2 # Copyright (C) 2014, Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
3 # Copyright (C) 2014, Bin Meng <bmeng.cn@gmail.com>
5 # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
11 This document describes the information about U-Boot running on x86 targets,
12 including supported boards, build instructions, todo list, etc.
16 U-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
18 work with minimal adjustments on other x86 boards since coreboot deals with
19 most of the low-level details.
21 U-Boot is a main bootloader on Intel Edison board.
23 U-Boot also supports booting directly from x86 reset vector, without coreboot.
24 In this case, known as bare mode, from the fact that it runs on the
25 'bare metal', U-Boot acts like a BIOS replacement. The following platforms
30 - Congatec QEVAL 2.0 & conga-QA3/E3845
34 - Link (Chromebook Pixel)
36 - Samus (Chromebook Pixel 2015)
39 As for loading an OS, U-Boot supports directly booting a 32-bit or 64-bit
40 Linux kernel as part of a FIT image. It also supports a compressed zImage.
41 U-Boot supports loading an x86 VxWorks kernel. Please check README.vxworks
44 Build Instructions for U-Boot as coreboot payload
45 -------------------------------------------------
46 Building U-Boot as a coreboot payload is just like building U-Boot for targets
47 on other architectures, like below:
49 $ make coreboot-x86_defconfig
52 Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot payload for the QEMU board.
53 To build a coreboot payload against another board, you can change the build
54 configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process.
58 (qemu-x86) Board configuration file
59 (qemu-x86_i440fx) Board Device Tree Source (dts) file
60 (0x01920000) Board specific Cache-As-RAM (CAR) address
61 (0x4000) Board specific Cache-As-RAM (CAR) size
63 Change the 'Board configuration file' and 'Board Device Tree Source (dts) file'
64 to point to a new board. You can also change the Cache-As-RAM (CAR) related
65 settings here if the default values do not fit your new board.
67 Build Instructions for U-Boot as main bootloader
68 ------------------------------------------------
70 Intel Edison instructions:
72 Simple you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.bin
74 $ make edison_defconfig
77 Build Instructions for U-Boot as BIOS replacement (bare mode)
78 -------------------------------------------------------------
79 Building a ROM version of U-Boot (hereafter referred to as u-boot.rom) is a
80 little bit tricky, as generally it requires several binary blobs which are not
81 shipped in the U-Boot source tree. Due to this reason, the u-boot.rom build is
82 not turned on by default in the U-Boot source tree. Firstly, you need turn it
83 on by enabling the ROM build:
87 This tells the Makefile to build u-boot.rom as a target.
91 Chromebook Link specific instructions for bare mode:
93 First, you need the following binary blobs:
95 * descriptor.bin - Intel flash descriptor
96 * me.bin - Intel Management Engine
97 * mrc.bin - Memory Reference Code, which sets up SDRAM
98 * video ROM - sets up the display
100 You can get these binary blobs by:
102 $ git clone http://review.coreboot.org/p/blobs.git
105 Find the following files:
107 * ./mainboard/google/link/descriptor.bin
108 * ./mainboard/google/link/me.bin
109 * ./northbridge/intel/sandybridge/systemagent-r6.bin
111 The 3rd one should be renamed to mrc.bin.
112 As for the video ROM, you can get it here [3] and rename it to vga.bin.
113 Make sure all these binary blobs are put in the board directory.
115 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom:
117 $ make chromebook_link_defconfig
122 Chromebook Samus (2015 Pixel) instructions for bare mode:
124 First, you need the following binary blobs:
126 * descriptor.bin - Intel flash descriptor
127 * me.bin - Intel Management Engine
128 * mrc.bin - Memory Reference Code, which sets up SDRAM
129 * refcode.elf - Additional Reference code
130 * vga.bin - video ROM, which sets up the display
132 If you have a samus you can obtain them from your flash, for example, in
133 developer mode on the Chromebook (use Ctrl-Alt-F2 to obtain a terminal and
137 flashrom -w samus.bin
138 scp samus.bin username@ip_address:/path/to/somewhere
140 If not see the coreboot tree [4] where you can use:
142 bash crosfirmware.sh samus
144 to get the image. There is also an 'extract_blobs.sh' scripts that you can use
145 on the 'coreboot-Google_Samus.*' file to short-circuit some of the below.
147 Then 'ifdtool -x samus.bin' on your development machine will produce:
149 flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin
150 flashregion_1_bios.bin
151 flashregion_2_intel_me.bin
153 Rename flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin to descriptor.bin
154 Rename flashregion_2_intel_me.bin to me.bin
155 You can ignore flashregion_1_bios.bin - it is not used.
157 To get the rest, use 'cbfstool samus.bin print':
159 samus.bin: 8192 kB, bootblocksize 2864, romsize 8388608, offset 0x700000
160 alignment: 64 bytes, architecture: x86
162 Name Offset Type Size
163 cmos_layout.bin 0x700000 cmos_layout 1164
164 pci8086,0406.rom 0x7004c0 optionrom 65536
165 spd.bin 0x710500 (unknown) 4096
166 cpu_microcode_blob.bin 0x711540 microcode 70720
167 fallback/romstage 0x722a00 stage 54210
168 fallback/ramstage 0x72fe00 stage 96382
169 config 0x7476c0 raw 6075
170 fallback/vboot 0x748ec0 stage 15980
171 fallback/refcode 0x74cd80 stage 75578
172 fallback/payload 0x75f500 payload 62878
173 u-boot.dtb 0x76eb00 (unknown) 5318
174 (empty) 0x770000 null 196504
175 mrc.bin 0x79ffc0 (unknown) 222876
176 (empty) 0x7d66c0 null 167320
178 You can extract what you need:
180 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n pci8086,0406.rom -f vga.bin
181 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n fallback/refcode -f refcode.rmod
182 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n mrc.bin -f mrc.bin
183 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n fallback/refcode -f refcode.bin -U
