Home

Embedded.Linux.Primer

1. bin sh echo Mounting proc mount t proc proc proc echo Starting system loggers syslogd klogd echo Configuring loopback interface ifconfig lo 127 0 0 1 echo Starting inetd xinetd start a shell busybox sh This simple script is mostly self explanatory First it is important to mount the proc file system on its reserved mount point proc This is because many utilities get their information from the proc file system This is explained more fully in Chapter 9 Next we launch the system loggers as early as possible to capture any startup problems Following the system log daemons we configure the local loopback interface for the system Again a number of traditional Linux facilities assume that a loopback interface is present and if your system has support for sockets configured you should enable this pseudo interface The last thing we do before starting a shell is launch the Internet superserver xinetd This program sits in the background listening for network requests on any configured network interfaces For example to initiate a telnet session to the board xinetd intercepts the request for telnet connection and spawns a telnet server to handle the session Instead of starting a shell your own applications can be launched from this rcS initialization script Listing 11 8 is a simple example of a Telnet enabled target board running basic services such as system and k
2. 0022e664 6 74616c 70616765 733a2036 35353336 totalpages 65536 0022e674 0a38c373e 2020444d 41207a6f 6e653a20 lt 7 gt DMA zone 0022e684 36353533 36207061 6765732c 204c4946 65536 pages LIF 0022e694 4 206261 7463683a 33310a8c 373e2020 O batch 31 lt 7 gt gt 0022e6a4 4e6f726d 616c207a 6f6e6538a 20302070 Normal zone 0 0022e6b4 61676573 2c204c49 464f 2062 61746368 pages LIFO batch 0022e6c4 3a310a3c 37362020 48696768 4d656d20 1 lt 7 gt HighMemzone 0022e6d4 7a6f6e65 3a203020 70616765 732c204c O pages 0022e6e4 49464f20 62617463 683a310a 3c343e42 LIFO batch 1 lt 4 gt 0022e6f4 75696cC74 2031207a 6f6e656c 69737473 Built 1 zonelists 0022e704 Oa8c353e 4b65726e 656c2063 6f6d6d61 lt 5 gt Kernel command 0022e714 6e64206c 696e653a 20636f6e 736f6c65 line console 0022e724 3d747479 53302c31 31853230 3020726f ttyS0 115200 0022e734 6 743d2f 6465762f 6e667320 72772069 root dev nfs rw 0022e744 703d6468 63700a8c 3438e5049 44206861 ip dhcp lt 4 gt PID 0022e754 73682074 61626c65 20656e74 72696573 hash table entries 0022e764 3a203230 34382028 6f 726465 723a2031 2048 order 0022e774 312c2033 32373638 20627974 6573290a 11 32768 bytes 0022e784 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 se ssssesssssee 0022e794 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 s sessssssssssse gt It s not very pretty to read but the data is there We can see in this particular example that the kernel crashed someplace after
3. N N N N drwxr xr x 1 27 var Now that we have created the journal file on our Flash module it is effectively formatted as an ext3 file system The next time the system is rebooted or the e2fsck utility is run on the partition containing the newly created ext3 file system the journal file is automatically made invisible Its metadata is stored in a reserved inode set aside for this purpose As long as you can see the journal file it is dangerous to modify or delete this file It is possible and sometimes advantageous to create the journal file on a different device For example if you have more than one physical device on your system you can place your ext3 journaling file system on the first drive and have the journal file on the second drive This method works regardless of whether your physical storage is based on Flash or rotational media To create the journaling file system from an existing ext2 file system with the journal file in a separate partition invoke tune2fs in the following manner tune2fs J device dev sdal j dev sdbl For this to work you must have already formatted the device where the journal is to reside with a journal fileit must be an ext3 file system 9 4 ReiserFS The ReiserFS file system has enjoyed popularity among some desktop distributions such as SuSE and Gentoo As of this writing Reiser4 is the current incarnation of this journaling file system Like the ext3 file system
4. static int debug enable 0 Added driver parameter module_param debug_enable int 0 and these 2 lines MODULE_PARM_DESC debug_enable Enable module debug mode static int __init hello_init void Now print value of new module parameter printk Hello Example Init debug mode is s n debug_enable enabled disabled return 0 static void __exit hello_exit void printk Hello Example Exit n module_init hello_init module_exit hello_exit MODULE_AUTHOR Chris Hallinan MODULE_DESCRIPTION Hello World Example MODULE_LICENSE GPL Three lines have been added to our example device driver module The first declares a static integer to hold our debug flag The second line is a macro defined in include linux moduleparam h that registers the module parameter with the kernel module subsystem The third new line is a macro that registers a string description associated with the parameter with the kernel module subsystem The purpose of this will become clear when we examine the modinfo command later in this chapter If we now use insmod to insert our example module and add the debug_enable option we should see the resulting output based on our modified hellol c module in Listing 8 6 insmod 1ib modules examples hellol ko debug_enable l Hello Example Init debug mode is enabled Or if we omit the optional module parameter insmod 1ib modules
5. which calls a library function outside the standard C libraries To have symbols from these routines available you must satisfy two requirements for GDB e You must have debug versions of the libraries available e GDB must know where to find them If you don t have debug versions of the libraries available you can still debug your application you just won t have any debug information available for library routines called by your application Often this is perfectly acceptable unless of course you are developing a shared library object as part of your embedded project Look back at Listing 15 4 where we invoked GDB on a remote target After GDB connected via the target remote command GDB issued a two line response Remote debugging using 192 168 1 141 2001 0x40000790 in This confirms that GDB connected to our target at the indicated IP address and port GDB then reports the location of the program counter as 0x40000790 Why do we get question marks instead of a symbolic location Because this is the Linux dynamic loader 1d x y z so and on this particular platform we do not have debug symbols available for this shared library How do we know this Recall our introduction of the proc file system from Chapter 9 File Systems One of the more useful entries was the maps enTRy see Listing 9 16 in Chapter 9 in the per process directory structure We know the process ID PID of our target application fr
6. 1ib tls libc so 6 3 Thread 1061 0x400bc714 in nanosleep from opt mv1 1ib tls libc so 6 2 Thread 1060 0x400bc714 in nanosleep from opt mv1 1ib tls libc so 6 1 Thread 1059 Ox400db9cO in read from opt mv1 1ib tls libc so 6 gdb thread 4 lt lt lt Make Thread 4 the current thread Switching to thread 4 Thread 1062 0 Ox400bc714 in nanosleep from opt mv1 1ib tls libc so 6 gdb bt 0 Ox400bc714 in nanosleep from opt mv1 lib tls libc so 6 1 Ox400bc4a4 in __sleep seconds 0x0 at sleep c 137 2 0x00008678 in go_to_sleep duration 0x5 at tdemo c 18 3 0x00008710 in worker_2 job random 0x5 at tdemo c 36 4 0x00008814 in worker_thread threadargs 0x2 at tdemo c 67 5 0x40025244 in start_thread arg Oxfffffdfc at pthread_create c 261 6 Ox400e8fa0 in clone at sysdeps unix sysv linux arm clone S 82 7 Ox400e8fa0 in clone at sysdeps unix sysv linux arm clone S 82 gdb frame 3 3 0x00008710 in worker_2 job random 0x5 at tdemo c 36 36 go_to_sleep random gdb 1 lt lt lt Generate listing of where we are 31 32 33 static void worker_2_joblint random 34 35 printf t2 sleeping for d n random 36 go_to_sleep random 37 38 39 static void worker_3_joblint random 40 gdb A few points are worth mentioning GDB assigns its own integer value to each thread and uses these values to reference the individual t
7. Listing 16 4 Calling Early Machine Initialization J Do early bootinfo parsing platform specific initialization and set up the MMU mr r3 r31 mr r4 r30 mr r5 r29 mr r6 r28 mr r7 27 bl machine_init bl MMU_init Here you can see the assembly language call to machine_init Of particular significance is the setup of the registers r3 through r7 These registers are expected to contain well known values which you will see momentarily They were stored away very early in the boot sequence to the PowerPC general purpose registers r27 tHRough r3l Here they are reloaded from these stored values The machine_initQ function is defined in a C file called setup c in the same architecture specific kernel directory arch ppc kernel setup c The start of this routine is reproduced here in Listing 16 5 Listing 16 5 Function machine_init in setup c void __init machine_init unsigned long r3 unsigned long r4 unsigned long r5 unsigned long r6 unsigned long r7 ifdef CONFIG_CMDLINE stricpy cmd_line CONFIG_CMDLINE sizeof cmd_line endif CONFIG_CMDLINE ifdef CONFIG_6xx ppc_md power_save ppc6xx_idle endif ifdef CONFIG_POWER4 ppc_md power_save power4_idle endif platform_init r3 r4 r5 r6 r7 if ppc_md progress ppc_md progress id machQ done 0x200 There is some very useful knowledge in this simple funct
8. Now let s convert this file system image to JFFS2 using the mkfs jffs2 utility found in the MTD package Listing 10 15 shows the command and results Listing 10 15 Converting RootFS to JFFS2 mount o loop rootfs ext2 mnt flash mkfs jffs2 r mnt flash e 128 b o rootfs jffs2 1s 1 rootfs jffs2 rw r r 1 root root 2401512 Nov 20 10 08 rootfs jffs2 First we mount the ext2 file system image on a loopback device on an arbitrary mount point on our development workstation Next we invoke the MTD utility mkfs jffs2 to create the JFFS2 file system image The r flag tells mkfs jffs2 where the root file system image is located The e instructs mkfs jffs2 to build the image while assuming a 128KB block size The default is 64KB JFFS2 does not exhibit its most efficient behavior if the Flash device contains a different block size than the block size of the image Finally we display a long listing and discover that the resulting JFFS2 root file system image has been reduced in size by more than 60 percent When you are working with limited Flash memory this is a substantial reduction in precious Flash resource usage Take note of an important command line flag passed to mkfs jffs2 in Listing 10 15 The b flag is the big endian flag This instructs the mkfs jffs2 utility to create a JFFS2 Flash image suitable for use on a big endian target Because we are targeting the ADI Engineering Co
9. PQ II adds two new types of controllers to the QUICC engine The FCC is a full duplex fast serial communications controller The FCC supports high speed communications such as 100Mbps Ethernet and T3 E3 up to 45Mbps The MCC is a multichannel controller capable of 128KB x 64KB channelized data Table 3 4 summarizes the highlights of selected PowerQUICC II processors Table 3 4 Freescale Select PowerQUICC II Highlights Feature MPC8250 MPC8260 MPC8272 MPC8 amp 280 Core speeds G2 603e G2 603e G2 603e G2 603e 150 200MHz 100 300MHz 266 400MH 266 400MH Z Z DRAM Y Y Y Y controller USB N N Y Via SCC4 SPI controller Y Y De Y IC controller Y Y x Y SCC controllers 4 4 3 4 SMC controllers 2 2 2 2 FCC controllers 3 3 2 3 MCC controllers 1 2 0 2 Based on the Freescale PowerPC e300 core evolved from the G2 603e the PowerQUICC II Pro family operates at 266 667MHz and features support for Gigabit Ethernet dual data rate DDR SDRAM controllers PCI high speed USB security acceleration and more These are the MPC83xx family of processors The PQ II and PQ II Pro families of processors have been designed into a wide variety of equipment such as LAN and WAN switches hubs and gateways PBX systems and many other systems with similar complexity and performance requirements The PowerQUICC II Pro contains three family members without the QUICC engine and two that are based on an updated version of the QUICC engine The MPC8358E and MPC83
10. Parameter Blocks Main Blocks Bottom of Flash To modify data stored in a Flash memory array the block in which the modified data resides must be completely erased Even if only 1 byte in a block needs to be changed the entire block must be erased and rewritten Flash block sizes are relatively large compared to traditional hard drive sector sizes In comparison a typical high performance hard drive has writable sectors of 512 or 1024 bytes The ramifications of this might be obvious Write times for updating data in Flash memory can be many times that of a hard drive due in part to the relatively large quantity of data that must be written back to the Flash for each update These write cycles can take several seconds in the worst case a Remember you can change a 1 to a O a byte at a time but you must erase the entire block to change any bit from a 0 back to al Another limitation of Flash memory that must be considered is Flash memory cell write lifetime A Flash memory cell has a limited number of write cycles before failure Although the number of cycles is fairly large 100K cycles typical per block it is easy to imagine a poorly designed Flash storage algorithm or even a bug that can quickly destroy Flash devices It goes without saying that you should avoid configuring your system loggers to output to a Flash based device 2 3 2 NAND Flash NAND Flash is a relatively new Flash technology When NAND Flash hit t
11. This chapter covers the basics of porting Linux to a custom board providing support for basic Ethernet and serial console operation We examine the organization of the Linux source code from an architectural and platform perspective We then delve into the early kernel initialization code to understand the mechanisms provided for platform initialization Finally we look at a typical porting effort to a custom PowerPC hardware platform 16 1 Linux Source Organization Not too long ago there were numerous homes for the various versions of Linux There was a dedicated place for the PowerPC version of Linux one for the ARM version and so on This wasn t necessarily by design but by necessity It took time to merge the various architecture infrastructure and features into the mainline kernel and having a separate source tree meant quicker access to the latest features in a given architecture 1 W By homes we mean a public source code repository such as a web server on the Internet The kernel developers have gone to great lengths to unify the Linux kernel source code to bring together the disparate architectures under one common source tree With few exceptions this is the case today with the Linux 2 6 source It is possible to download and compile working kernels for a variety of processors and industry standard reference boards directly from www kernel org 16 1 1 The Architecture Branch In Chapter 4 The Linux
12. To enable soft lockup detection enable CONFIG DETECT _SOFTLOCKUP in the kernel configuration This feature enables the detection of long periods of running in kernel mode without a context switch This feature exists in non real time kernels but is useful for detecting very high latency paths or soft deadlock conditions To use it simply enable the feature and watch for any reports on the console or system log Reports will be emitted similar to this BUG soft lockup detected on CPUO When this message is emitted by the kernel it is usually accompanied by a backtrace and other information such as the process name and PID It will look similar to a kernel oops message complete with processor registers See kernel softlockup c for details This information can be used to help track down the source of the lockup condition 17 4 2 Preemption Debugging To enable preemption debugging enable CONFIG_DEBUG_ PREEMPT in the kernel configuration This debug feature enables the detection of unsafe use of preemption semantics such as preemption count underflows and attempts to sleep while in an invalid context To use it simply enable the feature and watch for any reports on the console or system log Here is just a small sample of reports possible when preemption debugging is enabled BUG lt me gt lt mypid gt possible wake_up race on lt proc gt lt pid gt BUG lock recursion deadlock detected lt more info gt BUG nonzero lock c
13. called ulmage quiet_cmd_uimage UIMAGE S q cmd_uimage CONFIG_SHELL S MKIMAGE A ppc 0 linux T kernel C gzip a 00000000 e 00000000 n Linux KERNELRELEASE d lt Ignoring the syntactical complexity understand that this rule calls a shell script identified by the variable S MKIMAGE The shell script executes the U Boot mkimage utility with the parameters shown The mkimage utility creates the U Boot header and prepends it to the supplied kernel image The parameters are defined as follows A Specifies the target image architecture O Species the target image OSin this case Linux T Specifies the target image typea kernel in this case C Specifies the target image compression typehere gzip a Sets the U Boot loadaddress to the value specifiedin this case O e Sets the U Boot image entry point to the supplied value n A text field used to identify the image to the human user d The executable image file to which the header is prepended Several U Boot commands use this header data both to verify the integrity of the image U Boot also puts a CRC signature in the header and to instruct various commands what to do with the image U Boot has a command called iminfo that reads the image header and displays the image attributes from the target image Listing 7 9 contains the results of loading a ulmage bootable Linux kernel image formatted for U Boot to the EP405 board via U Boot s tftpbo
14. configuration options for this Figure 16 2 Default kernel command line View full size image Eile Options Help 9 BUU it Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand Opions me C C a ve f Piatto pions b C Machine Type Freescale LITES200 IceCube C Symmetric multiprocessing support SMP N A C High memory support HIGHMEM N a b C Timer frequency 250 HZ b C Preemption Model No Forced Preemption Server b C Memory model Flat Memory Kemel support for ELF binaries BINFMT_ELF Kay C Keme support for MISC binaries BINFMT_MISC N_W_N v Default bootloader kernel arguments CMDLINE_BOOL _ Y Initial kernel command string CMDLINE console ttySO root dev tam0 rw Platform options Enable Default bootloader kernel arguments in the configuration in Figure 16 2 and edit the Initial kernel command string as shown This results in a set of entries in the config file as shown in Listing 16 6 Listing 16 6 Configuration for Default Kernel Command Line CONFIG _CMDLINE_ BOOL y CONFIG_CMDLINE console ttySO root dev ram0 rw The ellipses in Listing 16 6 indicate that we have taken only a small snippet of the config file When these configuration symbols are processed by the kernel build system they become entries in the include linux autoconf h file as detailed in Listing 16 7 Listing 16 7 File autoconf h Entries for Default Kernel Command Line d
15. e Role of a Bootloader page 158 e Bootloader Challenges page 159 e A Universal Bootloader Das U Boot page 164 e Porting U Boot page 172 e Other Bootloaders page 183 e Chapter Summary page 186 Previous chapters have made reference to and even provided examples of bootloader operations A critical component of an embedded system the bootloader provides the foundation from which the other system software is spawned This chapter starts by examining the bootloader s role in a system We follow this with an introduction to some common features of bootloaders Armed with this background we take a detailed look at a popular bootloader used for embedded systems We conclude this chapter by introducing a few of the more popular bootloaders Numerous bootloaders are in use today It would be impractical in the given space to cover much detail on even the most popular ones Therefore we have chosen to explain concepts and use examples based on one of the more popular bootloaders in the open source community for PowerPC MIPS ARM and other architectures the U Boot bootloader 7 1 Role of a Bootloader When power is first applied to a processor board many elements of hardware must be initialized before even the simplest program can run Each architecture and processor has a set of predefined actions and configurations which include fetching some initialization code from an on board storage device usually Flash mem
16. libc so 6 Reading symbols from opt montavista pro 1d linux so 3 done Loaded symbols for opt montavista pro 1d linux so 3 0 Ox00012ac4 in ClearBlock RealBigBlockPtr 0x0 1 100000000 at led c 43 43 ptr 0 gdb 1 38 39 static int ClearBlock char BlockPtr int 1 40 41 char ptr 42 for ptr BlockPtr ptr BlockPtr lt 1 ptr 43 ptr 0 44 return 0 45 46 static int InitBlock char ptr int n 47 gdb p ptr 1 0x0 gdb 13 1 2 Invoking GDB The first line of Listing 13 1 shows how GDB was invoked from the command line Because we are doing cross debugging we need the cross version of GDB that has been compiled for our host and target system We invoke our version of cross gdb as shown and pass xscale_be gdb the name of the binary followed by the name of the core dump filein this case simply core After GDB prints several banner lines describing its configuration and other information it prints the reason for the termination signal 11 the indication of a segmentation fault Several lines follow as GDB loads the binary the libraries it depends on and the core file The last line printed upon GDB startup is the current location of the program when the fault occurred The line preceded by the 0 string indicates the stack frame stack frame zero in a function called ClearBlock at virtual address 0x00012ac4 The following line pr
17. prefer 6 4 5 The initrd Plumbing As part of the Linux boot process the kernel must locate and mount a root file system Late in the boot process the kernel decides what and where to mount in a function called prepare _namespace If initrd support is enabled in the kernel as illustrated in Figure 6 1 and the kernel command line is so configured the kernel decompresses the compressed initrd image from physical memory and eventually copies the contents of this file into a ramdisk device dev ram At this point we have a proper file system on a kernel ramdisk After the file system has been read into the ramdisk the kernel effectively mounts this ramdisk device as its root file system Finally the kernel spawns a kernel thread to execute the linuxrc file on the initrd image a Out of necessity space this is a very simplified description of the sequence of events The actual mechanism is similar in concept but several significant details are omitted for clarity You are encouraged to consult the kernel source code for more details See init main c and init do_mounts c When the linuxrc script has completed execution the kernel unmounts the initrd and proceeds with the final stages of system boot If the real root device has a directory called initrd Linux mounts the initrd file system on this path in this context called a mount point If this directory does not exist in the final root file system the in
18. The left bracket next to the state letter is an indication that this process has a higher priority The final column is the command name Those listed in brackets are kernel threads Many more symbols and options are available refer to the man page for ps for complete details 13 4 5 top Whereas ps is a one time snapshot of the current system top takes periodic snapshots of the state of the system and its processes Similar to ps top has numerous command line and configuration options It is interactive and can be reconfigured while operating to customize the display to your particular needs Entered without options top displays all running processes in a fashion very similar to the ps aux command presented in Listing 13 9 updated every 3 seconds Of course this and many other aspects of top are user configurable The first few lines of the top screen display system information also updated every 3 seconds This includes the system uptime the number of users information on the number of processes and their state and much more Listing 13 10 shows top in its default configuration resulting from executing top from the command line without parameters Listing 13 10 top top 06 23 14 up 6 23 2 users load average 0 00 0 00 0 00 Tasks 24 total l running 23 sleeping O stopped O zombie Cpu s 0 0 us 0 3 sy 0 0 ni 99 7 id 0 0 wa 0 0 hi 0 0 si Mem 62060k total 17292k used 44768k
19. amp coyote_flash_ resource static struct platform_device coyote_devices __initdata amp coyote_flash amp coyote_uart ie static void __init coyote_init void platform_add_devices coyote_devices ARRAY_SIZE coyote_devices In Listing 10 12 only the relevant portions of the coyote setup c platform initialization file are reproduced Starting from the bottom the coyote_init function calls platform_add_devices specifying the Coyote specific devices defined earlier in this file You ll notice that two devices are defined just above the coyote_initQ routine The one we re interested in for this discussion is coyote _flash This structure of type struct platform device contains all the important details needed by the Linux kernel and MTD subsystem The name member of the coyote _flash structure binds our platform specific Flash resource to a mapping driver with the same name You can see this in the mapping driver file drivers mtd maps ixp4xx c The resource member communicates the base address of the Flash on the board The dev member which contains a platform_data member ties our Flash setup to a chip driver In this case we have specified that our board will use the CFI probe method specified in the kernel configuration as CONFIG_MTD_CFI You can see this configuration selection in Figure 10 4 Depending on your own architecture and board you can use a method s
20. configuration menu structure and configuration options presented to the user during kernel configuration Figure 4 3 is an example of the configuration utility gconf for the ARM architecture compiled from the example in Listing 4 8 Figure 4 3 gconf configuration screen View full size image File Options Help oi Q II E Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand oviens SiMe dN va gt Code maturity level options gt General setup gt Loadable module support gt System Type v ARM system type NEW RiscPC O Cirus CL PS7500FE NEW ARCH_CLPS7500 N N O CLPS711x EP721x based NEW ARCH_CLPS711X N N Co EBSA285 NEW ARCH_CO285 N _wN EBSA 110 NEW ARCH_EBSA110 N _N Epxal0db NEW ARCH_CAMELOT N gt N O FootBridge NEW ARCH_FOOTBRIDGE N aA N O Integrator NEW ARCH_INTEGRATOR N N O IOP3xx based NEW ARCH_IOP3XX N LN Sory no help available for this option yet 4 3 5 Custom Configuration Options Many embedded developers add feature support to the Linux kernel to support their particular custom hardware One of the most common examples of this is multiple versions of a given hardware platform each of which requires some compile time options to be configured in the kernel source tree Instead of having a separate version of the kernel source tree for each hardware version a developer can add configuration options to enable his custom features The configurati
21. e Background page 66 e Linux Kernel Construction page 70 e Kernel Build System page 79 e Obtaining a Linux Kernel page 96 e Chapter Summary page 97 If you want to learn about kernel internals many good books are available on kernel design and operation Several are presented in Section 4 5 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading in this and other chapters throughout the book However very little has been written about how the kernel is organized and structured from a project perspective What if you re looking for the right place to add some custom support for your new embedded project How do you know which files are important for your architecture At first glance it might seem an almost impossible task to understand the Linux kernel and how to configure it for a specific platform or application In a recent Linux kernel snapshot the Linux kernel source tree consists of more than 20 000 files that contain more than six million linesand that s just the beginning You still need tools a root file system and many Linux applications to make a usable system This chapter introduces the Linux kernel and covers how the kernel is organized and how the source tree is structured We then examine the components that make up the kernel image and discuss the kernel source tree layout Following this we present the details of the kernel build system and the files that drive the kernel configuration and build system This chapter conc
22. getAddr and for the next seven assembly language instructions the code essentially prefetches itself into the instruction cache using the icbt instruction When the entire subroutine has been successfully read into the instruction cache it can proceed to make the required changes to the external bus controller without fear of a crash because it is executing directly from the internal instruction cache Subtle but clever This is followed by a short delay to make sure all the requested i cache reads have completed When the prefetch and delay have completed the code proceeds to configure Memory Bank O and Memory Bank 4 appropriately for our board The values come from a detailed knowledge of the underlying components and their interconnection on the board The interested reader can consult the Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of the chapter for all the details of PowerPC assembler and the 405GP processor from which this example was derived Consider making a change to this code without a complete understanding of what is happening here Perhaps you added a few lines and increased its size beyond the range that was prefetched into the cache It would likely crash worse it might crash only sometimes but stepping through this code with a debugger would not yield a single clue as to why The next opportunity for board specific initialization comes after a temporary stack has been allocated from the processor s data
