1 # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
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.
263 Intel Bay Trail based board instructions for bare mode:
265 This uses as FSP as with Crown Bay, except it is for the Atom E3800 series.
266 Two boards that use this configuration are Bayley Bay and Minnowboard MAX.
267 Download this and get the .fd file (BAYTRAIL_FSP_GOLD_003_16-SEP-2014.fd at
268 the time of writing). Put it in the corresponding board directory and rename
271 Obtain the VGA RAM (Vga.dat at the time of writing) and put it into the same
272 board directory as vga.bin.
274 You still need two more binary blobs. For Bayley Bay, they can be extracted
275 from the sample SPI image provided in the FSP (SPI.bin at the time of writing).
277 $ ./tools/ifdtool -x BayleyBay/SPI.bin
278 $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/bayleybay/descriptor.bin
279 $ cp flashregion_2_intel_me.bin board/intel/bayleybay/me.bin
281 For Minnowboard MAX, we can reuse the same ME firmware above, but for flash
282 descriptor, we need get that somewhere else, as the one above does not seem to
283 work, probably because it is not designed for the Minnowboard MAX. Now download
284 the original firmware image for this board from:
286 http://firmware.intel.com/sites/default/files/2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
290 $ unzip 2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
292 Use ifdtool in the U-Boot tools directory to extract the images from that
295 $ ./tools/ifdtool -x MNW2MAX1.X64.0073.R02.1409160934.bin
297 This will provide the descriptor file - copy this into the correct place:
299 $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
301 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
302 Note: below are examples/information for Minnowboard MAX.
304 $ make minnowmax_defconfig
307 Checksums are as follows (but note that newer versions will invalidate this):
309 $ md5sum -b board/intel/minnowmax/*.bin
310 ffda9a3b94df5b74323afb328d51e6b4 board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
311 69f65b9a580246291d20d08cbef9d7c5 board/intel/minnowmax/fsp.bin
312 894a97d371544ec21de9c3e8e1716c4b board/intel/minnowmax/me.bin
313 a2588537da387da592a27219d56e9962 board/intel/minnowmax/vga.bin
315 The ROM image is broken up into these parts:
317 Offset Description Controlling config
318 ------------------------------------------------------------
319 000000 descriptor.bin Hard-coded to 0 in ifdtool
320 001000 me.bin Set by the descriptor
322 6ef000 Environment CONFIG_ENV_OFFSET
323 6f0000 MRC cache CONFIG_ENABLE_MRC_CACHE
324 700000 u-boot-dtb.bin CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE
325 7b0000 vga.bin CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ADDR
326 7c0000 fsp.bin CONFIG_FSP_ADDR
327 7f8000 <spare> (depends on size of fsp.bin)
328 7ff800 U-Boot 16-bit boot CONFIG_SYS_X86_START16
330 Overall ROM image size is controlled by CONFIG_ROM_SIZE.
332 Note that the debug version of the FSP is bigger in size. If this version
333 is used, CONFIG_FSP_ADDR needs to be configured to 0xfffb0000 instead of
334 the default value 0xfffc0000.
338 Intel Cherry Hill specific instructions for bare mode:
340 This uses Intel FSP for Braswell platform. Download it from Intel FSP website,
341 put the .fd file to the board directory and rename it to fsp.bin.
343 Extract descriptor.bin and me.bin from the original BIOS on the board using
344 ifdtool and put them to the board directory as well.
346 Note the FSP package for Braswell does not ship a traditional legacy VGA BIOS
347 image for the integrated graphics device. Instead a new binary called Video
348 BIOS Table (VBT) is shipped. Put it to the board directory and rename it to
349 vbt.bin if you want graphics support in U-Boot.
351 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
353 $ make cherryhill_defconfig
356 An important note for programming u-boot.rom to the on-board SPI flash is that
357 you need make sure the SPI flash's 'quad enable' bit in its status register
358 matches the settings in the descriptor.bin, otherwise the board won't boot.
360 For the on-board SPI flash MX25U6435F, this can be done by writing 0x40 to the
361 status register by DediProg in: Config > Modify Status Register > Write Status
362 Register(s) > Register1 Value(Hex). This is is a one-time change. Once set, it
363 persists in SPI flash part regardless of the u-boot.rom image burned.
367 Intel Galileo instructions for bare mode:
369 Only one binary blob is needed for Remote Management Unit (RMU) within Intel
370 Quark SoC. Not like FSP, U-Boot does not call into the binary. The binary is
371 needed by the Quark SoC itself.
