1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+ */
2 .. Copyright (c) 2014 The Chromium OS Authors.
8 Native Execution of U-Boot
9 --------------------------
11 The 'sandbox' architecture is designed to allow U-Boot to run under Linux on
12 almost any hardware. To achieve this it builds U-Boot (so far as possible)
13 as a normal C application with a main() and normal C libraries.
15 All of U-Boot's architecture-specific code therefore cannot be built as part
16 of the sandbox U-Boot. The purpose of running U-Boot under Linux is to test
17 all the generic code, not specific to any one architecture. The idea is to
18 create unit tests which we can run to test this upper level code.
20 CONFIG_SANDBOX is defined when building a native board.
22 The board name is 'sandbox' but the vendor name is unset, so there is a
23 single board in board/sandbox.
25 CONFIG_SANDBOX_BIG_ENDIAN should be defined when running on big-endian
28 There are two versions of the sandbox: One using 32-bit-wide integers, and one
29 using 64-bit-wide integers. The 32-bit version can be build and run on either
30 32 or 64-bit hosts by either selecting or deselecting CONFIG_SANDBOX_32BIT; by
31 default, the sandbox it built for a 32-bit host. The sandbox using 64-bit-wide
32 integers can only be built on 64-bit hosts.
34 Note that standalone/API support is not available at present.
40 To run sandbox U-Boot use something like::
42 make sandbox_defconfig all
45 Note: If you get errors about 'sdl-config: Command not found' you may need to
46 install libsdl1.2-dev or similar to get SDL support. Alternatively you can
47 build sandbox without SDL (i.e. no display/keyboard support) by removing
48 the CONFIG_SANDBOX_SDL line in include/configs/sandbox.h or using::
50 make sandbox_defconfig all NO_SDL=1
53 U-Boot will start on your computer, showing a sandbox emulation of the serial
56 U-Boot 2014.04 (Mar 20 2014 - 19:06:00)
59 Using default environment
66 You can issue commands as your would normally. If the command you want is
67 not supported you can add it to include/configs/sandbox.h.
69 To exit, type 'reset' or press Ctrl-C.
75 Assuming that CONFIG_SANDBOX_SDL is defined when building, you can run the
76 sandbox with LCD and keyboard emulation, using something like::
78 ./u-boot -d u-boot.dtb -l
80 This will start U-Boot with a window showing the contents of the LCD. If
81 that window has the focus then you will be able to type commands as you
82 would on the console. You can adjust the display settings in the device
83 tree file - see arch/sandbox/dts/sandbox.dts.
89 Various options are available, mostly for test purposes. Use -h to see
90 available options. Some of these are described below.
92 The terminal is normally in what is called 'raw-with-sigs' mode. This means
93 that you can use arrow keys for command editing and history, but if you
94 press Ctrl-C, U-Boot will exit instead of handling this as a keypress.
96 Other options are 'raw' (so Ctrl-C is handled within U-Boot) and 'cooked'
97 (where the terminal is in cooked mode and cursor keys will not work, Ctrl-C
100 As mentioned above, -l causes the LCD emulation window to be shown.
102 A device tree binary file can be provided with -d. If you edit the source
103 (it is stored at arch/sandbox/dts/sandbox.dts) you must rebuild U-Boot to
104 recreate the binary file.
106 To use the default device tree, use -D. To use the test device tree, use -T.
108 To execute commands directly, use the -c option. You can specify a single
109 command, or multiple commands separated by a semicolon, as is normal in
110 U-Boot. Be careful with quoting as the shell will normally process and
111 swallow quotes. When -c is used, U-Boot exits after the command is complete,
112 but you can force it to go to interactive mode instead with -i.
118 Memory emulation is supported, with the size set by CONFIG_SYS_SDRAM_SIZE.
119 The -m option can be used to read memory from a file on start-up and write
120 it when shutting down. This allows preserving of memory contents across
121 test runs. You can tell U-Boot to remove the memory file after it is read
122 (on start-up) with the --rm_memory option.