23. int operate_on_critical_dataQ spin_lock amp my_lock Update critical shared data spin_unlock amp my_1lock When a task successfully acquires a spinlock preemption is disabled and the task that acquired the spinlock is allowed into the critical section No task switches can occur until a spin_unlock operation takes place The spin_lock function is actually a macro that has several forms depending on the kernel configuration They are defined at the top level architecture independent definitions in include linux spinlock h When the kernel is patched with the real time patch these spinlocks are promoted to mutexes to allow preemption of higher priority processes when a spinlock is held Because the real time patch is largely transparent to the device driver and kernel developer the familiar constructs can be used to protect critical sections as described in Listing 17 5 This is a major advantage of the real time patch for real time applications it preserves the well known semantics for locking and interrupt service routines Using the macro DEFINE SPINLOCK as in Listing 17 5 preserves future compatibility These macros are defined in include linux spinlock_types h 17 4 Debugging the Real Time Kernel Several configuration options facilitate debugging and performance analysis of the real time patched kernel They are detailed in the following subsections 17 4 1 Soft Lockup Detection
24. keycode map Prints or checks SHAl checksums Delay for specified amount of time Sorts lines of text in the specified files Program to start and stop services Displays printable strings in a binary file Displays and modifies terminal settings Changes user ID or become root Single user login Disables virtual memory page swapping swapon sync sysctl syslogd tail tar tee telnet telnetd test tftp time top touch tr traceroute true tty udhcpc udhcpd umount uname uncompress uniq unix2dos unzip uptime usleep uudecode Enables virtual memory page swapping Writes all buffered file system blocks to disk Configures kernel parameters at runtime Linux system and kernel logging utility Prints last 10 lines of each file to standard output Creates extracts or lists files from a tar file Copies standard input to each file and also to standard output BusyBox Telnet client implementation BusyBox Telnet server implementation Checks file types and compares values returning an exit Transfers a file using TFTP protocol Measures time used by a program Provides a view of processor activity in real time Updates the last modified date on the given FILE s Translates squeezes and or deletes characters Traces the route IP packets follow Returns an exit code of trUE 0 Prints the filename of the terminal connected to standard input BusyBox DHCP client implementation BusyBox DHCP server implementation
25. rw rw r _ rw rw r _ rw rw r _ chris chris 2118 Sep 29 15 39 coyote setup c chris chris 2180 Oct 10 14 53 coyote setup o chris chris 2042 Sep 29 15 39 ixdp425 pci c chris chris 3656 Sep 29 15 39 ixdp425 setup c chris chris 2761 Sep 29 15 39 Kconfig chris chris 259 Sep 29 15 39 Makefile chris chris 3102 Sep 29 15 39 prpmcll00 pci c v Try ro rw rw r _ rw rw r _ rw rw r _ rw rw r _ rw rw r _ rw rw r _ The directory contents in Listing 4 4 have common components found in many kernel source subdirectories Makefile and Kconfig These two files drive the kernel configuration and build process Let s look at how that works 4 3 Kernel Build System The Linux kernel configuration and build system is rather complicated as one would expect of software projects containing more than six million lines of code In this section we cover the foundation of the kernel build system for developers who need to customize the build environment A recent Linux kernel snapshot showed more than 800 makefiles in the kernel source tree This might sound like a large number but it might not seem so large when you understand the structure and operation of the build system The Linux kernel build system has been significantly updated since the days of Linux 2 4 and earlier For those of you familiar with the older kernel build system we re sure you will fi
26. soft refresh bit 30 1 soft_precharge bit 3l reserved OxflOfO0f02 sSDRAM Control precharge all Oxfl10fOf04 sSDRAM Control refresh Oxfl10fOf04 sSDRAM Control refresh Ox018d0000 SDRAM Mode Samsung bits 0 1 MEM_MBA selects std or extended MODE reg bits 2 13 MEM_MA see DDR DRAM Data sheet bits 2 7 Operating Mode gt 0x0 normal 3 bits 8 10 CAS Latency CL gt Set to CL 2 for bit ll Burst Type Sequential for PMC5200 gt bits 12 14 Set to 8 for MPC5200 gt 0x3 bit 15 cmd 1 for MODE REG WRITE WM32 o Ekok kk kkk 0x80000104 0x710f0f00 SDRAM Control Lock Mode Register was 0x514 0000 Pin Configuration WM32 0x80000b00 Reset PSC WM8 0x80002008 WM16 0x80002004 Tx Clocks WM32 0x80002040 WM8 0x80002000 WM8 0x80002000 WM8 0x80002018 WM8 0x8000201c Reset and enable serial port WM8 WM8 WM8 3 0x80002008 0x80002008 0x80002008 Initialize the serial 0x00008004 OX10 0x13 0x07 0x0 0x12 0x20 0x30 0x05 define maximal transfer size TSZ4 d 0x80000000 Ox80003FFF define the valid memory map MMAP 0x00000000 MMAP OxFFO00000 MMAP OxE00E0000 MMAP 0x80000000 MMAP 0xC0000000 TARGET CPUTYPE 5200 OxO7FFFFFF OxFFFFFFFF OxEQOEFFFF Ox8ffffffFf OXCFFFFFFF sthe CPU ois 22s os k k kkk kk port UART1 Reset Select MR1 Clock Select Register 0 enables both Rx amp SICR UAR
27. 0 cat 6637 OD h 2us do_IRQ c013d91c 0 0 cat 6637 OD hl 3ust mask_and_ack_8259A __do_IRQ cat 6637 OD hl 10us redirect _hardirq __do_IRQ cat 6637 OD h 12us handle_IRQ_event __do_IRQ cat 6637 OD h 13us timer_interrupt handle_IRQ_ event cat 6637 OD h 15us handle_tick_update timer_interrupt cat 6637 OD hl 16us do_timer handle_tick_update lt we re in the timer interrupt function gt cat 6637 OD h 22us run_local_timers update_process_times cat 6637 ODh 22us raise _softirq run_local_timers cat 6637 OD h 23us wakeup_softirqd raise_softirq lt softirq work pending need to preempt is signaled gt cat 6637 ODnh 34us wake_up_process wakeup_softirqd cat 6637 ODnh 35us rcu_pending update_process_ times cat 6637 ODnh 39us scheduler_tick update_process_ times cat 6637 ODnh 39us sched_clock scheduler_tick cat 6637 ODnhl 4lus task _timeslice scheduler_tick cat 6637 ODnh 42ust preempt_schedule scheduler_tick cat 6637 ODnhl 45us note_interrupt __do_IRQ cat 6637 ODnhl 45us enable_8259A_irq __do_IRQ cat 6637 ODnhl 47us preempt_schedule enable _8259A_ irq cat 6637 ODnh 48us preempt _schedule __do_IRQ cat 6637 ODnh 48us irq _exit do_IRQ cat 6637 ODn 49us preempt _schedule_irq need_resched cat 6637 ODn 50us __ schedule preempt_schedule_irq lt here is the context switch to
28. 10 100 1000Mbps 2 3 4 4 PCI controller Y Y Y PCI PCI Y PCI PCI X X Security engine N N N High speed I O HyperTransport 1 1 3 3 3 2 6 AMD MIPS Advanced Micro Devices also plays a significant role in the embedded MIPS controller market The company s 2002 acquisition of Alchemy Semiconductor garnered several popular single chip integrated SOCs based on the MIPS32 core and architecture The Alchemy line from AMD is based on the popular MIPS82 core All feature relatively low power dissipation and a high level of onboard system integration The Aul000 and Aull0O operate at clock rates of 266 500MHz Both feature onboard SDRAM controllers and separate bus controllers for attachment to external devices such as Flash and PCMCIA Table 3 8 summarizes the current Alchemy product line Table 3 8 AMD Alchemy MIPS Highlights Summary Feature Aul000 Aul1100 Aul200 Aul500 Aul550 Core speeds MIPS32 MIPS32 MIPS32 MIPS32 MIPS32 266 500MHz 333 500MHz 333 500MH 333 S500MHz 333 500MHz Z DRAM SDRAM SDRAM DDR SDRAM SDRAM DDR SDRAM controller Ethernet 10 100 2 1 2 2 GPIO lines 32 48 48 39 43 UARTs 4 3 2 2 3 USB 1 1 Host device Host device USB 2 0 Host device Host device AC 97 audio 1 1 Via SPC 1 Via SPC I S controller 1 1 Via SPC Via SPC SD MMC N 2 2 N N i Other peripherals include IrDA controller LCD controller 2 SPCs Power management DMA engine RTC Camera interface LCD controller h w hardware acceleration
29. Autoscript support MII support Table B l U Boot Configurable Commands Command Set Commands CFG_CMD_SETGETDC DCR support on 4xx R CFG_CMD_BSP CFG_CMD_ELF CFG_CMD_MISC CFG_CMD_USB CFG_CMD_DOC CFG_CMD_JFFS2 CFG_CMD_DTT CFG_CMD_SDRAM CFG_CMD_DIAG CFG_CMD_FPGA CFG_CMD_HWFLOW CFG_CMD_SAVES CFG_CMD_SPI CFG_CMD_FDOS CFG_CMD_VFD CFG_CMD_NAND CFG_CMD_BMP CFG_CMD_PORTIO CFG_CMD_PING CFG_CMD_MMC CFG_CMD_FAT CFG_CMD_IMLS CFG_CMD_ITEST CFG_CMD_NFS CFG_CMD_REISER CFG_CMD_CDP Board specific functions ELF VxWorks load boot command Miscellaneous functions such as sleep USB support Disk on chip support JFFS2 support Digital therm and thermostat SDRAM DIMM SPD info printout Diagnostics FPGA configuration support RTS CTS hardware flow control Saves S record dump SPI utility Floppy DOS support VFD support TRAB NAND support BMP support Port 1 0 Ping support MMC support FAT support Lists all found images Integer and string test NFS support Reiserfs support Cisco Discovery Protocol Table B l U Boot Configurable Commands Command Set Commands CFG_CMD_XIMG Loads part of multi image CFG_CMD_ UNIVERSE Tundra Universe support CFG_CMD_EXT2 EXT2 support CFG_CMD_SNTP SNTP support CFG_CMD_ DISPLAY Display support Appendix C BusyBox Commands BusyBox has many useful commands Here is a list of the commands documented in a recent BusyBox snapshot Pages 485
30. Bruce Perens Prentice Hall 2004 Chapter 3 Processor Basics In this chapter e Stand alone Processors page 38 e Integrated Processors Systems on Chip page 43 e Hardware Platforms page 6l e Chapter Summary page 62 In this chapter we present some basic information to help you navigate the huge sea of embedded processor choices We look at some of the processors on the market and the types of features they contain Stand alone processors are highlighted first These tend to be the most powerful processors and require external chipsets to form complete systems Next we present some of the many integrated processors that are supported under Linux Finally we look at some of the common hardware platforms in use today Literally dozens of embedded processors are available to choose from in a given embedded design For the purposes of this chapter we limit the available discussion to those that contain a hardware memory management unit and of course to those that are supported under Linux One of the fundamental architectural design aspects of Linux is that it is a virtual memory operating system Employing Linux on a processor that does not contain an MMU gives up one of the more valuable architectural features of the kernel and is beyond the scope of this book o Linux has support for some basic processors that do not contain MMUs but this is not considered a mainstream use of Linux 3 1 Stand alone Processors Stand a
31. Cimus CL PS7500FE ARCH_CLPS7500 N N IXP4xx based ARCH_IXP4XX TT IXP2400 2800 based ARCH_IXP2000 N nN Y Intel IXP4xx Implementation Options IXP4xx Platforms O Avila ARCH_AVILA N aN O Coyote ARCH_ADI_COYOTE N _N O Constellation ARCH_CONSTELLATION N _ N C2 IXDP425 ARCH_IXDP425 N aN GENEES SOS Vega ARCH_VEGA Select this option for Vega hardware support After the configuration editor gconf in these examples is run and you select support for one of your custom hardware platforms the config file introduced earlier contains macros for your new options As with all kernel configuration options each is preceded with CONFIG_ to identify it as a kernel configuration option As a result two new configuration options have been defined and their state has been recorded in the config file Listing 4 11 shows the new config file with your new configuration options Listing 4 11 Customized config File Snippet IXP4xx Platforms CONFIG_ARCH_AVILA is not set CONFIG_ARCH_ADI_COYOTE is not set CONFIG_ARCH_VEGA y CONFIG_ARCH_CONSTELLATION is not set CONFIG_ARCH_IXDP425 is not set CONFIG_ARCH_PRPMC1100 is not set Notice two new configuration options related to your Vega and Constellation hardware platforms As illustrated in Figure 4 4 you selected support for Vega in the config file you can see the new CONFIG_ option representing that the Vega board is
32. For these tasks knowledge of binutils is indispensable We presented many of the utilities found in binutils including readelf objdump objcopy and several others 13 7 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading GDB The GNU Project Debugger www gnu org software gdb gdb html1 GDB Pocket Reference Arnold Robbins O Reilly Media 2005 Data Display Debugger www gnu org software ddd cbrowser home page http cbrowser sourceforge net cscope home page http cscope sourceforge net index html dmallocDebug Malloc Library http dmalloc com Tool Interface Standard TIS Executable and Linking Format ELF Specification Version 1 2 TIS Committee May 1995 Tool interface standards DWARF Debugging Information Format Specification Version 2 0 TIS Committee May 1995 Chapter 14 Kernel Debugging Techniques In this chapter e Challenges to Kernel Debugging page 352 e Using KGDB for Kernel Debugging page 353 e Debugging the Linux Kernel page 360 e Hardware Assisted Debugging page 385 e When It Doesn t Boot page 392 e Chapter Summary page 397 Often the pivotal factor in achieving development timetables comes down to one s efficiency in finding and fixing bugs Debugging inside the Linux kernel can be quite challenging No matter how you approach it kernel debugging will always be complex This chapter examines some of the complexities and presents ideas and methods to impro
33. PID user and group IDs virtual memory usage stats signals and capabilities More details can be obtained from the references at the end of the chapter Some frequently used proc enTRies are cpuinfo meminfo and version The cpuinfo enTRy lists attributes that the kernel discovers about the processor s running on the system The meminfo enTRy provides statistics on the total system memory The version entry mirrors the Linux kernel version string together with information on what compiler and machine were used to build the kernel Many more useful proc entries are provided by the kernel we have only scratched the surface of this useful subsystem Many utilities have been designed for extracting and reporting information contained with the proc file system Two popular examples are top and ps which every embedded Linux developer should be intimately familiar with These are introduced in Chapter 13 Other utilities useful for interfacing with the proc file system include free pkill pmap and uptime See the procps package for more details 9 8 2 sysfs Like the proc file system sysfs is not representative of an actual physical device Instead sysfs models specific kernel objects such as physical devices and provides a way to associate devices with device drivers Some agents in a typical Linux distribution depend on the information on sysfs We can get some idea of what kinds of objects are exported by looking directl
34. They are almost universally available in embedded Linux distributions Both of these utilities make use of the proc file system as described in Chapter 9 File Systems Much of the information they convey can be learned from the proc file system if you know what to look for and how to parse the resulting information These tools present that information in a convenient human readable form The ps utility lists all the running processes on a machine However it is very flexible and can be tailored to provide much useful data on the state of a running machine and the processes running on it For example ps can display the scheduling policy of each process This is particularly useful for systems that employ real time processes Without any options ps displays all processes with the same user ID as the user who invoked the command and only those processes associated with the terminal on which the command was issued This is useful when many jobs have been spawned by that user and terminal Passing options to ps can be confusing because ps supports a wide variety of standards as in POSIX versus UNIX and three distinct options styles BSD UNIX and GNU In general BSD options are single or multiple letters with no dash UNIX options are the familiar dash letter combinations and GNU uses long argument formats preceded by double dashes Refer to the man page for details of your ps implementation Everyone who uses ps like
35. This process is repeated for every element in the kernel command line until the kernel command line has been completely exhausted The technique just described collecting objects into lists in uniquely named ELF sections is used in many places in the kernel Another example of this technique is the use of the __init family of macros to place one time initialization routines into a common section in the object file Its cousin __initdata used to mark one time use data items is used by the __setup macro Functions and data marked as initialization using these macros are collected into a specially named ELF section Later after these one time initialization functions and data objects have been used the kernel frees the memory occupied by these items You might have seen the familiar kernel message near the final part of the boot process saying Freeing init memory 296K Your mileage may vary but a third of a megabyte is well worth the effort of using the __init family of macros This is exactly the purpose of the __initdata macro in the earlier declaration of setup_str_console_ setup You might have been wondering about the use of symbol names preceded with obsolete_ This is because the kernel developers are replacing the kernel command line processing mechanism with a more generic mechanism for registering both boot time and loadable module parameters At the present time hundreds of parameters are declared with the __setup macro
36. Unmount file systems Prints certain system information Uncompresses Z file s Discards all but one of successive identical lines from INPUT Converts file from UNIX format to DOS format Extracts files from ZIP archives Displays the time since the last boot Pauses for n microseconds Uudecodes a file that is uuencoded uuencode vconfig vi vlock watch watchdog we wget which who whoami xargs yes zcat Uuencodes a file Lets you create and remove virtual Ethernet devices BusyBox vi editor Locks a virtual terminal and requires a password to unlock it Executes a program periodically Periodically writes to a specified watchdog device Prints line word and byte counts for each file Retrieves files via HTTP or FTP Locates a command on the current path Prints the current usernames and related information Prints the username associated with the current effective user ID Executes a command on every item given by standard input Repeatedly outputs a line with all specified STRING s or y Uncompresses to stdout Appendix D SDRAM Interface Considerations In this appendix e SDRAM Basics page 492 e Clocking page 494 e SDRAM Setup page 495 e Summary page 500 At first glance programming an SDRAM controller can seem like a formidable task Indeed numerous Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory DRAM technologies have been developed In a never ending quest for performance and density many different
37. and other similar stand alone Freescale processors We examine these platforms in Section 3 3 Hardware Platforms later in this chapter a Freescale literature now refers to the G4 core as the e600 core The MPC7448 has enjoyed popularity in a wide variety of signal processing and networking applications because of the advanced feature set highlighted here e Operating clock rates in excess of 1 5GHz e 1MB onboard L2 cache e Advanced power management capabilities including multiple sleep modes e Advanced AltiVec vector execution unit e Voltage scaling for reduced power configurations The MPC7448 contains a Freescale technology called AltiVec to enable very fast algorithmic computations and other data crunching applications The AltiVec unit consists of a register file containing 32 very wide 128 bit registers Each value within one of these AltiVec registers can be considered a vector of multiple elements AltiVec defines a set of instructions to manipulate this vector data effectively in parallel with core CPU instruction processing AltiVec operations include such computations as sum across multiply sum simultaneous data distribute store and data gather load instructions Programmers have used the AltiVec hardware to enable very fast software computations commonly found in signal processing and network elements Examples include fast Fourier Transform digital signal processing such as filtering MPEG
38. architectures and modes of operation have been developed We examine the AMCC PowerPC 405GP processor for this discussion of SDRAM interface considerations You might want to have a copy of the user manual to reference while we explore the issues related to SDRAM interfacing This document is referenced in Section D 4 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading D 1 SDRAM Basics To understand SDRAM setup it is necessary to understand the basics of how an SDRAM device operates Without going into the details of the hardware design an SDRAM device is organized as a matrix of cells with a number of address bits dedicated to row addressing and a number dedicated to column addressing Figure D 1 illustrates this Figure D 1 Simplified SDRAM block diagram SDRAM Memory CLK Cell Array RAS Row Data bus z Address 32 bits a a lt CAS Q A Column Address Inside the memory matrix the circuitry is quite complex A simplified example of a read operation is as follows A given memory location is referenced by placing a row address on the row address lines and then placing a column address on the column address lines After some time has passed the data stored at the location addressed by the row and column inputs are made available to the processor on the data bus The processor outputs a row address on the SDRAM address bus and asserts its Row Address Select RAS signal After a short preprogrammed delay to allow the SDRAM
39. assuming that it is the highest priority real time process waiting for the CPU The highest priority real time process that is ready to run not blocked on I 0 will always run You ll see how to set this attribute shortly 17 2 Kernel Preemption In the early Linux days of Linux 1 x there was no kernel preemption This meant that when a user space process requested kernel services no other task could be scheduled to run until that process either blocked goes to sleep waiting on something usually 1 0 or until the kernel request is completed Making the kernel preemptable means that while one process is running in the kernel another process can preempt the first and be allowed to run even though the first process had not completed its in kernel processing Figure 17 2 illustrates this Interestingly there is much debate on the correct spelling of preemptable I defer to the survey done by Rick Lehrbaum on www linuxdevices com articles AT5136316996 html1 Figure 17 2 Kernel preemption Process A Process B Process A 5 User Space Kernel entry f eee eee eee ES via system call Kernel Space Process A Process A Preempted Continues Time In this figure Process A has entered the kernel via a system call Perhaps it was a call to write to a device such as the console or a file While executing in the kernel on behalf of Process A Process B with higher priority is woken up by an interrupt The kernel preemp
40. at the end of this chapter for recommendations The next major item you need is a Linux distribution targeted for your embedded system architecture This includes hundreds to potentially thousands of files that will populate your embedded system s file systems Again the choices are to build your own or to obtain one of the commercial ones One of the more popular embedded system distributions available on the Internet is the aforementioned ELDK The ELDK is available for some PowerPC and other embedded targets Building an embedded Linux distribution from scratch would require a book of this size in itself and therefore is beyond the scope of our discussions here In summary your development host requires four separate and distinct capabilities e Cross toolchain and libraries e Target system packages including programs utilities and libraries e Host tools such as editors debuggers and utilities e Servers for hosting your target board covered in the next section If you install a ready built embedded Linux development environment on your workstation either a commercial variety or one freely available in the open source community the toolchain and components have already been preconfigured to work together For example the toolchain has been configured with default directory search paths that match the location of the target header files and system libraries on your development workstation The situation becomes much mo
41. board in other ways as well You can flash them into your Flash memory using a hardware based flash programming tool or you can use a serial port and download the kernel and file system images via RS 232 However because these images are typically large a kernel can be about a megabyte and a ramdisk can be tens of megabytes you will save a significant amount of engineering time if you invest in this Ethernet based tftp download method Whatever bootloader you choose make sure it supports network download of development images 6 4 4 initrd Magic linuxrc When the kernel boots it detects the presence of the initrd image and copies the compressed binary file from the specified physical location in RAM into a proper kernel ramdisk and mounts it as the root file system The magic of the initrd comes from the contents of a special file within the initrd image When the kernel mounts the initial ramdisk it looks for a specific file called linuxrc It treats this file as a script file and proceeds to execute the commands contained therein This mechanism enables the system designer to specify the behavior of initrd Listing 6 11 contains a sample linuxrc file Listing 6 11 Example linuxrc File bin sh echo Greetings this is linuxrc from Initial Ramdisk echo Mounting proc filesystem mount t proc proc proc busybox sh In practice this file would contain directives req
42. common arch arm mach ixp4xx arch arm nwfpe kernel mm fs vmlinux lt ipc security lib lib a arch arm lib lib drivers It might come as no surprise that the three largest binary components are the file system code the network code and all the built in drivers If you take the kernel code and the architecture specific kernel code together this is the next largest binary component Here you find the scheduler process and thread management timer management and other core kernel functionality Naturally the kernel contains some architecture specific functionality such as low level context switching hardware level interrupt and timer processing processor exception handling and more This is found in arch arm kernel Bear in mind that we are looking at a specific example of a kernel build In this particular example we are building a kernel specific to the ARM XScale architecture and more specifically the Intel IXP425 network processor on the ADI Engineering reference board You can see the machine specific binary components in Figure 4 1 as arch arm mach ixp4xx Each architecture and machine type processor reference board has different elements in the architecture specific portions of the kernel so the makeup of the vmlinux image is slightly different When you understand one example you will find it easy to navigate others To help you understand the breakdown of functionality in the k
43. designated simply as As you will discover in Chapter 9 File Systems even a small embedded Linux system typically mounts several file systems on different locations in the file system hierarchy The proc file system introduced in Chapter 9 is an example It is a special purpose file system mounted at proc under the root file system The root file system is simply the first file system mounted at the base of the file system hierarchy As you will shortly see the root file system has special requirements for a Linux system Linux expects the root file system to contain programs and utilities to boot a system initialize services such as networking and a system console load device drivers and mount additional file systems 6 1 1 FHS File System Hierarchy Standard Several kernel developers authored a standard governing the organization and layout of a UNIX file system The File System Hierarchy Standard FHS establishes a minimum baseline of compatibility between Linux distributions and application programs Youll find a reference to this standard in Section 6 7 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of this chapter You are encouraged to review the FHS standard for a better background on the layout and rationale of UNIX file system organization Many Linux distributions have directory layouts closely matching that described in the FHS standard The standard exists to provide one element of a common base between differ
44. development setup provides a great deal of flexibility The basic idea is that the host system provides the horsepower to run the compilers debuggers editors and other utilities while the target executes only the applications designed for it Yes you can certainly run compilers and debuggers on the target system but we assume that your host system contains more resources including RAM disk storage and Internet connectivity In fact it is not uncommon for a target embedded board to have no human input devices or output displays 12 1 1 Hello World Embedded A properly configured cross development system hides a great deal of complexity from the average application developer Looking at a simple example will help uncover and explain some of the mystery When we compile a simple hello world program the toolchain compiler linker and associated utilities makes many assumptions about the host system we are building on and the program we are compiling Actually they are not assumptions but a collection of rules that the compiler references to build a proper binary Listing 12 1 reproduces a simple hello world program Listing 12 1 Hello World Again include lt stdio h gt int main int argc char argv printf Hello World n return 0 Even the casual application developer will realize some important points about this C source file First the function printfQ is referenced but
