1 # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
3 # Copyright (C) 2014, Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
4 # Copyright (C) 2014, Bin Meng <bmeng.cn@gmail.com>
9 This document describes the information about U-Boot running on x86 targets,
10 including supported boards, build instructions, todo list, etc.
14 U-Boot supports running as a coreboot [1] payload on x86. So far only Link
15 (Chromebook Pixel) and QEMU [2] x86 targets have been tested, but it should
16 work with minimal adjustments on other x86 boards since coreboot deals with
17 most of the low-level details.
19 U-Boot is a main bootloader on Intel Edison board.
21 U-Boot also supports booting directly from x86 reset vector, without coreboot.
22 In 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
28 - Congatec QEVAL 2.0 & conga-QA3/E3845
32 - Link (Chromebook Pixel)
34 - Samus (Chromebook Pixel 2015)
37 As for loading an OS, U-Boot supports directly booting a 32-bit or 64-bit
38 Linux kernel as part of a FIT image. It also supports a compressed zImage.
39 U-Boot supports loading an x86 VxWorks kernel. Please check README.vxworks
42 Build Instructions for U-Boot as coreboot payload
43 -------------------------------------------------
44 Building U-Boot as a coreboot payload is just like building U-Boot for targets
45 on other architectures, like below:
47 $ make coreboot_defconfig
50 Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot payload for the QEMU board.
51 To build a coreboot payload against another board, you can change the build
52 configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process.
56 (qemu-x86) Board configuration file
57 (qemu-x86_i440fx) Board Device Tree Source (dts) file
58 (0x01920000) Board specific Cache-As-RAM (CAR) address
59 (0x4000) Board specific Cache-As-RAM (CAR) size
61 Change the 'Board configuration file' and 'Board Device Tree Source (dts) file'
62 to point to a new board. You can also change the Cache-As-RAM (CAR) related
63 settings here if the default values do not fit your new board.
65 Build Instructions for U-Boot as main bootloader
66 ------------------------------------------------
68 Intel Edison instructions:
70 Simple you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.bin
72 $ make edison_defconfig
75 Build Instructions for U-Boot as BIOS replacement (bare mode)
76 -------------------------------------------------------------
77 Building a ROM version of U-Boot (hereafter referred to as u-boot.rom) is a
78 little bit tricky, as generally it requires several binary blobs which are not
79 shipped in the U-Boot source tree. Due to this reason, the u-boot.rom build is
80 not turned on by default in the U-Boot source tree. Firstly, you need turn it
81 on by enabling the ROM build either via an environment variable
89 Both tell the Makefile to build u-boot.rom as a target.
93 Chromebook Link specific instructions for bare mode:
95 First, you need the following binary blobs:
97 * descriptor.bin - Intel flash descriptor
98 * me.bin - Intel Management Engine
99 * mrc.bin - Memory Reference Code, which sets up SDRAM
100 * video ROM - sets up the display
102 You can get these binary blobs by:
104 $ git clone http://review.coreboot.org/p/blobs.git
107 Find the following files:
109 * ./mainboard/google/link/descriptor.bin
110 * ./mainboard/google/link/me.bin
111 * ./northbridge/intel/sandybridge/systemagent-r6.bin
113 The 3rd one should be renamed to mrc.bin.
114 As for the video ROM, you can get it here [3] and rename it to vga.bin.
115 Make sure all these binary blobs are put in the board directory.
117 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom:
119 $ make chromebook_link_defconfig
124 Chromebook Samus (2015 Pixel) instructions for bare mode:
126 First, you need the following binary blobs:
128 * descriptor.bin - Intel flash descriptor
129 * me.bin - Intel Management Engine
130 * mrc.bin - Memory Reference Code, which sets up SDRAM
131 * refcode.elf - Additional Reference code
132 * vga.bin - video ROM, which sets up the display
134 If you have a samus you can obtain them from your flash, for example, in
135 developer mode on the Chromebook (use Ctrl-Alt-F2 to obtain a terminal and
139 flashrom -w samus.bin
140 scp samus.bin username@ip_address:/path/to/somewhere
142 If not see the coreboot tree [4] where you can use:
144 bash crosfirmware.sh samus
146 to get the image. There is also an 'extract_blobs.sh' scripts that you can use
147 on the 'coreboot-Google_Samus.*' file to short-circuit some of the below.
149 Then 'ifdtool -x samus.bin' on your development machine will produce:
151 flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin
152 flashregion_1_bios.bin
153 flashregion_2_intel_me.bin
155 Rename flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin to descriptor.bin
156 Rename flashregion_2_intel_me.bin to me.bin
157 You can ignore flashregion_1_bios.bin - it is not used.
159 To get the rest, use 'cbfstool samus.bin print':
161 samus.bin: 8192 kB, bootblocksize 2864, romsize 8388608, offset 0x700000
162 alignment: 64 bytes, architecture: x86
164 Name Offset Type Size
165 cmos_layout.bin 0x700000 cmos_layout 1164
166 pci8086,0406.rom 0x7004c0 optionrom 65536
167 spd.bin 0x710500 (unknown) 4096
168 cpu_microcode_blob.bin 0x711540 microcode 70720
169 fallback/romstage 0x722a00 stage 54210
170 fallback/ramstage 0x72fe00 stage 96382
171 config 0x7476c0 raw 6075
172 fallback/vboot 0x748ec0 stage 15980
173 fallback/refcode 0x74cd80 stage 75578
174 fallback/payload 0x75f500 payload 62878
175 u-boot.dtb 0x76eb00 (unknown) 5318
176 (empty) 0x770000 null 196504
177 mrc.bin 0x79ffc0 (unknown) 222876
178 (empty) 0x7d66c0 null 167320
180 You can extract what you need:
182 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n pci8086,0406.rom -f vga.bin
183 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n fallback/refcode -f refcode.rmod
184 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n mrc.bin -f mrc.bin
185 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n fallback/refcode -f refcode.bin -U
