will perform common
988transformations. Remember to add attribution to coreboot for new files added
989to U-Boot. This should go at the top of each file and list the coreboot
990filename where the code originated.
991
992Debugging ACPI issues with Windows:
993
994Windows might cache system information and only detect ACPI changes if you
995modify the ACPI table versions. So tweak them liberally when debugging ACPI
996issues with Windows.
997
998ACPI Support Status
999-------------------
1000Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) [16] aims to establish
1001industry-standard interfaces enabling OS-directed configuration, power
1002management, and thermal management of mobile, desktop, and server platforms.
1003
1004Linux can boot without ACPI with "acpi=off" command line parameter, but
1005with ACPI the kernel gains the capabilities to handle power management.
1006For Windows, ACPI is a must-have firmware feature since Windows Vista.
1007CONFIG_GENERATE_ACPI_TABLE is the config option to turn on ACPI support in
1008U-Boot. This requires Intel ACPI compiler to be installed on your host to
1009compile ACPI DSDT table written in ASL format to AML format. You can get
1010the compiler via "apt-get install iasl" if you are on Ubuntu or download
1011the source from [17] to compile one by yourself.
1012
1013Current ACPI support in U-Boot is not complete. More features will be added
1014in the future. The status as of today is:
1015
1016 * Support generating RSDT, XSDT, FACS, FADT, MADT, MCFG tables.
1017 * Support one static DSDT table only, compiled by Intel ACPI compiler.
1018 * Support S0/S5, reboot and shutdown from OS.
1019 * Support booting a pre-installed Ubuntu distribution via 'zboot' command.
1020 * Support installing and booting Ubuntu 14.04 (or above) from U-Boot with
1021   the help of SeaBIOS using legacy interface (non-UEFI mode).
1022 * Support installing and booting Windows 8.1/10 from U-Boot with the help
1023   of SeaBIOS using legacy interface (non-UEFI mode).
1024 * Support ACPI interrupts with SCI only.
1025
1026Features not supported so far (to make it a complete ACPI solution):
1027 * S3 (Suspend to RAM), S4 (Suspend to Disk).
1028
1029Features that are optional:
1030 * Dynamic AML bytecodes insertion at run-time. We may need this to support
1031   SSDT table generation and DSDT fix up.
1032 * SMI support. Since U-Boot is a modern bootloader, we don't want to bring
1033   those legacy stuff into U-Boot. ACPI spec allows a system that does not
1034   support SMI (a legacy-free system).
1035
1036ACPI was initially enabled on BayTrail based boards. Testing was done by booting
1037a pre-installed Ubuntu 14.04 from a SATA drive. Installing Ubuntu 14.04 and
1038Windows 8.1/10 to a SATA drive and booting from there is also tested. Most
1039devices seem to work correctly and the board can respond a reboot/shutdown
1040command from the OS.
1041
1042For other platform boards, ACPI support status can be checked by examining their
1043board defconfig files to see if CONFIG_GENERATE_ACPI_TABLE is set to y.
1044
1045EFI Support
1046-----------
1047U-Boot supports booting as a 32-bit or 64-bit EFI payload, e.g. with UEFI.
1048This is enabled with CONFIG_EFI_STUB. U-Boot can also run as an EFI
1049application, with CONFIG_EFI_APP. The CONFIG_EFI_LOADER option, where U-Booot
1050provides an EFI environment to the kernel (i.e. replaces UEFI completely but
1051provides the same EFI run-time services) is not currently supported on x86.
1052
1053See README.efi for details of EFI support in U-Boot.
1054
105564-bit Support
1056--------------
1057U-Boot supports booting a 64-bit kernel directly and is able to change to
105864-bit mode to do so. It also supports (with CONFIG_EFI_STUB) booting from
1059both 32-bit and 64-bit UEFI. However, U-Boot itself is currently always built
1060in 32-bit mode. Some access to the full memory range is provided with
1061arch_phys_memset().
1062
1063The development work to make U-Boot itself run in 64-bit mode has not yet
1064been attempted. The best approach would likely be to build a 32-bit SPL
1065image for U-Boot, with CONFIG_SPL_BUILD. This could then handle the early CPU
1066init in 16-bit and 32-bit mode, running the FSP and any other binaries that
1067are needed. Then it could change to 64-bit model and jump to U-Boot proper.
1068
1069Given U-Boot's extensive 64-bit support this has not been a high priority,
1070but it would be a nice addition.
1071
1072TODO List
1073---------
1074- Audio
1075- Chrome OS verified boot
1076- Support for CONFIG_EFI_LOADER
1077- Building U-Boot to run in 64-bit mode
1078
1079References
1080----------
1081[1] http://www.coreboot.org
1082[2] http://www.qemu.org
1083[3] http://www.coreboot.org/~stepan/pci8086,0166.rom
1084[4] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/design-tools/evaluation-platforms/atom-e660-eg20t-development-kit.html
1085[5] http://www.intel.com/fsp
1086[6] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/intelligent-systems/privileged/e6xx-35-b1-cmc22211.html
1087[7] http://www.ami.com/products/bios-uefi-tools-and-utilities/bios-uefi-utilities/
1088[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode
1089[9] http://simplefirmware.org
1090[10] http://www.intel.com/design/archives/processors/pro/docs/242016.htm
1091[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
1092[12] http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/chromeos_and_diy_vboot_0.pdf
1093[13] http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/elce-2014.pdf
1094[14] http://www.seabios.org/SeaBIOS
1095[15] doc/device-tree-bindings/misc/intel,irq-router.txt
1096[16] http://www.acpi.info
1097[17] https://www.acpica.org/downloads
1098