373 You can get the binary blob from Quark Board Support Package from Intel website:
375 * ./QuarkSocPkg/QuarkNorthCluster/Binary/QuarkMicrocode/RMU.bin
377 Rename the file and put it to the board directory by:
379 $ cp RMU.bin board/intel/galileo/rmu.bin
381 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
383 $ make galileo_defconfig
388 QEMU x86 target instructions for bare mode:
390 To build u-boot.rom for QEMU x86 targets, just simply run
392 $ make qemu-x86_defconfig
395 Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot for the QEMU x86 i440FX
396 board. To build a U-Boot against QEMU x86 Q35 board, you can change the build
397 configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process like below:
399 Device Tree Control --->
401 (qemu-x86_q35) Default Device Tree for DT control
405 For testing U-Boot as the coreboot payload, there are things that need be paid
406 attention to. coreboot supports loading an ELF executable and a 32-bit plain
407 binary, as well as other supported payloads. With the default configuration,
408 U-Boot is set up to use a separate Device Tree Blob (dtb). As of today, the
409 generated u-boot-dtb.bin needs to be packaged by the cbfstool utility (a tool
410 provided by coreboot) manually as coreboot's 'make menuconfig' does not provide
411 this capability yet. The command is as follows:
413 # in the coreboot root directory
414 $ ./build/util/cbfstool/cbfstool build/coreboot.rom add-flat-binary \
415 -f u-boot-dtb.bin -n fallback/payload -c lzma -l 0x1110000 -e 0x1110000
417 Make sure 0x1110000 matches CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE, which is the symbol address
418 of _x86boot_start (in arch/x86/cpu/start.S).
420 If you want to use ELF as the coreboot payload, change U-Boot configuration to
421 use CONFIG_OF_EMBED instead of CONFIG_OF_SEPARATE.
423 To enable video you must enable these options in coreboot:
425 - Set framebuffer graphics resolution (1280x1024 32k-color (1:5:5))
426 - Keep VESA framebuffer
428 And include coreboot_fb.dtsi in your board's device tree source file, like:
430 /include/ "coreboot_fb.dtsi"
432 At present it seems that for Minnowboard Max, coreboot does not pass through
433 the video information correctly (it always says the resolution is 0x0). This
434 works correctly for link though.
436 Note: coreboot framebuffer driver does not work on QEMU. The reason is unknown
437 at this point. Patches are welcome if you figure out anything wrong.
439 Test with QEMU for bare mode
440 ----------------------------
441 QEMU is a fancy emulator that can enable us to test U-Boot without access to
442 a real x86 board. Please make sure your QEMU version is 2.3.0 or above test
443 U-Boot. To launch QEMU with u-boot.rom, call QEMU as follows:
445 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom
447 This will instantiate an emulated x86 board with i440FX and PIIX chipset. QEMU
448 also supports emulating an x86 board with Q35 and ICH9 based chipset, which is
449 also supported by U-Boot. To instantiate such a machine, call QEMU with:
451 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -M q35
453 Note by default QEMU instantiated boards only have 128 MiB system memory. But
454 it is enough to have U-Boot boot and function correctly. You can increase the
455 system memory by pass '-m' parameter to QEMU if you want more memory:
457 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024
459 This creates a board with 1 GiB system memory. Currently U-Boot for QEMU only
460 supports 3 GiB maximum system memory and reserves the last 1 GiB address space
461 for PCI device memory-mapped I/O and other stuff, so the maximum value of '-m'
464 QEMU emulates a graphic card which U-Boot supports. Removing '-nographic' will
465 show QEMU's VGA console window. Note this will disable QEMU's serial output.
466 If you want to check both consoles, use '-serial stdio'.
468 Multicore is also supported by QEMU via '-smp n' where n is the number of cores
469 to instantiate. Note, the maximum supported CPU number in QEMU is 255.