45. host 192 168 1 68 domain nis domain none bootserver 192 168 1 9 rootserver 192 168 1 9 rootpath home chris sandbox pdna target Looking up port of RPC 100003 2 on 192 168 1 9 Looking up port of RPC 100005 1 on 192 168 1 9 VFS Mounted root nfs filesystem BusyBox v0 60 5 2005 06 07 07 03 0000 Built in shell msh Enter help for a list of built in commands From Listing 12 9 first we see the kernel banner followed by the kernel command line We specified four items in this kernel command line e Console device dev console e Root device dev nfs e NFS root path home chris sandbox pdna target e IP kernel level autoconfiguration method dhcp Shortly thereafter we see the kernel attempting kernel level autoconfiguration via DHCP When the server responds and the DHCP exchange completes the kernel displays the detected configuration in the following lines You can see from this listing that the DHCP server has assigned the target the IP address 192 168 1 68 Compare the detected settings with those specified in Listing 12 6 That was similar to the DHCP server configuration that resulted in this configuration When the kernel has completed the IP autoconfiguration it is capable of mounting the root file system using the supplied parameters You can see this from the three lines ending with the VFS virtual file subsystem message announcing that it has mounted the root NFS file system
46. immediately obvious The purpose of this file is to cause the compressed binary kernel image to be emitted by the assembler as an ELF section called piggydata It is triggered by the incbin assembler preprocessor directive which can be viewed as the assembler s version of a include file In summary the net result of this assembly language file is to contain the compressed binary kernel image as a payload within another imagethe bootstrap loader Notice the labels input_data and input_data_end The bootstrap loader uses these to identify the boundaries of the binary payload the kernel image 5 1 3 Bootstrap Loader Not to be confused with a bootloader many architectures use a bootstrap loader or second stage loader to load the Linux kernel image into memory Some bootstrap loaders perform checksum verification of the kernel image and most perform decompression and relocation of the kernel image The difference between a bootloader and a bootstrap loader in this context is simple The bootloader controls the board upon power up and does not rely on the Linux kernel in any way In contrast the bootstrap loader s primary purpose in life is to act as the glue between a board level bootloader and the Linux kernel It is the bootstrap loader s responsibility to provide a proper context for the kernel to run in as well as perform the necessary steps to decompress and relocate the kernel binary image It is similar to the concept of a primary and
47. run_init_process bin sh panic No init found Try passing init option to kernel Notice that if the code proceeds to the end of the initQ function a kernel panic results If you ve spent any time experimenting with embedded systems or custom root file systems you ve undoubtedly encountered this very common error message as the last line of output on your console It is one of the most frequently asked questions FAQs on a variety of public forums related to Linux and embedded systems One way or another one of these run_init_process commands must proceed without error The run_init_process function does not return on successful invocation It overwrites the calling process with the new one effectively replacing the current process with the new one It uses the familiar execve system call for this functionality The most common system configurations spawn sbin init as the userland initialization process We study this functionality in depth in the next chapter co Userland is an often used term for any program library script or anything else in user space One option available to the embedded system developer is to use a custom userland initialization program That is the purpose of the conditional statement in the previous code snippet If execute_command is non null it points to a string containing a custom user supplied command to be executed in user space The developer specifies this command
48. vmlinux Image Components Description Component Description net built in o Linux networking tmp_kallsyms2 o Symbol table When we speak of the kernel proper this vmlinux image is being referenced As mentioned earlier very few platforms boot this image directly For one thing it is almost universally compressed At a bare minimum a bootloader must decompress the image Many platforms require some type of stub bolted onto the image to perform the decompression Later in Chapter 5 you will learn how this image is packaged for different architectures machine types and bootloaders and the requirements for booting it 4 2 5 Subdirectory Layout Now that you ve seen how the build system controls the kernel image let s take a look at a representative kernel subdirectory Listing 4 4 details the contents of the mach ixp425 subdirectory This directory exists under the arch arm architecture specific branch of the source tree Listing 4 4 Kernel Subdirectory 1s 1 linux 2 6 arch arm mach ixp425 total 92 chris chris 11892 Oct 10 14 53 built in o chris chris 6924 Sep 29 15 39 common c chris chris 3525 Oct 10 14 53 common o chris chris 13062 Sep 29 15 39 common pci c chris chris 7504 Oct 10 14 53 common pci o chris chris 1728 Sep 29 15 39 coyote pci c rw rw r 1 1 1 1 1 rw rw r 1 chris chris 1572 Oct 10 14 53 coyote pci o 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 rw rw r _ rw rw r _
49. 0a 4982652 1ib tis libnss_files 2 3 3 so 4013a000 4013b000 r p 00008000 00 0a 4982652 lib t1s libnss_files 2 3 3 so 4013b000 4013c000 rw p 00009000 00 0a 4982652 lib tis libnss_ files 2 3 3 so becaaQ000 becbf000 rwxp becaa000 00 00 O stack root coyote Notice the correlation of the target ldd output from Listing 15 8 to the memory segments displayed in the proc file system for this process The start beginning of text segment of the Linux loader is 0x40000000 and the start of libc is at 0x40020000 These are the virtual addresses where these portions of the application have been loaded and are reported by the target invocation of ldd However the load addresses reported by the cross version of ldd in Listing 15 9 Oxdeadl000 and Oxdead2000 are there to remind you that these libraries cannot be loaded on your host system they are ARM architecture binaries and the load addresses are simply placeholders 15 4 Debugging Multiple Tasks Generally the developer is presented with two different debugging scenarios when dealing with multiple threads of execution Processes can exist in their own address space or can share an address space and other system resources with other threads of execution The former independent processes not sharing common address space must be debugged using separate independent debug sessions Nothing prevents you from using gdbserver on multiple processes on yo
50. 1 root root 16 Nov 25 2004 S56xinetd gt init d xinetd irwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Nov 25 2004 K50xinetd gt init d xinetd 1 root root 16 Nov 25 2004 K88syslog gt init d syslog 1 root root 17 Nov 25 2004 K90network gt init d network lrwxrwxrwx lrwxrwxrwx In this example we are instructing the startup scripts to start three services upon entry to this fictitious runlevel network syslog and xinetd Because the S scripts are ordered with a numeric tag they will be started in this order In a similar fashion when exiting this runlevel three services will be terminated xinetd syslog and network In a similar fashion these services will be terminated in the order presented by the two digit number following the K in the symlink filename In an actual system there would undoubtedly be many more entries You can include your own entries for your own custom applications too The top level script that executes these service startup and shutdown scripts is defined in the init configuration file which we now examine 6 3 1 inittab When init is started it reads the system configuration file etc inittab This file contains directives for each runlevel as well as directives that apply to all run levels This file and init s behavior are well documented in man pages on most Linux workstations as well as by several books covering system administration We do not attempt to duplicate those works w
51. 1 x16 devices at 0x0 in 16 bit bank 45 Intel Sharp Extended Query Table at 0x0031 46 Using buffer write method 47 cfi_cmdset_0001 Erase suspend on write enabled 48 Searching for RedBoot partition table in IXP4XX Flash 0O at offset Oxfe0000 49 5 RedBoot partitions found on MTD device IXP4XX Flash 0 50 Creating 5 MTD partitions on IXP4XX Flash 0 51 0x00000000 0x00060000 RedBoot 52 0x00100000 0x00260000 MyKernel 53 0x00300000 0x00900000 RootFS 54 0x00fcO0000 0x00fc1000 RedBoot config 55 mtd partition RedBoot config doesn t end on an erase block force read only0x00fe0000 0x01000000 FIS directory 56 NET Registered protocol family 2 57 IP route cache hash table entries 1024 order 0 4096 bytes 58 TCP established hash table entries 4096 order 2 16384 bytes 59 TCP bind hash table entries 4096 order 2 16384 bytes 60 TCP Hash tables configured established 4096 bind 4096 61 TCP reno registered 62 TCP bic registered 63 NET Registered protocol family 1 64 Sending BOOTP requests OK 65 IP Config Got BOOTP answer from 192 168 1 10 my address is 192 168 1 141 66 IP Config Complete 67 device ethO addr 192 168 1 141 mask 255 255 255 0 gw 255 255 25 5 255 68 host 192 168 1 141 domain nis domain none 69 bootserver 192 168 1 10 rootserver 192 168 1 10 rootpath home chris sandbox coyote target 70 Looking up port of RPC 100003 2 on 192
52. 120 121 def ocp_get_one_device OCP_VENDOR_IBM OCP_FUNC_EMAC 1 122 emacdata def gt additions 123 memcpy emacdata gt mac_addr __res bi_enetladdr 6 124 emacdata gt phy_mode PHY_MODE_RMII 125 126 304 305 static void __init 306 yosemite_setup_arch void 307 308 yosemite_set_emacdata 309 310 ibm440gx_get_clocks amp clocks YOSEMITE_SYSCLK 6 1843200 311 ocp_sys_info opb_bus_freq clocks opb 312 313 init to some sane value until calibrate_delay runs 314 loops_per_diffy 50000000 HZ 315 316 Setup PCI host bridge 317 yosemite_setup_hose 318 319 ifdef CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD 320 if initrd_start 321 ROOT_DEV Root_RAMO 322 else 323 endif 324 ifdef CONFIG_ROOT_NFS 325 ROOT_DEV Root_NFS 326 else 327 ROOT_DEV Root_HDAI 328 endif 329 330 yosemite_early_serial_mapQ 331 332 Identify the system 333 printk AMCC PowerPC BOARDNAME Platform n 334 335 To summarize the previous discussion e We entered a breakpoint in gdb at yosemite_setup_arch e When the breakpoint was hit we found ourselves at line 116 of the source file which was far removed from the function where we defined the breakpoint e We produced a disassembly listing of the code at yosemite_setup_arch and discovered the labels to which this sequence of code was branching e Comparing the labels back to our source c
53. 273 4 Ox0001f518 in websGetInput wp 0x325c8 ptext Oxbefffc40 pnbytes Oxbefffc38 at webs c 664 5 Ox000ledeO in websReadEvent wp 0x325c8 at webs c 362 6 Ox000led34 in websSocketEvent sid 1 mask 2 iwp 206280 at webs c 319 7 0x00019740 in socketDoEvent sp 0x34fc8 at sockGen c 903 8 0x00019598 in socketProcess sid 1 at sockGen c 845 9 0x00012be8 in main argc l argv Oxbefffel4 at main c 99 gdb The backtrace displays the call chain all the way back to main the start of the user s program A stack frame number precedes each line of the backtrace You can switch to any given stack frame using the gdb frame command Listing 13 3 is an example of this Here we switch to stack frame 2 and display the source code in that frame As in the previous examples the lines preceded with gdb are the commands we issue to GDB and the other lines are the GDB output Listing 13 3 Moving Around Stack Frames in GDB gdb frame 2 2 0x00012b50 in ErrorInHandler wp 0x325c8 urlPrefix 0x2f648 Error webDir 0x2f660 arg 0 url 0x34f30 Error path 0x34d68 Error query 0x321d8 at led c 61 61 return InitBlock p siz gdb 1 56 57 siz 10000 sizeof BigBlock 58 59 p malloc siz 60 if p 61 return InitBlock p siz 62 else return 0 63 64 65 gdb As you can see with a little help from the source code available usi
54. 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Burst 42 43 ia Disable memory controller my mtsdram0 mem_mcoptl 0x00000000 JF Set MBOCF for bank 0 mtsdramO mem_mbOcf mbOcf li reg mtsdramO mem_sdtrl sdtrl mtsdramO mem_rtr rtr udelay 200 ye Set memory controller options reg MCOPTI1 Set DC_EN to l and BRD_PRF to 0l for 16 byte PLB read prefetch We 44 mtsdramO mem_mcoptl 0x80800000 45 46 udelay 10000 4T 48 if get_ram_size 0 mbOcflil size mbOcflil size 49 7 50 OK size detected gt all done 51 U 52 return 53 54 55 The first action reads the pin strapping on the 405GP processor to determine the design value for the SDRAM clock In this case we can see that two possible values are accommodated 100MHz and 133MHz Based on this choice constants are chosen that will be used later in the function to set the appropriate register bits in the SDRAM controller Starting on line 24 a loop is used to set the parameters for each of up to five predefined memory sizes Currently U Boot has logic to support a single bank of memory sized at 4MB 16MB 32MB 64MB or 128MB These sizes are defined in a table called mbOcf in cpu ppc4xx sdram c The table associates a constant with each of these memory sizes based on the value required in the 405GP memory bank configuration register
55. 490 addgroup Adds a group to the system adduser Adds a user to the system adjtimex Reads and optionally sets system timebase parameters ar Extracts or lists files from an ar archive arping Pings hosts by ARP requests replies ash The ash shell command interpreter awk Pattern scanning and processing language basename Strips directory path and suffixes from files bunzip2 Uncompresses a file or standard input if no input file specified bzcat Uncompresses to stdout cal Displays a calendar cat Concatenates file s and prints them to stdout chgrp Changes the group membership of each file chmod Changes file access permissions chown Changes the owner and or group of file s chroot chvt clear cmp cp cpio crond crontab cut date dc dd deallocvt delgroup deluser devfsd df dirname dmesg dos2unix dpkg dpkg deb du dumpkmap dumpleases echo env expr Runs the command with root directory set to new root Changes the foreground virtual terminal to dev ttyN Clears screen Compares files Copies files Extracts or lists files from a cpio archive BusyBox s version of cron daemon Manages crontab control file Prints selected fields from each input file to standard output Displays or sets the system time Tiny RPN calculator Copies a file converting and formatting according to options Deallocates unused virtual terminal dev ttyN Deletes a group from the system Deletes a user from the system
56. Address Function Oxc020f43 ocp_get_one_device Address Function 8 Oxc020f45c memcpy Oxc020f47 ocp_get_one_device 4 Oxc020f48c memcpy Oxc020f4a ibm440gx_get_clocks C Listing 14 9 reproduces portions of the source file yosemite c Correlating the functions we found in the gdb disassemble output we see those labels occurring in the function yosemite_set_emacdata Q around the line numbers reported by gdb when the breakpoint at yosemite_setup_arch was encountered The key to understanding the anomaly is to notice the subroutine call at the very start of yosemite_setup_arch The compiler has inlined the call to yosemite_set_emacdata instead of generating a function call as would be expected by simple inspection of the source code This inlining produced the mismatch in the line numbers when gdb hit the breakpoint Even though the yosemite_set_emacdata function was not declared using the inline keyword GCC inlined the function as a performance optimization Listing 14 9 Portions of Source File yosemite c 109 static void __init yosemite_set_emacdata void 110 111 struct ocp_def def 112 struct ocp_func_emac_data emacdata 113 114 Set mac_addr and phy mode for each EMAC 115 116 def ocp_get_one_device OCP_VENDOR_IBM OCP_FUNC_EMAC 0 117 emacdata def gt additions 118 memcpy emacdata gt mac_addr res bi_enetaddr 6 119 emacdata gt phy_mode PHY MODE_RMII
57. After the NFS root file system has been mounted initialization completes as described in Chapter 5 Kernel Initialization It is also possible to pass target IP settings to the kernel in a static fashion instead of having the kernel obtain IP settings from a DHCP or BOOTP server IP settings can be passed via the kernel command line directly In this case the kernel command line might look similar to this View full width console console ttyS0 115200 ip 192 168 1 68 192 168 1 9 255 255 255 0 pdna ethO off root dev nfs rw nfsroot 192 168 1 9 home chris pdna target 12 4 Chapter Summary e Many features of a development environment greatly facilitate efficiency for embedded cross development Most of these fall under the category of tools and utilities We cover this aspect in detail in the next chapter where we cover development tools e lt A properly configured development host is a critical asset for the embedded developer e Toolchains employed for cross development must be properly configured to match your host system s target Linux environment e Your development host must have target components installed that your toolchain and binary utilities can reference These components include target header files libraries target binaries and their associated configuration files In short you need to assemble or obtain an embedded Linux distribution e Configuring target servers such as TFTP DHCP and NFS will greatly
58. Figure 14 4 gdb inserting target memory breakpoints Target System Virtual Memory c000_0000 c001_6de8 c005_bd5c Host System c021_a488 You might have noticed that gdb is updating four breakpoints whereas we entered only three The first one at target memory location Oxc000_0000 is put there by gdb automatically upon startup This location is the base address of the linked kernel image from the ELF fileessentially _start It is equivalent to a breakpoint at main for user space debugging and is done by gdb automatically The other three breakpoints are the ones we entered earlier The same thing happens in reverse when an event occurs that returns control to gdb Listing 14 6 details the action when our breakpoint at yosemite_setup_arch is encountered Listing 14 6 Remote Protocol Breakpoint Hit Packet received T0440 c021a488 01 cO20f 90 Sending packet mc0000000 4 80 Ack lt lt lt Read memory c0000000 Packet received 7d821008 Sending packet Mc0000000 4 c022d200 87 Ack lt lt lt Write memory Packet received OK Sending packet mc0016de8 47 8 Ack Packet received 7d821008 Sending packet Mc0016de8 4 38600001 a4 Ack Packet received OK Sending packet mc005bd5c 4 23 Ack Packet received 7d821008 Sending packet Mc005bd5c 4 38600001 cf Ack Packet received OK Sending packet mc021a488 4 c8 Ack Packet received 7d821008 Sending packe
59. GRUB Bootloader www gnu org software grub Chapter 8 Device Driver Basics In this chapter e Device Driver Concepts page 190 e Module Utilities page 199 e Driver Methods page 205 e Bringing It All Together page 209 e Device Drivers and the GPL page 211 e Chapter Summary page 211 One of the more challenging aspects of system design is partitioning functionality in a rational manner The familiar device driver model found in UNIX and Linux provides a natural partitioning of functionality between your application code and hardware or kernel devices In this chapter we develop an understanding of this model and the basics of Linux device driver architecture After reading this chapter you will have a solid foundation for continuing your study of device drivers using one of the excellent texts listed at the end of this chapter This chapter begins by presenting Linux device driver concepts and the build system for drivers within the kernel source tree We examine the Linux device driver architecture and present a simple working example driver We introduce the user space utilities for loading and unloading kernel modules We present a simple application to illustrate the interface between applications and device drivers We conclude this chapter with a discussion of device drivers and the GNU Public License 7 The terms module and device driver are used here interchangeably 8 1 Device Driver Concepts Many e
60. However new development is expected to use the family of functions defined by the kernel header file include linux moduleparam h most notably the family of module_param macros These are explained in more detail in Chapter 8 Device Driver Basics when we introduce device drivers The new mechanism maintains backward compatibility by including an unknown function pointer argument in the parsing routine Thus parameters that are unknown to the module_param infrastructure are considered unknown and the processing falls back to the old mechanism under control of the developer This is easily understood by examining the well written code in kernel params c and the parse_args calls in init main c The last point worth mentioning is the purpose of the flag member of the obs_kernel_param structure created by the __setup macro Examination of the code in Listing 5 6 should make it clear The flag in the structure called early is used to indicate whether this particular command line parameter was already consumed earlier in the boot process Some command line parameters are intended for consumption very early in the boot process and this flag provides a mechanism for an early parsing algorithm You will find a function in main c called do_early_paramQ that traverses the linker generated array of __setup generated structures and processes each one marked for early consumption This gives the developer some control over whe
61. Idd command introduced in Chapter 11 BusyBox and detailed in Chapter 13 Listing 15 8 shows the output of idd invoked from the target board Listing 15 8 ldd Executed on Target Board root coyote workspace ldd websdemo libe so 6 gt 1lib tls libc so 6 0x40020000 1ib 1d linux so 3 0x40000000 root coyote workspace Notice that the paths to the shared libraries on the target are absolute paths starting at lib on the root file system But GDB running on your host development workstation cannot use these paths to find the libraries You should realize that to do so would result in your host GDB loading libraries from the wrong architecture Your host is likely x86 whereas in this example the target is ARM XScale If you invoke your cross version of ldd you will see the paths that were preconfigured into your toolchain Your toolchain must have knowledge of where these files exist on your host development system Listing 15 9 illustrates this Again we have edited the listing for readability long paths have been abbreviated l2 It is certainly possible to pass these locations to your compiler linker and debugger for every invocation but any good embedded Linux distribution will configure these defaults into the toolchain as a convenience to the developer Listing 15 9 1dd Executed on Development Host xscale_be 1dd websdemo libc so 6 gt opt mv1 xscale_be ta
62. Images are counted starting from Zero Unlike Lilo GRUB can actually read a file system on a given partition to load an image from The root tag specifies the root partition from which all filenames in the grub conf configuration file are rooted In this example configuration the root is partition number 1 on the first hard disk drive specified as root hd0 1 Partitions are numbered from zero this is the second partition on the first hard disk The images are specified as filenames relative to the specified root In Listing 7 11 the default boot image is a Linux 2 6 9 kernel with a matching initial ramdisk image called initrd 2 6 9 img Notice that the GRUB syntax has the kernel command line parameters on the same line as the kernel file specification 7 5 3 Still More Bootloaders Numerous other bootloaders have found their way into specific niches For example Redboot is another open source bootloader that Intel and the XScale community have adopted for use on various evaluation boards based on the Intel IXP and PXA processor families Micromonitor is in use by board vendors such as Cogent and others YAMON has found popularity in MIPs circles LinuxBIOS is used primarily in X86 environments In general when you consider a boot loader you should consider some important factors up front l5 In an acknowledgment of the number of bootloaders in existence the YAMON user s guide bills itself as Yet Another MONitor e D
63. In Linux 2 4 and earlier kernels developers used a simple macro to generate a not so simple sequence of code Although it is being deprecated the __setup macro is still in widespread use throughout the kernel We next use the kernel command line from Listing 5 3 to demonstrate how the __setup macro works From the previous kernel command line line 10 of Listing 5 3 this is the first complete command line parameter passed to the kernel console ttyS0 115200 For the purposes of this example the actual meaning of the parameters is irrelevant Our goal here is to illustrate the mechanism so don t be concerned if you don t understand the argument or its values Listing 5 4 is a snippet of code from kernel printk c The body of the function has been stripped because it is not relevant to the discussion The most relevant part of Listing 5 4 is the last line the invocation of the __ setup macro This macro expects two arguments in this case it is passed a string literal anda function pointer It is no coincidence that the string literal passed to the __setup macro is the same as the first eight characters of the kernel command line related to the console console Listing 5 4 Console Setup Code Snippet A static int __init console_setup char str Setup a list of consoles Called from init main c char namelsizeof console_cmdline 0 name char s options int idx J Decode str into
64. KGDB implementation for this target board does not support this command therefore it is NAK d by the target gdb responds by displaying this informational message and issuing the standard remote continue command instead 14 3 1 gdb Remote Serial Protocol gdb includes a debug switch that enables us to observe the remote protocol being used between gdb on your development host and the target This can be very useful for understanding the underlying protocol as well as troubleshooting targets that exhibit unusual or errant behavior To enable this debug mode issue the following command gdb set debug remote 1 With remote debugging enabled it is instructive to observe the continue command in action and the steps taken by gdb Listing 14 5 illustrates the use of the continue command with remote debugging enabled Listing 14 5 continue Remote Protocol Example gdb c Continuing Sending packet mc0000000 4 80 Ack Packet received c022d200 Sending packet Mc0000000 4 7d821008 68 Ack Packet received OK Sending packet mc0016de8 47f 8 Ack Packet received 38600001 Sending packet Mc0016de8 4 7d821008 e0 Ack Packet received OK Sending packet mc005bd5c 4 23 Ack Packet received 38600001 Sending packet Mc005bd5c 4 7d821008 0b Ack Packet received OK Sending packet mc021a488 4 c8 Ack Packet received 4bfffbad Sending packet Mc021a488 4 7d8210087Db0
65. MTD_RAM C Support for ROM chips in bus mapping MTD_ROM C Suppor for absent chips in bus mapping MTD_ABSENT C XIP aware MTD support MITD_XIP gt Mapping drivers for chip access b Self contained MTD device drivers v NAND Flash Device Drivers b E NAND Device Support MTD_NAND CI DiskOnChip 2000 Millennium Plus MTD_NAND_DISKONCHIP US as If your Flash chip is not supported you must provide a device file yourself Using one of the many examples in drivers mtd chips as a starting point customize or create your own Flash device driver Better yet unless the chip was just introduced with some newfangled interface chances are good that someone has already produced a driver 10 3 5 Board Specific Initialization Along with a mapping driver your board specific platform setup must provide the underlying definitions for proper MTD Flash system operation Listing 10 12 reproduces the relevant portions of arch arm mach ixp4xx coyote setup c Listing 10 12 Coyote Specific Board Setup static struct flash_platform_data coyote_flash_data map _name cfi probe width SN y static struct resource coyote_flash_resource Start COYOTE_FLASH_BASE end COYOTE _FLASH_BASE COYOTE_FLASH_SIZE 1 flags IORESOURCE_MEM w static struct platform_device coyote_flash name IXP4XX Flash id 0 dev 4 _platform_data amp coyote_flash_data J num_resources 1 resource
66. Memory Space Virtually all legacy embedded operating systems view and manage system memory as a single large flat address space That is a microprocessor s address space exists from O to the top of its physical address range For example if a microprocessor had 24 physical address lines its top of memory would be 16MB Therefore its hexadecimal address would range from Ox00000000 to OxO0Offffff Hardware designs commonly place DRAM starting at the bottom of the range and Flash memory from the top down Unused address ranges between the top of DRAM and bottom of FLASH would be allocated for addressing of various peripheral chips on the board This design approach is often dictated by the choice of microprocessor Figure 2 5 is an example of a typical memory layout for a simple embedded system Figure 2 5 Typical embedded system memory map 16 MB Flash Peripherals Base Address PCI Bus Addresses PCI Address Range 8000_0000 O3FF_FFFF 64 MB RAM 0000_0000 In traditional embedded systems based on legacy operating systems the OS and all the tasks had equal access rights to all resources in the system A bug in one process could wipe out memory contents anywhere in the system whether it belonged to itself the OS another task or even a hardware register somewhere in the address space Although this approach had simplicity as its most valuable characteristic it led to bugs that could be difficult to diagnose a In this disc
67. Size Steps From Figure 9 2 we can see that the bulk of the file sizes are well below approximately 10KB The spike at 4096 represents directories Directory entries also files themselves are exactly 4096 bytes in length and there are many of them The spike above 40 000 bytes is an artifact of the measurement It is a count of the number of files greater than approximately 40KB the end of the measurement quantum It is interesting to note that the vast majority of files are very small Small file sizes present a unique challenge to the Flash file system designer Because Flash memory must be erased one entire block at a time and the size of a Flash block is often many multiples of the smaller file sizes Flash is subject to time consuming block rewriting For example assume that a 128KB block of Flash is being used to hold a couple dozen files of 4096 bytes or less Now assume that one of those files needs to be modified This causes the Flash file system to invalidate the entire 128KB block and rewrite every file in the block to a newly erased block This can be a time consuming process Because Flash writes can be time consuming much slower than hard disk writes this increases the window where data corruption can occur due to sudden loss of power Unexpected power loss is a common occurrence in embedded systems For instance if power is lost during the rewrite of the 128KB data block referenced in the previous paragraph