185 Note that the -U flag is only supported by the latest cbfstool. It unpacks
186 and decompresses the stage to produce a coreboot rmodule. This is a simple
187 representation of an ELF file. You need the patch "Support decoding a stage
190 Put all 5 files into board/google/chromebook_samus.
192 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom:
194 $ make chromebook_link_defconfig
197 If you are using em100, then this command will flash write -Boot:
199 em100 -s -d filename.rom -c W25Q64CV -r
203 Intel Crown Bay specific instructions for bare mode:
205 U-Boot support of Intel Crown Bay board [4] relies on a binary blob called
206 Firmware Support Package [5] to perform all the necessary initialization steps
207 as documented in the BIOS Writer Guide, including initialization of the CPU,
208 memory controller, chipset and certain bus interfaces.
210 Download the Intel FSP for Atom E6xx series and Platform Controller Hub EG20T,
211 install it on your host and locate the FSP binary blob. Note this platform
212 also requires a Chipset Micro Code (CMC) state machine binary to be present in
213 the SPI flash where u-boot.rom resides, and this CMC binary blob can be found
214 in this FSP package too.
216 * ./FSP/QUEENSBAY_FSP_GOLD_001_20-DECEMBER-2013.fd
217 * ./Microcode/C0_22211.BIN
219 Rename the first one to fsp.bin and second one to cmc.bin and put them in the
222 Note the FSP release version 001 has a bug which could cause random endless
223 loop during the FspInit call. This bug was published by Intel although Intel
224 did not describe any details. We need manually apply the patch to the FSP
225 binary using any hex editor (eg: bvi). Go to the offset 0x1fcd8 of the FSP
226 binary, change the following five bytes values from orginally E8 42 FF FF FF
229 As for the video ROM, you need manually extract it from the Intel provided
230 BIOS for Crown Bay here [6], using the AMI MMTool [7]. Check PCI option ROM
231 ID 8086:4108, extract and save it as vga.bin in the board directory.
233 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
235 $ make crownbay_defconfig
240 Intel Cougar Canyon 2 specific instructions for bare mode:
242 This uses Intel FSP for 3rd generation Intel Core and Intel Celeron processors
243 with mobile Intel HM76 and QM77 chipsets platform. Download it from Intel FSP
244 website and put the .fd file (CHIEFRIVER_FSP_GOLD_001_09-OCTOBER-2013.fd at the
245 time of writing) in the board directory and rename it to fsp.bin.
247 Now build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
249 $ make cougarcanyon2_defconfig
252 The board has two 8MB SPI flashes mounted, which are called SPI-0 and SPI-1 in
253 the board manual. The SPI-0 flash should have flash descriptor plus ME firmware
254 and SPI-1 flash is used to store U-Boot. For convenience, the complete 8MB SPI-0
255 flash image is included in the FSP package (named Rom00_8M_MB_PPT.bin). Program
256 this image to the SPI-0 flash according to the board manual just once and we are
257 all set. For programming U-Boot we just need to program SPI-1 flash.
261 Intel Bay Trail based board instructions for bare mode:
263 This uses as FSP as with Crown Bay, except it is for the Atom E3800 series.
264 Two boards that use this configuration are Bayley Bay and Minnowboard MAX.
265 Download this and get the .fd file (BAYTRAIL_FSP_GOLD_003_16-SEP-2014.fd at
266 the time of writing). Put it in the corresponding board directory and rename
269 Obtain the VGA RAM (Vga.dat at the time of writing) and put it into the same
270 board directory as vga.bin.
272 You still need two more binary blobs. For Bayley Bay, they can be extracted
273 from the sample SPI image provided in the FSP (SPI.bin at the time of writing).
275 $ ./tools/ifdtool -x BayleyBay/SPI.bin
276 $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/bayleybay/descriptor.bin
277 $ cp flashregion_2_intel_me.bin board/intel/bayleybay/me.bin
279 For Minnowboard MAX, we can reuse the same ME firmware above, but for flash
280 descriptor, we need get that somewhere else, as the one above does not seem to
281 work, probably because it is not designed for the Minnowboard MAX. Now download
282 the original firmware image for this board from:
284 http://firmware.intel.com/sites/default/files/2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
288 $ unzip 2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
290 Use ifdtool in the U-Boot tools directory to extract the images from that
293 $ ./tools/ifdtool -x MNW2MAX1.X64.0073.R02.1409160934.bin
295 This will provide the descriptor file - copy this into the correct place:
297 $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
299 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
300 Note: below are examples/information for Minnowboard MAX.
302 $ make minnowmax_defconfig
305 Checksums are as follows (but note that newer versions will invalidate this):
307 $ md5sum -b board/intel/minnowmax/*.bin
308 ffda9a3b94df5b74323afb328d51e6b4 board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
309 69f65b9a580246291d20d08cbef9d7c5 board/intel/minnowmax/fsp.bin
310 894a97d371544ec21de9c3e8e1716c4b board/intel/minnowmax/me.bin
311 a2588537da387da592a27219d56e9962 board/intel/minnowmax/vga.bin
313 The ROM image is broken up into these parts:
315 Offset Description Controlling config
316 ------------------------------------------------------------
317 000000 descriptor.bin Hard-coded to 0 in ifdtool
318 001000 me.bin Set by the descriptor
320 6ef000 Environment CONFIG_ENV_OFFSET
321 6f0000 MRC cache CONFIG_ENABLE_MRC_CACHE
322 700000 u-boot-dtb.bin CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE
323 790000 vga.bin CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ADDR
324 7c0000 fsp.bin CONFIG_FSP_ADDR
325 7f8000 <spare> (depends on size of fsp.bin)
326 7ff800 U-Boot 16-bit boot CONFIG_SYS_X86_START16
328 Overall ROM image size is controlled by CONFIG_ROM_SIZE.
330 Note that the debug version of the FSP is bigger in size. If this version
331 is used, CONFIG_FSP_ADDR needs to be configured to 0xfffb0000 instead of
332 the default value 0xfffc0000.