471 The fw_cfg interface in QEMU also provides information about kernel data,
472 initrd, command-line arguments and more. U-Boot supports directly accessing
473 these informtion from fw_cfg interface, which saves the time of loading them
474 from hard disk or network again, through emulated devices. To use it , simply
475 providing them in QEMU command line:
477 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024 -kernel /path/to/bzImage
478 -append 'root=/dev/ram console=ttyS0' -initrd /path/to/initrd -smp 8
480 Note: -initrd and -smp are both optional
482 Then start QEMU, in U-Boot command line use the following U-Boot command to
486 qfw - QEMU firmware interface
490 - list : print firmware(s) currently loaded
491 - cpus : print online cpu number
492 - load <kernel addr> <initrd addr> : load kernel and initrd (if any) and setup for zboot
495 loading kernel to address 01000000 size 5d9d30 initrd 04000000 size 1b1ab50
497 Here the kernel (bzImage) is loaded to 01000000 and initrd is to 04000000. Then,
498 'zboot' can be used to boot the kernel:
500 => zboot 01000000 - 04000000 1b1ab50
502 Updating U-Boot on Edison
503 -------------------------
504 By default Intel Edison boards are shipped with preinstalled heavily
505 patched U-Boot v2014.04. Though it supports DFU which we may be able to
508 1. Prepare u-boot.bin as described in chapter above. You still need one
509 more step (if and only if you have original U-Boot), i.e. run the
512 $ truncate -s %4096 u-boot.bin
514 2. Run your board and interrupt booting to U-Boot console. In the console
517 => run do_force_flash_os
519 3. Wait for few seconds, it will prepare environment variable and runs
520 DFU. Run DFU command from the host system:
522 $ dfu-util -v -d 8087:0a99 --alt u-boot0 -D u-boot.bin
524 4. Return to U-Boot console and following hint. i.e. push Ctrl+C, and
531 Modern CPUs usually require a special bit stream called microcode [8] to be
532 loaded on the processor after power up in order to function properly. U-Boot
533 has already integrated these as hex dumps in the source tree.
537 On a multicore system, U-Boot is executed on the bootstrap processor (BSP).
538 Additional application processors (AP) can be brought up by U-Boot. In order to
539 have an SMP kernel to discover all of the available processors, U-Boot needs to
540 prepare configuration tables which contain the multi-CPUs information before
541 loading the OS kernel. Currently U-Boot supports generating two types of tables
542 for SMP, called Simple Firmware Interface (SFI) [9] and Multi-Processor (MP)
543 [10] tables. The writing of these two tables are controlled by two Kconfig
544 options GENERATE_SFI_TABLE and GENERATE_MP_TABLE.
548 x86 has been converted to use driver model for serial, GPIO, SPI, SPI flash,
549 keyboard, real-time clock, USB. Video is in progress.
553 x86 uses device tree to configure the board thus requires CONFIG_OF_CONTROL to
554 be turned on. Not every device on the board is configured via device tree, but
555 more and more devices will be added as time goes by. Check out the directory
556 arch/x86/dts/ for these device tree source files.
560 In keeping with the U-Boot philosophy of providing functions to check and
561 adjust internal settings, there are several x86-specific commands that may be
564 fsp - Display information about Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP).
565 This is only available on platforms which use FSP, mostly Atom.
566 iod - Display I/O memory
567 iow - Write I/O memory
568 mtrr - List and set the Memory Type Range Registers (MTRR). These are used to
569 tell the CPU whether memory is cacheable and if so the cache write
570 mode to use. U-Boot sets up some reasonable values but you can
571 adjust then with this command.
575 As an example of how to set up your boot flow with U-Boot, here are
576 instructions for starting Ubuntu from U-Boot. These instructions have been
577 tested on Minnowboard MAX with a SATA drive but are equally applicable on
578 other platforms and other media. There are really only four steps and it's a
579 very simple script, but a more detailed explanation is provided here for
582 Note: It is possible to set up U-Boot to boot automatically using syslinux.
583 It could also use the grub.cfg file (/efi/ubuntu/grub.cfg) to obtain the
584 GUID. If you figure these out, please post patches to this README.
586 Firstly, you will need Ubuntu installed on an available disk. It should be
587 possible to make U-Boot start a USB start-up disk but for now let's assume
588 that you used another boot loader to install Ubuntu.
590 Use the U-Boot command line to find the UUID of the partition you want to
591 boot. For example our disk is SCSI device 0:
595 Partition Map for SCSI device 0 -- Partition Type: EFI
597 Part Start LBA End LBA Name
601 1 0x00000800 0x001007ff ""
602 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
603 type: c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
604 guid: 9d02e8e4-4d59-408f-a9b0-fd497bc9291c
605 2 0x00100800 0x037d8fff ""
606 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
607 type: 0fc63daf-8483-4772-8e79-3d69d8477de4
608 guid: 965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059
609 3 0x037d9000 0x03ba27ff ""
610 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
611 type: 0657fd6d-a4ab-43c4-84e5-0933c84b4f4f
612 guid: 2c4282bd-1e82-4bcf-a5ff-51dedbf39f17
615 This shows that your SCSI disk has three partitions. The really long hex
616 strings are called Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs). You can look up the
617 'type' ones here [11]. On this disk the first partition is for EFI and is in
618 VFAT format (DOS/Windows):
626 Partition 2 is 'Linux filesystem data' so that will be our root disk. It is
632 <DIR> 16384 lost+found
655 <SYM> 33 initrd.img.old
658 and if you look in the /boot directory you will see the kernel:
660 => ext2ls scsi 0:2 /boot
665 3381262 System.map-3.13.0-32-generic
666 1162712 abi-3.13.0-32-generic
667 165611 config-3.13.0-32-generic
668 176500 memtest86+.bin
669 178176 memtest86+.elf
670 178680 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
671 5798112 vmlinuz-3.13.0-32-generic
672 165762 config-3.13.0-58-generic
673 1165129 abi-3.13.0-58-generic
674 5823136 vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic
675 19215259 initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic
676 3391763 System.map-3.13.0-58-generic
677 5825048 vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic.efi.signed
678 28304443 initrd.img-3.13.0-32-generic
681 The 'vmlinuz' files contain a packaged Linux kernel. The format is a kind of
682 self-extracting compressed file mixed with some 'setup' configuration data.
