tools/binman/README.entries

Binman Entry Documentation
===========================

This file describes the entry types supported by binman. These entry types can
be placed in an image one by one to build up a final firmware image. It is
fairly easy to create new entry types. Just add a new file to the 'etype'
directory. You can use the existing entries as examples.

Note that some entries are subclasses of others, using and extending their
features to produce new behaviours.


Entry: blob: Entry containing an arbitrary binary blob
------------------------------------------------------

Note: This should not be used by itself. It is normally used as a parent
class by other entry types.

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of file to read into entry

This entry reads data from a file and places it in the entry. The
default filename is often specified specified by the subclass. See for
example the 'u_boot' entry which provides the filename 'u-boot.bin'.


Entry: fmap: An entry which contains an Fmap section
----------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    None

FMAP is a simple format used by flashrom, an open-source utility for
reading and writing the SPI flash, typically on x86 CPUs. The format
provides flashrom with a list of areas, so it knows what it in the flash.
It can then read or write just a single area, instead of the whole flash.

The format is defined by the flashrom project, in the file lib/fmap.h -
see www.flashrom.org/Flashrom for more information.

When used, this entry will be populated with an FMAP which reflects the
entries in the current image. Note that any hierarchy is squashed, since
FMAP does not support this.


Entry: intel-cmc: Entry containing an Intel Chipset Micro Code (CMC) file
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of file to read into entry

This file contains microcode for some devices in a special format. An
example filename is 'Microcode/C0_22211.BIN'.

See README.x86 for information about x86 binary blobs.


Entry: intel-descriptor: Intel flash descriptor block (4KB)
-----------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    filename: Filename of file containing the descriptor. This is typically
        a 4KB binary file, sometimes called 'descriptor.bin'

This entry is placed at the start of flash and provides information about
the SPI flash regions. In particular it provides the base address and
size of the ME (Management Engine) region, allowing us to place the ME
binary in the right place.

With this entry in your image, the position of the 'intel-me' entry will be
fixed in the image, which avoids you needed to specify an offset for that
region. This is useful, because it is not possible to change the position
of the ME region without updating the descriptor.

See README.x86 for information about x86 binary blobs.


Entry: intel-fsp: Entry containing an Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP) file
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of file to read into entry

This file contains binary blobs which are used on some devices to make the
platform work. U-Boot executes this code since it is not possible to set up
the hardware using U-Boot open-source code. Documentation is typically not
available in sufficient detail to allow this.

An example filename is 'FSP/QUEENSBAY_FSP_GOLD_001_20-DECEMBER-2013.fd'

See README.x86 for information about x86 binary blobs.


Entry: intel-me: Entry containing an Intel Management Engine (ME) file
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of file to read into entry

This file contains code used by the SoC that is required to make it work.
The Management Engine is like a background task that runs things that are
not clearly documented, but may include keyboard, deplay and network
access. For platform that use ME it is not possible to disable it. U-Boot
does not directly execute code in the ME binary.

A typical filename is 'me.bin'.

See README.x86 for information about x86 binary blobs.


Entry: intel-mrc: Entry containing an Intel Memory Reference Code (MRC) file
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of file to read into entry

This file contains code for setting up the SDRAM on some Intel systems. This
is executed by U-Boot when needed early during startup. A typical filename
is 'mrc.bin'.

See README.x86 for information about x86 binary blobs.


Entry: intel-vbt: Entry containing an Intel Video BIOS Table (VBT) file
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of file to read into entry

This file contains code that sets up the integrated graphics subsystem on
some Intel SoCs. U-Boot executes this when the display is started up.

See README.x86 for information about Intel binary blobs.


Entry: intel-vga: Entry containing an Intel Video Graphics Adaptor (VGA) file
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of file to read into entry

This file contains code that sets up the integrated graphics subsystem on
some Intel SoCs. U-Boot executes this when the display is started up.

This is similar to the VBT file but in a different format.

See README.x86 for information about Intel binary blobs.


Entry: section: Entry that contains other entries
-------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments: (see binman README for more information)
    - size: Size of section in bytes
    - align-size: Align size to a particular power of two
    - pad-before: Add padding before the entry
    - pad-after: Add padding after the entry
    - pad-byte: Pad byte to use when padding
    - sort-by-offset: Reorder the entries by offset
    - end-at-4gb: Used to build an x86 ROM which ends at 4GB (2^32)
    - name-prefix: Adds a prefix to the name of every entry in the section
        when writing out the map

A section is an entry which can contain other entries, thus allowing
hierarchical images to be created. See 'Sections and hierarchical images'
in the binman README for more information.