336 Intel Cherry Hill specific instructions for bare mode:
338 This uses Intel FSP for Braswell platform. Download it from Intel FSP website,
339 put the .fd file to the board directory and rename it to fsp.bin.
341 Extract descriptor.bin and me.bin from the original BIOS on the board using
342 ifdtool and put them to the board directory as well.
344 Note the FSP package for Braswell does not ship a traditional legacy VGA BIOS
345 image for the integrated graphics device. Instead a new binary called Video
346 BIOS Table (VBT) is shipped. Put it to the board directory and rename it to
347 vbt.bin if you want graphics support in U-Boot.
349 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
351 $ make cherryhill_defconfig
354 An important note for programming u-boot.rom to the on-board SPI flash is that
355 you need make sure the SPI flash's 'quad enable' bit in its status register
356 matches the settings in the descriptor.bin, otherwise the board won't boot.
358 For the on-board SPI flash MX25U6435F, this can be done by writing 0x40 to the
359 status register by DediProg in: Config > Modify Status Register > Write Status
360 Register(s) > Register1 Value(Hex). This is is a one-time change. Once set, it
361 persists in SPI flash part regardless of the u-boot.rom image burned.
365 Intel Galileo instructions for bare mode:
367 Only one binary blob is needed for Remote Management Unit (RMU) within Intel
368 Quark SoC. Not like FSP, U-Boot does not call into the binary. The binary is
369 needed by the Quark SoC itself.
371 You can get the binary blob from Quark Board Support Package from Intel website:
373 * ./QuarkSocPkg/QuarkNorthCluster/Binary/QuarkMicrocode/RMU.bin
375 Rename the file and put it to the board directory by:
377 $ cp RMU.bin board/intel/galileo/rmu.bin
379 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
381 $ make galileo_defconfig
386 QEMU x86 target instructions for bare mode:
388 To build u-boot.rom for QEMU x86 targets, just simply run
390 $ make qemu-x86_defconfig
393 Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot for the QEMU x86 i440FX
394 board. To build a U-Boot against QEMU x86 Q35 board, you can change the build
395 configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process like below:
397 Device Tree Control --->
399 (qemu-x86_q35) Default Device Tree for DT control
403 For testing U-Boot as the coreboot payload, there are things that need be paid
404 attention to. coreboot supports loading an ELF executable and a 32-bit plain
405 binary, as well as other supported payloads. With the default configuration,
406 U-Boot is set up to use a separate Device Tree Blob (dtb). As of today, the
407 generated u-boot-dtb.bin needs to be packaged by the cbfstool utility (a tool
408 provided by coreboot) manually as coreboot's 'make menuconfig' does not provide
409 this capability yet. The command is as follows:
411 # in the coreboot root directory
412 $ ./build/util/cbfstool/cbfstool build/coreboot.rom add-flat-binary \
413 -f u-boot-dtb.bin -n fallback/payload -c lzma -l 0x1110000 -e 0x1110000
415 Make sure 0x1110000 matches CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE, which is the symbol address
416 of _x86boot_start (in arch/x86/cpu/start.S).
418 If you want to use ELF as the coreboot payload, change U-Boot configuration to
419 use CONFIG_OF_EMBED instead of CONFIG_OF_SEPARATE.
421 To enable video you must enable these options in coreboot:
423 - Set framebuffer graphics resolution (1280x1024 32k-color (1:5:5))
424 - Keep VESA framebuffer
426 And include coreboot_fb.dtsi in your board's device tree source file, like:
428 /include/ "coreboot_fb.dtsi"
430 At present it seems that for Minnowboard Max, coreboot does not pass through
431 the video information correctly (it always says the resolution is 0x0). This
432 works correctly for link though.
434 Note: coreboot framebuffer driver does not work on QEMU. The reason is unknown
435 at this point. Patches are welcome if you figure out anything wrong.
437 Test with QEMU for bare mode
438 ----------------------------
439 QEMU is a fancy emulator that can enable us to test U-Boot without access to
440 a real x86 board. Please make sure your QEMU version is 2.3.0 or above test
441 U-Boot. To launch QEMU with u-boot.rom, call QEMU as follows:
443 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom
445 This will instantiate an emulated x86 board with i440FX and PIIX chipset. QEMU
446 also supports emulating an x86 board with Q35 and ICH9 based chipset, which is
447 also supported by U-Boot. To instantiate such a machine, call QEMU with:
449 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -M q35
451 Note by default QEMU instantiated boards only have 128 MiB system memory. But
452 it is enough to have U-Boot boot and function correctly. You can increase the
453 system memory by pass '-m' parameter to QEMU if you want more memory:
455 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024
457 This creates a board with 1 GiB system memory. Currently U-Boot for QEMU only
458 supports 3 GiB maximum system memory and reserves the last 1 GiB address space
459 for PCI device memory-mapped I/O and other stuff, so the maximum value of '-m'
462 QEMU emulates a graphic card which U-Boot supports. Removing '-nographic' will
463 show QEMU's VGA console window. Note this will disable QEMU's serial output.
464 If you want to check both consoles, use '-serial stdio'.
466 Multicore is also supported by QEMU via '-smp n' where n is the number of cores
467 to instantiate. Note, the maximum supported CPU number in QEMU is 255.