68. Suggestions for Additional Reading Because this is a book about embedded Linux development we use a version of GDB that has been compiled as a cross debugger That is the debugger itself runs on your development host but it understands binary executables in the architecture for which it was configured at compile time In the next few examples we use GDB compiled for a Red Hat Linux compatible development host and an XScale ARM target processor Although we use the short name gdb we are presenting examples based on the XScale enabled cross gdb from the Monta Vista embedded Linux distribution for ARM XScale The binary is called xscale_be gdb It is still GDB simply configured for a cross development environment The GDB debugger is a complex program with many configuration options during the build process It is not our intention to provide guidance on building gdbthat has been covered in other literature For the purposes of this chapter we assume that you have obtained a working GDB configured for the architecture and host development environment you will be using 13 1 1 Debugging a Core Dump One of the most common reasons to drag GDB out of the toolbox is to evaluate a core dump It is quick and easy and often leads to immediate identification of the offending code A core dump results when an application program generates a fault such as accessing a memory location that it does not own Many conditions can trigger a
69. The loop does this for G each possible memory bank size largest first select timing constant based on SDRAM clock speed disable SDRAM memory controller configure bank O with sizelil timing constantsli re enable SDRAM memory controller run simple memory test to dynamically determine size This is done using get_ram_size if tested size configured size done This simple logic simply plugs in the correct timing constants in the SDRAM controller based on SDRAM clock speed and configured memory bank size from the hard coded table in U Boot Using this explanation you can easily correlate the bank configuration values using the 405GP reference manual For a 64MB DRAM size the memory bank control register is set as follows Memory Bank O Control Register 0x000a4001 The PowerPC 405GP User s Manual describes the fields in Table D 2 for the memory bank O control register Table D 2 405GP Memory Bank 0 3 Configuration Register Fields Valu Field e Comments Bank 0x00 Starting memory address of this bank Address BA Size SZ Ox4 Size of this memory bankin this case 64MB Addressing 0x2 Determines the organization of memory including the number of Mode AM row and column bits In this case Mode 2 12 row address bits and either 9 or 10 column address bits and up to four internal SDRAM banks This data is provided in a table in the 405GP user s manual Bank Enable Oxl Enable bit for the ba
70. a recent Linux 2 6 source tree contains no fewer than 37 source files named head s This is another reason why you need to know your way around the kernel source tree Refer back to Figure 5 3 for a graphical view of the flow of control When the bootstraploader has completed its job control is passed to the kernel proper s head o and from there to start_kernel in main c 5 2 1 Kernel Entry Point head o The intention of the kernel developers was to keep the architecture specific head o module very generic without any specific machine dependencies This module derived from the assembly language file head S is located at arch lt ARCH gt kernel head S where lt ARCH gt is replaced by the given architecture The examples in this chapter are based on the ARM XScale as you have seen with lt ARCH gt arm al The term machine as used here refers to a specific hardware reference platform The head o module performs architecture and often CPU specific initialization in preparation for the main body of the kernel CPU specific tasks are kept as generic as possible across processor families Machine specific initialization is performed elsewhere as you will discover shortly Among other low level tasks head o performs the following tasks e Checks for valid processor and architecture e Creates initial page table entries e Enables the processor s memory management unit MMU e Establishes limited error detection and
71. a simple source code browsing tool that makes it easy to bounce around a large source tree following symbols a Actually support for the underlying engine that cbrowser uses is in the Linux build system The Linux kernel makefile supports building the database that cbrowser uses Here is an example invocation from a recent Linux kernel snapshot make ARCH ppc CROSS_COMPILE ppc_82xx cscope This produces the cscope symbol database that cbrowser uses cscope is the engine cbrowser is the graphical user interface You can use cscope on its own if you want It is command line driven and very powerful but not quite as quick or easy for navigating a large source tree in this point and click era If vi is still your favorite editor cscope might be just for you To invoke cbrowser enter the directory that contains your cscope database and simply type the cbrowser command without arguments Figure 13 3 shows an example session You can read more about both of these useful tools in the references listed in Section 13 7 1 at the end of this chapter Figure 13 3 cbrowser in action File Edit Select History Options Help Selected Database cscope home chris sandbox linux 2 6 14 cscope out F Ea Symbols mpcS20_restart zi mpcs2xx h in lt global gt at line 413 extern void mpceS2xx_restart char cmd lite5200 c in platform_init at line 222 ppc_md restart mpc52xx_restart powerdna c in pl
72. about the _initcall family of macros The use of multiple levels was introduced during the development of the 2 6 kernel series Earlier kernel versions used the __initcallQ macro for this purpose This macro is still in widespread use especially in device drivers To maintain backward compatibility this macro has been defined to device_initcallQ which has been defined as a level 6 initcall 5 5 The init Thread The code found in init main c is responsible for bringing the kernel to life After start_kernel performs some basic kernel initialization calling early initialization functions explicitly by name the very first kernel thread is spawned This thread eventually becomes the kernel thread called initQ with a process id PID of 1 As you will learn init becomes the parent of all Linux processes in user space At this point in the boot sequence two distinct threads are running that represented by start_kernel and now init The former goes on to become the idle process having completed its work The latter becomes the init process This can be seen in Listing 5 9 Listing 5 9 Creation of Kernel init THRead static void noinline rest_init void __releases kernel_lock kernel_thread init NULL CLONE_FS CLONE _SIGHAND numa_default_policyQ unlock_kerne1Q preempt_enable_no_resched i The boot idle thread must execute schedule at least one to get things moving
73. all of the couple dozen files could potentially be lost Enter JFFS2 These issues just discussed and other problems have been largely reduced or eliminated by the design of the second generation Journaling Flash File System or JFFS2 The original JFFS was designed by Axis Communications AB of Sweden and was targeted specifically at the commonly available Flash memory devices at the time The JFFS had knowledge of the Flash architecture and more important architectural limitations imposed by the devices Another problem with Flash file systems is that Flash memory has a limited lifetime Typical Flash memory devices are specified for a minimum of 100 000 write cycles and more recently 1 000 000 cycle devices have become common This specification is applicable to each block of the Flash device This unusual limitation imposes the requirement to spread the writes evenly across the blocks of a Flash memory device JFFS2 uses a technique called wear leveling to accomplish this function Building a JFFS2 image is relatively straightforward As always you must ensure that your kernel has support for JFFS2 and that your development workstation contains a compatible version of the mkfs jffs2 utility JFFS2 images are built from a directory that contains the desired files on the file system image Listing 9 8 shows a typical directory structure for a Flash device designed to be used as a root file system Listing 9 8 Directory Layout for JFF
74. alone processors are used as building blocks to build very high performance computing engines We presented several examples from Intel IBM and Freescale e Integrated processors or systems on chip SOCs dominate the embedded Linux landscape Many vendors and several popular architectures are used in embedded Linux designs Several of the most popular are presented in this chapter by architecture and manufacturer e An increasingly popular trend is to move away from proprietary hardware and software platforms toward commercial off the shelf COTS solutions Two popular platforms in widespread use in embedded Linux systems cPCI and ATCA 3 4 1 Suggestions For Additional Reading PowerPC 32 bit architecture reference manual Programming Environments Manual for 32 Bit Implementations of the PowerPC ArchitectureRevision 2 Freescale Semiconductor Inc www freescale com files product doc MPCFPE32B pdf PowerPC 64 bit architecture reference The Programming Environments Manual for 64 Bit MicroprocessorsVersion 3 0 International Business Machines Inc Short summary of PowerPC architecture A Developer s Guide to the POWER Architecture Brett Olsson Processor Architect IBM Corp Anthony Marsala Software Engineer IBM Corp www 128 ibm com developerworks linux library 1 powarch Intel XScale summary page www intel com design intelxscale Chapter 4 The Linux KernelA Different Perspective In this chapter
75. an embedded systems developer a Many good books cover the details of virtual memory systems See Section 2 5 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of this chapter for recommendations 2 3 6 Execution Contexts One of the very first chores that Linux performs when it begins to run is to configure the hardware memory management unit MMU on the processor and the data structures used to support it and to enable address translation When this step is complete the kernel runs in its own virtual memory space The virtual kernel address selected by the kernel developers in recent versions defaults to OxC0000000 In most architectures this is a configurable parameter If we were to look at the kernel s symbol table we would find kernel symbols linked at an address starting with OxCOxxxxxx As a result any time the kernel is executing code in kernel space the instruction pointer of the processor will contain values in this range os However there is seldom a good reason to change it In Linux we refer to two distinctly separate operational contexts based on the environment in which a given thread is executing Threads executing entirely within the kernel are said to be operating in kernel context while application programs are said to operate in user space context A user space process can access only memory it owns and uses kernel system calls to access privileged resources such as file and device I O An example m
76. and more See the ARM Technologies website at www arm com for additional ARM licensees and information 3 2 13 Other Architectures We have covered the major architectures in widespread use in embedded Linux systems However for completeness you should be aware of other architectures for which support exists in Linux A recent Linux snapshot revealed 25 architecture branches subdirectories In some instances the 64 bit implementation of an architecture is separated from its 32 bit counterpart In other cases ports are not current or are no longer maintained The Linux source tree contains ports for Sun Sparc and Sparc64 the Xtensa from Tensilica and the v850 from NEC to name a few Spend a few minutes looking through the architecture branches of the Linux kernel to see the range of architectures for which Linux has been ported Beware however that not all these architectures might be up to date in any given snapshot You can be reasonably certain that the major architectures are fairly current but the only way to be certain is to follow the development in the Linux community or consult with your favorite embedded Linux vendor Appendix E Open Source Resources contains a list of resources you can consult to help you stay current with Linux developments 3 3 Hardware Platforms The idea of a common hardware reference platform is not new The venerable PC 104 and VMEbus are two examples of hardware platforms that have withst
77. arm com miscPDFs 3822 pdf u Reported by ARM to be the top selling toy during the Christmas 2005 shopping season in the United States The ARM architecture is developed by ARM Holdings plc and licensed to semiconductor manufacturers around the globe Many of the world s leading semiconductor companies have licensed ARM technology and are currently shipping integrated processors based on one of the several ARM cores 3 2 9 TI ARM Texas Instruments uses ARM cores in the OMAP family of integrated processors These processors contain many integrated peripherals intended to be used as single chip solutions for various consumer products such as cellular handsets PDAs and similar multimedia platforms In addition to the interfaces commonly found on integrated processors such as UARTs and TC the OMAP devices contain a wide range of special purpose interfaces including the following e LCD screen and backlight controllers e Buzzer driver e Camera interface e MMC SD card controller e Battery management hardware e USB client host interfaces e Radio modem interface logic e Integrated 2D or 3D graphics accelerators e Integrated security accelerator e S Video outputs e IrDA controller e DACs for direct TV PAL NTSC video output e Integrated DSPs for video and audio processing Many popular cellular handsets and PDA devices have been marketed based on the TI OMAP platform Because they are based on an ARM core these pr
78. at startup This is done by a kernel command line parameter It is hinted at in Listing 6 2 by the text contained within the panic function call Building on our kernel command line from Chapter 5 here is how it might look with a developer specified init process console ttyS0 115200 ip bootp root dev nfs init sbin myinit Specifying init in the kernel command line in this way you must provide a binary executable on your root file system in the sbin directory called myinit This would be the first process to gain control at the completion of the kernel s boot process 6 3 The Init Process Unless you are doing something highly unusual you will never need to provide a customized initial process because the capabilities of the standard init process are very flexible The init program together with a family of startup scripts that we examine shortly implement what is commonly called System V Init from the original UNIX System V that used this schema We now examine this powerful system configuration and control utility We saw in the previous section that init is the first user space process spawned by the kernel after completion of the boot process As you will learn every process in a running Linux system has a child parent relationship with another process running in the system init is the ultimate parent of all user space processes in a Linux system Furthermore init provides the default set of environment parameters fo
79. board specific mapping driver The Linux kernel source tree contains many examples of mapping drivers located in drivers mtd maps Any one of these will provide good examples for how to create your own The implementation details vary by architecture The mapping driver is a proper kernel module complete with module_init and module_exitQ calls as described in Chapter 8 Device Driver Basics A typical mapping driver is small and easy to navigate often containing fewer than a couple dozen lines of C Listing 10 11 reproduces a section of drivers mtd maps pq2fads This mapping driver defines the Flash device on a Freescale PQ2FADS evaluation board that supports the MPC8272 and other processors Listing 10 11 PQ2FADs Flash Mapping Driver static struct mtd_partition pq2fads_partitions ifdef CONFIG_ADS8272 name HRCW size 0x40000 offset 0 mask_flags MTD_WRITEABLE force read only det name User FS size 0x5c0000 offset 0x40000 else name User FS size 0x600000 offset 0 endif pee name ulmage size 0x100000 offset 0x600000 mask_flags MID_WRITEABLE force read only name bootloader Size 0x40000 offset 0x700000 mask_flags MID_WRITEABLE force read only k name bootloader env size 0x40000 offset 0x740000 mask_flags MID_WRITEABLE force read only qs pointer to MPC885ADS boa
80. can halt on shared library events and can automatically load shared library symbols when available Your toolchain should be configured for the default paths on your cross development system Alternatively you can use GDB commands to set the search paths for shared library objects GDB can be used to debug multiple independent processes via multiple concurrent GDB sessions GDB can be configured to follow a forked process on a fork system call Its default mode is to continue to debug the parentthat is the caller of fork GDB has features to facilitate debugging multithreaded applications written to POSIX thread APIs The current default Linux thread library is the Native Posix Threads Library NPTL GDB supports attaching to and detaching from an already running process 15 6 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading GDB The GNU Project Debugger Online Documentation http sourceware org gdb onlinedocs GDB Pocket Reference Arnold Robbins O Reilly Media 2005 Chapter 16 Porting Linux In this chapter Linux Source Organization page 422 Custom Linux for Your Board page 424 Platform Initialization page 431 Putting It All Together page 439 Chapter Summary page 442 It is not difficult to port Linux to a new hardware platform The Linux source tree contains ports for numerous boards spanning more than 20 architectures and many more individual processors Knowing where to start is often the hardest part
81. child is spawned by the forkQ system call GDB detaches silently from the parent thread of execution and attaches to the newly spawned child process having PID 402 GDB is now in control of the first child process and honors the breakpoint set at worker_process Notice however that the other child processes spawned by the code snippet from Listing 15 11 are not debugged and continue to run to their own completion In summary using GDB in this fashion you are limited to debugging a single process at a time You can debug through the fork system call but you have to decide which thread of execution to follow through the fork call either the parent or the child As mentioned in the introduction to this section you can use multiple independent GDB sessions if you must debug more than one cooperating process at a time 15 4 2 Debugging Multithreaded Applications If your application uses the POSIX thread library for its threading functions GDB has additional capabilities to handle concurrent debugging of a multithreaded application The Native Posix Thread Library NPTL has become the de facto standard thread library in use on Linux systems including embedded Linux systems The rest of this discussion assumes that you are using this thread library For this section we use a demonstration program that spawns a number of threads using the pthread_create library function in a simple loop After the threads are spawned the mai
82. circuitry to capture the row address the processor outputs a column address and asserts its Column Address Select CAS signal The SDRAM controller translates the actual physical memory address into row and column addresses Many SDRAM controllers can be configured with the row and column width sizes the PPC405GP is one of those examples Later you will see that this must be configured as part of the SDRAM controller setup This example is much simplified but the concepts are the same A burst read for example which reads four memory locations at once outputs a single RAS and CAS cycle and the internal SDRAM circuitry automatically increments the column address for the subsequent three locations of the burst read eliminating the need for the processor to issue four separate CAS cycles This is but one example of performance optimization The best way to understand this is to absorb the details of an actual memory chip An example of a well written data sheet is included in Section D 4 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading D 1 1 SDRAM Refresh An SDRAM is composed of a single transistor and a capacitor The transistor supplies the charge and the capacitor s job is to retain store the value of the individual cell For reasons beyond the scope of this discussion the capacitor can hold the value for only a small duration One of the fundamental concepts of dynamic memory is that the capacitors representing each cell must be periodical
83. command is issued control is immediately passed to the reset vector of your architecture in a most abrupt and stunning manner Use this powerful tool at your own peril This feature is well documented in the Linux kernel documentation subdirectory in a file called sysrq txt There you find the details for many architectures and the description of available commands For example another way to set the kernel loglevel just discussed is to use the Magic SysReq key The command is a number from O through 9 which results in the default loglevel being set to the number of the command From minicom press Ctl A F followed by a number such as 9 Here is how it looks on the terminal SysRq Changing Loglevel Loglevel set to 9 Commands can be used to dump registers shut down your system reboot your system dump a list of processes dump current memory information to your console and more See the documentation file in any recent Linux kernel for the details This feature is most commonly used when something causes your system to lock up Often the Magic SysReq key provides a way to learn something from an otherwise dead system 14 4 Hardware Assisted Debugging By now youve probably realized that you cannot debug very early kernel startup code with KGDB This is because KGDB is not initialized until after most of the low level hardware initialization code has executed Furthermore if you are assigned the task of bringing
84. command line partition table parsing which defines the CONFIG _MTD_CMDLINE_PARTS option Listing 10 10 shows the format for defining a partition on the kernel command line taken from drivers mtd cmdlinepart c Listing 10 10 Kernel Command Line MTD Partition Format mtdparts lt mtddef gt lt mtddef lt mtddef gt lt mtd id gt lt partdef gt lt partdef gt lt partdef gt lt size gt offset lt name gt ro lt mtd id gt unique name used in mapping driver device mtd gt name lt size gt std linux memsize OR to denote all remaining space lt name gt NAME Each mtddef parameter passed on the kernel command line defines a separate partition As shown is Listing 10 10 each mtddef definition contains multiple parts You can specify a unique ID partition size and offset from the start of the Flash You can also pass the partition a name and optionally the read only attribute Referring back to our Redboot partition definitions in Listing 10 5 we could statically define these on the kernel command line as follows mtdparts MainFlash 384K Redboot 4K config 128K FIS Cunused With this definition the kernel would instantiate four MTD partitions with an MTD ID of MainFlash containing the sizes and layout matching that found in Listing I0 5 10 3 3 Mapping Driver The final method for defining your board specific Flash layout is to use a dedicated
85. complex applications while protecting other software modules and the kernel itself from programming errors 5 2 2 Kernel Startup main c The final task performed by the kernel s own head o module is to pass control to the primary kernel startup file written in C We spend a good portion of the rest of this chapter on this important file For each architecture there is a different syntax and methodology but every architecture s head o module has a similar construct for passing control to the kernel proper For the ARM architecture it looks as simple as this b start_kernel For PowerPC it looks similar to this lis r4 start_kernel h ori r4 r4 start_kernel l lis r3 MSR_KERNEL h ori r3 r3 MSR_KERNEL 1 mtspr SRRO r4 mtspr SRRL r3 rfi Without going into details of the specific assembly language syntax both of these examples result in the same thing Control is passed from the kernel s first object module head o to the C language routine start_kernel located in init main c Here the kernel begins to develop a life of its own The file main c should be studied carefully by anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the Linux kernel what components make it up and how they are initialized and or instantiated main c does all the startup work for the Linux kernel from initializing the first kernel thread all the way to mounting a root file system and executing the very first user space Linux application program T
86. config Update current config using a line oriented program e menuconfig Update current config using a menu based program e xconfig Update current config using a QT based front end e gconfig Update current config using a GTK based front end e oldconfig Update current config using a provided config as the base e randconfig New config with random answer to all options e defconfig New config with default answer to all options e allmodconfig New config that selects modules when possible e allyesconfig New config in which all options are accepted with yes e allnoconfig New minimal config The first four of these makefile configuration targets invoke a form of configuration editor as described in the list Because of space considerations we focus our discussion in this chapter and others only on the GTK based graphical front end Realize that you can use the configuration editor of your choice with the same results The configuration editor is invoked by entering the command make gconfig from the top level kernel directory Figure 4 2 shows the top level configuration menu presented to the developer when gconfig is run From here every available configuration parameter can be accessed to generate a custom kernel configuration 7 As mentioned you can use the configuration editor of your choice such as make xconfig or make menuconfig Figure 4 2 Top level kernel configuration View full size image File Op
87. configuration for initrd Figure 6 1 Linux kernel configuration utility View full size image File Options Help samep 9 Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand Options epee Name NIM Jvatue b Memory Technology Devices MTD Plug and Play support 7 Block devices C Normal floppy disk support BLK_DEV_FD NL LN b Loopback device support BLK_DEV_LOOP a ON C Network block device support BLK_DEV_NBD ean V v RAM disk support BLK_DEV_RAM za ae Default number of RAM disks BLK_DEV_RAM_COUNT 16 Default RAM disk size kbytes BLK_DEV_RAM_SIZE 8192 Initial RAM disk initrd support BLK_DEV_INITRD i YEN Initramfs source file s INITRAMFS_SOURCE C Packet writing on CD DVD media CDROM_PKTCDVD en e a rr Sorry no help available for this option yet a 6 4 1 Initial RAM Disk Purpose The initial RAM disk is a small self contained root file system that usually contains directives to load specific device drivers before the completion of the boot cycle In Linux workstation distributions such as Red Hat and Fedora Core an initial RAM disk is used to load the device drivers for the EXT3 file system before mounting the real root file system An initrd is frequently used to load a device driver that is required in order to access the real root file system 6 4 2 Booting with initrd To use the initrd functionality the bootloader gets involved on most architectures to pass the initrd image to t
88. configuring the kernel Each Kconfig file is free to source additional Kconfig files in different parts of the source tree The configuration utilitygconf in this case recursively reads the Kconfig file chain and builds the configuration menu structure Listing 4 8 is a partial tree view of the Kconfig files associated with the ARM architecture In a recent Linux 2 6 source tree from which this example was taken the kernel configuration was defined by 170 separate Kconfig files This listing omits most of those for the sake of space and claritythe idea is to show the overall structure To list them all in this tree view would take several pages of this text Listing 4 8 Partial Listing of Kconfig for ARM Architecture arch arm Kconfig lt lt lt lt lt lt top level Kconfig gt init Kconfig gt arch arm mach iop3xx Kconfig gt arch arm mach ixp4xx Kconfig gt net Kconfig gt net ipv4 Kconfig gt net ipv4 ipvs Kconfig gt drivers char Kconfig gt drivers serial Kconfig gt drivers usb Kconfig gt drivers usb core Kconfig l gt drivers usb host Kconfig gt 1ib Kconfig Looking at Listing 4 8 the file arch arm Kconfig would contain a line like this source net Kconfig The file net Kconfig would contain a line like this source net ipv4 Kconfig tand so on As mentioned earlier these Kconfig files taken together determine the
89. connectivity is similarly referred to as the southbridge chip because of its position in the architecture The southbridge chip actually an I O controller in these hardware architectures is responsible for providing interfaces such as those shown in Figure 3 1 including Ethernet USB IDE audio keyboard and mouse controllers On the PowerPC side the Tundra Tsill0 Host Bridge for PowerPC is an example of a chipset that supports the stand alone PowerPC processors The Tsill0 supports several interface functions for many common stand alone PowerPC processors The Tundra chip supports the Freescale MPC74xx and the IBM PPC 750xx family of processors The Tundra chip can be used by these processors to provide direct interfaces to the following peripherals e DDR DRAM integrated memory controller e Ethernet the Tundra provides four gigabit Ethernet ports e PCI Express supports 2 PCI Express ports e PCI X PCI 2 3 PCI X and Compact PCI cPCI e Serial ports e 2C e Programmable interrupt controller e Parallel port Many manufacturers of chipsets exist including VIA Technologies Marvell Tundra nVidia Intel and others Marvell and Tundra primarily serve the PowerPC market whereas the others specialize in Intel architectures Hardware designs based on one of the many stand alone processors such as Intel x86 IBM or Freescale PowerPC need to have a companion chipset to interface to system devices One of the advantage