187 Note that the -U flag is only supported by the latest cbfstool. It unpacks
188 and decompresses the stage to produce a coreboot rmodule. This is a simple
189 representation of an ELF file. You need the patch "Support decoding a stage
192 Put all 5 files into board/google/chromebook_samus.
194 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom:
196 $ make chromebook_link_defconfig
199 If you are using em100, then this command will flash write -Boot:
201 em100 -s -d filename.rom -c W25Q64CV -r
205 Intel Crown Bay specific instructions for bare mode:
207 U-Boot support of Intel Crown Bay board [4] relies on a binary blob called
208 Firmware Support Package [5] to perform all the necessary initialization steps
209 as documented in the BIOS Writer Guide, including initialization of the CPU,
210 memory controller, chipset and certain bus interfaces.
212 Download the Intel FSP for Atom E6xx series and Platform Controller Hub EG20T,
213 install it on your host and locate the FSP binary blob. Note this platform
214 also requires a Chipset Micro Code (CMC) state machine binary to be present in
215 the SPI flash where u-boot.rom resides, and this CMC binary blob can be found
216 in this FSP package too.
218 * ./FSP/QUEENSBAY_FSP_GOLD_001_20-DECEMBER-2013.fd
219 * ./Microcode/C0_22211.BIN
221 Rename the first one to fsp.bin and second one to cmc.bin and put them in the
224 Note the FSP release version 001 has a bug which could cause random endless
225 loop during the FspInit call. This bug was published by Intel although Intel
226 did not describe any details. We need manually apply the patch to the FSP
227 binary using any hex editor (eg: bvi). Go to the offset 0x1fcd8 of the FSP
228 binary, change the following five bytes values from orginally E8 42 FF FF FF
231 As for the video ROM, you need manually extract it from the Intel provided
232 BIOS for Crown Bay here [6], using the AMI MMTool [7]. Check PCI option ROM
233 ID 8086:4108, extract and save it as vga.bin in the board directory.
235 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
237 $ make crownbay_defconfig
242 Intel Cougar Canyon 2 specific instructions for bare mode:
244 This uses Intel FSP for 3rd generation Intel Core and Intel Celeron processors
245 with mobile Intel HM76 and QM77 chipsets platform. Download it from Intel FSP
246 website and put the .fd file (CHIEFRIVER_FSP_GOLD_001_09-OCTOBER-2013.fd at the
247 time of writing) in the board directory and rename it to fsp.bin.
249 Now build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
251 $ make cougarcanyon2_defconfig
254 The board has two 8MB SPI flashes mounted, which are called SPI-0 and SPI-1 in
255 the board manual. The SPI-0 flash should have flash descriptor plus ME firmware
256 and SPI-1 flash is used to store U-Boot. For convenience, the complete 8MB SPI-0
257 flash image is included in the FSP package (named Rom00_8M_MB_PPT.bin). Program
258 this image to the SPI-0 flash according to the board manual just once and we are
259 all set. For programming U-Boot we just need to program SPI-1 flash. Since the
260 default u-boot.rom image for this board is set to 2MB, it should be programmed
261 to the last 2MB of the 8MB chip, address range [600000, 7FFFFF].
265 Intel Bay Trail based board instructions for bare mode:
267 This uses as FSP as with Crown Bay, except it is for the Atom E3800 series.
268 Two boards that use this configuration are Bayley Bay and Minnowboard MAX.
269 Download this and get the .fd file (BAYTRAIL_FSP_GOLD_003_16-SEP-2014.fd at
270 the time of writing). Put it in the corresponding board directory and rename
273 Obtain the VGA RAM (Vga.dat at the time of writing) and put it into the same
274 board directory as vga.bin.
276 You still need two more binary blobs. For Bayley Bay, they can be extracted
277 from the sample SPI image provided in the FSP (SPI.bin at the time of writing).
279 $ ./tools/ifdtool -x BayleyBay/SPI.bin
280 $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/bayleybay/descriptor.bin
281 $ cp flashregion_2_intel_me.bin board/intel/bayleybay/me.bin
283 For Minnowboard MAX, we can reuse the same ME firmware above, but for flash
284 descriptor, we need get that somewhere else, as the one above does not seem to
285 work, probably because it is not designed for the Minnowboard MAX. Now download
286 the original firmware image for this board from:
288 http://firmware.intel.com/sites/default/files/2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
292 $ unzip 2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
294 Use ifdtool in the U-Boot tools directory to extract the images from that
297 $ ./tools/ifdtool -x MNW2MAX1.X64.0073.R02.1409160934.bin
299 This will provide the descriptor file - copy this into the correct place:
301 $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
303 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
304 Note: below are examples/information for Minnowboard MAX.
306 $ make minnowmax_defconfig
309 Checksums are as follows (but note that newer versions will invalidate this):
311 $ md5sum -b board/intel/minnowmax/*.bin
312 ffda9a3b94df5b74323afb328d51e6b4 board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
313 69f65b9a580246291d20d08cbef9d7c5 board/intel/minnowmax/fsp.bin
314 894a97d371544ec21de9c3e8e1716c4b board/intel/minnowmax/me.bin
315 a2588537da387da592a27219d56e9962 board/intel/minnowmax/vga.bin
317 The ROM image is broken up into these parts:
319 Offset Description Controlling config
320 ------------------------------------------------------------
321 000000 descriptor.bin Hard-coded to 0 in ifdtool
322 001000 me.bin Set by the descriptor
324 6ef000 Environment CONFIG_ENV_OFFSET
325 6f0000 MRC cache CONFIG_ENABLE_MRC_CACHE
326 700000 u-boot-dtb.bin CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE
327 7b0000 vga.bin CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ADDR
328 7c0000 fsp.bin CONFIG_FSP_ADDR
329 7f8000 <spare> (depends on size of fsp.bin)
330 7ff800 U-Boot 16-bit boot CONFIG_SYS_X86_START16
332 Overall ROM image size is controlled by CONFIG_ROM_SIZE.
334 Note that the debug version of the FSP is bigger in size. If this version
335 is used, CONFIG_FSP_ADDR needs to be configured to 0xfffb0000 instead of
336 the default value 0xfffc0000.