469 The fw_cfg interface in QEMU also provides information about kernel data,
470 initrd, command-line arguments and more. U-Boot supports directly accessing
471 these informtion from fw_cfg interface, which saves the time of loading them
472 from hard disk or network again, through emulated devices. To use it , simply
473 providing them in QEMU command line:
475 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024 -kernel /path/to/bzImage
476 -append 'root=/dev/ram console=ttyS0' -initrd /path/to/initrd -smp 8
478 Note: -initrd and -smp are both optional
480 Then start QEMU, in U-Boot command line use the following U-Boot command to
484 qfw - QEMU firmware interface
488 - list : print firmware(s) currently loaded
489 - cpus : print online cpu number
490 - load <kernel addr> <initrd addr> : load kernel and initrd (if any) and setup for zboot
493 loading kernel to address 01000000 size 5d9d30 initrd 04000000 size 1b1ab50
495 Here the kernel (bzImage) is loaded to 01000000 and initrd is to 04000000. Then,
496 'zboot' can be used to boot the kernel:
498 => zboot 01000000 - 04000000 1b1ab50
500 Updating U-Boot on Edison
501 -------------------------
502 By default Intel Edison boards are shipped with preinstalled heavily
503 patched U-Boot v2014.04. Though it supports DFU which we may be able to
506 1. Prepare u-boot.bin as described in chapter above. You still need one
507 more step (if and only if you have original U-Boot), i.e. run the
510 $ truncate -s %4096 u-boot.bin
512 2. Run your board and interrupt booting to U-Boot console. In the console
515 => run do_force_flash_os
517 3. Wait for few seconds, it will prepare environment variable and runs
518 DFU. Run DFU command from the host system:
520 $ dfu-util -v -d 8087:0a99 --alt u-boot0 -D u-boot.bin
522 4. Return to U-Boot console and following hint. i.e. push Ctrl+C, and
529 Modern CPUs usually require a special bit stream called microcode [8] to be
530 loaded on the processor after power up in order to function properly. U-Boot
531 has already integrated these as hex dumps in the source tree.
535 On a multicore system, U-Boot is executed on the bootstrap processor (BSP).
536 Additional application processors (AP) can be brought up by U-Boot. In order to
537 have an SMP kernel to discover all of the available processors, U-Boot needs to
538 prepare configuration tables which contain the multi-CPUs information before
539 loading the OS kernel. Currently U-Boot supports generating two types of tables
540 for SMP, called Simple Firmware Interface (SFI) [9] and Multi-Processor (MP)
541 [10] tables. The writing of these two tables are controlled by two Kconfig
542 options GENERATE_SFI_TABLE and GENERATE_MP_TABLE.
546 x86 has been converted to use driver model for serial, GPIO, SPI, SPI flash,
547 keyboard, real-time clock, USB. Video is in progress.
551 x86 uses device tree to configure the board thus requires CONFIG_OF_CONTROL to
552 be turned on. Not every device on the board is configured via device tree, but
553 more and more devices will be added as time goes by. Check out the directory
554 arch/x86/dts/ for these device tree source files.
558 In keeping with the U-Boot philosophy of providing functions to check and
559 adjust internal settings, there are several x86-specific commands that may be
562 fsp - Display information about Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP).
563 This is only available on platforms which use FSP, mostly Atom.
564 iod - Display I/O memory
565 iow - Write I/O memory
566 mtrr - List and set the Memory Type Range Registers (MTRR). These are used to
567 tell the CPU whether memory is cacheable and if so the cache write
568 mode to use. U-Boot sets up some reasonable values but you can
569 adjust then with this command.
573 As an example of how to set up your boot flow with U-Boot, here are
574 instructions for starting Ubuntu from U-Boot. These instructions have been
575 tested on Minnowboard MAX with a SATA drive but are equally applicable on
576 other platforms and other media. There are really only four steps and it's a
577 very simple script, but a more detailed explanation is provided here for
580 Note: It is possible to set up U-Boot to boot automatically using syslinux.
581 It could also use the grub.cfg file (/efi/ubuntu/grub.cfg) to obtain the
582 GUID. If you figure these out, please post patches to this README.
584 Firstly, you will need Ubuntu installed on an available disk. It should be
585 possible to make U-Boot start a USB start-up disk but for now let's assume
586 that you used another boot loader to install Ubuntu.
588 Use the U-Boot command line to find the UUID of the partition you want to
589 boot. For example our disk is SCSI device 0:
593 Partition Map for SCSI device 0 -- Partition Type: EFI
595 Part Start LBA End LBA Name
599 1 0x00000800 0x001007ff ""
600 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
601 type: c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
602 guid: 9d02e8e4-4d59-408f-a9b0-fd497bc9291c
603 2 0x00100800 0x037d8fff ""
604 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
605 type: 0fc63daf-8483-4772-8e79-3d69d8477de4
606 guid: 965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059
607 3 0x037d9000 0x03ba27ff ""
608 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
609 type: 0657fd6d-a4ab-43c4-84e5-0933c84b4f4f
610 guid: 2c4282bd-1e82-4bcf-a5ff-51dedbf39f17
613 This shows that your SCSI disk has three partitions. The really long hex
614 strings are called Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs). You can look up the
615 'type' ones here [11]. On this disk the first partition is for EFI and is in
616 VFAT format (DOS/Windows):
624 Partition 2 is 'Linux filesystem data' so that will be our root disk. It is
630 <DIR> 16384 lost+found
653 <SYM> 33 initrd.img.old
656 and if you look in the /boot directory you will see the kernel:
658 => ext2ls scsi 0:2 /boot
663 3381262 System.map-3.13.0-32-generic
664 1162712 abi-3.13.0-32-generic
665 165611 config-3.13.0-32-generic
666 176500 memtest86+.bin
667 178176 memtest86+.elf
668 178680 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
669 5798112 vmlinuz-3.13.0-32-generic
670 165762 config-3.13.0-58-generic
671 1165129 abi-3.13.0-58-generic
672 5823136 vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic
673 19215259 initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic
674 3391763 System.map-3.13.0-58-generic
675 5825048 vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic.efi.signed
676 28304443 initrd.img-3.13.0-32-generic
679 The 'vmlinuz' files contain a packaged Linux kernel. The format is a kind of
680 self-extracting compressed file mixed with some 'setup' configuration data.
