| .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 | |
| =============================================== | |
| RISC-V Kernel Boot Requirements and Constraints | |
| =============================================== | |
| :Author: Alexandre Ghiti <alexghiti@rivosinc.com> | |
| :Date: 23 May 2023 | |
| This document describes what the RISC-V kernel expects from bootloaders and | |
| firmware, and also the constraints that any developer must have in mind when | |
| touching the early boot process. For the purposes of this document, the | |
| ``early boot process`` refers to any code that runs before the final virtual | |
| mapping is set up. | |
| Pre-kernel Requirements and Constraints | |
| ======================================= | |
| The RISC-V kernel expects the following of bootloaders and platform firmware: | |
| Register state | |
| -------------- | |
| The RISC-V kernel expects: | |
| * ``$a0`` to contain the hartid of the current core. | |
| * ``$a1`` to contain the address of the devicetree in memory. | |
| CSR state | |
| --------- | |
| The RISC-V kernel expects: | |
| * ``$satp = 0``: the MMU, if present, must be disabled. | |
| Reserved memory for resident firmware | |
| ------------------------------------- | |
| The RISC-V kernel must not map any resident memory, or memory protected with | |
| PMPs, in the direct mapping, so the firmware must correctly mark those regions | |
| as per the devicetree specification and/or the UEFI specification. | |
| Kernel location | |
| --------------- | |
| The RISC-V kernel expects to be placed at a PMD boundary (2MB aligned for rv64 | |
| and 4MB aligned for rv32). Note that the EFI stub will physically relocate the | |
| kernel if that's not the case. | |
| Hardware description | |
| -------------------- | |
| The firmware can pass either a devicetree or ACPI tables to the RISC-V kernel. | |
| The devicetree is either passed directly to the kernel from the previous stage | |
| using the ``$a1`` register, or when booting with UEFI, it can be passed using the | |
| EFI configuration table. | |
| The ACPI tables are passed to the kernel using the EFI configuration table. In | |
| this case, a tiny devicetree is still created by the EFI stub. Please refer to | |
| "EFI stub and devicetree" section below for details about this devicetree. | |
| Kernel entry | |
| ------------ | |
| On SMP systems, there are 2 methods to enter the kernel: | |
| - ``RISCV_BOOT_SPINWAIT``: the firmware releases all harts in the kernel, one hart | |
| wins a lottery and executes the early boot code while the other harts are | |
| parked waiting for the initialization to finish. This method is mostly used to | |
| support older firmwares without SBI HSM extension and M-mode RISC-V kernel. | |
| - ``Ordered booting``: the firmware releases only one hart that will execute the | |
| initialization phase and then will start all other harts using the SBI HSM | |
| extension. The ordered booting method is the preferred booting method for | |
| booting the RISC-V kernel because it can support CPU hotplug and kexec. | |
| UEFI | |
| ---- | |
| UEFI memory map | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| When booting with UEFI, the RISC-V kernel will use only the EFI memory map to | |
| populate the system memory. | |
| The UEFI firmware must parse the subnodes of the ``/reserved-memory`` devicetree | |
| node and abide by the devicetree specification to convert the attributes of | |
| those subnodes (``no-map`` and ``reusable``) into their correct EFI equivalent | |
| (refer to section "3.5.4 /reserved-memory and UEFI" of the devicetree | |
| specification v0.4-rc1). | |
| RISCV_EFI_BOOT_PROTOCOL | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| When booting with UEFI, the EFI stub requires the boot hartid in order to pass | |
| it to the RISC-V kernel in ``$a1``. The EFI stub retrieves the boot hartid using | |
| one of the following methods: | |
| - ``RISCV_EFI_BOOT_PROTOCOL`` (**preferred**). | |
| - ``boot-hartid`` devicetree subnode (**deprecated**). | |
| Any new firmware must implement ``RISCV_EFI_BOOT_PROTOCOL`` as the devicetree | |
| based approach is deprecated now. | |
| Early Boot Requirements and Constraints | |
| ======================================= | |
| The RISC-V kernel's early boot process operates under the following constraints: | |
| EFI stub and devicetree | |
| ----------------------- | |
| When booting with UEFI, the devicetree is supplemented (or created) by the EFI | |
| stub with the same parameters as arm64 which are described at the paragraph | |
| "UEFI kernel support on ARM" in Documentation/arch/arm/uefi.rst. | |
| Virtual mapping installation | |
| ---------------------------- | |
| The installation of the virtual mapping is done in 2 steps in the RISC-V kernel: | |
| 1. ``setup_vm()`` installs a temporary kernel mapping in ``early_pg_dir`` which | |
| allows discovery of the system memory. Only the kernel text/data are mapped | |
| at this point. When establishing this mapping, no allocation can be done | |
| (since the system memory is not known yet), so ``early_pg_dir`` page table is | |
| statically allocated (using only one table for each level). | |
| 2. ``setup_vm_final()`` creates the final kernel mapping in ``swapper_pg_dir`` | |
| and takes advantage of the discovered system memory to create the linear | |
| mapping. When establishing this mapping, the kernel can allocate memory but | |
| cannot access it directly (since the direct mapping is not present yet), so | |
| it uses temporary mappings in the fixmap region to be able to access the | |
| newly allocated page table levels. | |
| For ``virt_to_phys()`` and ``phys_to_virt()`` to be able to correctly convert | |
| direct mapping addresses to physical addresses, they need to know the start of | |
| the DRAM. This happens after step 1, right before step 2 installs the direct | |
| mapping (see ``setup_bootmem()`` function in arch/riscv/mm/init.c). Any usage of | |
| those macros before the final virtual mapping is installed must be carefully | |
| examined. | |
| Devicetree mapping via fixmap | |
| ----------------------------- | |
| As the ``reserved_mem`` array is initialized with virtual addresses established | |
| by ``setup_vm()``, and used with the mapping established by | |
| ``setup_vm_final()``, the RISC-V kernel uses the fixmap region to map the | |
| devicetree. This ensures that the devicetree remains accessible by both virtual | |
| mappings. | |
| Pre-MMU execution | |
| ----------------- | |
| A few pieces of code need to run before even the first virtual mapping is | |
| established. These are the installation of the first virtual mapping itself, | |
| patching of early alternatives and the early parsing of the kernel command line. | |
| That code must be very carefully compiled as: | |
| - ``-fno-pie``: This is needed for relocatable kernels which use ``-fPIE``, | |
| since otherwise, any access to a global symbol would go through the GOT which | |
| is only relocated virtually. | |
| - ``-mcmodel=medany``: Any access to a global symbol must be PC-relative to | |
| avoid any relocations to happen before the MMU is setup. | |
| - *all* instrumentation must also be disabled (that includes KASAN, ftrace and | |
| others). | |
| As using a symbol from a different compilation unit requires this unit to be | |
| compiled with those flags, we advise, as much as possible, not to use external | |
| symbols. |