340 Intel Cherry Hill specific instructions for bare mode:
342 This uses Intel FSP for Braswell platform. Download it from Intel FSP website,
343 put the .fd file to the board directory and rename it to fsp.bin.
345 Extract descriptor.bin and me.bin from the original BIOS on the board using
346 ifdtool and put them to the board directory as well.
348 Note the FSP package for Braswell does not ship a traditional legacy VGA BIOS
349 image for the integrated graphics device. Instead a new binary called Video
350 BIOS Table (VBT) is shipped. Put it to the board directory and rename it to
351 vbt.bin if you want graphics support in U-Boot.
353 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
355 $ make cherryhill_defconfig
358 An important note for programming u-boot.rom to the on-board SPI flash is that
359 you need make sure the SPI flash's 'quad enable' bit in its status register
360 matches the settings in the descriptor.bin, otherwise the board won't boot.
362 For the on-board SPI flash MX25U6435F, this can be done by writing 0x40 to the
363 status register by DediProg in: Config > Modify Status Register > Write Status
364 Register(s) > Register1 Value(Hex). This is is a one-time change. Once set, it
365 persists in SPI flash part regardless of the u-boot.rom image burned.
369 Intel Galileo instructions for bare mode:
371 Only one binary blob is needed for Remote Management Unit (RMU) within Intel
372 Quark SoC. Not like FSP, U-Boot does not call into the binary. The binary is
373 needed by the Quark SoC itself.
375 You can get the binary blob from Quark Board Support Package from Intel website:
377 * ./QuarkSocPkg/QuarkNorthCluster/Binary/QuarkMicrocode/RMU.bin
379 Rename the file and put it to the board directory by:
381 $ cp RMU.bin board/intel/galileo/rmu.bin
383 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
385 $ make galileo_defconfig
390 QEMU x86 target instructions for bare mode:
392 To build u-boot.rom for QEMU x86 targets, just simply run
394 $ make qemu-x86_defconfig
397 Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot for the QEMU x86 i440FX
398 board. To build a U-Boot against QEMU x86 Q35 board, you can change the build
399 configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process like below:
401 Device Tree Control --->
403 (qemu-x86_q35) Default Device Tree for DT control
407 For testing U-Boot as the coreboot payload, there are things that need be paid
408 attention to. coreboot supports loading an ELF executable and a 32-bit plain
409 binary, as well as other supported payloads. With the default configuration,
410 U-Boot is set up to use a separate Device Tree Blob (dtb). As of today, the
411 generated u-boot-dtb.bin needs to be packaged by the cbfstool utility (a tool
412 provided by coreboot) manually as coreboot's 'make menuconfig' does not provide
413 this capability yet. The command is as follows:
415 # in the coreboot root directory
416 $ ./build/util/cbfstool/cbfstool build/coreboot.rom add-flat-binary \
417 -f u-boot-dtb.bin -n fallback/payload -c lzma -l 0x1110000 -e 0x1110000
419 Make sure 0x1110000 matches CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE, which is the symbol address
420 of _x86boot_start (in arch/x86/cpu/start.S).
422 If you want to use ELF as the coreboot payload, change U-Boot configuration to
423 use CONFIG_OF_EMBED instead of CONFIG_OF_SEPARATE.
425 To enable video you must enable these options in coreboot:
427 - Set framebuffer graphics resolution (1280x1024 32k-color (1:5:5))
428 - Keep VESA framebuffer
430 And include coreboot_fb.dtsi in your board's device tree source file, like:
432 /include/ "coreboot_fb.dtsi"
434 At present it seems that for Minnowboard Max, coreboot does not pass through
435 the video information correctly (it always says the resolution is 0x0). This
436 works correctly for link though.
438 Note: coreboot framebuffer driver does not work on QEMU. The reason is unknown
439 at this point. Patches are welcome if you figure out anything wrong.
441 Test with QEMU for bare mode
442 ----------------------------
443 QEMU is a fancy emulator that can enable us to test U-Boot without access to
444 a real x86 board. Please make sure your QEMU version is 2.3.0 or above test
445 U-Boot. To launch QEMU with u-boot.rom, call QEMU as follows:
447 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom
449 This will instantiate an emulated x86 board with i440FX and PIIX chipset. QEMU
450 also supports emulating an x86 board with Q35 and ICH9 based chipset, which is
451 also supported by U-Boot. To instantiate such a machine, call QEMU with:
453 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -M q35
455 Note by default QEMU instantiated boards only have 128 MiB system memory. But
456 it is enough to have U-Boot boot and function correctly. You can increase the
457 system memory by pass '-m' parameter to QEMU if you want more memory:
459 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024
461 This creates a board with 1 GiB system memory. Currently U-Boot for QEMU only
462 supports 3 GiB maximum system memory and reserves the last 1 GiB address space
463 for PCI device memory-mapped I/O and other stuff, so the maximum value of '-m'
466 QEMU emulates a graphic card which U-Boot supports. Removing '-nographic' will
467 show QEMU's VGA console window. Note this will disable QEMU's serial output.
468 If you want to check both consoles, use '-serial stdio'.
470 Multicore is also supported by QEMU via '-smp n' where n is the number of cores
471 to instantiate. Note, the maximum supported CPU number in QEMU is 255.