683 Despite its size (uncompressed it is >10MB) this only includes a basic set of
684 device drivers, enough to boot on most hardware types.
686 The 'initrd' files contain a RAM disk. This is something that can be loaded
687 into RAM and will appear to Linux like a disk. Ubuntu uses this to hold lots
688 of drivers for whatever hardware you might have. It is loaded before the
689 real root disk is accessed.
691 The numbers after the end of each file are the version. Here it is Linux
692 version 3.13. You can find the source code for this in the Linux tree with
693 the tag v3.13. The '.0' allows for additional Linux releases to fix problems,
694 but normally this is not needed. The '-58' is used by Ubuntu. Each time they
695 release a new kernel they increment this number. New Ubuntu versions might
696 include kernel patches to fix reported bugs. Stable kernels can exist for
697 some years so this number can get quite high.
699 The '.efi.signed' kernel is signed for EFI's secure boot. U-Boot has its own
700 secure boot mechanism - see [12] [13] and cannot read .efi files at present.
702 To boot Ubuntu from U-Boot the steps are as follows:
704 1. Set up the boot arguments. Use the GUID for the partition you want to
707 => setenv bootargs root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro
709 Here root= tells Linux the location of its root disk. The disk is specified
710 by its GUID, using '/dev/disk/by-partuuid/', a Linux path to a 'directory'
711 containing all the GUIDs Linux has found. When it starts up, there will be a
712 file in that directory with this name in it. It is also possible to use a
713 device name here, see later.
715 2. Load the kernel. Since it is an ext2/4 filesystem we can do:
717 => ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic
719 The address 30000000 is arbitrary, but there seem to be problems with using
720 small addresses (sometimes Linux cannot find the ramdisk). This is 48MB into
721 the start of RAM (which is at 0 on x86).
723 3. Load the ramdisk (to 64MB):
725 => ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic
727 4. Start up the kernel. We need to know the size of the ramdisk, but can use
728 a variable for that. U-Boot sets 'filesize' to the size of the last file it
731 => zboot 03000000 0 04000000 ${filesize}
733 Type 'help zboot' if you want to see what the arguments are. U-Boot on x86 is
734 quite verbose when it boots a kernel. You should see these messages from
738 Setup Size = 0x00004400
739 Magic signature found
740 Using boot protocol version 2.0c
741 Linux kernel version 3.13.0-58-generic (buildd@allspice) #97-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 8 02:56:15 UTC 2015
742 Building boot_params at 0x00090000
743 Loading bzImage at address 100000 (5805728 bytes)
744 Magic signature found
745 Initial RAM disk at linear address 0x04000000, size 19215259 bytes
746 Kernel command line: "root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro"
750 U-Boot prints out some bootstage timing. This is more useful if you put the
751 above commands into a script since then it will be faster.
753 Timer summary in microseconds:
756 241,535 241,535 board_init_r
757 2,421,611 2,180,076 id=64
759 2,428,215 6,425 main_loop
760 48,860,584 46,432,369 start_kernel
764 1,422,704 vesa display
766 Now the kernel actually starts: (if you want to examine kernel boot up message
767 on the serial console, append "console=ttyS0,115200" to the kernel command line)
769 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
770 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
771 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
772 [ 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)
773 [ 0.000000] Command line: root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro console=ttyS0,115200
775 It continues for a long time. Along the way you will see it pick up your
778 [ 0.000000] RAMDISK: [mem 0x04000000-0x05253fff]
780 [ 0.788540] Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...