681 Despite its size (uncompressed it is >10MB) this only includes a basic set of
682 device drivers, enough to boot on most hardware types.
684 The 'initrd' files contain a RAM disk. This is something that can be loaded
685 into RAM and will appear to Linux like a disk. Ubuntu uses this to hold lots
686 of drivers for whatever hardware you might have. It is loaded before the
687 real root disk is accessed.
689 The numbers after the end of each file are the version. Here it is Linux
690 version 3.13. You can find the source code for this in the Linux tree with
691 the tag v3.13. The '.0' allows for additional Linux releases to fix problems,
692 but normally this is not needed. The '-58' is used by Ubuntu. Each time they
693 release a new kernel they increment this number. New Ubuntu versions might
694 include kernel patches to fix reported bugs. Stable kernels can exist for
695 some years so this number can get quite high.
697 The '.efi.signed' kernel is signed for EFI's secure boot. U-Boot has its own
698 secure boot mechanism - see [12] [13] and cannot read .efi files at present.
700 To boot Ubuntu from U-Boot the steps are as follows:
702 1. Set up the boot arguments. Use the GUID for the partition you want to
705 => setenv bootargs root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro
707 Here root= tells Linux the location of its root disk. The disk is specified
708 by its GUID, using '/dev/disk/by-partuuid/', a Linux path to a 'directory'
709 containing all the GUIDs Linux has found. When it starts up, there will be a
710 file in that directory with this name in it. It is also possible to use a
711 device name here, see later.
713 2. Load the kernel. Since it is an ext2/4 filesystem we can do:
715 => ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic
717 The address 30000000 is arbitrary, but there seem to be problems with using
718 small addresses (sometimes Linux cannot find the ramdisk). This is 48MB into
719 the start of RAM (which is at 0 on x86).
721 3. Load the ramdisk (to 64MB):
723 => ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic
725 4. Start up the kernel. We need to know the size of the ramdisk, but can use
726 a variable for that. U-Boot sets 'filesize' to the size of the last file it
729 => zboot 03000000 0 04000000 ${filesize}
731 Type 'help zboot' if you want to see what the arguments are. U-Boot on x86 is
732 quite verbose when it boots a kernel. You should see these messages from
736 Setup Size = 0x00004400
737 Magic signature found
738 Using boot protocol version 2.0c
739 Linux kernel version 3.13.0-58-generic (buildd@allspice) #97-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 8 02:56:15 UTC 2015
740 Building boot_params at 0x00090000
741 Loading bzImage at address 100000 (5805728 bytes)
742 Magic signature found
743 Initial RAM disk at linear address 0x04000000, size 19215259 bytes
744 Kernel command line: "root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro"
748 U-Boot prints out some bootstage timing. This is more useful if you put the
749 above commands into a script since then it will be faster.
751 Timer summary in microseconds:
754 241,535 241,535 board_init_r
755 2,421,611 2,180,076 id=64
757 2,428,215 6,425 main_loop
758 48,860,584 46,432,369 start_kernel
762 1,422,704 vesa display
764 Now the kernel actually starts: (if you want to examine kernel boot up message
765 on the serial console, append "console=ttyS0,115200" to the kernel command line)
767 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
768 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
769 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
770 [ 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)
771 [ 0.000000] Command line: root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro console=ttyS0,115200
773 It continues for a long time. Along the way you will see it pick up your
776 [ 0.000000] RAMDISK: [mem 0x04000000-0x05253fff]
778 [ 0.788540] Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...
779 [ 1.540111] Freeing initrd memory: 18768K (ffff880004000000 - ffff880005254000)
782 Later it actually starts using it:
784 Begin: Running /scripts/local-premount ... done.
786 You should also see your boot disk turn up:
788 [ 4.357243] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ADATA SP310 5.2 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
789 [ 4.366860] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 62533296 512-byte logical blocks: (32.0 GB/29.8 GiB)
790 [ 4.375677] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
791 [ 4.381859] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
792 [ 4.387452] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
793 [ 4.399535] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
795 Linux has found the three partitions (sda1-3). Mercifully it doesn't print out
796 the GUIDs. In step 1 above we could have used:
798 setenv bootargs root=/dev/sda2 ro
800 instead of the GUID. However if you add another drive to your board the
801 numbering may change whereas the GUIDs will not. So if your boot partition
802 becomes sdb2, it will still boot. For embedded systems where you just want to
803 boot the first disk, you have that option.