473 The fw_cfg interface in QEMU also provides information about kernel data,
474 initrd, command-line arguments and more. U-Boot supports directly accessing
475 these informtion from fw_cfg interface, which saves the time of loading them
476 from hard disk or network again, through emulated devices. To use it , simply
477 providing them in QEMU command line:
479 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024 -kernel /path/to/bzImage
480 -append 'root=/dev/ram console=ttyS0' -initrd /path/to/initrd -smp 8
482 Note: -initrd and -smp are both optional
484 Then start QEMU, in U-Boot command line use the following U-Boot command to
488 qfw - QEMU firmware interface
492 - list : print firmware(s) currently loaded
493 - cpus : print online cpu number
494 - load <kernel addr> <initrd addr> : load kernel and initrd (if any) and setup for zboot
497 loading kernel to address 01000000 size 5d9d30 initrd 04000000 size 1b1ab50
499 Here the kernel (bzImage) is loaded to 01000000 and initrd is to 04000000. Then,
500 'zboot' can be used to boot the kernel:
502 => zboot 01000000 - 04000000 1b1ab50
504 Updating U-Boot on Edison
505 -------------------------
506 By default Intel Edison boards are shipped with preinstalled heavily
507 patched U-Boot v2014.04. Though it supports DFU which we may be able to
510 1. Prepare u-boot.bin as described in chapter above. You still need one
511 more step (if and only if you have original U-Boot), i.e. run the
514 $ truncate -s %4096 u-boot.bin
516 2. Run your board and interrupt booting to U-Boot console. In the console
519 => run do_force_flash_os
521 3. Wait for few seconds, it will prepare environment variable and runs
522 DFU. Run DFU command from the host system:
524 $ dfu-util -v -d 8087:0a99 --alt u-boot0 -D u-boot.bin
526 4. Return to U-Boot console and following hint. i.e. push Ctrl+C, and
533 Modern CPUs usually require a special bit stream called microcode [8] to be
534 loaded on the processor after power up in order to function properly. U-Boot
535 has already integrated these as hex dumps in the source tree.
539 On a multicore system, U-Boot is executed on the bootstrap processor (BSP).
540 Additional application processors (AP) can be brought up by U-Boot. In order to
541 have an SMP kernel to discover all of the available processors, U-Boot needs to
542 prepare configuration tables which contain the multi-CPUs information before
543 loading the OS kernel. Currently U-Boot supports generating two types of tables
544 for SMP, called Simple Firmware Interface (SFI) [9] and Multi-Processor (MP)
545 [10] tables. The writing of these two tables are controlled by two Kconfig
546 options GENERATE_SFI_TABLE and GENERATE_MP_TABLE.
550 x86 has been converted to use driver model for serial, GPIO, SPI, SPI flash,
551 keyboard, real-time clock, USB. Video is in progress.
555 x86 uses device tree to configure the board thus requires CONFIG_OF_CONTROL to
556 be turned on. Not every device on the board is configured via device tree, but
557 more and more devices will be added as time goes by. Check out the directory
558 arch/x86/dts/ for these device tree source files.
562 In keeping with the U-Boot philosophy of providing functions to check and
563 adjust internal settings, there are several x86-specific commands that may be
566 fsp - Display information about Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP).
567 This is only available on platforms which use FSP, mostly Atom.
568 iod - Display I/O memory
569 iow - Write I/O memory
570 mtrr - List and set the Memory Type Range Registers (MTRR). These are used to
571 tell the CPU whether memory is cacheable and if so the cache write
572 mode to use. U-Boot sets up some reasonable values but you can
573 adjust then with this command.
577 As an example of how to set up your boot flow with U-Boot, here are
578 instructions for starting Ubuntu from U-Boot. These instructions have been
579 tested on Minnowboard MAX with a SATA drive but are equally applicable on
580 other platforms and other media. There are really only four steps and it's a
581 very simple script, but a more detailed explanation is provided here for
584 Note: It is possible to set up U-Boot to boot automatically using syslinux.
585 It could also use the grub.cfg file (/efi/ubuntu/grub.cfg) to obtain the
586 GUID. If you figure these out, please post patches to this README.
588 Firstly, you will need Ubuntu installed on an available disk. It should be
589 possible to make U-Boot start a USB start-up disk but for now let's assume
590 that you used another boot loader to install Ubuntu.
592 Use the U-Boot command line to find the UUID of the partition you want to
593 boot. For example our disk is SCSI device 0:
597 Partition Map for SCSI device 0 -- Partition Type: EFI
599 Part Start LBA End LBA Name
603 1 0x00000800 0x001007ff ""
604 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
605 type: c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
606 guid: 9d02e8e4-4d59-408f-a9b0-fd497bc9291c
607 2 0x00100800 0x037d8fff ""
608 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
609 type: 0fc63daf-8483-4772-8e79-3d69d8477de4
610 guid: 965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059
611 3 0x037d9000 0x03ba27ff ""
612 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
613 type: 0657fd6d-a4ab-43c4-84e5-0933c84b4f4f
614 guid: 2c4282bd-1e82-4bcf-a5ff-51dedbf39f17
617 This shows that your SCSI disk has three partitions. The really long hex
618 strings are called Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs). You can look up the
619 'type' ones here [11]. On this disk the first partition is for EFI and is in
620 VFAT format (DOS/Windows):
628 Partition 2 is 'Linux filesystem data' so that will be our root disk. It is
634 <DIR> 16384 lost+found
657 <SYM> 33 initrd.img.old
660 and if you look in the /boot directory you will see the kernel:
662 => ext2ls scsi 0:2 /boot
667 3381262 System.map-3.13.0-32-generic
668 1162712 abi-3.13.0-32-generic
669 165611 config-3.13.0-32-generic
670 176500 memtest86+.bin
671 178176 memtest86+.elf
672 178680 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
673 5798112 vmlinuz-3.13.0-32-generic
674 165762 config-3.13.0-58-generic
675 1165129 abi-3.13.0-58-generic
676 5823136 vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic
677 19215259 initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic
678 3391763 System.map-3.13.0-58-generic
679 5825048 vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic.efi.signed
680 28304443 initrd.img-3.13.0-32-generic
683 The 'vmlinuz' files contain a packaged Linux kernel. The format is a kind of
684 self-extracting compressed file mixed with some 'setup' configuration data.