90. contains the commands to enable any services we want to have operational for our appliance Listing 6 9 Example Runlevel 2 Startup Script bin sh echo This is runlvl2 startup echo Starting Internet Superserver inetd echo Starting web server webs amp Notice how simple this runlevel 2 startup script actually is First we enable the so called Internet superserver inetd which intercepts and spawns services for common TCP IP requests In our example we enabled Telnet services through a configuration file called etc inetd conf Then we execute the web server here called webs That s all there is to it Although minimal this is a working configuration for Telnet and web services To complete this configuration you might supply a shutdown script refer back to Listing 6 6 which in this case would terminate the web server and the Internet superserver before system shutdown In our example scenario that is sufficient for a clean shutdown 6 4 Initial RAM Disk The Linux kernel contains a mechanism to mount an early root file system to perform certain startup related system initialization and configuration This mechanism is known as the initial RAM disk or simply initrd Support for this functionality must be compiled into the kernel This kernel configuration option is found under Block Devices RAM disk support in the kernel configuration utility Figure 6 1 shows an example of the
91. core dump but SIGSEGV segmentation fault is by far the most common A SIGSEGV is a Linux kernel signal that is generated on illegal memory accesses by a user process When this signal is generated the kernel terminates the process The kernel then dumps a core image if so enabled I See SIG KERNEL COREDUMP MASK in kernel signal c for a definition of which signals generate a core dump To enable generation of a core dump your process must have the resource limits to enable a core dump This is achieved by setting the process s resource limits using the setrlimitQ function call or from a BASH or BusyBox shell command prompt using ulimit It is not uncommon to find the following line in the initialization scripts of an embedded system to enable the generation of core dumps on process errors ulimit c unlimited This BASH built in command is used to set the size limit of a core dump In the previous instance the size is set to unlimited When an application program generates a segmentation fault for example by writing to a memory address outside its permissible range Linux terminates the process and generates a core dump if so enabled The core dump is a snapshot of the running process at the time the segmentation fault occurred It helps to have debugging symbols enabled in your binary GDB produces much more useful output with debugging symbols gcc g enabled during the build However it is still possible
92. count preempted here Process A resumes here if count do_something In Figure 17 3 Process A is interrupted after updating the shared data but before it makes a decision based on it By design Process A cannot detect that it has been preempted Process B changes the value of the shared data before Process A gets to run again As you can see Process A will be making a decision based on a value determined by Process B If this is not the behavior you seek you must disable preemption in Process A around the shared datain this case the operation and decision on the variable count 17 2 2 Preemption Models The first solution to kernel preemption was to place checks at strategic locations within the kernel code where it was known to be safe to preempt the current thread of execution These locations included entry and exit to system calls release of certain kernel locks and return from interrupt processing At each of these points code similar to Listing 17 2 was used to perform preemption Listing 17 2 Check for Preemption a la Linux 2 4 Preempt Patch This code is executed at strategic locations within the Linux kernel where it is known to be safe to preempt the current thread of execution r if kernel_is_preemptable amp amp current gt need_resched preempt_schedule This code is in kernel sched c and is invoked from ifdef CONFIG_PREEMPT asmlinkage void preempt_sc
93. debate surrounds the issue of device drivers and how the terms of the GNU Public License apply to device drivers The first test is well understood If your device driver or any software for that matter is based even in part on existing GPL software it is called a derived work For example if you start with a current Linux device driver and modify it to suit your needs this is certainly considered a derived work and you are obligated to license this modified device driver under the terms of the GPL observing all its requirements This is where the debate comes in First the disclaimer This is not a legal opinion and the author is not a lawyer Some of these concepts have not been tested in court as of this writing The prevailing opinion of the legal and open source communities is that if a work can be proven to be independently derived and a given device driver does not assume intimate knowledge of the Linux kernel the developers are free to license it in any way they see fit If modifications are made to the kernel to accommodate a special need of the driver it is considered a derived work and therefore is subject to the GPL 8 This practice is not unique to open source Copyright and patent infringement is an ongoing concern for all developers A large and growing body of information exists in the open source community regarding these issues It seems likely that at some point in the future these concepts will
94. directly to the target file system The following example assumes the latter a This path is used by Red Hat and Fedora distributions and is also required by the File System Hierarchy Standard referenced at the end of this chapter Other distributions might use different locations in the file system for kernel modules make ARCH arm CROSS_COMPILE xscale_be INSTALL_MOD_PATH home chris sandbox coyote target modules_install This places all your modules in the directory coyote target which on this example system is exported via NFS and mounted as root on the target system a Hosting a target board and NFS root mount are covered in detail in Chapter 12 Embedded Development Environment 8 1 6 Loading Your Module Having completed all the steps necessary we are now in a position to load and test the device driver module Listing 8 5 shows the output resulting from loading and subsequently unloading the device driver on the embedded system Listing 8 5 Loading and Unloading a Module modprobe hellol lt lt lt Load the driver Hello Example Init modprobe r hellol lt lt lt Unload the driver Hello Example Exit You should be able to correlate the output with our device driver source code found in Listing 8 1 The module does no work other than printing messages to the kernel log system via printkQ which we see on our console When the module is loaded the module initializa
95. directory as sources linux 2 6 10 mtd By default patchkernel sh does not copy any files into the kernel source directory Instead it creates symbolic links from the kernel source tree pointing into the MTD subdirectory itself In this way you can maintain a common source tree for MTD for any number of kernels that you happen to have on your development workstation This allows the MTD kernel drivers to be built with the kernel build system including information about your specific kernel configuration 10 2 MTD Basics Now that we have enabled a simple MTD configuration in our kernel we can examine how this subsystem works on our Linux development workstation Using the test RAM driver we just configured in the previous section we can mount a JFFS2 image using an MTD device Assuming that you created a JFFS2 image as detailed in Chapter 9 File Systems you might want to mount it and examine it The Linux kernel does not support mounting a JFFS2 file system image directly on a loopback device such as is possible with ext2 and other file system images So we must use a different method This can be achieved using the MTD RAM test driver on our development Linux workstation with MTD enabled as in Figure 10 1 Listing 10 3 illustrates the steps Listing 10 3 Mounting JFFS2 on an MTD RAM Device modprobe jffs2 modprobe mtdblock modprobe mtdram dd if jffs2 bin of dev mtdblockO 4690 1 records in 469
96. don t have it on your development workstation you can download it from the link at the end of this chapter As with JFFS2 mkcramfs builds a file system image from a directory specified on the command line Listing 9 10 details the procedure for building a cramfs image We use the same file system structure from Listing 9 8 that we used to build the JFFS2 image Listing 9 10 mkcramfs Command Example mkcramfs usage mkcramfs h v b blksize e edition i file n name dirname outfile h print this help E make all warnings errors non zero exit status b blksize use this blocksize must equal page size e edition set edition number part of fsid i file insert a file image into the filesystem requires gt 2 4 0 n name set name of cramfs filesystem p pad by 512 bytes for boot code s sort directory entries old option ignored y be more verbose 7 make explicit holes requires gt 2 3 39 dirname root of the directory tree to be compressed outfile output file mkcramfs cramfs image warning gids truncated to 8 bits this may be a security concern 1s 1 cramfs image rw rw r 1 chris chris 1019904 Sep 19 18 06 cramfs image The mkcramfs command was initially issued without any command line parameters to reproduce the usage message Because there is no man page for this utility this is the best way to understand its us
97. done RAMDISK driver initialized 16 RAM disks of 16384K size 1024 blocksize RAMDISK Compressed image found at block 0 VFS Mounted root ext2 filesystem Greetings this is linuxrc from Initial RAMDisk Mounting proc filesystem BusyBox v1 00 2005 03 14 16 37 0000 Built in shell ash Enter help for a list of built in commands lt lt lt lt Busybox command prompt Here in Listing 6 10 we get a glimpse of the U Boot bootloader which we examine in more detail in the next chapter The tftpboot command causes U Boot to download the kernel image from a tftp server The kernel image is downloaded and placed into the base of this target system s memory at the 256MB address 0x10000000 hex Then a second image the initial ramdisk image is downloaded from a tftp server into memory at a higher memory address 256MB 8MB in this example Finally we issue the U Boot bootm command which is the boot from memory command The bootm command takes two arguments the address of the Linux kernel image optionally followed by an address representing the location of the initial ramdisk image a It just so happens that on this particular board our physical SDRAM starts at 256MB Take special note of one feature of the U Boot bootloader It fully supports loading kernel and ramdisk images over an Ethernet connection This is a very useful development configuration You can get a kernel and ramdisk image onto your
98. encouraged to study this good example The tmpfs file system is similar to and related to rams Like ramfs everything in tmpfs is stored in kernel virtual memory and the contents of tmpfs are lost on power down or reboot The tmpfs file system is useful for fast temporary storage of files I use tmpfs mounted on tmp in a midi audio application to speed up the creation and deletion of temporary objects required by the audio subsystem This is also a great way to keep your tmp directory cleanits contents are lost on every reboot Mounting tmpfs is similar to any other virtual file system mount t tmpfs tmpfs tmp As with other virtual file systems such as proc the first tmpfs parameter in the previous mount command is a no op that is it could be the word none and still function However it is a good reminder that you are mounting a virtual file system called tmpfs 9 10 Building a Simple File System It is straightforward to build a simple file system image Here we demonstrate the use of the Linux kernel s loopback device The loopback device enables the use of a regular file as a block device In short we build a file system image in a regular file and use the Linux loopback device to mount that file in the same way any other block device is mounted To build a simple root file system start with a fixed sized file containing all Zeros dd if dev zero of my new fs image bs lk count 512 This command creat
99. examples hellol ko Hello Example Init debug mode is disabled 8 2 3 lsmod The lsmod utility is also quite trivial It simply displays a formatted list of the modules that are inserted into the kernel Recent versions take no parameters and simply format the output of proc modules Listing 8 7 is an example of the output from lsmod 5l proc modules is part of the proc file system which is introduced in Chapter 9 File Systems Listing 8 7 lsmod Example Output Format 1smod Module Size Used by ext3 121096 0O jbd 49656 1 ext3 loop 12712 0 hellol 1412 0 Notice the rightmost column labeled Used by This column indicates that the device driver module is in use and shows the dependency chain In this example the jbd module journaling routines for journaling file systems is being used by the ext3 module the default journaling file system for many popular Linux desktop distributions This means that the ext3 device driver depends on the presence of jbd 8 2 4 modprobe This is where the cleverness of modprobe comes into play In Listing 8 7 we see the relationship between the ext3 and jbd modules The ext3 module depends on the jbd module The modprobe utility can discover this relationship and load the dependent modules in the proper order The following command loads both the jbd ko and ext3 ko driver modules modprobe ext3 The modprobe utility has several command line option
100. gt addi r3 r29 15380 OxcO20f4a8 lt yosemite_setup_arch 140 gt addi r29 r29 15380 OxcO20f4ac lt yosemite_setup_arch tl44 gt bl 0xc020e338 lt ibm440gx_get_clocks gt OxcO20f4b0 lt yosemite_setup_arch tl48 gt li r0 0 OxcO020f4b4 lt yosemite_setup_arch 152 gt lis rll1 16352 OxcO20f4b8 lt yosemite_setup_archt 156 gt ori r0 r0 50000 Oxc020f4bc lt yosemite_setup_arch 160 gt lwz r10 12 r29 Oxc020f4c0 lt yosemite_setup_arch 164 gt lis r9 16352 Oxc020f4c4 lt yosemite_setup_arch 168 gt stw r0 8068 r11 Oxc020f4c8 lt yosemite_setup_arch 172 gt lwz r0 84 r26 OxcO020f4cc lt yosemite_setup_archt 176 gt stw r10 8136 r9 OxcO20f4d0 lt yosemite_setup_arch 180 gt mtctr ro Oxc020f4d4 lt yosemite_setup_arch 184 gt bctr1 Oxc020f4d8 lt yosemite_setup_arch 188 gt li r5 64 Oxc020f4dc lt yosemite_setup_arch 192 gt mr r3l r3 Oxc020f4e0 lt yosemite_setup_arch 196 gt lis r4 4288 Oxc020f4e4 lt yosemite_setup_arch 200 gt li r3 0 Oxc020f4e8 lt yosemite_setup_arch 204 gt bl Oxc000c0f8 lt ioremap64 gt End of assembler dump gdb Once again we need not be PowerPC assembly language experts to understand what is happening here Notice the labels associated with the PowerPC bl instruction This is a function call in PowerPC mnemonics The symbolic function labels are the important data points After a cursory analysis we see several function calls near the start of this assembler listing
101. h configuration is chosen as a baseline It contains support for the LXT971 Ethernet transceiver which is also on the EP405 The goal is to minimize any development work by borrowing from others in the spirit of open source Let s tackle the easy steps first Copy the board configuration file to a new file with a name appropriate for your board We ll call ours EP405 h These commands are issued from the top level U Boot source tree cp include configs AR405 h include configs EP405 h Then create the board specific directory and make a copy of the AR405 board files We don t know yet whether we need all of them That step comes later After copying the files to your new board directory edit the filenames appropriately for your board name cd board lt lt lt from top level U Boot source directory mkdir ep405 cp esd ar405 ep405 Now comes the hard part Jerry Van Baren a developer and U Boot contributor detailed a humorous though realistic process for porting U Boot in an e mail posting to the U Boot mailing list His complete process documented in C can be found in the U Boot README file The following summarizes the hard part of the porting process in Jerry s style and spirit while running do Add modify source code until compiles Debug Jerry s process as summarized here is the simple truth When you have selected a baseline from which to port you must add delete and modify source c
102. have any RAM in this region and the results would be undefined or would result in a crash Even if we had physical RAM at that address it is unlikely that it would be mapped and accessible this early in the boot process So we have to adjust our reference to this variable to access it Listing 16 9 reproduces a code snippet from head S that does just that Listing 16 9 Variable Reference Fixup relocate_kernel addis r9 r26 klimit ha fetch klimit lwz r25 klimit l r9 addis r25 r25 KERNELBASE h This code snippet from the PowerPC head S is a good example of the issue we are describing The variable klimit represents the end of the kernel image It is defined elsewhere as char klimit Therefore it is a pointerit is an address that contains an address In Listing 16 9 we fetch the address of klimit sum it with a previously calculated offset that is passed in r26 and deposit the resulting value in register r9 Register r9 now contains the high order 16 bits of the adjusted address of klimit with the low order bits zeroed It was adjusted by the offset value previously calculated and passed in register r26 M For details of PPC assembly language syntax see Section 16 5 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of this chapter In the next line the lwz instruction uses register r9 together with the offset of klimit the lower 16 bits of the klimit address as an effective address from which
103. http penguinppc org General Linux News and Developments www lwn net Open Source Insight and Discussion The following public website contains useful information and education focusing on legal issues around open source www open bar org Appendix F Sample BDI 2000 Configuration File bdiGDB configuration file for the UEI PPC 5200 Board Revision 1 0 Revision 1 1 Added serial port setup 4 MB Flash Am29DL323 128 MB Micron DDR DRAM s INIT init core register WREG MSR 0x00003002 MSR FP ME RI WM32 0x80000000 OxO0008000 MBAR internal registers at 0x80000000 Default after RESET MBAR sits at 0x80000000 because it s POR value is 0x0000_8000 WSPR 31l 0x80000000 MBAR save internal register offset SPR311 is the MBAR in G2_LE WSPR 279 0x80000000 3SPRG7 save internal memory offsetReg 279 Init CDM Clock Distribution Module Hardware Reset config k ppc_pll1_cfgl0 4 01000b XLB Core gt 1 3 Core f VCO gt 1 2 XLB f VCO gt 1 6 xlb_clk_sel 0 gt XLB_CLK f sys 4 132 MHz gt sys_pll_cfg_1 0 gt NOP sys_pll_cfg 0 0 gt f sys 16x SYS_XTAL_IN 528 MHz CDM Configuration Register WM32 0x8000020c 0x01000101 enable DDR Mode ipb_clk_sel 1 gt XLB_CLK 2 Gipb_clk 66 MHz pci_clk_sel 01 gt IPB_CLK 2 CSO Flash WM32 0x80000004 Ox000Off00 CSO start Oxff000000 Flash memory is on CSO WM32 0x8000
104. in which resources are extremely scarce In fact many processors cannot cache instruction accesses to Flash like they can with DRAM This further impacts execution speed In contrast NAND Flash is more suitable for bulk storage in file system format than raw binary executable code and data storage 2 3 3 Flash Usage An embedded system designer has many options in the layout and use of Flash memory In the simplest of systems in which resources are not overly constrained raw binary data perhaps compressed can be stored on the Flash device When booted a file system image stored in Flash is read into a Linux ramdisk block device mounted as a file system and accessed only from RAM This is often a good design choice when the data in Flash rarely needs to be updated and any data that does need to be updated is relatively small compared to the size of the ramdisk It is important to realize that any changes to files in the ramdisk are lost upon reboot or power cycle Figure 2 4 illustrates a common Flash memory organization that is typical of a simple embedded system in which nonvolatile storage requirements of dynamic data are small and infrequent Figure 2 4 Example Flash memory layout Top of Flash Bootloader amp Configuration Ramdisk File System Image The bootloader is often placed in the top or bottom of the Flash memory array Following the bootloader space is allocated for the Linux kernel image and the
105. increase your productivity as an embedded Linux developer This chapter introduced configuration examples for each 12 4 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading GCC online documentation http gcc gnu org onlinedocs Building and testing gcc glibc cross toolchains http kegel com crosstool The TFTP Protocol Version 2 RFC 1350 www ietf org rfc rfcl1350 txt number 1350 Bootstrap Protocol BOOTP RFC 951 www ietf org rfc rfc0951 txt number 951 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol RFC 2131 www ietf org rfc rfc2l131 txt number 2131 Chapter 13 Development Tools In this chapter e GNU Debugger GDB page 310 e Data Display Debugger page 317 e cbrowser cscope page 319 e Tracing and Profiling Tools page 321 e Binary Utilities page 340 e Miscellaneous Binary Utilities page 346 e Chapter Summary page 349 A typical embedded Linux distribution includes many useful tools Some are complex and require a great deal of proficiency to master Others are simple and have been all but ignored by developers of embedded systems Some tools might require customization for a particular environment Many will run right out of the box and provide the developer with useful information without much effort This chapter presents a cross section of the most important and frequently neglected tools available to the embedded Linux engineer It is impossible to provide complete details on the tools and utilitie
106. information exchange is often limited by the target bootloader DHCP client implementation Listing 7 5 contains an example of a DHCP server configuration block identifying a single target device This is a snippet from a DHCP configuration file from the Fedora Core 2 DHCP implementation Listing 7 5 DHCP Target Specification host coyote hardware ethernet 00 0e 0c 00 82 f8 netmask 255 255 255 0 fixed address 192 168 1 21 server name 192 168 1 9 filename coyote zImage s option root path home chris sandbox coyote target 3 When this DHCP server receives a packet from a device matching the hardware Ethernet address contained in Listing 7 5 it responds by sending that device the parameters in this target specification Table 7 1 describes the fields in the target specification Table 7 1 DHCP Target Parameters DHCP Target Parameter Purpose Comments host Hostname Symbolic label from DHCP configuration file hardware Ethernet Low level Ethernet hardware address of the ethernet hardware target s Ethernet interface address fixed address Target IP The IP address that the target will assume address netmask Target netmask The IP netmask that the target will assume server name TFTP server IP The IP address to which the target will direct address requests for file transfers root file system and so on filename TFTP filename The filename that the bootloader can use to boot a secondary imag
107. initializing the PID hash table entries With some additional use of printk messages we can begin to close in on the actual source of the crash As shown in this example this is a technique that can be used with no additional tools You can see the importance of some kind of early serial port output during boot if you are working on a new board port 14 5 3 KGDB on Panic If KGDB is enabled the kernel attempts to pass control back to KGDB upon error exceptions In some cases the error itself will be readily apparent To use this feature a connection must already be established between KGDB and gdb When the exception condition occurs KGDB emits a Stop Reply packet to gdb indicating the reason for the trap into the debug handler as well as the address where the trap condition occurred Listing 14 24 illustrates the sequence Listing 14 24 Trapping Crash on Panic Using KGDB ppc _4xx gdb silent vmlinux gdb target remote dev ttySO Remote debugging using dev ttyS0O Malformed response to offset query qOffsets gdb target remote dev ttySO Remote debugging using dev ttyS0O breakinst at arch ppc kernel ppc stub c 825 825 gdb c Continuing lt lt KGDB gains control from panic on crash gt gt Program received signal SIGSEGV Segmentation fault Oxc0215d6c in pcibios_init at arch ppc kernel pci c 1263 1263 int 1 0 gdb bt 0 Oxc0215d6c in pcibios_init at arc
108. irrelevant text as indicated by the ellipsis Listing 4 10 File Snippet arch arm mach ixp4xx Kconfig menu Intel IXP4xx Implementation Options comment IXP4xx Platforms config ARCH_AVILA bool Avila help Say Y here if you want your kernel to support config ARCH_ADI_COYOTE bool Coyote help Say Y here if you want your kernel to support the ADI Engineering Coyote These are our new custom options config ARCH_VEGA bool Vega help Select this option for Vega hardware support config ARCH _CONSTELLATION bool Constellation help Select this option for Constellation hardware support Figure 4 4 illustrates the result of these changes as it appears when running the gconf utility via make ARCH arm gconfig As a result of these simple changes the configuration editor now includes options for our two new hardware platforms Shortly youll see how you can use this configuration information in the source tree to conditionally select objects that contain support for your new boards i We have intentionally removed many options under ARM system type and Intel IXP4 xx Implementation Options to fit the picture on the page Figure 4 4 Custom configuration options View full size image File Options Help OQ I E Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand C T E v System Type v C ARM system type IXP4xx ba
109. kernel The following methods are currently supported You can see the configuration options for each in Figure 10 2 under MTD Partitioning Support e Redboot partition table parsing e Kernel command line partition table definition e Board specific mapping drivers MTD also allows configurations without partition data In this case MTD simply treats the entire Flash memory as a single device 10 3 1 Redboot Partition Table Partitioning One of the more common methods of defining and detecting MTD partitions stems from one of the original implementations Redboot partitions Redboot is a bootloader found on many embedded boards especially ARM XScale boards such as the ADI Engineering Coyote Reference Platform The MTD subsystem defines a method for storing partition information on the Flash device itself similar in concept to a partition table on a hard disk In the case of the Redboot partitions the developer reserves and specifies a Flash erase block that holds the partition definitions A mapping driver is selected that calls the partition parsing functions during boot to detect the partitions on the Flash device Figure 10 2 shows the mapping driver for our example board it is the final highlighted entry defining CONFIG _MTD_IXP4xx As usual taking a detailed look at an example helps to illustrate these concepts We start by looking at the information provided by the Redboot bootloader for the Coyote platform Listing 10 4 ca
110. kernel s own serial driver has been installed Some architectures and hardware platforms contain functions such as serial _putc which can send strings to a serial port that has been preconfigured by the bootloader or by some simple early kernel setup code You can find examples of this in the PowerPC architecture branch using grep and searching for CONFIG SERIAL _TEXT_DEBUG In summary the fundamental prerequisite for porting Linux to our new board is that a bootloader has been ported and installed on our board and any board specific low level hardware initialization has been completed It is not necessary to initialize devices for which Linux has direct device driver support such as Ethernet controllers or 2C controllers the kernel handles these It is a good idea to configure and build your Linux kernel for the board closest to your own This provides you with a known good starting pointa Linux kernel source tree configured for your board that compiles without error Recall from Chapter 5 Kernel Initialization the command to compile a Linux 2 6 kernel make ARCH ppc CROSS_COMPILE ppc_82xx ulmage This command line results in a Linux bootable image compatible with the U Boot bootloader The ulmage target specifies this 16 2 2 Customizing Kernel Initialization Now that we have a baseline kernel source tree from which to start let s determine where to begin customizing for our particular board We discovered that f
111. lib root root 1024 Nov 19 2005 mnt root root 1024 Oct 26 2005 opt root root 1024 Oct 26 2005 proc drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x YV Mw WD UDDU Dw DW D drwxr xr x root root 1024 Oct 26 2005 root root root 1024 Nov 19 2005 sbin root root 1024 Oct 26 2005 srv root root 1024 Oct 26 2005 sys drwxr xr x 2 2 2 2 drwxr xr x 2 root root 1024 Oct 26 2005 tmp 6 2 Ht drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x root root 1024 Oct 26 2005 usr root root 1024 Nov 19 2005 var drwxr xr x drwxr xr x root coyote Listing 10 14 has two important subtleties Notice that we have specified dev mtdblock2 on the mount command line This is the MTD block driver that enables us to access the MTD partition as a block device Using dev mtd2 as a specifier instructs the kernel to use the MTD character driver Both the mtdchar and mtdblock are pseudodrivers used to provide either character based or block oriented access to the underlying Flash partition Because mount expects a block device you must use the block device specifier Figure 10 1 shows the kernel configuration that enables these access methods The respective kernel configuration macros are CONFIG_MTD_ CHAR and CONFIG _MTD_BLOCK The second subtlety is the use of the read only ro command line switch on the mount command It is perfectly acceptable to