124 To access U-Boot's emulated memory within the code, use map_sysmem(). This
125 function is used throughout U-Boot to ensure that emulated memory is used
126 rather than the U-Boot application memory. This provides memory starting
127 at 0 and extending to the size of the emulation.
133 With sandbox you can write drivers which emulate the operation of drivers on
134 real devices. Some of these drivers may want to record state which is
135 preserved across U-Boot runs. This is particularly useful for testing. For
136 example, the contents of a SPI flash chip should not disappear just because
139 State is stored in a device tree file in a simple format which is driver-
140 specific. You then use the -s option to specify the state file. Use -r to
141 make U-Boot read the state on start-up (otherwise it starts empty) and -w
142 to write it on exit (otherwise the stored state is left unchanged and any
143 changes U-Boot made will be lost). You can also use -n to tell U-Boot to
144 ignore any problems with missing state. This is useful when first running
145 since the state file will be empty.
147 The device tree file has one node for each driver - the driver can store
148 whatever properties it likes in there. See 'Writing Sandbox Drivers' below
149 for more details on how to get drivers to read and write their state.
155 Since there is no machine architecture, sandbox U-Boot cannot actually boot
156 a kernel, but it does support the bootm command. Filesystems, memory
157 commands, hashing, FIT images, verified boot and many other features are
160 When 'bootm' runs a kernel, sandbox will exit, as U-Boot does on a real
161 machine. Of course in this case, no kernel is run.
163 It is also possible to tell U-Boot that it has jumped from a temporary
164 previous U-Boot binary, with the -j option. That binary is automatically
165 removed by the U-Boot that gets the -j option. This allows you to write
166 tests which emulate the action of chain-loading U-Boot, typically used in
167 a situation where a second 'updatable' U-Boot is stored on your board. It
168 is very risky to overwrite or upgrade the only U-Boot on a board, since a
169 power or other failure will brick the board and require return to the
170 manufacturer in the case of a consumer device.
176 U-Boot sandbox supports these emulations:
181 - Host filesystem (access files on the host from within U-Boot)
183 - Keyboard (Chrome OS)
186 - Serial (for console only)
187 - Sound (incomplete - see sandbox_sdl_sound_init() for details)
190 - TPM (Trusted Platform Module)
192 A wide range of commands are implemented. Filesystems which use a block
193 device are supported.
195 Also sandbox supports driver model (CONFIG_DM) and associated commands.
201 There are unfortunately quite a few variants at present:
204 should be used for most tests
206 special build that forces a 64-bit host
208 builds with dev_read\_...() functions defined as inline.
209 We need this build so that we can test those inline functions, and we
210 cannot build with both the inline functions and the non-inline functions
211 since they are named the same.
213 builds without CONFIG_BLK, which means the legacy block
214 drivers are used. We cannot use both the legacy and driver-model block
215 drivers since they implement the same functions
217 builds sandbox with SPL support, so you can run spl/u-boot-spl
218 and it will start up and then load ./u-boot. It is also possible to
219 run ./u-boot directly.
221 Of these sandbox_noblk can be removed once CONFIG_BLK is used everwhere, and
222 sandbox_spl can probably be removed since it is a superset of sandbox.
224 Most of the config options should be identical between these variants.
227 Linux RAW Networking Bridge
228 ---------------------------
230 The sandbox_eth_raw driver bridges traffic between the bottom of the network
231 stack and the RAW sockets API in Linux. This allows much of the U-Boot network
232 functionality to be tested in sandbox against real network traffic.
234 For Ethernet network adapters, the bridge utilizes the RAW AF_PACKET API. This
235 is needed to get access to the lowest level of the network stack in Linux. This
236 means that all of the Ethernet frame is included. This allows the U-Boot network
237 stack to be fully used. In other words, nothing about the Linux network stack is
238 involved in forming the packets that end up on the wire. To receive the
239 responses to packets sent from U-Boot the network interface has to be set to
240 promiscuous mode so that the network card won't filter out packets not destined
241 for its configured (on Linux) MAC address.