685 Despite its size (uncompressed it is >10MB) this only includes a basic set of
686 device drivers, enough to boot on most hardware types.
688 The 'initrd' files contain a RAM disk. This is something that can be loaded
689 into RAM and will appear to Linux like a disk. Ubuntu uses this to hold lots
690 of drivers for whatever hardware you might have. It is loaded before the
691 real root disk is accessed.
693 The numbers after the end of each file are the version. Here it is Linux
694 version 3.13. You can find the source code for this in the Linux tree with
695 the tag v3.13. The '.0' allows for additional Linux releases to fix problems,
696 but normally this is not needed. The '-58' is used by Ubuntu. Each time they
697 release a new kernel they increment this number. New Ubuntu versions might
698 include kernel patches to fix reported bugs. Stable kernels can exist for
699 some years so this number can get quite high.
701 The '.efi.signed' kernel is signed for EFI's secure boot. U-Boot has its own
702 secure boot mechanism - see [12] [13] and cannot read .efi files at present.
704 To boot Ubuntu from U-Boot the steps are as follows:
706 1. Set up the boot arguments. Use the GUID for the partition you want to
709 => setenv bootargs root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro
711 Here root= tells Linux the location of its root disk. The disk is specified
712 by its GUID, using '/dev/disk/by-partuuid/', a Linux path to a 'directory'
713 containing all the GUIDs Linux has found. When it starts up, there will be a
714 file in that directory with this name in it. It is also possible to use a
715 device name here, see later.
717 2. Load the kernel. Since it is an ext2/4 filesystem we can do:
719 => ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic
721 The address 30000000 is arbitrary, but there seem to be problems with using
722 small addresses (sometimes Linux cannot find the ramdisk). This is 48MB into
723 the start of RAM (which is at 0 on x86).
725 3. Load the ramdisk (to 64MB):
727 => ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic
729 4. Start up the kernel. We need to know the size of the ramdisk, but can use
730 a variable for that. U-Boot sets 'filesize' to the size of the last file it
733 => zboot 03000000 0 04000000 ${filesize}
735 Type 'help zboot' if you want to see what the arguments are. U-Boot on x86 is
736 quite verbose when it boots a kernel. You should see these messages from
740 Setup Size = 0x00004400
741 Magic signature found
742 Using boot protocol version 2.0c
743 Linux kernel version 3.13.0-58-generic (buildd@allspice) #97-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 8 02:56:15 UTC 2015
744 Building boot_params at 0x00090000
745 Loading bzImage at address 100000 (5805728 bytes)
746 Magic signature found
747 Initial RAM disk at linear address 0x04000000, size 19215259 bytes
748 Kernel command line: "root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro"
752 U-Boot prints out some bootstage timing. This is more useful if you put the
753 above commands into a script since then it will be faster.
755 Timer summary in microseconds:
758 241,535 241,535 board_init_r
759 2,421,611 2,180,076 id=64
761 2,428,215 6,425 main_loop
762 48,860,584 46,432,369 start_kernel
766 1,422,704 vesa display
768 Now the kernel actually starts: (if you want to examine kernel boot up message
769 on the serial console, append "console=ttyS0,115200" to the kernel command line)
771 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
772 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
773 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
774 [ 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)
775 [ 0.000000] Command line: root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro console=ttyS0,115200
777 It continues for a long time. Along the way you will see it pick up your
780 [ 0.000000] RAMDISK: [mem 0x04000000-0x05253fff]
782 [ 0.788540] Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...
783 [ 1.540111] Freeing initrd memory: 18768K (ffff880004000000 - ffff880005254000)
786 Later it actually starts using it:
788 Begin: Running /scripts/local-premount ... done.
790 You should also see your boot disk turn up:
792 [ 4.357243] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ADATA SP310 5.2 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
793 [ 4.366860] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 62533296 512-byte logical blocks: (32.0 GB/29.8 GiB)
794 [ 4.375677] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
795 [ 4.381859] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
796 [ 4.387452] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
797 [ 4.399535] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
799 Linux has found the three partitions (sda1-3). Mercifully it doesn't print out
800 the GUIDs. In step 1 above we could have used:
802 setenv bootargs root=/dev/sda2 ro
804 instead of the GUID. However if you add another drive to your board the
805 numbering may change whereas the GUIDs will not. So if your boot partition
806 becomes sdb2, it will still boot. For embedded systems where you just want to
807 boot the first disk, you have that option.
809 The last thing you will see on the console is mention of plymouth (which
810 displays the Ubuntu start-up screen) and a lot of 'Starting' messages:
812 * Starting Mount filesystems on boot [ OK ]
814 After a pause you should see a login screen on your display and you are done.
816 If you want to put this in a script you can use something like this:
818 setenv bootargs root=UUID=b2aaf743-0418-4d90-94cc-3e6108d7d968 ro
819 setenv boot zboot 03000000 0 04000000 \${filesize}
820 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"
823 The \ is to tell the shell not to evaluate ${filesize} as part of the setenv
826 You can also bake this behaviour into your build by hard-coding the
827 environment variables if you add this to minnowmax.h:
829 #undef CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND
830 #define CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND \
831 "ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic; " \
832 "ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic; " \
835 #undef CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS
836 #define CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS "boot=zboot 03000000 0 04000000 ${filesize}"
838 and change CONFIG_BOOTARGS value in configs/minnowmax_defconfig to:
840 CONFIG_BOOTARGS="root=/dev/sda2 ro"
844 SeaBIOS [14] is an open source implementation of a 16-bit x86 BIOS. It can run
845 in an emulator or natively on x86 hardware with the use of U-Boot. With its
846 help, we can boot some OSes that require 16-bit BIOS services like Windows/DOS.