781 [ 1.540111] Freeing initrd memory: 18768K (ffff880004000000 - ffff880005254000)
784 Later it actually starts using it:
786 Begin: Running /scripts/local-premount ... done.
788 You should also see your boot disk turn up:
790 [ 4.357243] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ADATA SP310 5.2 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
791 [ 4.366860] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 62533296 512-byte logical blocks: (32.0 GB/29.8 GiB)
792 [ 4.375677] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
793 [ 4.381859] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
794 [ 4.387452] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
795 [ 4.399535] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
797 Linux has found the three partitions (sda1-3). Mercifully it doesn't print out
798 the GUIDs. In step 1 above we could have used:
800 setenv bootargs root=/dev/sda2 ro
802 instead of the GUID. However if you add another drive to your board the
803 numbering may change whereas the GUIDs will not. So if your boot partition
804 becomes sdb2, it will still boot. For embedded systems where you just want to
805 boot the first disk, you have that option.
807 The last thing you will see on the console is mention of plymouth (which
808 displays the Ubuntu start-up screen) and a lot of 'Starting' messages:
810 * Starting Mount filesystems on boot [ OK ]
812 After a pause you should see a login screen on your display and you are done.
814 If you want to put this in a script you can use something like this:
816 setenv bootargs root=UUID=b2aaf743-0418-4d90-94cc-3e6108d7d968 ro
817 setenv boot zboot 03000000 0 04000000 \${filesize}
818 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"
821 The \ is to tell the shell not to evaluate ${filesize} as part of the setenv
824 You can also bake this behaviour into your build by hard-coding the
825 environment variables if you add this to minnowmax.h:
827 #undef CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND
828 #define CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND \
829 "ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic; " \
830 "ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic; " \
833 #undef CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS
834 #define CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS "boot=zboot 03000000 0 04000000 ${filesize}"
836 and change CONFIG_BOOTARGS value in configs/minnowmax_defconfig to:
838 CONFIG_BOOTARGS="root=/dev/sda2 ro"
842 SeaBIOS [14] is an open source implementation of a 16-bit x86 BIOS. It can run
843 in an emulator or natively on x86 hardware with the use of U-Boot. With its
844 help, we can boot some OSes that require 16-bit BIOS services like Windows/DOS.
846 As U-Boot, we have to manually create a table where SeaBIOS gets various system
847 information (eg: E820) from. The table unfortunately has to follow the coreboot
848 table format as SeaBIOS currently supports booting as a coreboot payload.
850 To support loading SeaBIOS, U-Boot should be built with CONFIG_SEABIOS on.
851 Booting SeaBIOS is done via U-Boot's bootelf command, like below:
853 => tftp bios.bin.elf;bootelf
855 TFTP from server 10.10.0.100; our IP address is 10.10.0.108
857 Bytes transferred = 122124 (1dd0c hex)
858 ## Starting application at 0x000ff06e ...
859 SeaBIOS (version rel-1.9.0)
862 bios.bin.elf is the SeaBIOS image built from SeaBIOS source tree.
863 Make sure it is built as follows:
867 Inside the "General Features" menu, select "Build for coreboot" as the
868 "Build Target". Inside the "Debugging" menu, turn on "Serial port debugging"
869 so that we can see something as soon as SeaBIOS boots. Leave other options
870 as in their default state. Then,
874 Total size: 121888 Fixed: 66496 Free: 9184 (used 93.0% of 128KiB rom)
875 Creating out/bios.bin.elf
877 Currently this is tested on QEMU x86 target with U-Boot chain-loading SeaBIOS
878 to install/boot a Windows XP OS (below for example command to install Windows).
880 # Create a 10G disk.img as the virtual hard disk
881 $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 disk.img 10G
883 # Install a Windows XP OS from an ISO image 'winxp.iso'
884 $ qemu-system-i386 -serial stdio -bios u-boot.rom -hda disk.img -cdrom winxp.iso -smp 2 -m 512
886 # Boot a Windows XP OS installed on the virutal hard disk
887 $ qemu-system-i386 -serial stdio -bios u-boot.rom -hda disk.img -smp 2 -m 512
889 This is also tested on Intel Crown Bay board with a PCIe graphics card, booting
890 SeaBIOS then chain-loading a GRUB on a USB drive, then Linux kernel finally.
892 If you are using Intel Integrated Graphics Device (IGD) as the primary display
893 device on your board, SeaBIOS needs to be patched manually to get its VGA ROM
894 loaded and run by SeaBIOS. SeaBIOS locates VGA ROM via the PCI expansion ROM
895 register, but IGD device does not have its VGA ROM mapped by this register.