Entry: text: An entry which contains text
-----------------------------------------

The text can be provided either in the node itself or by a command-line
argument. There is a level of indirection to allow multiple text strings
and sharing of text.

Properties / Entry arguments:
    text-label: The value of this string indicates the property / entry-arg
        that contains the string to place in the entry
    <xxx> (actual name is the value of text-label): contains the string to
        place in the entry.

Example node:

    text {
        size = <50>;
        text-label = "message";
    };

You can then use:

    binman -amessage="this is my message"

and binman will insert that string into the entry.

It is also possible to put the string directly in the node:

    text {
        size = <8>;
        text-label = "message";
        message = "a message directly in the node"
    };

The text is not itself nul-terminated. This can be achieved, if required,
by setting the size of the entry to something larger than the text.


Entry: u-boot: U-Boot flat binary
---------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of u-boot.bin (default 'u-boot.bin')

This is the U-Boot binary, containing relocation information to allow it
to relocate itself at runtime. The binary typically includes a device tree
blob at the end of it. Use u_boot_nodtb if you want to package the device
tree separately.

U-Boot can access binman symbols at runtime. See:

    'Access to binman entry offsets at run time (fdt)'

in the binman README for more information.


Entry: u-boot-dtb: U-Boot device tree
-------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of u-boot.dtb (default 'u-boot.dtb')

This is the U-Boot device tree, containing configuration information for
U-Boot. U-Boot needs this to know what devices are present and which drivers
to activate.


Entry: u-boot-dtb-with-ucode: A U-Boot device tree file, with the microcode removed
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of u-boot.dtb (default 'u-boot.dtb')

See Entry_u_boot_ucode for full details of the three entries involved in
this process. This entry provides the U-Boot device-tree file, which
contains the microcode. If the microcode is not being collated into one
place then the offset and size of the microcode is recorded by this entry,
for use by u_boot_with_ucode_ptr. If it is being collated, then this
entry deletes the microcode from the device tree (to save space) and makes
it available to u_boot_ucode.


Entry: u-boot-img: U-Boot legacy image
--------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of u-boot.img (default 'u-boot.img')

This is the U-Boot binary as a packaged image, in legacy format. It has a
header which allows it to be loaded at the correct address for execution.

You should use FIT (Flat Image Tree) instead of the legacy image for new
applications.


Entry: u-boot-nodtb: U-Boot flat binary without device tree appended
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of u-boot.bin (default 'u-boot-nodtb.bin')

This is the U-Boot binary, containing relocation information to allow it
to relocate itself at runtime. It does not include a device tree blob at
the end of it so normally cannot work without it. You can add a u_boot_dtb
entry after this one, or use a u_boot entry instead (which contains both
U-Boot and the device tree).


Entry: u-boot-spl: U-Boot SPL binary
------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of u-boot-spl.bin (default 'spl/u-boot-spl.bin')

This is the U-Boot SPL (Secondary Program Loader) binary. This is a small
binary which loads before U-Boot proper, typically into on-chip SRAM. It is
responsible for locating, loading and jumping to U-Boot. Note that SPL is
not relocatable so must be loaded to the correct address in SRAM, or written
to run from the correct address is direct flash execution is possible (e.g.
on x86 devices).

SPL can access binman symbols at runtime. See:

    'Access to binman entry offsets at run time (symbols)'

in the binman README for more information.

The ELF file 'spl/u-boot-spl' must also be available for this to work, since
binman uses that to look up symbols to write into the SPL binary.


Entry: u-boot-spl-bss-pad: U-Boot SPL binary padded with a BSS region
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    None

This is similar to u_boot_spl except that padding is added after the SPL
binary to cover the BSS (Block Started by Symbol) region. This region holds
the various used by SPL. It is set to 0 by SPL when it starts up. If you
want to append data to the SPL image (such as a device tree file), you must
pad out the BSS region to avoid the data overlapping with U-Boot variables.
This entry is useful in that case. It automatically pads out the entry size
to cover both the code, data and BSS.

The ELF file 'spl/u-boot-spl' must also be available for this to work, since
binman uses that to look up the BSS address.


Entry: u-boot-spl-dtb: U-Boot SPL device tree
---------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of u-boot.dtb (default 'spl/u-boot-spl.dtb')

This is the SPL device tree, containing configuration information for
SPL. SPL needs this to know what devices are present and which drivers
to activate.