848 As U-Boot, we have to manually create a table where SeaBIOS gets various system
849 information (eg: E820) from. The table unfortunately has to follow the coreboot
850 table format as SeaBIOS currently supports booting as a coreboot payload.
852 To support loading SeaBIOS, U-Boot should be built with CONFIG_SEABIOS on.
853 Booting SeaBIOS is done via U-Boot's bootelf command, like below:
855 => tftp bios.bin.elf;bootelf
857 TFTP from server 10.10.0.100; our IP address is 10.10.0.108
859 Bytes transferred = 122124 (1dd0c hex)
860 ## Starting application at 0x000ff06e ...
861 SeaBIOS (version rel-1.9.0)
864 bios.bin.elf is the SeaBIOS image built from SeaBIOS source tree.
865 Make sure it is built as follows:
869 Inside the "General Features" menu, select "Build for coreboot" as the
870 "Build Target". Inside the "Debugging" menu, turn on "Serial port debugging"
871 so that we can see something as soon as SeaBIOS boots. Leave other options
872 as in their default state. Then,
876 Total size: 121888 Fixed: 66496 Free: 9184 (used 93.0% of 128KiB rom)
877 Creating out/bios.bin.elf
879 Currently this is tested on QEMU x86 target with U-Boot chain-loading SeaBIOS
880 to install/boot a Windows XP OS (below for example command to install Windows).
882 # Create a 10G disk.img as the virtual hard disk
883 $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 disk.img 10G
885 # Install a Windows XP OS from an ISO image 'winxp.iso'
886 $ qemu-system-i386 -serial stdio -bios u-boot.rom -hda disk.img -cdrom winxp.iso -smp 2 -m 512
888 # Boot a Windows XP OS installed on the virutal hard disk
889 $ qemu-system-i386 -serial stdio -bios u-boot.rom -hda disk.img -smp 2 -m 512
891 This is also tested on Intel Crown Bay board with a PCIe graphics card, booting
892 SeaBIOS then chain-loading a GRUB on a USB drive, then Linux kernel finally.
894 If you are using Intel Integrated Graphics Device (IGD) as the primary display
895 device on your board, SeaBIOS needs to be patched manually to get its VGA ROM
896 loaded and run by SeaBIOS. SeaBIOS locates VGA ROM via the PCI expansion ROM
897 register, but IGD device does not have its VGA ROM mapped by this register.
898 Its VGA ROM is packaged as part of u-boot.rom at a configurable flash address
899 which is unknown to SeaBIOS. An example patch is needed for SeaBIOS below:
901 diff --git a/src/optionroms.c b/src/optionroms.c
902 index 65f7fe0..c7b6f5e 100644
903 --- a/src/optionroms.c
904 +++ b/src/optionroms.c
905 @@ -324,6 +324,8 @@ init_pcirom(struct pci_device *pci, int isvga, u64 *sources)
906 rom = deploy_romfile(file);
907 else if (RunPCIroms > 1 || (RunPCIroms == 1 && isvga))
908 rom = map_pcirom(pci);
909 + if (pci->bdf == pci_to_bdf(0, 2, 0))
910 + rom = (struct rom_header *)0xfff90000;
915 Note: the patch above expects IGD device is at PCI b.d.f 0.2.0 and its VGA ROM
916 is at 0xfff90000 which corresponds to CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ADDR on Minnowboard MAX.
917 Change these two accordingly if this is not the case on your board.
921 These notes are for those who want to port U-Boot to a new x86 platform.
923 Since x86 CPUs boot from SPI flash, a SPI flash emulator is a good investment.
924 The Dediprog em100 can be used on Linux. The em100 tool is available here:
926 http://review.coreboot.org/p/em100.git
928 On Minnowboard Max the following command line can be used:
930 sudo em100 -s -p LOW -d u-boot.rom -c W25Q64DW -r
932 A suitable clip for connecting over the SPI flash chip is here:
934 http://www.dediprog.com/pd/programmer-accessories/EM-TC-8
936 This allows you to override the SPI flash contents for development purposes.
937 Typically you can write to the em100 in around 1200ms, considerably faster
938 than programming the real flash device each time. The only important
939 limitation of the em100 is that it only supports SPI bus speeds up to 20MHz.
940 This means that images must be set to boot with that speed. This is an
941 Intel-specific feature - e.g. tools/ifttool has an option to set the SPI
942 speed in the SPI descriptor region.
944 If your chip/board uses an Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP) it is fairly
945 easy to fit it in. You can follow the Minnowboard Max implementation, for
946 example. Hopefully you will just need to create new files similar to those
947 in arch/x86/cpu/baytrail which provide Bay Trail support.
949 If you are not using an FSP you have more freedom and more responsibility.
950 The ivybridge support works this way, although it still uses a ROM for
951 graphics and still has binary blobs containing Intel code. You should aim to
952 support all important peripherals on your platform including video and storage.
953 Use the device tree for configuration where possible.
955 For the microcode you can create a suitable device tree file using the
958 ./tools/microcode-tool -d microcode.dat -m <model> create
960 or if you only have header files and not the full Intel microcode.dat database:
962 ./tools/microcode-tool -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130673322.h \
963 -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130679901.h \
966 These are written to arch/x86/dts/microcode/ by default.
968 Note that it is possible to just add the micrcode for your CPU if you know its
969 model. U-Boot prints this information when it starts
971 CPU: x86_64, vendor Intel, device 30673h
973 so here we can use the M0130673322 file.