896 Its VGA ROM is packaged as part of u-boot.rom at a configurable flash address
897 which is unknown to SeaBIOS. An example patch is needed for SeaBIOS below:
899 diff --git a/src/optionroms.c b/src/optionroms.c
900 index 65f7fe0..c7b6f5e 100644
901 --- a/src/optionroms.c
902 +++ b/src/optionroms.c
903 @@ -324,6 +324,8 @@ init_pcirom(struct pci_device *pci, int isvga, u64 *sources)
904 rom = deploy_romfile(file);
905 else if (RunPCIroms > 1 || (RunPCIroms == 1 && isvga))
906 rom = map_pcirom(pci);
907 + if (pci->bdf == pci_to_bdf(0, 2, 0))
908 + rom = (struct rom_header *)0xfff90000;
913 Note: the patch above expects IGD device is at PCI b.d.f 0.2.0 and its VGA ROM
914 is at 0xfff90000 which corresponds to CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ADDR on Minnowboard MAX.
915 Change these two accordingly if this is not the case on your board.
919 These notes are for those who want to port U-Boot to a new x86 platform.
921 Since x86 CPUs boot from SPI flash, a SPI flash emulator is a good investment.
922 The Dediprog em100 can be used on Linux. The em100 tool is available here:
924 http://review.coreboot.org/p/em100.git
926 On Minnowboard Max the following command line can be used:
928 sudo em100 -s -p LOW -d u-boot.rom -c W25Q64DW -r
930 A suitable clip for connecting over the SPI flash chip is here:
932 http://www.dediprog.com/pd/programmer-accessories/EM-TC-8
934 This allows you to override the SPI flash contents for development purposes.
935 Typically you can write to the em100 in around 1200ms, considerably faster
936 than programming the real flash device each time. The only important
937 limitation of the em100 is that it only supports SPI bus speeds up to 20MHz.
938 This means that images must be set to boot with that speed. This is an
939 Intel-specific feature - e.g. tools/ifttool has an option to set the SPI
940 speed in the SPI descriptor region.
942 If your chip/board uses an Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP) it is fairly
943 easy to fit it in. You can follow the Minnowboard Max implementation, for
944 example. Hopefully you will just need to create new files similar to those
945 in arch/x86/cpu/baytrail which provide Bay Trail support.
947 If you are not using an FSP you have more freedom and more responsibility.
948 The ivybridge support works this way, although it still uses a ROM for
949 graphics and still has binary blobs containing Intel code. You should aim to
950 support all important peripherals on your platform including video and storage.
951 Use the device tree for configuration where possible.
953 For the microcode you can create a suitable device tree file using the
956 ./tools/microcode-tool -d microcode.dat -m <model> create
958 or if you only have header files and not the full Intel microcode.dat database:
960 ./tools/microcode-tool -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130673322.h \
961 -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130679901.h \
964 These are written to arch/x86/dts/microcode/ by default.
966 Note that it is possible to just add the micrcode for your CPU if you know its
967 model. U-Boot prints this information when it starts
969 CPU: x86_64, vendor Intel, device 30673h
971 so here we can use the M0130673322 file.
973 If you platform can display POST codes on two little 7-segment displays on
974 the board, then you can use post_code() calls from C or assembler to monitor
975 boot progress. This can be good for debugging.
977 If not, you can try to get serial working as early as possible. The early
978 debug serial port may be useful here. See setup_internal_uart() for an example.
980 During the U-Boot porting, one of the important steps is to write correct PIRQ
981 routing information in the board device tree. Without it, device drivers in the
982 Linux kernel won't function correctly due to interrupt is not working. Please
983 refer to U-Boot doc [15] for the device tree bindings of Intel interrupt router.
984 Here we have more details on the intel,pirq-routing property below.
986 intel,pirq-routing = <
987 PCI_BDF(0, 2, 0) INTA PIRQA
991 As you see each entry has 3 cells. For the first one, we need describe all pci
992 devices mounted on the board. For SoC devices, normally there is a chapter on
993 the chipset datasheet which lists all the available PCI devices. For example on
994 Bay Trail, this is chapter 4.3 (PCI configuration space). For the second one, we
995 can get the interrupt pin either from datasheet or hardware via U-Boot shell.
996 The reliable source is the hardware as sometimes chipset datasheet is not 100%
997 up-to-date. Type 'pci header' plus the device's pci bus/device/function number
998 from U-Boot shell below.
1000 => pci header 0.1e.1
1004 interrupt line = 0x09
1005 interrupt pin = 0x04
1008 It shows this PCI device is using INTD pin as it reports 4 in the interrupt pin
1009 register. Repeat this until you get interrupt pins for all the devices. The last
1010 cell is the PIRQ line which a particular interrupt pin is mapped to. On Intel
1011 chipset, the power-up default mapping is INTA/B/C/D maps to PIRQA/B/C/D. This
1012 can be changed by registers in LPC bridge. So far Intel FSP does not touch those
1013 registers so we can write down the PIRQ according to the default mapping rule.