Entry: u-boot-spl-nodtb: SPL binary without device tree appended
----------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of spl/u-boot-spl-nodtb.bin (default
        'spl/u-boot-spl-nodtb.bin')

This is the U-Boot SPL binary, It does not include a device tree blob at
the end of it so may not be able to work without it, assuming SPL needs
a device tree to operation on your platform. You can add a u_boot_spl_dtb
entry after this one, or use a u_boot_spl entry instead (which contains
both SPL and the device tree).


Entry: u-boot-spl-with-ucode-ptr: U-Boot SPL with embedded microcode pointer
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

See Entry_u_boot_ucode for full details of the entries involved in this
process.


Entry: u-boot-ucode: U-Boot microcode block
-------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    None

The contents of this entry are filled in automatically by other entries
which must also be in the image.

U-Boot on x86 needs a single block of microcode. This is collected from
the various microcode update nodes in the device tree. It is also unable
to read the microcode from the device tree on platforms that use FSP
(Firmware Support Package) binaries, because the API requires that the
microcode is supplied before there is any SRAM available to use (i.e.
the FSP sets up the SRAM / cache-as-RAM but does so in the call that
requires the microcode!). To keep things simple, all x86 platforms handle
microcode the same way in U-Boot (even non-FSP platforms). This is that
a table is placed at _dt_ucode_base_size containing the base address and
size of the microcode. This is either passed to the FSP (for FSP
platforms), or used to set up the microcode (for non-FSP platforms).
This all happens in the build system since it is the only way to get
the microcode into a single blob and accessible without SRAM.

There are two cases to handle. If there is only one microcode blob in
the device tree, then the ucode pointer it set to point to that. This
entry (u-boot-ucode) is empty. If there is more than one update, then
this entry holds the concatenation of all updates, and the device tree
entry (u-boot-dtb-with-ucode) is updated to remove the microcode. This
last step ensures that that the microcode appears in one contiguous
block in the image and is not unnecessarily duplicated in the device
tree. It is referred to as 'collation' here.

Entry types that have a part to play in handling microcode:

    Entry_u_boot_with_ucode_ptr:
        Contains u-boot-nodtb.bin (i.e. U-Boot without the device tree).
        It updates it with the address and size of the microcode so that
        U-Boot can find it early on start-up.
    Entry_u_boot_dtb_with_ucode:
        Contains u-boot.dtb. It stores the microcode in a
        'self.ucode_data' property, which is then read by this class to
        obtain the microcode if needed. If collation is performed, it
        removes the microcode from the device tree.
    Entry_u_boot_ucode:
        This class. If collation is enabled it reads the microcode from
        the Entry_u_boot_dtb_with_ucode entry, and uses it as the
        contents of this entry.


Entry: u-boot-with-ucode-ptr: U-Boot with embedded microcode pointer
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of u-boot-nodtb.dtb (default 'u-boot-nodtb.dtb')

See Entry_u_boot_ucode for full details of the three entries involved in
this process. This entry updates U-Boot with the offset and size of the
microcode, to allow early x86 boot code to find it without doing anything
complicated. Otherwise it is the same as the u_boot entry.


Entry: x86-start16: x86 16-bit start-up code for U-Boot
-------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of u-boot-x86-16bit.bin (default
        'u-boot-x86-16bit.bin')

x86 CPUs start up in 16-bit mode, even if they are 32-bit CPUs. This code
must be placed at a particular address. This entry holds that code. It is
typically placed at offset CONFIG_SYS_X86_START16. The code is responsible
for changing to 32-bit mode and jumping to U-Boot's entry point, which
requires 32-bit mode (for 32-bit U-Boot).

For 64-bit U-Boot, the 'x86_start16_spl' entry type is used instead.


Entry: x86-start16-spl: x86 16-bit start-up code for SPL
--------------------------------------------------------

Properties / Entry arguments:
    - filename: Filename of spl/u-boot-x86-16bit-spl.bin (default
        'spl/u-boot-x86-16bit-spl.bin')

x86 CPUs start up in 16-bit mode, even if they are 64-bit CPUs. This code
must be placed at a particular address. This entry holds that code. It is
typically placed at offset CONFIG_SYS_X86_START16. The code is responsible
for changing to 32-bit mode and starting SPL, which in turn changes to
64-bit mode and jumps to U-Boot (for 64-bit U-Boot).

For 32-bit U-Boot, the 'x86_start16' entry type is used instead.