805 The last thing you will see on the console is mention of plymouth (which
806 displays the Ubuntu start-up screen) and a lot of 'Starting' messages:
808 * Starting Mount filesystems on boot [ OK ]
810 After a pause you should see a login screen on your display and you are done.
812 If you want to put this in a script you can use something like this:
814 setenv bootargs root=UUID=b2aaf743-0418-4d90-94cc-3e6108d7d968 ro
815 setenv boot zboot 03000000 0 04000000 \${filesize}
816 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"
819 The \ is to tell the shell not to evaluate ${filesize} as part of the setenv
822 You can also bake this behaviour into your build by hard-coding the
823 environment variables if you add this to minnowmax.h:
825 #undef CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND
826 #define CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND \
827 "ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic; " \
828 "ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic; " \
831 #undef CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS
832 #define CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS "boot=zboot 03000000 0 04000000 ${filesize}"
834 and change CONFIG_BOOTARGS value in configs/minnowmax_defconfig to:
836 CONFIG_BOOTARGS="root=/dev/sda2 ro"
840 SeaBIOS [14] is an open source implementation of a 16-bit x86 BIOS. It can run
841 in an emulator or natively on x86 hardware with the use of U-Boot. With its
842 help, we can boot some OSes that require 16-bit BIOS services like Windows/DOS.
844 As U-Boot, we have to manually create a table where SeaBIOS gets various system
845 information (eg: E820) from. The table unfortunately has to follow the coreboot
846 table format as SeaBIOS currently supports booting as a coreboot payload.
848 To support loading SeaBIOS, U-Boot should be built with CONFIG_SEABIOS on.
849 Booting SeaBIOS is done via U-Boot's bootelf command, like below:
851 => tftp bios.bin.elf;bootelf
853 TFTP from server 10.10.0.100; our IP address is 10.10.0.108
855 Bytes transferred = 122124 (1dd0c hex)
856 ## Starting application at 0x000ff06e ...
857 SeaBIOS (version rel-1.9.0)
860 bios.bin.elf is the SeaBIOS image built from SeaBIOS source tree.
861 Make sure it is built as follows:
865 Inside the "General Features" menu, select "Build for coreboot" as the
866 "Build Target". Inside the "Debugging" menu, turn on "Serial port debugging"
867 so that we can see something as soon as SeaBIOS boots. Leave other options
868 as in their default state. Then,
872 Total size: 121888 Fixed: 66496 Free: 9184 (used 93.0% of 128KiB rom)
873 Creating out/bios.bin.elf
875 Currently this is tested on QEMU x86 target with U-Boot chain-loading SeaBIOS
876 to install/boot a Windows XP OS (below for example command to install Windows).
878 # Create a 10G disk.img as the virtual hard disk
879 $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 disk.img 10G
881 # Install a Windows XP OS from an ISO image 'winxp.iso'
882 $ qemu-system-i386 -serial stdio -bios u-boot.rom -hda disk.img -cdrom winxp.iso -smp 2 -m 512
884 # Boot a Windows XP OS installed on the virutal hard disk
885 $ qemu-system-i386 -serial stdio -bios u-boot.rom -hda disk.img -smp 2 -m 512
887 This is also tested on Intel Crown Bay board with a PCIe graphics card, booting
888 SeaBIOS then chain-loading a GRUB on a USB drive, then Linux kernel finally.
890 If you are using Intel Integrated Graphics Device (IGD) as the primary display
891 device on your board, SeaBIOS needs to be patched manually to get its VGA ROM
892 loaded and run by SeaBIOS. SeaBIOS locates VGA ROM via the PCI expansion ROM
893 register, but IGD device does not have its VGA ROM mapped by this register.
894 Its VGA ROM is packaged as part of u-boot.rom at a configurable flash address
895 which is unknown to SeaBIOS. An example patch is needed for SeaBIOS below:
897 diff --git a/src/optionroms.c b/src/optionroms.c
898 index 65f7fe0..c7b6f5e 100644
899 --- a/src/optionroms.c
900 +++ b/src/optionroms.c
901 @@ -324,6 +324,8 @@ init_pcirom(struct pci_device *pci, int isvga, u64 *sources)
902 rom = deploy_romfile(file);
903 else if (RunPCIroms > 1 || (RunPCIroms == 1 && isvga))
904 rom = map_pcirom(pci);
905 + if (pci->bdf == pci_to_bdf(0, 2, 0))
906 + rom = (struct rom_header *)0xfff90000;
911 Note: the patch above expects IGD device is at PCI b.d.f 0.2.0 and its VGA ROM
912 is at 0xfff90000 which corresponds to CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ADDR on Minnowboard MAX.
913 Change these two accordingly if this is not the case on your board.
917 These notes are for those who want to port U-Boot to a new x86 platform.
919 Since x86 CPUs boot from SPI flash, a SPI flash emulator is a good investment.
920 The Dediprog em100 can be used on Linux. The em100 tool is available here:
922 http://review.coreboot.org/p/em100.git
924 On Minnowboard Max the following command line can be used:
926 sudo em100 -s -p LOW -d u-boot.rom -c W25Q64DW -r
928 A suitable clip for connecting over the SPI flash chip is here:
930 http://www.dediprog.com/pd/programmer-accessories/EM-TC-8
932 This allows you to override the SPI flash contents for development purposes.
933 Typically you can write to the em100 in around 1200ms, considerably faster
934 than programming the real flash device each time. The only important
935 limitation of the em100 is that it only supports SPI bus speeds up to 20MHz.
936 This means that images must be set to boot with that speed. This is an
937 Intel-specific feature - e.g. tools/ifttool has an option to set the SPI
938 speed in the SPI descriptor region.
940 If your chip/board uses an Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP) it is fairly
941 easy to fit it in. You can follow the Minnowboard Max implementation, for
942 example. Hopefully you will just need to create new files similar to those
943 in arch/x86/cpu/baytrail which provide Bay Trail support.
945 If you are not using an FSP you have more freedom and more responsibility.
946 The ivybridge support works this way, although it still uses a ROM for
947 graphics and still has binary blobs containing Intel code. You should aim to
948 support all important peripherals on your platform including video and storage.