112. lib ppc linux 3 3 3 ccl E quiet v iprefix opt eldk usr bin 1lib gcc lib ppc linux 3 3 3 D__unix D__ gnu_ linux D__ linux _ Dunix D__unix Dlinux D__ linux Asystem unix Asystem posix mcpu 603 ignoring nonexistent directory opt eldk usr ppc linux sys include ignoring nonexistent directory opt eldk usr ppc linux include include search starts here include lt gt search starts here opt eldk usr 1ib gcc lib ppc linux 3 3 3 include opt eldk ppc_82xx usr include End of search list Here you can see that the default search paths for include directories are now adjusted to point to your cross versions instead of the native include directories This seemingly obscure detail is critical to being able to develop applications and compile open source packages for your embedded system It is one of the most confusing topics to even experienced application developers who are new to embedded systems 12 2 Host System Requirements Your development workstation must include several important components and systems Of course you need a properly configured cross toolchain You can download and compile one yourself or obtain one of the many commercial toolchains available Building one yourself is beyond the scope of this book although there are several good references available See Section 12 4 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading
113. limited by two factors First when we configured the MTD RAM test device we gave it a maximum size of gmp Second when we created the JFFS2 image we fixed the size of the image using the mkfs jffs2 utility The image size was determined by the contents of the directory we specified when we created it Refer back to Listing 9 9 in Chapter 9 to recall how our Jjffs2 bin image was built H The size was fixed in the kernel configuration when we enabled the MTD RAM test device in the Linux kernel configuration It is important to realize the limitations of using this method to examine the contents of a JFFS2 file system Consider what we did We copied the contents of a file the JFFS2 file system binary image into a kernel block device dev mtdblock0 Then we mounted the kernel block device dev mtdblock as a JFFS2 file system After we did this we could use all the traditional file system utilities to examine and even modify the file system Tools such as 1s df dh mv rm and cp can all be used to examine and modify the file system However unlike the loopback device there is no connection between the file we copied and the mounted JFFS2 file system image Therefore if we unmount the file system after making changes the changes will be lost If you want to save the changes you must copy them back into a file One such method is the following dd if dev mtdblockO of your modified fs image bin This command creates a file
114. lines from Listing 4 3 specify the object modules that form the resulting binary image Notice that the first object specified is head o This object was assembled from arch arm kernel head S an architecture specific assembly language source file that performs very low level kernel initialization If you were searching for the first line of code to be executed by the kernel it would make sense to start your search here because it will ultimately be the first code found in the binary image created by this link stage We examine kernel initialization in detail in Chapter 5 The next object init_task o sets up initial thread and task structures that the kernel requires Following this is a large collection of object modules each having a common name built in o You will notice however that each built in o object comes from a specific part of the kernel source tree as indicated by the path component preceding the built in o object name These are the binary objects that are included in the kernel image An illustration might make this clearer Figure 4 1 illustrates the binary makeup of the vmlinux image It contains a section for each line of the link stage It s not to scale because of space considerations but you can see the relative sizes of each functional component Figure 4 1 vmlinux image components i arch arm kernel head o arch arm kernel init atask o mi usr built in o arch arm kernel arch arm mm arch arm
115. look like Listing 12 6 Listing 12 6 Example DHCP Server Configuration Example DHCP Server configuration allow bootp subnet 192 168 1 0 netmask 255 255 255 0 default lease time 1209600 two weeks option routers 192 168 1 1 option domain name servers 1 2 3 4 group host pdnal hardware ethernet 00 30 bd 2a 26 1f3 fixed address 192 168 1 68 filename ulmage pdna option root path home chris sandbox pdna target This is a simple example meant only to show the kind of information you can pass to your target system There is a one to one mapping of the target MAC address to its assigned IP address In addition to its fixed IP address you can pass other information to your target In this example the default router and DNS server addresses are passed to your target along with the filename of a file of your choice and a root path for your kernel to mount an NFS root mount from The filename might be used by your bootloader to load a kernel image from your TFTP server You can also configure your DHCP server to hand out IP addresses from a predefined range but it is very convenient to use a fixed address such as that shown in Listing 12 6 You must enable the DHCP server on your Linux development workstation This is typically done through your main menu or via the command line Consult the documentation for your own Linux distribution for details suitable for you
116. low level architecture and processor specific tasks Each of these objects is summarized in Table 5 1 Of particular note is the sequence creating the object called piggy o First the Image file binary kernel image is compressed using this gzip command gzip f 9 lt Image gt piggy gz This creates a new file called piggy gz which is simply a compressed version of the binary kernel Image You can see this graphically in Figure 5 1 What follows next is rather interesting An assembly language file called piggy S is assembled which contains a reference to the compressed piggy gz In essence the binary kernel image is being piggybacked into a low level assembly language bootstrap loader This bootstrap loader initializes the processor and required memory regions decompresses the binary kernel image and loads it into the proper place in system memory before passing control to it Listing 5 2 reproduces arch arm boot compressed piggy S in its entirety L3 Not to be confused with the bootloader a bootstrap loader can be considered a second stage loader where the bootloader itself can be thought of as a first stage loader Listing 5 2 Assembly File Piggy S section piggydata alloc glob1 input_data input_data incbin arch arm boot compressed piggy gz glob1 input_data_end input_data_end This small assembly language file is simple yet produces a complexity that is not
117. mount an ext2 image from Flash using the MTD block emulation driver for read only purposes However there is no support for writing to an ext2 device using the mtdblock driver This is because ext2 has no knowledge of Flash erase blocks For write access to a Flash based file system we need to use a file system with Flash knowledge such as JFFS2 10 4 1 JFFS2 Root File System Creating a JFFS2 root file system is a straightforward process In addition to compression JFFS2 supports wear leveling a feature designed to increase Flash lifetime by fairly distributing the write cycles across the blocks of the device As pointed out in Chapter 9 Flash memory is subject to a limited number of write cycles Wear leveling should be considered a mandatory feature in any Flash based file system you employ As mentioned elsewhere in this book you should consider Flash memory as a write occasional medium Specifically you should avoid allowing any processes that require frequent writes to target the Flash file system Be especially aware of any logging programs such as syslogd We can build a JFFS2 image on our development workstation using the ext2 image we used on our Redboot RootFS partition The compression benefits will be immediately obvious The image we used in the previous RootFS example was an ext2 file system image Here is the listing in long 1 format 1s 1 rootfs ext2 rw r r 1 root root 6291456 Nov 19 16 21 rootfs ext2
118. n 11 if pearly 12 Already done in parse_early_param Needs 13 exact match on param part 14 if Gine n 0 lineln 15 return 1 16 else if Ip gt setup_func 17 printk KERN_WARNING Parameter s is obsolete 18 ignored n p gt str 19 return l 20 else if p gt setup_func line n 21 return 1 22 23 p 24 while p lt __setup_end 25 return 0 26 Examination of this code should be fairly straightforward with a couple of explanations The function is called with a single command line argument parsed elsewhere within main c In the example we ve been discussing line would point to the string console ttyS0 115200 which is one component from the kernel command line The two external structure pointers __setup_start and __setup_end are defined in a linker script file not in a C source or header file These labels mark the start and end of the array of obs_kernel param structures that were placed in the init setup section of the object file The code in Listing 5 6 scans all these structures via the pointer p to find a match for this particular kernel command line parameter In this case the code is searching for the string console and finds a match From the relevant structure the function pointer element returns a pointer to the console_setup function which is called with the balance of the parameter the string ttyS0 115200 as its only argument
119. name index options return l __setup console console_setup You can think of this macro as a registration function for the kernel command line console parameter In effect it says When the console string is encountered on the kernel command line invoke the function represented by the second __ setup macro argumentin this case the console_setup function But how is this information communicated to the early setup code outside this module which has no knowledge of the console functions The mechanism is both clever and somewhat complicated and relies on lists built by the linker The details are hidden in a set of macros designed to conceal the syntactical tedium of adding section attributes and other attributes to a portion of object code The objective is to build a static list of string literals associated with function pointers This list is emitted by the compiler in a separately named ELF section in the final vmlinux ELF image It is important to understand this technique it is used in several places within the kernel for special purpose processing Let s now examine how this is done for the __setup macro case Listing 5 5 is a portion of code from the header file include linux init h defining the __ setup family of macros Listing 5 5 Family of __setup Macro Definitions from init h define __setup_param str unique_id fn early static char setup_str_ unique
120. nm The nm utility displays symbols from an object file This can be useful for a variety of tasks For example when cross compiling a large application you encounter unresolved symbols You can use nm to find which object module contains those symbols and then modify your build environment to include it The nm utility provides attributes for each symbol For example you can discover whether this symbol is local or global or whether it is defined or referenced only in a particular object module Listing 13 18 reproduces several lines from the output of nm run on the U Boot ELF image u boot Listing 13 18 Displaying Symbols Using nm ppc_85xx nm u boot fff23140 b base_address fff24c98 B BootFile ff f06d64 T BootpRequest fff00118 t boot_warm fff21010 d border fff23000 A __bss_start Notice the link addresses of these U Boot symbols They were linked for a Flash device that lives in the highest portion of the memory map on this particular board This listing contains only a few example symbols for discussion purposes The middle column is the symbol type A capitalized letter indicates a global symbol and lower case indicates a local symbol B indicates that the symbol is located in the bss section T indicates that the symbol is located in the text section D indicates that the symbol is located in the data section A indicates that this address is absolute and is not subject to
121. no substitute for experience and knowledge of the Linux code base and your hardware platform e Starting from a working reference configuration based on a hardware platform already supported provides an excellent basis for your own modifications e Understanding the flow of initialization code is the key to an easy porting effort We made every effort to leave all generic kernel code untouched and to modify only those files necessary for the platform itself A significant part of this chapter is devoted to this early flow of control related to platform initialization e Make doubly certain that your low level hardware platform initialization is correct before proceeding If you find yourself debugging in some obscure part of the Linux slab allocator for example it s a good bet you ve messed something up with your hardware memory initialization e This chapter focused primarily on the PowerPC architecture branch of the Linux kernel Learning the details of one architecture paves the way for understanding the rest 16 5 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading Programming Environments Manual for 32 Bit Implementations of the PowerPC Architecture MPCFPE32B AD 12 2001 REV 2 Freescale Semiconductor Inc MPC5200 User s Guide MPC5200UG Rev 3 01 22005 Freescale Semiconductor Inc Chapter 17 Linux and Real Time In this chapter e What Is Real Time page 446 e Kernel Preemption page 449 e Real Time Kernel Patch page 453 e Debugging
122. not used by the operating system it is simply passed to the device driver The device driver can use the minor number in any way it sees fit As an example with a multiport serial card the major number would specify the driver The minor number might specify one of the multiple ports handled by the same driver on the multiport card Interested readers are encouraged to consult one of the excellent texts on device drivers for further details 8 4 Bringing It All Together Now that we have a skeletal device driver we can load it and exercise it Listing 8 l1l is a simple user space application that exercises our device driver We ve already seen how to load the driver Simply compile it and issue the make modules_install command to place it on your file system as previously described Listing 8 11 Exercising Our Device Driver include lt stdio h gt include lt stdlib h gt include lt sys types h gt include lt sys stat h gt include lt fcntl h gt include lt unistd h gt int main int argc char argv Our file descriptor int fd int re 03 char rd_buf 16 printf s entered n argv 0 Open the device fd open dev hellol O_RDWR if fd 1 perror open failed re fd exit 1 printf s open successful n argv 0 Issue a read re read fd rd_buf 0 if rc 1 perror read failed close fd ex
123. notice is the macro immediately following the definition of the function arch_initcall customize_machine This macro is part of a family of macros defined in include linux init h These macros are reproduced here as Listing 5 8 Listing 5 8 initcall Family of Macros define __define_initcall level fn __initcall _ fn __attribute_used _ __attribute__ __section__ initcall level init fn static initcall_t define core_initcall fn __define_initcall l fn define postcore_initcall fn __define_initcall 2 fn define arch_initcall fn __define_initcal1 3 fn define subsys_initcall fn __define_initcall 4 fn define fs_initcall fn __define_initcall 5 fn define device_initcall fn __define_initcall1 6 fn define late_initcall fn __define_initcal1 7 fn In a similar fashion to the __setup macro previously detailed these macros declare a data item based on the name of the function and use the section attribute to place this data item into a uniquely named section of the vmlinux ELF file The benefit of this approach is that main c can call an arbitrary initialization function for a subsystem that it has no knowledge of The only other option as mentioned earlier is to pollute main c with knowledge of every subsystem in the kernel As you can see from Listing 5 8 the name of the section is initcallN init where N is the level defined between 1 and 7 The data item is assigne
124. observer it appears that we have nearly 2GB of DRAM available for our use These virtual addresses were assigned by the kernel and are backed by physical RAM somewhere within the 256MB range of available memory on the Yosemite board Listing 2 5 Hello Output root amcc hello Hello World Main is executing at 0x10000418 This address Ox7ff 8ebb0 is in our stack frame This address 0x10010alc is in our bss section This address 0x10010a18 is in our data section root amcc One of the characteristics of a virtual memory system is that when available physical RAM goes below a designated threshold the kernel can swap memory pages out to a bulk storage medium usually a hard disk drive The kernel examines its active memory regions determines which areas in memory have been least recently used and swaps these memory regions out to disk to free them up for the current process Developers of embedded systems often disable swapping on embedded systems because of performance or resource constraints For example it would be ridiculous in most cases to use a relatively slow Flash memory device with limited write life cycles as a swap device Without a swap device you must carefully design your applications to exist within the limitations of your available physical memory 2 3 8 Cross Development Environment Before we can develop applications and device drivers for an embedded system we need a set of
125. on 192 168 1 9 VFS Mounted root nfs filesystem Freeing init memory 96K Bummer could not run etc init d rcS No such file or directory Please press Enter to activate this console BusyBox v1 01 2005 12 03 19 09 0000 Built in shell ash Enter help for a list of built in commands sh can t access tty job control turned off a The example of Listing 11 7 was run on an embedded board configured for NFS root mount We export a directory on our workstation that contains the simple file system image detailed in Listing 11 6 As oneof the final steps in the boot process the Linux kernel on our target board mounts a root file system via NFS When the kernel attempts to execute sbin init it fails because there is no sbin init on our file system However as we have seen the kernel also attempts to execute bin sh In our BusyBox configured target this succeeds and busybox is launched via the symlink bin sh on our root file system The first thing BusyBox displays is the complaint that it can t find etc init d rcS This is the default initialization script that BusyBox searches for Instead of using inittab this is the preferred method to initialize an embedded system based on BusyBox When it has completed initialization BusyBox displays a prompt asking the user to press Enter to activate a console When it detects the Enter key it executes an ash shell session waiting
126. or freed The last field is the size which is included in every call to allocate memory This data format is not very user friendly For this reason the mtrace package includes a utility that analyzes the raw trace data and reports on any inconsistencies In the simplest case the Perl script simply prints a single line with the message No memory leaks Listing 13 12 contains the output when memory leaks are detected i The analysis utility is a Perl script supplied with the mTRace package Listing 13 12 mtrace Error Report mtrace mt_ex mtrace log Memory not freed Address Size Caller 0x0804aa70 Ox0a at home chris temp mt_ex c 64 Ox0804abcO 0x10 at home chris temp mt_ex c 26 0x0804ac60 Oxl0 at home chris temp mt_ex c 26 Ox0804acc8 Ox0a at home chris temp mt_ex c 64 As you can see this simple tool can help you spot trouble before it happens as well as find it when it does Notice that the Perl script has displayed the filename and line number of each call to malloc that does not have a corresponding call to free for the given memory location This requires debugging information in the executable file generated by passing the g flag to the compiler If no debugging information is found the script simply reports the address of the function calling malloc 13 4 7 dmalloc dmalloc picks up where mTRace leaves off The mtrace package is a simple relatively nonintrusive pack
127. partition containing your bootloader youll be the proud owner of a silicon paperweight If you intend to experiment like this it s a good idea to have a backup of your bootloader image and know how to re Flash it using a hardware JTAG emulator or other Flash programming tool Our new partition created in Listing 10 8 MyKernel shows up in the kernel running on the Coyote board as detailed in Listing 10 13 Here you can see the new partition we created instantiated as the kernel device mTDl Listing 10 13 Kernel MTD Partition List root coyote cat proc mtd dev size erasesize name mtd0 00060000 00020000 RedBoot mtdl 00160000 00020000 MyKernel mtd2 00001000 00020000 RedBoot config x mtd3 00020000 00020000 FIS directory Using the MTD utilities we can perform a number of operations on the newly created partition The following shows the results of a flash_erase command on the partition flash_erase dev mtdl Erase Total 1 Units Performing Flash Erase of length 131072 at offset Ox0 done To copy a new kernel image to this partition use the flashcp command root coyote flashcp workspace coyote 40 zImage dev mtdl It gets a bit more interesting working with a root file system partition We have the option of using the bootloader or the Linux kernel to place the initial image on the Redboot flash partition First we use Redboot to create the new partition that will hold ou
128. period means that this flag is not active The hardirq softirq field indicates a thread of execution in hardirq context with h and softirq context with s The preempt depth field indicates the value of the kernel s preempt_count variable an indicator of nesting level of locks within the kernel Preemption can occur only when this variable is at zero 17 4 8 Debugging Deadlock Conditions The DEBUG _DEADLOCKS kernel configuration option enables detection and reporting of deadlock conditions associated with the semaphores and spinlocks in the kernel When enabled potential deadlock conditions are reported in a fashion similar to this BUG lock recursion deadlock detected Much information is displayed after the banner line announcing the deadlock detection including the lock descriptor lock name if available lock file and name if available lock owner who is currently holding the lock and so on Using this debug tool it is possible to immediately determine the offending processes Of course fixing it might not be so easy 17 4 9 Runtime Control of Locking Mode The DEBUG_RT_ LOCKING _ MODE option enables a runtime control to switch the real time mutex back into a nonpreemptable mode effectively changing the behavior of the real time spinlocks as mutexes kernel back to a spinlock based kernel As with the other configuration options we have covered here this tool should be considered a development aid
129. ramdisk file system image which holds the root file system Typically the Linux kernel and ramdisk file system images are compressed and the bootloader handles the decompression task during the boot cycle 8l We discuss ramdisk file systems in much detail in Chapter 9 File Systems For dynamic data that needs to be saved between reboots and power cycles another small area of Flash can be dedicated or another type of nonvolatile storage can be used This is a typical configuration for embedded systems with requirements to store configuration data as might be found in a wireless access point aimed at the consumer market for example D Real time clock modules often contain small amounts of nonvolatile storage and Serial EEPROMs are another common choice for nonvolatile storage of small amounts of data 2 3 4 Flash File Systems The limitations of the simple Flash layout scheme described in the previous paragraphs can be overcome by using a Flash file system to manage data on the Flash device in a manner similar to how data is organized on a hard drive Early implementations of file systems for Flash devices consisted of a simple block device layer that emulated the 512 byte sector layout of a common hard drive These simple emulation layers allowed access to data in file format rather than unformatted bulk storage but they had some performance limitations One of the first enhancements to Flash file systems was the inco
130. reads its symbolic debugging information In the case of U Boot it is linked for the Flash environment where it is initially stored The early code relocates itself and performs any necessary address adjustments This means that we need to work with gdb within both of these execution contexts Listing 14 21 shows an example of such a debug session Listing 14 21 U Boot Debugging Using JTAG Probe ppc linux gdb silent u boot gdb target remote bdi 2001 Remote debugging using bdi 2001 _start Q at home chris sandbox u boot 1 1 4 cpu mpc5xxx start S 91 91 li r21 BOOTFLAG_COLD Normal Power On Current language auto currently asm lt lt Debug a flash resident code snippet gt gt gdb mon break hard gdb b board_init_f Breakpoint 1 at Oxfff0457c file board c line 366 gdb c Continuing Breakpoint 1 board_init_f bootflag Ox7fc3afc at board c 366 366 gd gd_t CFG_INIT_RAM_ADDR CFG_GBL_DATA_OFFSET Current language auto currently c gdb bt 0 board_init_f bootflag 0xl at board c 366 1 Oxfff0456c in board_init_f bootflag 0x1 at board c 353 gdb i frame Stack level 0 frame at Oxf000bf50 pe Oxfff0457c in board_init_f board c 366 saved pc Oxfff0456c called by frame at Oxf000bf78 source language c Arglist at OxfO000bf50 args bootflag 0x1 Locals at OxfO000bf50 Previous frame s sp is 0x0 lt lt Now debug a memory resident cod
131. s n Smp Smp gt name 9 if mp gt list gt next amp modules 10 set done 1 11 end 12 set m m gt next 13 end 14 end 15 16 document lsmod 17 List the loaded kernel modules and their start addresses 18 end This simple loop starts with the kernel s global variable module This variable is a struct list _head that marks the start of the linked list of loadable modules The only complexity is the same as that described in Listing 14 15 We must subtract an offset from the struct list_head pointer to point to the top of the struct module This is performed in line 7 This macro produces a simple listing of modules containing the address of the struct module and the module s name Here is an example of its use gdb 1smod Address Module 0xD1012A80 ip_conntrack_tftp OxD10105A0 ip_conntrack OxD102F9A0 loop gdb help 1smod List the loaded kernel modules and their start addresses gdb Macros such as the ones presented here are very powerful debugging aids You can create macros in a similar fashion to display anything in the kernel that lends itself to easy access especially the major data structures maintained as linked lists Examples include process memory map information module information file system information and timer lists and so on The information presented here should get you started 14 3 5 Debugging Loadable Modules The most common reason for
132. selected and set to the value y Notice also that the CONFIG_ option related to Constellation is present but not selected 4 3 6 Kernel Makefiles When building the kernel the Makefiles scan the configuration and decide what subdirectories to descend into and what source files to compile for a given configuration To complete the example of adding support for two custom hardware platforms Vega and Constellation let s look at the makefile that would read this configuration and take some action based on customizations Because you re dealing with hardware specific options in this example assume that the customizations are represented by two hardware setup modules called vega_setup c and constellation_setup c We ve placed these C source files in the arch arm mach ixp4xx subdirectory of the kernel source tree Listing 4 12 contains the complete makefile for this directory from a recent Linux release Listing 4 12 Makefile from arch arm mach ixp4xx Kernel Subdirectory Makefile for the linux kernel obj y common o common pci o obj S CONFIG_ARCH_IXDP4XX ixdp425 pci o ixdp425 setup o obj S CONFIG_MACH_IXDPG425 ixdpg425 pci o coyote setup o obj S CONFIG_ARCH_ADI_COYOTE coyote pci o coyote setup o obj S CONFIG_MACH_GTWX5715 gtwx5715 pci o gtwx5715 setup o You might be surprised by the simplicity of this makefile Much work has gone into the development of the ke
133. software for the GDB section earlier in this chapter I decided to use a software project unfamiliar to me an early version of the GoAhead web server The first attempt at compiling and linking the project led to an interesting example for strace Starting the application from the command line silently returned control back to the console No error messages were produced and a look into the system logs also produced no clues It simply would not run strace quickly identified the problem The output from invoking strace on this software package is produced in Listing 13 5 Many lines from this output have been deleted due to space considerations The unedited output is over one hundred lines long Listing 13 5 strace Output GoAhead Web Demo View full width 01 root coyote home websdemo strace websdemo 02 execve websdemo websdemo 14 vars 0 03 uname sys Linux node coyote 0 04 brk 0 0x10031050 05 open etc 1d so preload O_RDONLY ENOENT No such file or directory 06 open etc 1d so cache O_RDONLY ENOENT No such file or directory 07 open 1ib libc so 6 O_RDONLY 3 08 read 3 177ELF 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 24 0 0 0 I 0 I 322 5 1024 1024 09 fstat64 0x3 Ox7fffefc8 0 10 mmap Oxfe9f000 1379388 PROT_READ PROT_EXEC MAP_PRIVATE 3 0 Oxfe9f000 11 mprotect Oxffd8000 97340 PROT_NONE 12 mmap Oxffdf000 61440 PROT_READ PR
134. support CFG_CMD_EXT2 EXT2 File system support The following line of Listing 7 4 defines the commands enabled in a given U Boot configuration as driven by the board specific header file define CONFIG_COMMANDS CONFIG_CMD_DFL CFG_CMD_DHCP Instead of typing out each individual CFG_ macro in your own board specific configuration header you can start from a default set of commands predefined in the U Boot source The macro CONFIG_CMD_DFL defines this default set of commands CONFIG_CMD_DFL specifies a list of default U Boot command sets such as tftpboot boot an image from a tftpserver bootm boot an image from memory memory utilities such as md display memory and so on To enable your specific combination of commands you can start with the default and add and subtract as necessary The example from Listing 7 4 adds the DHCP command set to the default You can subtract in a similar fashion define CONFIG_COMMANDS CONFIG_CMD_DFL amp CFG_CMD_NFS Take a look at any board configuration header file in include configs for examples 7 3 3 Network Operations Many bootloaders include support for Ethernet interfaces In a development environment this is a huge time saver Loading even a modest kernel image over a serial port can take minutes versus a few seconds over a l1OMbps Ethernet link Furthermore serial links are more prone to errors from poorly behaved serial terminals Some of the more important feature