975 If you platform can display POST codes on two little 7-segment displays on
976 the board, then you can use post_code() calls from C or assembler to monitor
977 boot progress. This can be good for debugging.
979 If not, you can try to get serial working as early as possible. The early
980 debug serial port may be useful here. See setup_internal_uart() for an example.
982 During the U-Boot porting, one of the important steps is to write correct PIRQ
983 routing information in the board device tree. Without it, device drivers in the
984 Linux kernel won't function correctly due to interrupt is not working. Please
985 refer to U-Boot doc [15] for the device tree bindings of Intel interrupt router.
986 Here we have more details on the intel,pirq-routing property below.
988 intel,pirq-routing = <
989 PCI_BDF(0, 2, 0) INTA PIRQA
993 As you see each entry has 3 cells. For the first one, we need describe all pci
994 devices mounted on the board. For SoC devices, normally there is a chapter on
995 the chipset datasheet which lists all the available PCI devices. For example on
996 Bay Trail, this is chapter 4.3 (PCI configuration space). For the second one, we
997 can get the interrupt pin either from datasheet or hardware via U-Boot shell.
998 The reliable source is the hardware as sometimes chipset datasheet is not 100%
999 up-to-date. Type 'pci header' plus the device's pci bus/device/function number
1000 from U-Boot shell below.
1002 => pci header 0.1e.1
1006 interrupt line = 0x09
1007 interrupt pin = 0x04
1010 It shows this PCI device is using INTD pin as it reports 4 in the interrupt pin
1011 register. Repeat this until you get interrupt pins for all the devices. The last
1012 cell is the PIRQ line which a particular interrupt pin is mapped to. On Intel
1013 chipset, the power-up default mapping is INTA/B/C/D maps to PIRQA/B/C/D. This
1014 can be changed by registers in LPC bridge. So far Intel FSP does not touch those
1015 registers so we can write down the PIRQ according to the default mapping rule.
1017 Once we get the PIRQ routing information in the device tree, the interrupt
1018 allocation and assignment will be done by U-Boot automatically. Now you can
1019 enable CONFIG_GENERATE_PIRQ_TABLE for testing Linux kernel using i8259 PIC and
1020 CONFIG_GENERATE_MP_TABLE for testing Linux kernel using local APIC and I/O APIC.
1022 This script might be useful. If you feed it the output of 'pci long' from
1023 U-Boot then it will generate a device tree fragment with the interrupt
1024 configuration for each device (note it needs gawk 4.0.0):
1026 $ cat console_output |awk '/PCI/ {device=$4} /interrupt line/ {line=$4} \
1027 /interrupt pin/ {pin = $4; if (pin != "0x00" && pin != "0xff") \
1028 {patsplit(device, bdf, "[0-9a-f]+"); \
1029 printf "PCI_BDF(%d, %d, %d) INT%c PIRQ%c\n", strtonum("0x" bdf[1]), \
1030 strtonum("0x" bdf[2]), bdf[3], strtonum(pin) + 64, 64 + strtonum(pin)}}'
1033 PCI_BDF(0, 2, 0) INTA PIRQA
1034 PCI_BDF(0, 3, 0) INTA PIRQA
1040 Quark-specific considerations:
1042 To port U-Boot to other boards based on the Intel Quark SoC, a few things need
1043 to be taken care of. The first important part is the Memory Reference Code (MRC)
1044 parameters. Quark MRC supports memory-down configuration only. All these MRC
1045 parameters are supplied via the board device tree. To get started, first copy
1046 the MRC section of arch/x86/dts/galileo.dts to your board's device tree, then
1047 change these values by consulting board manuals or your hardware vendor.
1048 Available MRC parameter values are listed in include/dt-bindings/mrc/quark.h.
1049 The other tricky part is with PCIe. Quark SoC integrates two PCIe root ports,
1050 but by default they are held in reset after power on. In U-Boot, PCIe
1051 initialization is properly handled as per Quark's firmware writer guide.
1052 In your board support codes, you need provide two routines to aid PCIe
1053 initialization, which are board_assert_perst() and board_deassert_perst().
1054 The two routines need implement a board-specific mechanism to assert/deassert
1055 PCIe PERST# pin. Care must be taken that in those routines that any APIs that
1056 may trigger PCI enumeration process are strictly forbidden, as any access to
1057 PCIe root port's configuration registers will cause system hang while it is
1058 held in reset. For more details, check how they are implemented by the Intel
1059 Galileo board support codes in board/intel/galileo/galileo.c.
1063 See scripts/coreboot.sed which can assist with porting coreboot code into
1064 U-Boot drivers. It will not resolve all build errors, but will perform common
1065 transformations. Remember to add attribution to coreboot for new files added
1066 to U-Boot. This should go at the top of each file and list the coreboot
1067 filename where the code originated.
1069 Debugging ACPI issues with Windows:
1071 Windows might cache system information and only detect ACPI changes if you
1072 modify the ACPI table versions. So tweak them liberally when debugging ACPI
1073 issues with Windows.
1077 Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) [16] aims to establish
1078 industry-standard interfaces enabling OS-directed configuration, power
1079 management, and thermal management of mobile, desktop, and server platforms.
1081 Linux can boot without ACPI with "acpi=off" command line parameter, but
1082 with ACPI the kernel gains the capabilities to handle power management.
1083 For Windows, ACPI is a must-have firmware feature since Windows Vista.
1084 CONFIG_GENERATE_ACPI_TABLE is the config option to turn on ACPI support in
1085 U-Boot. This requires Intel ACPI compiler to be installed on your host to
1086 compile ACPI DSDT table written in ASL format to AML format. You can get
1087 the compiler via "apt-get install iasl" if you are on Ubuntu or download
1088 the source from [17] to compile one by yourself.