949 Use the device tree for configuration where possible.
951 For the microcode you can create a suitable device tree file using the
954 ./tools/microcode-tool -d microcode.dat -m <model> create
956 or if you only have header files and not the full Intel microcode.dat database:
958 ./tools/microcode-tool -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130673322.h \
959 -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130679901.h \
962 These are written to arch/x86/dts/microcode/ by default.
964 Note that it is possible to just add the micrcode for your CPU if you know its
965 model. U-Boot prints this information when it starts
967 CPU: x86_64, vendor Intel, device 30673h
969 so here we can use the M0130673322 file.
971 If you platform can display POST codes on two little 7-segment displays on
972 the board, then you can use post_code() calls from C or assembler to monitor
973 boot progress. This can be good for debugging.
975 If not, you can try to get serial working as early as possible. The early
976 debug serial port may be useful here. See setup_internal_uart() for an example.
978 During the U-Boot porting, one of the important steps is to write correct PIRQ
979 routing information in the board device tree. Without it, device drivers in the
980 Linux kernel won't function correctly due to interrupt is not working. Please
981 refer to U-Boot doc [15] for the device tree bindings of Intel interrupt router.
982 Here we have more details on the intel,pirq-routing property below.
984 intel,pirq-routing = <
985 PCI_BDF(0, 2, 0) INTA PIRQA
989 As you see each entry has 3 cells. For the first one, we need describe all pci
990 devices mounted on the board. For SoC devices, normally there is a chapter on
991 the chipset datasheet which lists all the available PCI devices. For example on
992 Bay Trail, this is chapter 4.3 (PCI configuration space). For the second one, we
993 can get the interrupt pin either from datasheet or hardware via U-Boot shell.
994 The reliable source is the hardware as sometimes chipset datasheet is not 100%
995 up-to-date. Type 'pci header' plus the device's pci bus/device/function number
996 from U-Boot shell below.
1002 interrupt line = 0x09
1003 interrupt pin = 0x04
1006 It shows this PCI device is using INTD pin as it reports 4 in the interrupt pin
1007 register. Repeat this until you get interrupt pins for all the devices. The last
1008 cell is the PIRQ line which a particular interrupt pin is mapped to. On Intel
1009 chipset, the power-up default mapping is INTA/B/C/D maps to PIRQA/B/C/D. This
1010 can be changed by registers in LPC bridge. So far Intel FSP does not touch those
1011 registers so we can write down the PIRQ according to the default mapping rule.
1013 Once we get the PIRQ routing information in the device tree, the interrupt
1014 allocation and assignment will be done by U-Boot automatically. Now you can
1015 enable CONFIG_GENERATE_PIRQ_TABLE for testing Linux kernel using i8259 PIC and
1016 CONFIG_GENERATE_MP_TABLE for testing Linux kernel using local APIC and I/O APIC.
1018 This script might be useful. If you feed it the output of 'pci long' from
1019 U-Boot then it will generate a device tree fragment with the interrupt
1020 configuration for each device (note it needs gawk 4.0.0):
1022 $ cat console_output |awk '/PCI/ {device=$4} /interrupt line/ {line=$4} \
1023 /interrupt pin/ {pin = $4; if (pin != "0x00" && pin != "0xff") \
1024 {patsplit(device, bdf, "[0-9a-f]+"); \
1025 printf "PCI_BDF(%d, %d, %d) INT%c PIRQ%c\n", strtonum("0x" bdf[1]), \
1026 strtonum("0x" bdf[2]), bdf[3], strtonum(pin) + 64, 64 + strtonum(pin)}}'
1029 PCI_BDF(0, 2, 0) INTA PIRQA
1030 PCI_BDF(0, 3, 0) INTA PIRQA
1036 Quark-specific considerations:
1038 To port U-Boot to other boards based on the Intel Quark SoC, a few things need
1039 to be taken care of. The first important part is the Memory Reference Code (MRC)
1040 parameters. Quark MRC supports memory-down configuration only. All these MRC
1041 parameters are supplied via the board device tree. To get started, first copy
1042 the MRC section of arch/x86/dts/galileo.dts to your board's device tree, then
1043 change these values by consulting board manuals or your hardware vendor.
1044 Available MRC parameter values are listed in include/dt-bindings/mrc/quark.h.
1045 The other tricky part is with PCIe. Quark SoC integrates two PCIe root ports,
1046 but by default they are held in reset after power on. In U-Boot, PCIe
1047 initialization is properly handled as per Quark's firmware writer guide.
1048 In your board support codes, you need provide two routines to aid PCIe
1049 initialization, which are board_assert_perst() and board_deassert_perst().
1050 The two routines need implement a board-specific mechanism to assert/deassert
1051 PCIe PERST# pin. Care must be taken that in those routines that any APIs that
1052 may trigger PCI enumeration process are strictly forbidden, as any access to
1053 PCIe root port's configuration registers will cause system hang while it is
1054 held in reset. For more details, check how they are implemented by the Intel
1055 Galileo board support codes in board/intel/galileo/galileo.c.
1059 See scripts/coreboot.sed which can assist with porting coreboot code into
1060 U-Boot drivers. It will not resolve all build errors, but will perform common
1061 transformations. Remember to add attribution to coreboot for new files added
1062 to U-Boot. This should go at the top of each file and list the coreboot
1063 filename where the code originated.
1065 Debugging ACPI issues with Windows:
1067 Windows might cache system information and only detect ACPI changes if you
1068 modify the ACPI table versions. So tweak them liberally when debugging ACPI
1069 issues with Windows.
1073 Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) [16] aims to establish
1074 industry-standard interfaces enabling OS-directed configuration, power
1075 management, and thermal management of mobile, desktop, and server platforms.
