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Catalin Marinas9703d9d2012-03-05 11:49:27 +00001 Booting AArch64 Linux
2 =====================
3
4Author: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
5Date : 07 September 2012
6
7This document is based on the ARM booting document by Russell King and
8is relevant to all public releases of the AArch64 Linux kernel.
9
10The AArch64 exception model is made up of a number of exception levels
11(EL0 - EL3), with EL0 and EL1 having a secure and a non-secure
12counterpart. EL2 is the hypervisor level and exists only in non-secure
13mode. EL3 is the highest priority level and exists only in secure mode.
14
15For the purposes of this document, we will use the term `boot loader'
16simply to define all software that executes on the CPU(s) before control
17is passed to the Linux kernel. This may include secure monitor and
18hypervisor code, or it may just be a handful of instructions for
19preparing a minimal boot environment.
20
21Essentially, the boot loader should provide (as a minimum) the
22following:
23
241. Setup and initialise the RAM
252. Setup the device tree
263. Decompress the kernel image
274. Call the kernel image
28
29
301. Setup and initialise RAM
31---------------------------
32
33Requirement: MANDATORY
34
35The boot loader is expected to find and initialise all RAM that the
36kernel will use for volatile data storage in the system. It performs
37this in a machine dependent manner. (It may use internal algorithms
38to automatically locate and size all RAM, or it may use knowledge of
39the RAM in the machine, or any other method the boot loader designer
40sees fit.)
41
42
432. Setup the device tree
44-------------------------
45
46Requirement: MANDATORY
47
48The device tree blob (dtb) must be no bigger than 2 megabytes in size
49and placed at a 2-megabyte boundary within the first 512 megabytes from
50the start of the kernel image. This is to allow the kernel to map the
51blob using a single section mapping in the initial page tables.
52
53
543. Decompress the kernel image
55------------------------------
56
57Requirement: OPTIONAL
58
59The AArch64 kernel does not currently provide a decompressor and
60therefore requires decompression (gzip etc.) to be performed by the boot
61loader if a compressed Image target (e.g. Image.gz) is used. For
62bootloaders that do not implement this requirement, the uncompressed
63Image target is available instead.
64
65
664. Call the kernel image
67------------------------
68
69Requirement: MANDATORY
70
71The decompressed kernel image contains a 32-byte header as follows:
72
73 u32 magic = 0x14000008; /* branch to stext, little-endian */
74 u32 res0 = 0; /* reserved */
75 u64 text_offset; /* Image load offset */
76 u64 res1 = 0; /* reserved */
77 u64 res2 = 0; /* reserved */
78
79The image must be placed at the specified offset (currently 0x80000)
80from the start of the system RAM and called there. The start of the
81system RAM must be aligned to 2MB.
82
83Before jumping into the kernel, the following conditions must be met:
84
85- Quiesce all DMA capable devices so that memory does not get
86 corrupted by bogus network packets or disk data. This will save
87 you many hours of debug.
88
89- Primary CPU general-purpose register settings
90 x0 = physical address of device tree blob (dtb) in system RAM.
91 x1 = 0 (reserved for future use)
92 x2 = 0 (reserved for future use)
93 x3 = 0 (reserved for future use)
94
95- CPU mode
96 All forms of interrupts must be masked in PSTATE.DAIF (Debug, SError,
97 IRQ and FIQ).
98 The CPU must be in either EL2 (RECOMMENDED in order to have access to
99 the virtualisation extensions) or non-secure EL1.
100
101- Caches, MMUs
102 The MMU must be off.
103 Instruction cache may be on or off.
104 Data cache must be off and invalidated.
105 External caches (if present) must be configured and disabled.
106
107- Architected timers
108 CNTFRQ must be programmed with the timer frequency.
109 If entering the kernel at EL1, CNTHCTL_EL2 must have EL1PCTEN (bit 0)
110 set where available.
111
112- Coherency
113 All CPUs to be booted by the kernel must be part of the same coherency
114 domain on entry to the kernel. This may require IMPLEMENTATION DEFINED
115 initialisation to enable the receiving of maintenance operations on
116 each CPU.
117
118- System registers
119 All writable architected system registers at the exception level where
120 the kernel image will be entered must be initialised by software at a
121 higher exception level to prevent execution in an UNKNOWN state.
122
123The boot loader is expected to enter the kernel on each CPU in the
124following manner:
125
126- The primary CPU must jump directly to the first instruction of the
127 kernel image. The device tree blob passed by this CPU must contain
128 for each CPU node:
129
130 1. An 'enable-method' property. Currently, the only supported value
131 for this field is the string "spin-table".
132
133 2. A 'cpu-release-addr' property identifying a 64-bit,
134 zero-initialised memory location.
135
136 It is expected that the bootloader will generate these device tree
137 properties and insert them into the blob prior to kernel entry.
138
139- Any secondary CPUs must spin outside of the kernel in a reserved area
140 of memory (communicated to the kernel by a /memreserve/ region in the
141 device tree) polling their cpu-release-addr location, which must be
142 contained in the reserved region. A wfe instruction may be inserted
143 to reduce the overhead of the busy-loop and a sev will be issued by
144 the primary CPU. When a read of the location pointed to by the
145 cpu-release-addr returns a non-zero value, the CPU must jump directly
146 to this value.
147
148- Secondary CPU general-purpose register settings
149 x0 = 0 (reserved for future use)
150 x1 = 0 (reserved for future use)
151 x2 = 0 (reserved for future use)
152 x3 = 0 (reserved for future use)