243 The RAW sockets Ethernet API requires elevated privileges in Linux. You can
244 either run as root, or you can add the capability needed like so::
246 sudo /sbin/setcap "CAP_NET_RAW+ep" /path/to/u-boot
248 The default device tree for sandbox includes an entry for eth0 on the sandbox
249 host machine whose alias is "eth1". The following are a few examples of network
250 operations being tested on the eth0 interface.
254 sudo /path/to/u-boot -D
280 setenv serverip WWW.XXX.YYY.ZZZ
283 The bridge also supports (to a lesser extent) the localhost interface, 'lo'.
285 The 'lo' interface cannot use the RAW AF_PACKET API because the lo interface
286 doesn't support Ethernet-level traffic. It is a higher-level interface that is
287 expected only to be used at the AF_INET level of the API. As such, the most raw
288 we can get on that interface is the RAW AF_INET API on UDP. This allows us to
289 set the IP_HDRINCL option to include everything except the Ethernet header in
290 the packets we send and receive.
292 Because only UDP is supported, ICMP traffic will not work, so expect that ping
293 commands will time out.
295 The default device tree for sandbox includes an entry for lo on the sandbox
296 host machine whose alias is "eth5". The following is an example of a network
297 operation being tested on the lo interface.
312 Sandbox supports SPI and SPI flash emulation.
314 This is controlled by the spi_sf argument, the format of which is::
319 cs - SPI chip select number
320 device - SPI device emulation name
321 file - File on disk containing the data
325 dd if=/dev/zero of=spi.bin bs=1M count=4
326 ./u-boot --spi_sf 0:0:M25P16:spi.bin
328 With this setup you can issue SPI flash commands as normal::
331 SF: Detected M25P16 with page size 64 KiB, total 2 MiB
333 SF: 65536 bytes @ 0x0 Read: OK
335 Since this is a full SPI emulation (rather than just flash), you can
336 also use low-level SPI commands::
341 This is issuing a READ_ID command and getting back 20 (ST Micro) part
344 Drivers are connected to a particular bus/cs using sandbox's state
345 structure (see the 'spi' member). A set of operations must be provided
349 Configuration settings for the curious are:
351 CONFIG_SANDBOX_SPI_MAX_BUS:
352 The maximum number of SPI buses supported by the driver (default 1).
354 CONFIG_SANDBOX_SPI_MAX_CS:
355 The maximum number of chip selects supported by the driver (default 10).
358 The idle value on the SPI bus
361 Block Device Emulation
362 ----------------------
364 U-Boot can use raw disk images for block device emulation. To e.g. list
365 the contents of the root directory on the second partion of the image
366 "disk.raw", you can use the following commands::
368 =>host bind 0 ./disk.raw
371 A disk image can be created using the following commands::
373 $> truncate -s 1200M ./disk.raw
374 $> echo -e "label: gpt\n,64M,U\n,,L" | /usr/sbin/sgdisk ./disk.raw
375 $> lodev=`sudo losetup -P -f --show ./disk.raw`
376 $> sudo mkfs.vfat -n EFI -v ${lodev}p1
377 $> sudo mkfs.ext4 -L ROOT -v ${lodev}p2
379 or utilize the device described in test/py/make_test_disk.py::
382 import make_test_disk
383 make_test_disk.makeDisk()
385 Writing Sandbox Drivers
386 -----------------------
388 Generally you should put your driver in a file containing the word 'sandbox'
389 and put it in the same directory as other drivers of its type. You can then
390 implement the same hooks as the other drivers.
392 To access U-Boot's emulated memory, use map_sysmem() as mentioned above.
394 If your driver needs to store configuration or state (such as SPI flash
395 contents or emulated chip registers), you can use the device tree as
396 described above. Define handlers for this with the SANDBOX_STATE_IO macro.