1015 Once we get the PIRQ routing information in the device tree, the interrupt
1016 allocation and assignment will be done by U-Boot automatically. Now you can
1017 enable CONFIG_GENERATE_PIRQ_TABLE for testing Linux kernel using i8259 PIC and
1018 CONFIG_GENERATE_MP_TABLE for testing Linux kernel using local APIC and I/O APIC.
1020 This script might be useful. If you feed it the output of 'pci long' from
1021 U-Boot then it will generate a device tree fragment with the interrupt
1022 configuration for each device (note it needs gawk 4.0.0):
1024 $ cat console_output |awk '/PCI/ {device=$4} /interrupt line/ {line=$4} \
1025 /interrupt pin/ {pin = $4; if (pin != "0x00" && pin != "0xff") \
1026 {patsplit(device, bdf, "[0-9a-f]+"); \
1027 printf "PCI_BDF(%d, %d, %d) INT%c PIRQ%c\n", strtonum("0x" bdf[1]), \
1028 strtonum("0x" bdf[2]), bdf[3], strtonum(pin) + 64, 64 + strtonum(pin)}}'
1031 PCI_BDF(0, 2, 0) INTA PIRQA
1032 PCI_BDF(0, 3, 0) INTA PIRQA
1038 Quark-specific considerations:
1040 To port U-Boot to other boards based on the Intel Quark SoC, a few things need
1041 to be taken care of. The first important part is the Memory Reference Code (MRC)
1042 parameters. Quark MRC supports memory-down configuration only. All these MRC
1043 parameters are supplied via the board device tree. To get started, first copy
1044 the MRC section of arch/x86/dts/galileo.dts to your board's device tree, then
1045 change these values by consulting board manuals or your hardware vendor.
1046 Available MRC parameter values are listed in include/dt-bindings/mrc/quark.h.
1047 The other tricky part is with PCIe. Quark SoC integrates two PCIe root ports,
1048 but by default they are held in reset after power on. In U-Boot, PCIe
1049 initialization is properly handled as per Quark's firmware writer guide.
1050 In your board support codes, you need provide two routines to aid PCIe
1051 initialization, which are board_assert_perst() and board_deassert_perst().
1052 The two routines need implement a board-specific mechanism to assert/deassert
1053 PCIe PERST# pin. Care must be taken that in those routines that any APIs that
1054 may trigger PCI enumeration process are strictly forbidden, as any access to
1055 PCIe root port's configuration registers will cause system hang while it is
1056 held in reset. For more details, check how they are implemented by the Intel
1057 Galileo board support codes in board/intel/galileo/galileo.c.
1061 See scripts/coreboot.sed which can assist with porting coreboot code into
1062 U-Boot drivers. It will not resolve all build errors, but will perform common
1063 transformations. Remember to add attribution to coreboot for new files added
1064 to U-Boot. This should go at the top of each file and list the coreboot
1065 filename where the code originated.
1067 Debugging ACPI issues with Windows:
1069 Windows might cache system information and only detect ACPI changes if you
1070 modify the ACPI table versions. So tweak them liberally when debugging ACPI
1071 issues with Windows.
1075 Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) [16] aims to establish
1076 industry-standard interfaces enabling OS-directed configuration, power
1077 management, and thermal management of mobile, desktop, and server platforms.
1079 Linux can boot without ACPI with "acpi=off" command line parameter, but
1080 with ACPI the kernel gains the capabilities to handle power management.
1081 For Windows, ACPI is a must-have firmware feature since Windows Vista.
1082 CONFIG_GENERATE_ACPI_TABLE is the config option to turn on ACPI support in
1083 U-Boot. This requires Intel ACPI compiler to be installed on your host to
1084 compile ACPI DSDT table written in ASL format to AML format. You can get
1085 the compiler via "apt-get install iasl" if you are on Ubuntu or download
1086 the source from [17] to compile one by yourself.
1088 Current ACPI support in U-Boot is basically complete. More optional features
1089 can be added in the future. The status as of today is:
1091 * Support generating RSDT, XSDT, FACS, FADT, MADT, MCFG tables.
1092 * Support one static DSDT table only, compiled by Intel ACPI compiler.
1093 * Support S0/S3/S4/S5, reboot and shutdown from OS.
1094 * Support booting a pre-installed Ubuntu distribution via 'zboot' command.