1077 Linux can boot without ACPI with "acpi=off" command line parameter, but
1078 with ACPI the kernel gains the capabilities to handle power management.
1079 For Windows, ACPI is a must-have firmware feature since Windows Vista.
1080 CONFIG_GENERATE_ACPI_TABLE is the config option to turn on ACPI support in
1081 U-Boot. This requires Intel ACPI compiler to be installed on your host to
1082 compile ACPI DSDT table written in ASL format to AML format. You can get
1083 the compiler via "apt-get install iasl" if you are on Ubuntu or download
1084 the source from [17] to compile one by yourself.
1086 Current ACPI support in U-Boot is basically complete. More optional features
1087 can be added in the future. The status as of today is:
1089 * Support generating RSDT, XSDT, FACS, FADT, MADT, MCFG tables.
1090 * Support one static DSDT table only, compiled by Intel ACPI compiler.
1091 * Support S0/S3/S4/S5, reboot and shutdown from OS.
1092 * Support booting a pre-installed Ubuntu distribution via 'zboot' command.
1093 * Support installing and booting Ubuntu 14.04 (or above) from U-Boot with
1094 the help of SeaBIOS using legacy interface (non-UEFI mode).
1095 * Support installing and booting Windows 8.1/10 from U-Boot with the help
1096 of SeaBIOS using legacy interface (non-UEFI mode).
1097 * Support ACPI interrupts with SCI only.
1099 Features that are optional:
1100 * Dynamic AML bytecodes insertion at run-time. We may need this to support
1101 SSDT table generation and DSDT fix up.
1102 * SMI support. Since U-Boot is a modern bootloader, we don't want to bring
1103 those legacy stuff into U-Boot. ACPI spec allows a system that does not
1104 support SMI (a legacy-free system).
1106 ACPI was initially enabled on BayTrail based boards. Testing was done by booting
1107 a pre-installed Ubuntu 14.04 from a SATA drive. Installing Ubuntu 14.04 and
1108 Windows 8.1/10 to a SATA drive and booting from there is also tested. Most
1109 devices seem to work correctly and the board can respond a reboot/shutdown
1110 command from the OS.
1112 For other platform boards, ACPI support status can be checked by examining their
1113 board defconfig files to see if CONFIG_GENERATE_ACPI_TABLE is set to y.
1115 The S3 sleeping state is a low wake latency sleeping state defined by ACPI
1116 spec where all system context is lost except system memory. To test S3 resume
1117 with a Linux kernel, simply run "echo mem > /sys/power/state" and kernel will
1118 put the board to S3 state where the power is off. So when the power button is
1119 pressed again, U-Boot runs as it does in cold boot and detects the sleeping
1120 state via ACPI register to see if it is S3, if yes it means we are waking up.
1121 U-Boot is responsible for restoring the machine state as it is before sleep.
1122 When everything is done, U-Boot finds out the wakeup vector provided by OSes
1123 and jump there. To determine whether ACPI S3 resume is supported, check to
1124 see if CONFIG_HAVE_ACPI_RESUME is set for that specific board.
1126 Note for testing S3 resume with Windows, correct graphics driver must be
1127 installed for your platform, otherwise you won't find "Sleep" option in
1128 the "Power" submenu from the Windows start menu.
1132 U-Boot supports booting as a 32-bit or 64-bit EFI payload, e.g. with UEFI.
1133 This is enabled with CONFIG_EFI_STUB. U-Boot can also run as an EFI
1134 application, with CONFIG_EFI_APP. The CONFIG_EFI_LOADER option, where U-Booot
1135 provides an EFI environment to the kernel (i.e. replaces UEFI completely but
1136 provides the same EFI run-time services) is not currently supported on x86.
1138 See README.efi for details of EFI support in U-Boot.
1142 U-Boot supports booting a 64-bit kernel directly and is able to change to
1143 64-bit mode to do so. It also supports (with CONFIG_EFI_STUB) booting from
1144 both 32-bit and 64-bit UEFI. However, U-Boot itself is currently always built
1145 in 32-bit mode. Some access to the full memory range is provided with
1148 The development work to make U-Boot itself run in 64-bit mode has not yet
1149 been attempted. The best approach would likely be to build a 32-bit SPL
1150 image for U-Boot, with CONFIG_SPL_BUILD. This could then handle the early CPU
1151 init in 16-bit and 32-bit mode, running the FSP and any other binaries that
1152 are needed. Then it could change to 64-bit model and jump to U-Boot proper.
1154 Given U-Boot's extensive 64-bit support this has not been a high priority,
1155 but it would be a nice addition.
1160 - Chrome OS verified boot
1161 - Building U-Boot to run in 64-bit mode
1165 [1] http://www.coreboot.org
1166 [2] http://www.qemu.org
1167 [3] http://www.coreboot.org/~stepan/pci8086,0166.rom
1168 [4] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/design-tools/evaluation-platforms/atom-e660-eg20t-development-kit.html
1169 [5] http://www.intel.com/fsp
1170 [6] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/intelligent-systems/privileged/e6xx-35-b1-cmc22211.html
1171 [7] http://www.ami.com/products/bios-uefi-tools-and-utilities/bios-uefi-utilities/
1172 [8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode
1173 [9] http://simplefirmware.org
1174 [10] http://www.intel.com/design/archives/processors/pro/docs/242016.htm
1175 [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
1176 [12] http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/chromeos_and_diy_vboot_0.pdf
1177 [13] http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/elce-2014.pdf
1178 [14] http://www.seabios.org/SeaBIOS
1179 [15] doc/device-tree-bindings/misc/intel,irq-router.txt
1180 [16] http://www.acpi.info
1181 [17] https://www.acpica.org/downloads