135. system When a suitable root file system has been mounted startup scripts launch a number of programs and utilities that the system requires These programs often invoke other programs to do specific tasks such as spawn a login shell initialize network interfaces and launch a user s applications Each of these programs has specific requirements of the system Most Linux application programs depend on one or more system libraries Other programs require configuration and log files and so on In summary even a small embedded Linux system needs many dozens of files populated in an appropriate directory structure on a root file system Full blown desktop systems have many thousands of files on the root file system These files come from packages that are usually grouped by functionality The packages are typically installed and managed using a package manager Red Hat s Package Manager rpm is a popular example and is widely used for installing removing and updating packages on a Linux system If your Linux workstation is based on Red Hat including the Fedora Core series typing rpm qa at a command prompt lists all the packages installed on your system A package can consist of many files indeed some packages contain hundreds of files A complete Linux distribution can contain hundreds or even thousands of packages These are some examples of packages that you might find on an embedded Linux distribution and their purpose e initsc
136. system you might not be this lucky Some types of file system errors are not repairable using e2fsck Moreover the embedded system designer should understand that if power has been removed without proper shutdown the boot cycle can be delayed by the length of time it takes to scan your boot device and repair any errors Indeed if these errors are not repairable the system boot is halted and manual intervention is indicated Furthermore it should be noted that if your file system is large the file system check fsck can take minutes or even hours for large multigigabyte file systems Another defense against file system corruption is to ensure that writes are committed to disk immediately when written The sync utility can be used to force all queued I O requests to be committed to their respective devices One strategy to minimize the window of vulnerability for data corruption from unexpected power loss or drive failure is to issue the sync command after every file write or strategically as needed by your application requirements The trade off here is of course a performance penalty Deferring disk writes is a performance optimization used in all modern operating systems Using sync effectively defeats this optimization The ext2 file system has matured as a fast efficient and robust file system for Linux systems However if you need the additional reliability of a journaling file system or if boot time after unclean shutdown is
137. system is very useful for development and debugging because it facilitates rapid access to changes and source code for source level debugging This is especially useful when the target system is severely resource constrained NFS really shines as a development tool when you mount your embedded system s root file system entirely from an NFS server From Listing 9 12 notice the coyote target enTRy This directory on your development workstation could contain hundreds or thousands of files compatible with your target architecture The leading embedded Linux distributions targeted at embedded systems ship tens of thousands of files compiled and tested for the chosen target architecture To illustrate this Listing 9 13 contains a directory listing of the coyote target directory referenced in Listing 9 12 Listing 9 13 Target File System Example Summary du h max depth 1 724M usr 4 0K opt 39M lib 12K dev 27M var 4 0K tmp 3 6M boot 4 0K workspace 1 8M etc 4 0K home 4 0K mnt 8 0K root 29M bin 32M sbin 4 0K proc 64K share 855M find type f wc 1 29430 This target file system contains just shy of a gigabyte worth of binary files targeted at the ARM architecture As you can see from the listing this is more than 29 000 binary configuration and documentation files This would hardly fit on the average Flash device found on an embedded syst
138. temporarily removed many machine types in Figure 16 4 prior to LITE5200 Figure 16 4 Machine type option for PowerDNA View full size image File Options Help Q II E Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand fowens Sie gt Processor gt Platform options v C Machine Type O CHRP PowerMac PReP PPC_MULTIPLATFORM N ADS8272 ADS8272 N O Freescale PQ2FADS PQ2FADS Ni a O Freescale LITES200 IceCube LITES200 N _ O United Electronics Industries PowerDNA POWERDNA Y O Freescale MPC834x SYS MPC834x_SYS N z O Marvell EV64360BP EV64360 N 0 EE L United Electronics Industries PowerDNA POWERDNA Support for the UEI PowerDNA board Notice that when the user selects POWERDNA two important actions are performed 1 The CONFIG_PPC_MPC52xx configuration option is automatically selected This is accomplished by the select keyword in Listing 16 11 2 A new configuration option CONFIG_POWERDNA is defined that will drive the configuration for our build The next step is to copy the files closest to our platform as the basis of our new platform initialization files We have already decided that the Lite5200 platform fits the bill Copy 11te5200 c to powerdna c and 1ite5200 h to powerdna h The difficult part comes next Using the hardware specifications schematics and any other data you have on the hardware platform edit the new powerdna files as appropriate for your har
139. the Linux Kernel One of the more common reasons you might find yourself stepping through kernel code is to modify or customize the platform specific code for your custom board Let s see how this might be done using the AMCC Yosemite board We place a breakpoint at the platform specific architecture setup function and then continue until that breakpoint is encountered Listing 14 4 shows the sequence Listing 14 4 Debugging Architecture Setup Code gdb b yosemite_setup_arch Breakpoint 3 at Oxc021a488 file arch ppc platforms 4xx yosemite c line 308 gdb c Continuing Can t send signals to this remote system SIGILL not sent Breakpoint 3 yosemite_setup_arch at arch ppc platforms 4xx yosemite c 308 308 yosemite_set_emacdata gdb 1 303 304 305 static void __init 306 yosemite_setup_arch void 307 308 yosemite_set_emacdata 309 310 ibm440gx_get_clocks amp clocks YOSEMITE_SYSCLK 6 1843200 211 ocp_sys_info opb_bus_freq clocks opb 312 gdb When the breakpoint at yosemite_setup_archQ is encountered control passes to gdb at line 308 of yosemite c The list 1 command displays the source listing centered on the breakpoint at line 308 The warning message displayed by gdb after the continue c command can be safely ignored It is part of gdb s way of testing the capabilities of the remote system It first sends a remote continue_with_signal command to the target The
140. the final phases of system boot The final snippet of code from init main c is reproduced in Listing 6 2 for convenience Listing 6 2 Final Boot Steps from main c if execute_command run_init_process execute_command printk KERN_WARNING Failed to execute s Attempting defaults n execute_command run_init_process sbin init run_init_process etc init run_init_process bin init run_init_process bin sh panic No init found Try passing init option to kernel This is the final sequence of events for the kernel thread called init spawned by the kernel during the final stages of boot The run_init_process is a small wrapper around the execve function which is a kernel system call with a rather interesting behavior The execve function never returns if no error conditions are encountered in the call The memory space in which the calling thread is executing is overwritten by the called program s memory image In effect the called program directly replaces the calling thread including inheriting its Process ID PID The structure of this initialization sequence has been unchanged for a long time in the development of the Linux kernel In fact Linux version 1 0 contained similar constructs Essentially this is the start of user space processing AS you can see from Listing 6 2 unless the Linux kernel is successful in executing one of these processes the ker
141. the mount command silently returns Listing 9 14 illustrates this on the ADI Engineering Coyote board Listing 9 14 Mount Dependency on proc mount rootfs on type rootfs rw dev root on type nfs rw v2 rsize 4096 wsize 4096 hard udp nolock addr 192 168 1 19 tmpfs on dev shm type tmpfs rw proc on proc type proc rw nodiratime lt Now unmount proc and try again gt umount proc mount Notice in Listing 9 14 that proc itself is listed as a mounted file system as type proc mounted on proc This is not doublespeak your system must have a mount point called proc at the top level directory tree as a destination for the proc file system to be mounted oa To mount the proc file system use the mount command as with any other file system el Tt is certainly possible to mount proc anywhere you like on your file system but all the utilities including mount that require proc expect to find it mounted on proc mount t proc proc proc The general form of the mount command from the man page is mount t fstype something somewhere In the previous invocation we could have substituted none for proc as follows mount t proc none proc This looks somewhat less like doublespeak The something parameter is not strictly necessary because proc is a pseudo file system and not a real physical device However specifying proc as in the earlier example helps remind
142. tmp Temporary files 7 Often embedded systems do not have user accounts other than a single root user The very top of the Linux file system hierarchy is referenced by the forward slash character by itself For example to list the contents of the root directory one would type this 1s This produces a listing similar to the following root coyote isy bin dev etc home lib mnt opt proc root sbin tmp usr var root coyote This directory listing contains directory entries for additional functionality including mnt and proc Notice that we reference these directory entries preceded by the forward slash indicating that the path to these top level directories starts from the root directory 6 1 3 Minimal File System To illustrate the requirements of the root file system we have created a minimal root file system This example was produced on the ADI Engineering Coyote Reference board using an XScale processor Listing 6 1 is the output from the TRee command on this minimal root file system Listing 6 1 Contents of Minimal Root File System I bin I busybox sh gt busybox I dev console I 1d 2 3 2 so I 1d linux so 2 gt 1d 2 3 2 s0 I libc 2 3 2 s0 libc so 6 gt libc 2 3 2 so 5 directories 8 files This root configuration makes use of busybox a popular and aptly named toolkit for embedded systems In short busybox is
143. to help you troubleshoot the cause A kernel oops results from a variety of kernel errors from simple memory errors produced by a process fully recoverable in most cases to a hard kernel panic Recent Linux kernels support display of symbolic information in addition to the raw hexadecimal address values Listing 13 14 reproduces a kernel oops from a PowerPC target Listing 138 14 Kernel Oops modprobe loop Oops kernel access of bad area sig 11 1 NIP COOOD058 LR C0085650 SP C7787E80 REGS c7787dd0 TRAP 0300 Not tainted MSR 00009032 EE 1 PR O FP 0 ME 1 IR DR 11 DAR 00000000 DSISR 22000000 TASK c7d187b0 323 modprobe THREAD c7786000 Last syscall 128 GPROO 0000006C C7787E80 C7D187BO 00000000 C7CD25CC FFFFFFFF 00000000 80808081 GPRO8 00000001 CO34AD80 CO36D41C CO34AD80 C0335ABO 1001E38CO 00000000 00000000 GPRI16 00000000 00000000 00000000 100170D8 100013EO C9040000 C903DFD8 C9040000 GPR24 00000000 C9040000 C9040000 00000940 C778A000 C7CD25CO C7CD25CO C7CD25CC NIP c000d058 strcpy 0x10 Oxlc LR c0085650 register_disk 0Oxec Oxf0 Call trace c00e170c add_disk 0x58 0x74 c90061e0 loop_init 0xle0 0x430 loop c002fc90 sys_init_module 0xl1f4 0x2e0 c00040a0 ret_from_syscall1 0x0 0x44 Segmentation fault Notice that the register dump includes symbolic information where appropriate Your kernel must have KALLSYSMS enabled for this symbolic informatio
144. to another program usually an operating system such as Linux The ARM XScale platform used as a basis for the examples in this chapter contains the Redboot bootloader When power is first applied this bootloader is invoked and proceeds to load the operating system OS When the bootloader locates and loads the OS image which could be resident locally in Flash on a hard drive or via a local area network or other device control is passed to that image On this particular XScale platform the bootloader passes control to our head o module at the label Start in the bootstrap loader This is illustrated in Figure 5 83 Figure 5 3 ARM boot control flow PowerOn start_kernel Bootloader Bootstrap Kernel loader vinlinux Kernel main o As detailed earlier the bootstrap loader prepended to the kernel image has a single primary responsibility to create the proper environment to decompress and relocate the kernel and pass control to it Control is passed from the bootstrap loader directly to the kernel proper to a module called head o for most architectures It is an unfortunate historical artifact that both the bootstrap loader and the kernel proper contain a module called head o because it is a source of confusion to the new embedded Linux developer The head o module in the bootstrap loader might be more appropriately called kernel bootstrap_loader_head o although I doubt that the kernel developers would accept this patch In fact
145. to be used only in a development environment It does not make sense to enable all of these debug modes at once As you might imagine most of these debug modes add size and significant processing overhead to the kernel They are meant to be used as development aids and should be disabled for production code 17 5 Chapter Summary e Linux is increasingly being used in systems where real time performance is required Examples include multimedia applications and robot industrial and automotive controllers e Real time systems are characterized by deadlines When a missed deadline results in inconvenience or a diminished customer experience we refer to this as soft real time In contrast hard real time systems are considered failed when a deadline is missed e Kernel preemption was the first significant feature in the Linux kernel that addressed system wide latency e Recent Linux kernels support several preemption modes ranging from no preemption to full real time preemption e The real time patch adds several key features to the Linux kernel resulting in reliable low latencies e The real time patch includes several important measurement tools to aid in debugging and characterizing a real time Linux implementation 17 5 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading Linux Kernel Development 2nd Edition Robert Love Novell Press 2005 Appendix B U Boot Configurable Commands U Boot has more than 60 configurable commands These are su
146. to determine the sequence of events leading to the segmentation fault even if the binary was compiled without debugging symbols You might need to do a bit more investigative work without the aid of debugging symbols You must manually correlate virtual addresses to locations within your program Listing 13 1 shows the results of a core dump analysis session using GDB The output has been reformatted slightly to fit the page We have used some demonstration software to intentionally produce a segmentation fault Here is the output of the process called webs that generated the segmentation fault root coyote workspace websdemo webs Segmentation fault core dumped Listing 13 1 Core Dump Analysis Using GDB xscale_be gdb webs core GNU gdb 6 3 MontaVista 6 3 20 0 22 0501131 2005 07 23 Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation Inc GDB is free software covered by the GNU General Public License and you are welcome to change it and or distribute cop ies of it under certain conditions Type show copying to see the conditions There is absolutely no warranty for GDB Type show warranty for details This GDB was configured as host i686 pc linux gnu target armv5teb montavista linuxeabi Core was generated by webs Program terminated with signal 11 Segmentation fault Reading symbols from opt montavista pro libc so 6 done Loaded symbols for opt montavista pro
147. to load register r25 Remember klimit is a pointer and we are interested in the value that klimit points to Register r25 now holds the pointer that was stored in the variable klimit In the final line of Listing 16 9 we subtract the kernel s linked base address KERNELBASE from r25 to adjust the pointer to our actual physical address In C it would look like this unsigned int tmp represents r25 tmp klimit tmp KERNELBASE In summary we referenced a pointer stored in klimit and adjusted its value to our real physical address so we can use its contents When the kernel enables the MMU and virtual addressing we no longer have to worry about thisthe kernel will be running at the address where it was linked regardless of where in physical memory it is actually located 16 3 2 Board Information Structure Many bootloaders are used for PowerPC platforms but there is still no unified way to pass in board specific data such as serial port baud rate memory size and other low level hardware parameters that the bootloader has configured The platform initialization file from Listing 16 8 supports two different methods data stored as struct bi_record and data stored as struct bd_info Both methods provide similar results hardware specific data is passed from the bootloader to the kernel in these structures H Each method has its own roots The struct bd_info originated in U Boot and struct bi_record was an
148. us that we are mounting the proc file system on the proc directory or more appropriately on the proc mount point Of course by this time it might be obvious that to get proc file system functionality it must be enabled in the kernel configuration This kernel configuration option can be found in the File Systems submenu under the category Pseudo File Systems Each user process running in the kernel is represented by an entry in the proc file system For example the init process introduced in Chapter 6 is always assigned the process id PID of 1 Processes in the proc file system are represented by a directory that is given the PID number as its name For example the init process with a PID of 1 would be represented by a proc 1 directory Listing 9 15 shows the contents of this directory on our embedded Coyote board Listing 9 15 init Process proc EnTRies 1s 1 proc 1 total 0 a l root root O Jan 1 00 25 auxv E l root root 0 Jan 1 00 21 cmdline lrwxrwxrwx l root root O Jan 1 00 25 cwd gt SfssSssss gt l root root O Jan 1 00 25 environ lrwxrwxrwx l root root O Jan 1 00 25 exe gt sbin init dr x 2 root root 0 Jan 1 00 25 fd r r r l root root O Jan 1 00 25 maps w l root root 0 Jan 1 00 25 mem l root root 0 Jan 1 00 25 mounts rw r r l root root O Jan 1 00 25 oom_adj r r r l root root O Jan 1 00 25 oom_score lr
149. use JTAG hardware probes These probes support the setting of processor specific hardware breakpoints This topic was covered in detail in Chapter 14 Refer back to Section 14 4 2 Debugging with a JTAG Probe for details 15 5 Additional Remote Debug Options Sometimes you might want to use a serial port for remote debugging For other tasks you might find it useful to attach the debugger to a process that is already running These simple but useful operations are detailed here Refer back to Listing 14 5 in Chapter 13 15 5 1 Debugging via Serial Port Debugging via serial port is quite straightforward Of course you must have a serial port available on your target that is not being used by another process such as a serial console The same limitation applies to your host A serial port must be available If both of these conditions can be met simply replace the IP Port specification passed to gdbserver with a serial port specification Use the same technique when connecting to your target from your host based GDB On your target root coyote workspace gdbserver dev ttySO tdemo Process tdemo created pid 698 Remote debugging using dev ttyS0O From your host xscale_be gdb q tdemo gdb target remote dev ttySl Remote debugging using dev ttySl 0x40000790 in Q 15 5 2 Attaching to a Running Process It is often advantageous to connect to a process to examine its state while it is running inste
150. we assume a cross development environment for these examples 13 5 1 readelf The readelf utility examines the composition of your target ELF binary file This is particularly useful for building images targeted for ROM or Flash memory where explicit control of the image layout is required It is also a great tool for learning how your toolchain builds images and for understanding the ELF file format For example to display the symbol table in an ELF image use this command readelf s lt elf image gt To discover and display all the sections in your ELF image use this command readelf e lt elf image gt Use the S flag to list the section headers in your ELF image You might be surprised to learn that even a simple seven line hello world program contains 38 separate sections Some of them will be familiar to you such as the text and data sections Listing 13 15 contains a partial listing of sections from our hello world example For simplicity we have listed only those sections that are likely to be familiar or relevant to the embedded developer Listing 13 15 readelf Section Headers ppc_82xx readelf S hello ex There are 38 section headers starting at offset Ox32f4 Section Headers Nr Name Type Addr Off Size ES Flg Lk Inf Al 11 text PROGBITS 100002f0 0002f0 000568 00 AX O 0 4 13 rodata PROGBITS 10000878 000878 000068 00 A O 0 4 15 data PROGBITS 100108e0 0008e0 0
151. without having a backup copy of your config file you too will share our grief You have been warnedback up your config file The config file is a collection of definitions with a simple format Listing 4 5 shows a snippet of a config from a recent Linux kernel release Listing 4 5 Snippet from Linux 2 6 config USB support CONFIG_USB m CONFIG_USB_DEBUG is not set Miscellaneous USB options CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS y CONFIG_USB_BANDWIDTH is not set CONFIG_USB_DYNAMIC_MINORS is not set USB Host Controller Drivers CONFIG_USB_EHCI_HCD m CONFIG_USB_EHCI_SPLIT_ISO is not set CONFIG_USB_EHCI_ROOT_HUB_TT is not set CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD m CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD m To understand the config file you need to understand a fundamental aspect of the Linux kernel Linux has a monolithic structure That is the entire kernel is compiled and linked as a single statically linked executable However it is possible to compile and incrementally tink a set of sources into a single object module suitable for dynamic insertion into a running kernel This is the usual method for supporting most common device drivers In Linux these are called loadable modules They are also generically called device drivers After the kernel is booted a special application program is invoked to insert the loadable module into a running kernel le Incremental linking is a technique used to gener
152. you are editing a document you expect to see the results of your keystrokes immediately on the screen When playing your favorite mp3 file you expect to have high quality audio without any clicks pops or gaps in the music In general terms humans cannot see or hear delays below a few tens of milliseconds Of course the musicians in the crowd will tell you that music can be colored by delays smaller than that If a deadline is missed by these so called soft real time events the results may be undesirable leading to a lower level of quality of the experience but not catastrophic 17 1 2 Hard Real Time Hard real time is characterized by the results of a missed deadline In a hard real time system if a deadline is missed the results are often catastrophic Of course catastrophic is a relative term If your embedded device is controlling the fuel flow to a jet aircraft engine missing a deadline to respond to pilot input or a change in operational characteristics can lead to disastrous results Note that the duration of the deadline has no bearing on the real time characteristic Servicing the tick on an atomic clock is such an example As long as the tick is processed within the 1l second window before the next tick the data remains valid Missing the processing on a tick might throw off our global positioning systems by feet or even miles With this in mind we draw on a commonly used set of definitions for soft and har
153. 0 1 records out mkdir mnt flash mount t jffs2 dev mtdblock0 mnt flash 1s 1 mnt flash total 0 root root 0 Sep 17 22 02 bin root root O Sep 17 21 59 dev root root O Sep 17 15 31 etc drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x root root O Sep 17 22 02 lib drwxr xr x root root O Sep 17 15 31 proc drws 2 root root O Sep 17 15 31 root 2 2 7 drwxr xr x 2 root root 0 Sep 17 15 31 home drwxr xr x 2 2 drwxr xr x 2 root root O Sep 17 22 02 sbin drwxrwxrwt 2 root root O Sep 17 15 31 tmp drwxr xr x 9 root root O Sep 17 15 31 usr drwxr xr x 14 root root O Sep 17 15 31 var From Listing 10 3 first we install the loadable modules that the Linux kernel requires to support JFFS2 and the MTD subsystem We load the JFFS2 module followed by the mTDblock and mtdram modules After the necessary device drivers are loaded we use the Linux dd command to copy our JFFS2 file system image into the MTD RAM test driver using the mTDblock device In essence we are using system RAM as a backing device to emulate an MTD block device After we have copied our JFFS2 file system image into the MTD block device we can mount it using the mount command in the manner shown in Listing 10 3 After the MTD pseudo device has been mounted we can work with the JFFS2 file system image in any way we choose The only limitation using this method is that we can t enlarge the image The size of the image is
154. 000 WM82 0x80000038 Ox08000000 SDRAM CS1 disabled 0x08000000 WM82 Ox80000108 0x73722930 s SDRAM Config 1 Samsung Assume CL 2 bits 0 3 srd2rwp in clocks 0x6 bits 507 swt2rwp in clocks gt Data sheet suggests Ox3 for DDR 0x3 bits 8 ll rd_latency gt for DDR Ox7 3 bits 18 15 act2rw gt 0x2 bit 16 reserved bits 17 19 pre2act gt 0x02 bits 20 23 ref2act gt 0x09 bits 25 27 wr_latency gt for DDR 0x03 bits 28 31 Reserved WM82 0x8000010c 0Ox46770000 SDRAM Config 2 Samsung 3 bits 0 3 brd2rp gt for DDR 0x4 bits 4 7 bwt2rwp gt for DDR Ox6 bits 8 11 brd2wt gt 0x6 bits 12 15 burst_length gt 0x07 bl 1 bits 16 13 Reserved Setup initial Tap delay WM32 0x80000204 0x18000000 Samsung Start in the end of the range 24 0x18 WM32 0x80000104 Oxfl0f0f00 SDRAM Control was O0xd14f 0000 WM32 0x80000104 WM32 0x80000104 WM32 0x80000104 WM32 0x80000100 DDR 0x2 0x0 3 7 bit 0 mode_en l write bit 1 cke MEM_CLK_EN bit 2 ddr DDR mode on bit 3 ref_en Refresh enable bits 4 6 Reserved bit 7 hi_addr XLA 4 7 as row col must be set to l cuz we need 13 RA bits for the Micron chip above bit 8 reserved bit 9 drive_rule Ox0 bit 10 15 ref_interval see UM OxOf bits 16 19 reserved bits 20 23 dgs_oe 3 0 not sure but I think this is req d for DDR Oxf bits 24 28 Resv d bit 29 1
155. 0000c 00 WA 0O 0 4 22 sdata PROGBITS 100109e0 0009e0 00001lc 00 WA O 0 4 23 sbss NOBITS 100109fc 0009fc 000000 00 WA O O 1 25 bss NOBITS 10010a74 0009fc 0000lc 00 WA 0O 0 4 The text section contains the executable program code The rodata section contains constant data in your program The data section generally contains initialized global data used by the C library prologue code and can contain large initialized data items from your application The sdata section is used for smaller initialized global data items and exists only on some architectures Some processor architectures can make use of optimized data access when the attributes of the memory area are known The sdata and sbss sections enable these optimizations The bss and sbss sections contain uninitialized data in your program These sections occupy no space in the program imagetheir memory space is allocated and initialized to zero on program startup by C library prologue code We can dump any of these sections and display the contents Given this line in your C program declared outside of any function we can examine how it is placed in the rodata section char hello_rodata This is a read only data string n Issue the readelf command specifying the section number we want to dump from Listing 13 15 ppc_82xx readelf x 13 hello ex Hex dump of section rodata 0x10000878 100189e0 10000488 1000050c 10000580 qu 0x10000888 00020001 5468
156. 0008 OxOO00OfFfFfFf CSO stop Oxffffffff IPBI Register and Wait State Enable WM32 0x80000054 0x00050001 CS enable CSO disable CSBOOT sWait state enable CS2 also enabled WM32 0x80000300 0x00045d30 BOOT ctrl bits 0 7 WaitP try Oxf f bits 8 15 WaitX try Oxf f bit 16 Multiplex or non mux ed 0x0 non muxed we we we bit 17 reserved Reset value Oxl keep it bit 18 Ack Active 0x0 bit 19 CE Enable 0x1 bits 20 21 Address Size Oxll 25 6 bits bits 22 23 Data size field 0x01 16 bits bits 24 25 Bank bits 0x00 bits 26 27 WaitType 0x11 bits 28 Write Swap 0x0 no swap bits 29 Read Swap 0x0 no swap bit 30 Write Only 0x0 read enable bit 3l Read Only 0x0 write enable we we we we we 3 CS2 Logic Registers WM82 O0x80000014 Ox0000e00e WM32 Ox80000018 Ox0000efff LEDS LEDI bits 0 7 LED2 bits 8 15 LED3 bits 16 23 LED4 bits 24 31 is 3 off Ox0l on 0x02 mm Oxe00e2030 0x02020202 1 all on mm Oxe00e2030 0x01020102 1 2 on 2 off WM32 0x80000308 0x00045b30 CS2 Configuration Register non muxed WM32 0x80000318 0x01000000 3 3 bits 3 bits bits bits bits bits bits 3 bits init SDRAM controller For the UEI PPC 5200 Board 0 7 WaitP try Oxff 8 15 WaitX try Oxff bit 16 Multiplex or non mux ed 0x0 bit 17 reserved Reset value Ox