1095 * Support installing and booting Ubuntu 14.04 (or above) from U-Boot with
1096 the help of SeaBIOS using legacy interface (non-UEFI mode).
1097 * Support installing and booting Windows 8.1/10 from U-Boot with the help
1098 of SeaBIOS using legacy interface (non-UEFI mode).
1099 * Support ACPI interrupts with SCI only.
1101 Features that are optional:
1102 * Dynamic AML bytecodes insertion at run-time. We may need this to support
1103 SSDT table generation and DSDT fix up.
1104 * SMI support. Since U-Boot is a modern bootloader, we don't want to bring
1105 those legacy stuff into U-Boot. ACPI spec allows a system that does not
1106 support SMI (a legacy-free system).
1108 ACPI was initially enabled on BayTrail based boards. Testing was done by booting
1109 a pre-installed Ubuntu 14.04 from a SATA drive. Installing Ubuntu 14.04 and
1110 Windows 8.1/10 to a SATA drive and booting from there is also tested. Most
1111 devices seem to work correctly and the board can respond a reboot/shutdown
1112 command from the OS.
1114 For other platform boards, ACPI support status can be checked by examining their
1115 board defconfig files to see if CONFIG_GENERATE_ACPI_TABLE is set to y.
1117 The S3 sleeping state is a low wake latency sleeping state defined by ACPI
1118 spec where all system context is lost except system memory. To test S3 resume
1119 with a Linux kernel, simply run "echo mem > /sys/power/state" and kernel will
1120 put the board to S3 state where the power is off. So when the power button is
1121 pressed again, U-Boot runs as it does in cold boot and detects the sleeping
1122 state via ACPI register to see if it is S3, if yes it means we are waking up.
1123 U-Boot is responsible for restoring the machine state as it is before sleep.
1124 When everything is done, U-Boot finds out the wakeup vector provided by OSes
1125 and jump there. To determine whether ACPI S3 resume is supported, check to
1126 see if CONFIG_HAVE_ACPI_RESUME is set for that specific board.
1128 Note for testing S3 resume with Windows, correct graphics driver must be
1129 installed for your platform, otherwise you won't find "Sleep" option in
1130 the "Power" submenu from the Windows start menu.
1134 U-Boot supports booting as a 32-bit or 64-bit EFI payload, e.g. with UEFI.
1135 This is enabled with CONFIG_EFI_STUB. U-Boot can also run as an EFI
1136 application, with CONFIG_EFI_APP. The CONFIG_EFI_LOADER option, where U-Booot
1137 provides an EFI environment to the kernel (i.e. replaces UEFI completely but
1138 provides the same EFI run-time services) is not currently supported on x86.
1140 See README.efi for details of EFI support in U-Boot.
1144 U-Boot supports booting a 64-bit kernel directly and is able to change to
1145 64-bit mode to do so. It also supports (with CONFIG_EFI_STUB) booting from
1146 both 32-bit and 64-bit UEFI. However, U-Boot itself is currently always built
1147 in 32-bit mode. Some access to the full memory range is provided with
1150 The development work to make U-Boot itself run in 64-bit mode has not yet
1151 been attempted. The best approach would likely be to build a 32-bit SPL
1152 image for U-Boot, with CONFIG_SPL_BUILD. This could then handle the early CPU
1153 init in 16-bit and 32-bit mode, running the FSP and any other binaries that
1154 are needed. Then it could change to 64-bit model and jump to U-Boot proper.
1156 Given U-Boot's extensive 64-bit support this has not been a high priority,
1157 but it would be a nice addition.
1162 - Chrome OS verified boot
1163 - Building U-Boot to run in 64-bit mode
1167 [1] http://www.coreboot.org
1168 [2] http://www.qemu.org
1169 [3] http://www.coreboot.org/~stepan/pci8086,0166.rom
1170 [4] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/design-tools/evaluation-platforms/atom-e660-eg20t-development-kit.html
1171 [5] http://www.intel.com/fsp
1172 [6] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/intelligent-systems/privileged/e6xx-35-b1-cmc22211.html
1173 [7] http://www.ami.com/products/bios-uefi-tools-and-utilities/bios-uefi-utilities/
1174 [8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode
1175 [9] http://simplefirmware.org
1176 [10] http://www.intel.com/design/archives/processors/pro/docs/242016.htm
1177 [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
1178 [12] http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/chromeos_and_diy_vboot_0.pdf
1179 [13] http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/elce-2014.pdf
1180 [14] http://www.seabios.org/SeaBIOS
1181 [15] doc/device-tree-bindings/misc/intel,irq-router.txt
1182 [16] http://www.acpi.info
1183 [17] https://www.acpica.org/downloads