1090 Current ACPI support in U-Boot is basically complete. More optional features
1091 can be added in the future. The status as of today is:
1093 * Support generating RSDT, XSDT, FACS, FADT, MADT, MCFG tables.
1094 * Support one static DSDT table only, compiled by Intel ACPI compiler.
1095 * Support S0/S3/S4/S5, reboot and shutdown from OS.
1096 * Support booting a pre-installed Ubuntu distribution via 'zboot' command.
1097 * Support installing and booting Ubuntu 14.04 (or above) from U-Boot with
1098 the help of SeaBIOS using legacy interface (non-UEFI mode).
1099 * Support installing and booting Windows 8.1/10 from U-Boot with the help
1100 of SeaBIOS using legacy interface (non-UEFI mode).
1101 * Support ACPI interrupts with SCI only.
1103 Features that are optional:
1104 * Dynamic AML bytecodes insertion at run-time. We may need this to support
1105 SSDT table generation and DSDT fix up.
1106 * SMI support. Since U-Boot is a modern bootloader, we don't want to bring
1107 those legacy stuff into U-Boot. ACPI spec allows a system that does not
1108 support SMI (a legacy-free system).
1110 ACPI was initially enabled on BayTrail based boards. Testing was done by booting
1111 a pre-installed Ubuntu 14.04 from a SATA drive. Installing Ubuntu 14.04 and
1112 Windows 8.1/10 to a SATA drive and booting from there is also tested. Most
1113 devices seem to work correctly and the board can respond a reboot/shutdown
1114 command from the OS.
1116 For other platform boards, ACPI support status can be checked by examining their
1117 board defconfig files to see if CONFIG_GENERATE_ACPI_TABLE is set to y.
1119 The S3 sleeping state is a low wake latency sleeping state defined by ACPI
1120 spec where all system context is lost except system memory. To test S3 resume
1121 with a Linux kernel, simply run "echo mem > /sys/power/state" and kernel will
1122 put the board to S3 state where the power is off. So when the power button is
1123 pressed again, U-Boot runs as it does in cold boot and detects the sleeping
1124 state via ACPI register to see if it is S3, if yes it means we are waking up.
1125 U-Boot is responsible for restoring the machine state as it is before sleep.
1126 When everything is done, U-Boot finds out the wakeup vector provided by OSes
1127 and jump there. To determine whether ACPI S3 resume is supported, check to
1128 see if CONFIG_HAVE_ACPI_RESUME is set for that specific board.
1130 Note for testing S3 resume with Windows, correct graphics driver must be
1131 installed for your platform, otherwise you won't find "Sleep" option in
1132 the "Power" submenu from the Windows start menu.
1136 U-Boot supports booting as a 32-bit or 64-bit EFI payload, e.g. with UEFI.
1137 This is enabled with CONFIG_EFI_STUB to boot from both 32-bit and 64-bit
1138 UEFI BIOS. U-Boot can also run as an EFI application, with CONFIG_EFI_APP.
1139 The CONFIG_EFI_LOADER option, where U-Boot provides an EFI environment to
1140 the kernel (i.e. replaces UEFI completely but provides the same EFI run-time
1141 services) is supported too. For example, we can even use 'bootefi' command
1142 to load a 'u-boot-payload.efi', see below test logs on QEMU.
1144 => load ide 0 3000000 u-boot-payload.efi
1145 489787 bytes read in 138 ms (3.4 MiB/s)
1147 Scanning disk ide.blk#0...
1149 WARNING: booting without device tree
1150 ## Starting EFI application at 03000000 ...
1154 U-Boot 2018.07-rc2 (Jun 23 2018 - 17:12:58 +0800)
1156 CPU: x86_64, vendor AMD, device 663h
1160 Model: EFI x86 Payload
1161 Net: e1000: 52:54:00:12:34:56
1163 Warning: e1000#0 using MAC address from ROM
1165 No controllers found
1166 Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
1168 See README.u-boot_on_efi and README.uefi for details of EFI support in U-Boot.
1172 U-Boot supports booting a 64-bit kernel directly and is able to change to
1173 64-bit mode to do so. However, U-Boot itself is currently always built
1174 in 32-bit mode. Some access to the full memory range is provided with
1177 The development work to make U-Boot itself run in 64-bit mode has not yet
1178 been attempted. The best approach would likely be to build a 32-bit SPL
1179 image for U-Boot, with CONFIG_SPL_BUILD. This could then handle the early CPU
1180 init in 16-bit and 32-bit mode, running the FSP and any other binaries that
1181 are needed. Then it could change to 64-bit model and jump to U-Boot proper.
1183 Given U-Boot's extensive 64-bit support this has not been a high priority,
1184 but it would be a nice addition.
1189 - Chrome OS verified boot
1190 - Building U-Boot to run in 64-bit mode
1194 [1] http://www.coreboot.org
1195 [2] http://www.qemu.org
1196 [3] http://www.coreboot.org/~stepan/pci8086,0166.rom
1197 [4] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/design-tools/evaluation-platforms/atom-e660-eg20t-development-kit.html
1198 [5] http://www.intel.com/fsp
1199 [6] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/intelligent-systems/privileged/e6xx-35-b1-cmc22211.html
1200 [7] http://www.ami.com/products/bios-uefi-tools-and-utilities/bios-uefi-utilities/
1201 [8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode
1202 [9] http://simplefirmware.org
1203 [10] http://www.intel.com/design/archives/processors/pro/docs/242016.htm
1204 [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
1205 [12] http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/chromeos_and_diy_vboot_0.pdf
1206 [13] http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/elce-2014.pdf
1207 [14] http://www.seabios.org/SeaBIOS
1208 [15] doc/device-tree-bindings/misc/intel,irq-router.txt
1209 [16] http://www.acpi.info
1210 [17] https://www.acpica.org/downloads