397 See arch/sandbox/include/asm/state.h for documentation. In short you provide
398 a node name, compatible string and functions to read and write the state.
399 Since writing the state can expand the device tree, you may need to use
400 state_setprop() which does this automatically and avoids running out of
401 space. See existing code for examples.
404 Debugging the init sequence
405 ---------------------------
407 If you get a failure in the initcall sequence, like this::
409 initcall sequence 0000560775957c80 failed at call 0000000000048134 (err=-96)
411 Then you use can use grep to see which init call failed, e.g.::
413 $ grep 0000000000048134 u-boot.map
416 Of course another option is to run it with a debugger such as gdb::
420 (gdb) br initcall.h:41
421 Breakpoint 1 at 0x4db9d: initcall.h:41. (2 locations)
423 Note that two locations are reported, since this function is used in both
424 board_init_f() and board_init_r().
429 Starting program: /tmp/b/sandbox/u-boot
430 [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
431 Using host libthread_db library "/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libthread_db.so.1".
433 U-Boot 2018.09-00264-ge0c2ba9814-dirty (Sep 22 2018 - 12:21:46 -0600)
438 Breakpoint 1, initcall_run_list (init_sequence=0x5555559619e0 <init_sequence_f>)
439 at /scratch/sglass/cosarm/src/third_party/u-boot/files/include/initcall.h:41
440 41 printf("initcall sequence %p failed at call %p (err=%d)\n",
441 (gdb) print *init_fnc_ptr
442 $1 = (const init_fnc_t) 0x55555559c114 <stdio_add_devices>
446 This approach can be used on normal boards as well as sandbox.
452 If sdl-config is on a different path from the default, set the SDL_CONFIG
453 environment variable to the correct pathname before building U-Boot.
456 Using valgrind / memcheck
457 -------------------------
459 It is possible to run U-Boot under valgrind to check memory allocations::
463 If you are running sandbox SPL or TPL, then valgrind will not by default
464 notice when U-Boot jumps from TPL to SPL, or from SPL to U-Boot proper. To
467 valgrind --trace-children=yes u-boot
473 U-Boot sandbox can be used to run various tests, mostly in the test/
474 directory. These include:
477 Unit tests for command parsing and handling
479 Unit tests for U-Boot's compression algorithms, useful for
480 security checking. It supports gzip, bzip2, lzma and lzo.
484 ./test/py/test.py --bd sandbox --build -k ut_dm -v
487 Unit tests for images:
488 test/image/test-imagetools.sh - multi-file images
489 test/image/test-fit.py - FIT images
491 test/trace/test-trace.sh tests the tracing system (see README.trace)
493 See test/vboot/vboot_test.sh for this
495 If you change or enhance any of the above subsystems, you shold write or
496 expand a test and include it with your patch series submission. Test
497 coverage in U-Boot is limited, as we need to work to improve it.
499 Note that many of these tests are implemented as commands which you can
500 run natively on your board if desired (and enabled).
502 To run all tests use "make check".
504 To run a single test in an existing sandbox build, you can use -T to use the
505 test device tree, and -c to select the test:
507 /tmp/b/sandbox/u-boot -T -c "ut dm pci_busdev"
509 This runs dm_test_pci_busdev() which is in test/dm/pci.c
515 Sandbox has its own emulated memory starting at 0. Here are some of the things
516 that are mapped into that memory:
518 ======= ======================== ===============================
520 ======= ======================== ===============================
521 0 CONFIG_SYS_FDT_LOAD_ADDR Device tree
522 e000 CONFIG_BLOBLIST_ADDR Blob list
523 10000 CONFIG_MALLOC_F_ADDR Early memory allocation
524 f0000 CONFIG_PRE_CON_BUF_ADDR Pre-console buffer
525 100000 CONFIG_TRACE_EARLY_ADDR Early trace buffer (if enabled)
526 ======= ======================== ===============================