157. 01008000 0x0114dccb assumed entry at Ox01008000 RedBoot gt fis create b 0x01008000 1 0x145cdO f Ox50100000 MyKernel Erase from 0x50100000 Ox50260000 Program from Ox01008000 0x0114dcd0 at Ox50100000 Unlock from O0x50fe0000 0x51000000 Erase from Ox50fe0000 0x51000000 Program from Ox03fdf000 Ox03fff000 at Ox50fe0000 Lock from 0x50fe0000 0x51000000 First we load the image we will use to create the new partition We will use our kernel image for the example We load it to memory address Ox01008000 Then we create the new partition using the Redboot fis create command We have instructed Redboot to create the new partition in an area of Flash starting at 0x50100000 You can see the action as Redboot first erases this area of Flash and then programs the kernel image In the final sequence Redboot unlocks its directory area and updates the FIS Directory with the new partition information Listing 10 9 shows the output of fis list with the new partition Compare this with the output in Listing 10 5 Listing 10 9 New Redboot Partition List RedBoot gt fis list Name FLASH addr Mem addr Length Entry point RedBoot Ox50000000 Ox50000000 0x00060000 0x00000000 RedBoot config Ox50FC0000 Ox50FC0000 Ox00001000 Ox00000000 FIS directory OxSOFEO000 0x50FE0000 0x00020000 0x00000000 MyKernel 0x50100000 0x50100000 O0x00160000 0x01008000 Of course when we
158. 0141000 40148000 p 00121000 00 0a 9537518 lib 1libc 2 3 2 so 40148000 4014d000 rw p 00120000 00 0a 9537518 lib 1libc 2 3 2 so 4014d000 4014 000 rw p 4014d000 00 00 O befeb000 bf 000000 rwxp befeb000 00 00 0 The usefulness of this information is readily apparent You can see the program segments of the init process itself in the first two entries You can also see the memory segments used by the shared library objects being used by the init process The format is as follows vmstart vmend attr pgoffset devname inode filename Here vmstart and vmend are the starting and ending virtual memory addresses respectively attr indicates memory region attributes such as read write and execute and tells whether this region is shareable pgoffset is the page offset of the region a kernel virtual memory parameter and devname displayed as xx xx is a kernel representation of the device ID associated with this memory region The memory regions that are not associated with a file are also not associated with a device thus the 00 00 The final two entries are the inode and file associated with the given memory region Of course if there is no file there is no inode associated with it and it displays with a zero These are usually data segments Other useful entries are listed for each process The status entry contains useful status information about the running process including items such as the parent
159. 01970 90 22 3 recy 1 62 0 001868 85 22 close 1 61 0 001856 169 11 shutdown 1 38 0 001586 144 11 accept 0 41 0 000470 94 5 mmap2 0 26 0 000301 100 3 mprotect 0 24 0 000281 94 3 brk 0 17 0 000194 194 1 1 access 0 13 0 000150 150 1 lseek 0 12 0 000141 4T 3 uname 0 11 0 000132 132 1 listen 0 11 0 000128 128 1 socket 0 09 0 000105 53 2 fstat64 0 08 0 000097 97 1 munmap 0 06 0 000064 64 1 getcwd 0 05 0 000063 63 1 bind 0 05 0 000054 54 1 setsockopt 0 04 0 000048 48 1 rt_sigaction 0 04 0 000046 46 1 gettimeofday 0 03 0 000038 38 1 getpid 100 00 0 114985 624 22 total This is a very useful way to get a high level view of where your application is consuming time and where errors are occurring Some errors might be a normal part of your application s operation but others might be consuming time that you hadn t intended From Listing 13 6 we can see that the syscall with the longest duration was the execve which is the call that the shell used to spawn the application As you can see it was called only once Another interesting observation is that the send system call was the most frequently used syscall This makes sensethe application is a small web server Bear in mind that like the other tools we have been discussing here strace must be compiled for your target architecture strace is executed on your target board not your development host You must use a version that is compatible with your archit
160. 0MHz SDRAM 133 1 24 2 4 channel y Y Y See the AMCC website at www amcc com embedded for complete details Table 3 2 summarizes the features of the AMCC 440xx family of processors Table 3 2 AMCC PowerPC 440xx Highlights Summary Feature Core speeds DRAM controller Ethernet 10 100 Gigabit Ethernet GPIO lines UARTs DMA controller 440EP 440GP 440GX PowerPC PowerPC PowerPC 440 440 440 333 667MHz 400 S500MHz 533 800MHz DDR DDR DDR 2 2 2 N N 2 64 32 32 4 2 2 4 channel 4 channel 4 channel 440SP PowerPC 440 533 667MHz DDR via GigE ji 32 3 3 channel Table 3 2 AMCC PowerPC 440xx Highlights Summary Feature 440EP 440GP 440GX 440SP IC controller 2 2 2 2 PCI host controller Y PCI X PCI X three PCI X SPI controller Y N N N Interrupt controller Y Y Y Y 3 2 3 Freescale PowerPC Freescale Semiconductor has a large range of PowerPC processors with integrated peripherals The manufacturer is currently advertising its PowerPC product portfolio centered on three broad vertical market segments networking automotive and industrial Freescale PowerPC processors have enjoyed enormous success in the networking market segment This lineup of processors has wide appeal in a large variety of network equipment from the low end to the high end of the product space In a recent press release Freescale Semiconductor announced that it had shipped more than 200 million integrated communications p
161. 168 1 10 71 Looking up port of RPC 100005 1 on 192 168 1 10 72 VFS Mounted root nfs filesystem 73 Freeing init memory 112K 74 Mounting proc 75 Starting system loggers 76 Configuring lo 77 Starting inetd 78 The kernel produces much useful information during startup as shown in Listing 5 3 We study this output in some detail in the next few sections Line 1 is produced by the bootstrap loader we presented earlier in this chapter This message was produced by the decompression loader found in arch arm boot compressed misc c Line 2 of Listing 5 3 is the kernel version string It is the first line of output from the kernel itself One of the first lines of C code executed by the kernel in init main c upon entering start _kernel is as follows printk linux_banner This line produces the output just describedthe kernel version string Line 2 of Listing 5 3 This version string contains a number of pertinent data points related to the kernel image e Kernel version Linux version 2 6 10 clh e Username machine name where kernel was compiled e Toolchain info gcc version 3 4 3 supplied by MontaVista Software e Build number e Date and time compiled This is useful information both during development and later in production All but one of the entries are self explanatory The build number is simply a tool that the developers added to the version string to indicate that something more substant
162. 2 3 Storage Considerations One of the most challenging aspects of embedded systems is that most embedded systems have limited physical resources Although the Pentium 4 machine on your desktop might have 180GB of hard drive space it is not uncommon to find embedded systems with a fraction of that amount In many cases the hard drive is typically replaced by smaller and less expensive nonvolatile storage devices Hard drives are bulky have rotating parts are sensitive to physical shock and require multiple power supply voltages which makes them unsuitable for many embedded systems 2 3 1 Flash Memory Nearly everyone is familiar with CompactFlash modules used in a wide variety of consumer devices such as digital cameras and PDAs both great examples of embedded systems These modules can be thought of as solid state hard drives capable of storing many megabytesand even gigabytesof data in a tiny footprint They contain no moving parts are relatively rugged and operate on a single common power supply voltage 5l See www compactflash org Several manufacturers of Flash memory exist Flash memory comes in a variety of physical packages and capacities It is not uncommon to see embedded systems with as little as 1MB or 2MB of nonvolatile storage More typical storage requirements for embedded Linux systems range from 4MB to 256MB or more An increasing number of embedded Linux systems have nonvolatile storage into the gigabyte ran
163. 402 DW_AT_low_pc 0x100004b8 403 DW_AT_high_pc 0x10000570 404 DW_AT_frame_base 1 byte block 6f DW_OP_reg31 423 lt 2 gt lt 5e9 gt Abbrev Number 16 DW_TAG_variable 424 DW_AT_name mybuf 425 DW_AT_decl_file 1 426 DW_AT_decl_line 11 427 DW_AT_type gt lt 600 gt 428 DW_AT_location 2 byte block 91 20 DW_OP_fbreg 32 The first record identified by the Dwarf2 tag DW_TAG compile_unit identifies the first compilation unit of this PowerPC executable It is a file called start S which provides startup prologue for a C program The next record identified by DW_TAG_subprogram identifies the start of the user program the familiar function main This Dwarf2 debug record contains a reference to the file and line number where mainQ is found The final record in Listing 13 16 identifies a local variable in the main routine called mybuf Again the line number and file are provided by this record You can deduce from this information that main is at line 9 and mybuf is at line 11 of the source file Other debug records in the ELF file correlate the filename via the Dwarf2 DW_AT_decl_file attribute a A reference for the Dwarf2 Debug Information Specification is provided at the end of this chapter You can discover all the details of the Dwarf2 debug information format via the reference given in Section 13 7 1 at the end of this chapter 13 5 3 objdump The objdump uti
164. 448 lt yosemite_setup_arch 44 gt addi r4 r4 21460 Oxc020f44c lt yosemite_setup_arch 48 gt li r5 6 Oxc020f450 lt yosemite_setup_arch 52 gt lis r29 16350 Oxc020f454 lt yosemite_setup_arch 56 gt addi r3 r31 48 Oxc020f458 lt yosemite_setup_arch 60 gt lis r25 16350 Oxc020f45c lt yosemite_setup_arch 64 gt bl Oxc000c708 lt memcpy gt OxcO020f460 lt yosemite_setup_arch 68 amp gt stw r28 44 r31 Oxc020f464 lt yosemite_setup_arch 72 gt li r4 512 OxcO020f468 lt yosemite_setup_arch 76 gt li r5 l OxcO020f46c lt yosemite_setup_arch 80 gt li r3 4116 OxcO020f470 lt yosemite_setup_arch 8 amp 4 gt addi r26 r25 15104 Oxc020f474 lt yosemite_setup_arch 88 gt bl Oxc000d344 lt ocp_get_one_device gt OxcO020f478 lt yosemite_setup_arch 92 gt lis r4 16350 Oxc020f47c lt yosemite_setup_arch 96 gt lwz r31 32 r3 Oxc020f480 lt yosemite_setup_arch 100 gt addi r4 r4 21534 Oxc020f484 lt yosemite_setup_arch 104 gt li r5 6 Oxc020f488 lt yosemite_setup_arch 108 gt addi r3 r31 48 OxcO20f48c lt yosemite_setup_arch ll2 gt bl Oxc000c708 lt memcpy gt OxcO20f490 lt yosemite_setup_arch ll6 gt lis r4 1017 Oxc020f494 lt yosemite_setup_arch 120 gt lis 75 168 OxcO20f498 lt yosemite_setup_archt124 gt stw r28 44 r31 OxcO020f49c lt yosemite_setup_arch t128 gt ori r4 r4 16554 OxcO020f4a0 lt yosemite_setup_archt132 gt ori r5 r5 49152 OxcO020f4a4 lt yosemite_setup_arch 136
165. 5 1 Composite kernel image construction asm wrapper around piggy gz gt contains kernel image objcopy i Piggy gz asm piggy o Bootable compressed misc o kernel binary kernel image stripped binary l big_ kernel image endian o kernel proper head xscale o head o ree 5 1 1 The Image Object After the vmlinux kernel ELF file has been built the kernel build system continues to process the targets described in Table 5 1 The Image object is created from the vmlinux object Image is basically the vmlinux ELF file stripped of redundant sections notes and comments and also stripped of any debugging symbols that might have been present The following command is used for this xscale_be objcopy O binary R note R comment S vmlinux arch arm boot Image In the previous objcopy command the O option tells objcopy to generate a binary file the R option removes the ELF sections named note and comment and the S option is the flag to strip debugging symbols Notice that objcopy takes the vmlinux ELF image as input and generates the target binary file called Image In summary Image is nothing more than the kernel proper in binary form stripped of debug symbols and the note and comment ELF sections 5 1 2 Architecture Objects Following the build sequence further a number of small modules are compiled These include several assembly language files head o head xscale o and so on that perform
166. 6 e Chapter Summary page 306 The configuration and services enabled on your host development system can have a huge impact on your success as an embedded developer This chapter examines the unique requirements of a cross development environment and some of the tools and techniques that an embedded developer needs to know to be productive We begin by examining a typical cross development environment Using the familiar hello world example we detail the important differences between host based applications and those targeted at embedded systems We also look at differences in the toolchains for native versus embedded application development We then present host system requirements and detail the use of some important elements of your host system We conclude this chapter with an example of a target board being hosted by a network based host 12 1 Cross Development Environment Developers new to embedded development often struggle with the concepts and differences between native and cross development environments Indeed there are often three compilers and three or more versions of standard header files such as stdlib h Debugging an application on your target embedded system can be difficult without the right tools and host based utilities You must manage and separate the files and utilities designed to run on your host system from those you intend to use on your target When we use the term host in this context we
167. 60E both add a new Universal Communications Controller which supports a variety of protocols Table 3 5 summarizes the highlights of select members of the PQ II Pro family Table 3 5 Freescale Select PowerQUICC II Pro Highlights Feature MPC8343E MPC8347E MPC8349E MPC8360E Core speeds e300 e300 e300 e300 266 400MH 266 667MH 400 667MH 266 667MH Z Z Z Z DRAM controller Y DDR Y DDR Y DDR Y DDR USB Y 2 2 Y SPI controller Y Y Y y TC controller 2 2 2 2 Ethernet 10 100 1000 2 2 2 Via UCC UART 2 2 2 2 PCI controller Y Y Y Y Security engine Y Y Y Y MCC 0 0 0 1 UCC 0 0 0 8 At the top of the PowerQUICC family are the PQ III processors These operate between 600MHz and 1 5GHz They are based on the e500 core and support Gigabit Ethernet DDR SDRAM RapidIO PCI and PCI X ATM HDLC and more This family incorporates the MPC85xx product line These processors have found their way into high end products such as wireless base station controllers optical edge switches central office switches and similar equipment Table 3 6 highlights some of the PQ III family members Table 3 6 Freescale Select PowerQUICC III Highlights Feature MPC8540 MPC8548E MPC8555E MPC8560 Core speeds e500 e500 e500 e500 Up to 1 0GHz Up to 1 5GHz Up to 1 0GHz Up to 1 0GHz DRAM controller Y DDR Y DDR Y DDR Y DDR USB N N Via SCC N SPI controller N N Y Y I C controller Y Y Y Y Ethernet 10 100 1 Via GigE Via SCC Via SCC Gigabit Ethernet 2 4 2 2 UAR
168. 6973 20697320 61207265 This is a read 0x10000898 61642d6f 6e6c7920 64617461 20737472 only data string 0x100008a8 696e670a 00000000 54686973 20697320 This is 0x100008b8 73746174 69632064 6174610a 00000000 static data 0x100008c8 48656c6c 6f20456d 62656464 65640a00 Hello Embedded 0x100008d8 25730a00 25780a00 VS vX We see that the initialized global variable that we declared is represented in the rodata section together with all the constant strings defined in the program 13 5 2 Examining Debug Info Using readelf One of the more useful features of readelf is to display the debug information contained in an ELF file When the g compiler flag is issued during a compilation the compiler generates debug information in a series of sections within the resulting ELF file We can use readelf to display these ELF section headers within the ELF file ppc linux readelf S ex_sync grep debug 28 debug_aranges PROGBITS 00000000 000c38 0000b8 00 0 0 8 29 debug_pubnames PROGBITS 00000000 000cf0 00007a 00 0 O 1 30 debug_info PROGBITS 00000000 000d6a 00079b 00 0 O 1 31 debug_abbrev PROGBITS 00000000 001505 000207 00 0 O 1 32 debug_line PROGBITS 00000000 00170c 000354 00 0 O 1 33 debug_frame PROGBITS 00000000 001a60 000080 00 0 0 4 34 debug_str PROGBITS 00000000 0Olae0 00014d 00 0 O 1 Using readelf with the debug dump option we can display the contents of any one of these debug_ sections You will see h
169. 9 5b 65 ld d5 via ethO tgt gt DHCPREQUEST for 192 168 0 9 192 168 0 1 from 00 09 5b 65 ld dS via ethO svr gt DHCPACK on 192 168 0 9 to 00 09 5b 65 1d dS via ethO The sequence starts with the client target transmitting a broadcast frame attempting to discover a DHCP server This is shown by the DHCPDISCOVER message shown The server responds if it has been so configured and enabled by offering an IP address for the client This is evidenced by the DHCPOFFER message The client then responds by testing this IP address locally The testing includes sending the DHCPREQUEST packet to the DHCP server as shown Finally the server responds by acknowledging the IP address assignment to the client thus completing the automatic target configuration It is interesting to note that a properly configured client will remember the last address it was assigned by a DHCP server The next time it boots it will skip the DHCPDISCOVER stage and proceed directly to the DHCPREQUEST stage assuming that it can reuse the same IP address that the server previously assigned A booting Linux kernel does not have this capability and emits the same sequence every time it boots Configuration of your host s DHCP server is not difficult As usual our advice is to consult the documentation that came with your desktop Linux distribution On a Red Hat or Fedora Core distribution the configuration entry for a single target might
170. A Controller It has a simple block diagram containing onboard Flash memory dynamic RAM a serial port and a variety of I O devices mostly integrated into the MPC5200 processor Figure 16 1 is the block diagram of the PowerDNA Controller Figure 16 1 UEI PowerDNA Controller board RJ 45 or SC Freescale NIC MPC5200 Control RJ 45 or SC PowerPC Sync 32 bit 66 Mhz Bus 16 2 1 Prerequisites and Assumptions The Linux kernel makes some fundamental assumptions when it is passed control from a bootloader Most important among them is that the bootloader must have initialized the DRAM controller Linux does not participate in chip level SDRAM controller setup Linux assumes that system RAM is present and fully functional The PowerDNA Controller we are targeting contains the U Boot bootloader which has initialized the CPU DRAM and other related hardware required for minimal system operation The bootloader should also initialize the system memory map This is usually done via a set of processor registers that define what chip select signals are active within a given memory address range Chapter 3 in the Freescale MPC5200 User s Guide describes the registers used for this task The bootloader might have additional hardware related initialization tasks On some boards the kernel assumes that the serial port is configured This makes it possible to display early kernel boot messages to the serial port long before the
171. Ack Packet received OK Sending packet c 63 Ack lt lt lt program running gdb waiting for event Although it might look daunting at first what is happening here is easily understood In summary gdb is restoring all its breakpoints on the target Recall from Listing 14 3 that we entered two breakpoints one at panic and one at sys_sync Later in Listing 14 4 we added a third breakpoint at yosemite_setup_arch Thus there are three active user specified breakpoints These can be displayed by issuing the gdb info breakpoints command As usual we use the abbreviated version View full width gdb i b Num Type Disp Enb Address What 1 breakpoint keep y Oxc0016de8 in panic at kernel panic c 74 2 breakpoint keep y Oxc005bd5c in sys_sync at fs buffer c 296 3 breakpoint keep y Oxc021a488 in yosemite _setup_arch at arch ppc platforms 4xx yosemite c 308 breakpoint already hit 1 time gdb Now compare the previous breakpoint addresses with the addresses in the gdb remote m packet in Listing 14 5 The m packet is a read target memory command and the M packet is a write target memory command Once for each breakpoint the address of the breakpoint is read from target memory stored away locally on the host by gdb so it can be restored later and replaced with the PowerPC TRap instruction twge r2 r2 0x7d821008 which results in control passing back to the debugger Figure 14 4 illustrates this action
172. Boot source tree includes a directory where these board specific configuration header files reside They can be found in include configs from the top level U Boot source directory Numerous features and modes of operation can be selected by adding definitions to the board configuration file Listing 7 4 contains a partial configuration header file for a fictitious board based on the PPC 405GP processor Listing 7 4 Partial U Boot Board Configuration Header File define CONFIG_405GP Processor definition define CONFIG_4XX Sub arch specification 4xx family define CONFIG_SYS_CLK_FREQ 33333333 PLL Frequency define CONFIG_BAUDRATE 9600 define CONFIG_PCI Enable support for PCI define CONFIG_COMMANDS CONFIG_CMD_DFL CFG_CMD_DHCP define CFG BASE BAUD 691200 The following table includes the supported baudrates define CFG_BAUDRATE_TABLE 1200 2400 4800 9600 19200 38400 57600 115200 230400 define CFG_LOAD_ADDR 0x100000 default load address Memory Bank O Flash Bank 0 initialization define CFG_EBC_PBOAP 0x9B015480 define CFG _EBC_PBOCR OxFFF18000 define CFG_EBC_PBIAP 0x02815480 define CFG_EBC_PBICR 0xF0018000 Listing 7 4 gives an idea of how U Boot itself is configured for a given board An actual board configuration file can contain hundreds of lines similar to those found here In this example you ca
173. D concatenating support MTD_CONCAT C MTD partitioning support MTD_PARTITIONS User Modules And Translation Layers E Direct char device access to MTD devices MTD_CHAR E Caching block device access to MTD devices MTD_BLOCK D FTL Flash Translation Layer support FTL C NFTL NAND Flash Translation Layer support NFTL C INFTL inverse NAND Flash Translation Layer support INFTL O Resident Flash Disk Flash Translation Layer support RFD_FTL D RAM ROM Flash chip drivers D Mapping drivers for chip access Self contained MTD device drivers C Ramix PMC551 PCI Mezzanine RAM card support MTD_PMCS551 C Uncached system RAM MTD_SLRAM C Physical system RAM MTD_PHRAM Y E Test driver using RAM MTD_MTDRAM MTDRAM device size in KIB MTDRAM_TOTAL_ MTDRAM erase block size in KIB NEW MTDRAM_ERASE_ 7 The CONFIG_MTD MTDRAM element enables a special test driver that enables us to examine the MTD subsystem even if we don t have any MTD devices such as Flash memory available Coupled with this configuration selection are two parameters associated with the RAM based test driver the device size and the erase size For this example we have specified 8192KB total size and 128KB erase size The objective of this test driver is to emulate a Flash device primarily to facilitate MTD subsystem testing and development Because Flash memory is architected using fixed size erase blocks the test driver also contains the concept of erase blocks You will s
174. EMPT_SOFTIRQS printk softirq RT prio d n param sched_ priority sys_sched_setscheduler current gt pid SCHED FIFO amp param Helse set_user_nice current 10 endif Here we see that if CONFIG PREEMPT _SOFTIRQS is enabled in the kernel configuration the ksoftirqd kernel task is promoted to a real time task SCHED_FIFO at a real time priority of 24 using the sys_sched_setscheduler kernel function SoftIRQ threading can be disabled at runtime through the proc file system as well as through the kernel command line at boot time When enabled in the configuration unless you specify otherwise SoftIRQ threading is enabled by default To disable SoftIRQ threading at runtime issue the following command as root echo 0 gt proc sys kernel softirq_preemption To verify the setting display it as follows cat proc sys kernel softirq_preemption 1 To disable SoftIRQ threading at boot time add the following parameter to the kernel command line softirq preempt 0 17 3 1 4 Preempt RCU RCU Read Copy Update is a special form of synchronization primitive in the Linux kernel designed for data that is read frequently but updated infrequently You can think of RCU as an optimized reader lock The real time patch adds CONFIG PREEMPT RCU which improves latency by making certain RCU sections preemptable See www rdrop com users paulmck RCU for an in depth discussion of RCU 17 3 2 O0 1 Sc
175. FI specification CFI is enabled via the kernel configuration utility under the Memory Technology Devices MTD top level menu Select Detect flash chips by Common Flash Interface CFI probe under RAM ROM Flash chip drivers as illustrated in Figure 10 3 Figure 10 3 Kernel configuration for MTD CFI support View full size image File Options Help o S lI lI E Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand Y Memory Technology Devices MTD v Memory Technology Device MTD support MTD C Debugging MTD_DEBUG CI MTD concatenating support MTD_CONCAT b Z MTD partitioning support MTD_PARTITIONS User Modules And Translation Layers Direct char device access to MTD devices MTD_CHAR Caching block device access to MTD devices MTD_BLOCK CI FTL Flash Translation Layer support FTL C NFTL NAND Flash Translation Layer support NFTL C INFTL Inverse NAND Flash Translation Layer support INFTL RAM ROM Flash chip drivers Detect flash chips by Common Flash Interface CFI probe MTD_CFI C Detect non CFl AMD JEDEC compatible flash chips MTD_JEDECPROBE GESS 5 er gt CFI Flash device mapped on Intel IXP4xx based systems MTD_IXP4XX This enables MTD access to flash devices on platforms based on Intel s IXP4xx family of network processors such as the IXDP425 and Coyote If you have an IXP4xx based board and would like to use the flash chips on it say Y As shown in Listing 10 6 the Flash chip is detected via t
176. File Options Help o Qi lL E Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand Options Memory Technology Devices MTD gt Z Memory Technology Device MTD support MTD C Debugging MTD_DEBUG C MTD concatenating support MTD_CONCAT MTD partitioning support MTD_PARTITIONS b Z RedBoot panition table parsing MTD_REDBOOT_PARTS C Command line partition table parsing MTD_CMDLINE_PARTS O ARM Firmware Suite partition parsing MTD_AFS_PARTS User Modules And Translation Layers Direct char device access to MTD devices MTD_CHAR Caching block device access to MTD devices MTD_BLOCK CO FTL Flash Translation Layer support FTL C NFTL NANO Flash Translation Layer support NFTL C INFTL Inverse NAND Flash Translation Layer support INFTL b RAM ROM Flash chip drivers Mapping drivers for chip access Support non linear mappings of flash chips MTD_COMPLEX_MAPPING CJ CFI Flash device in physical memory map MTD_PHYSMAP O CFI Flash device mapped on ARM Integrator P720T MTD_ARM_INTEGRATOR 2 CFI Flash device mapped on Intel IXP4xx based systems MTD_IXP4XX CFI Flash device mapped on Intel IXP4xx based systems MTD_IXP4XX This enables MTD access to flash devices on platforms based on Intel s IXP4xx family of network processors such as the IXDP425 and Coyote If you have an IXP4xx based board and would like to use the flash chips on it say Y Several methods exist for communicating the partition data to the Linux
177. G_IGN Initialize the web server if CinitWebsQ lt 0 return t Hifdef WEBS_SSL_SUPPORT websSSLOpen Hendif Basic event loop SocketReady returns true when a socket is ready for service SocketSelect will block until an event occurs SocketProcess will actually do the servicing Copyright 1995 1999 Technische Universitat Braunschweig Germany Copyright 1999 2001 Universitat Passau Germany Copyright 2001 Universitat des Saarlandes Germany soppy taht 2003 Free Software Fundation Inc g DDD is invoked as follows ddd debugger xscale_be gdb webs Without the debugger flag DDD would attempt to invoke the native GDB on your development host which is not what you want if you are planning to debug an application on your target system The second argument on the DDD command line is the program you will be debugging See the man page for DDD for additional details Using the command tool as shown in Figure 13 1 you can step through your program You can set breakpoints either graphically or via the GDB console window at the bottom of the DDD screen For target debugging you must first connect your debugger to the target system as we did in Listing 13 4 using the target command This command is issued in the GDB window of the ddd main screen When you are connected to the target you can execute similar commands to the sequence described in the previous example to isolate th
178. Hello World as modified to illustrate the previous concepts The goal with this example is to illustrate the address space that the kernel assigns to the process This code was compiled and run on the AMCC Yosemite board described earlier in this chapter The board contains 256MB of DRAM memory Listing 2 4 Hello World Embedded Style include lt stdio h gt int bss_var Uninitialized global variable int data_var l Initialized global variable int mainGint argc char argv void stack_var Local variable on the stack stack_var void main Don t let the compiler optimize it out printf Hello World Main is executing at p n stack_var printf This address p is in our stack frame n amp stack_var bss section contains uninitialized data printf This address p is in our bss section n amp bss_var data section contains initializated data printf This address p is in our data section n amp data_var return 0 Listing 2 5 shows the console output that this program produces Notice that the process called hello thinks it is executing somewhere in high RAM just above the 256MB boundary 0x10000418 Notice also that the stack address is roughly halfway into a 32 bit address space well beyond our 256MB of RAM Ox7f f8ebb0 How can this be DRAM is usually contiguous in systems like these To the casual
179. INSTALL_PATH and run lilo assabet_defconfig Build for assabet badge4_defconfig Build for badge4 bast_defconfig Build for bast cerfcube_defconfig Build for cerfcube clps7500_defconfig Build for clps7500 collie defconfig Build for collie corgi _defconfig Build for corgi ebsall0O_defconfig Build for ebsallO edb7211_defconfig Build for edb7211 enp26ll_defconfig Build for enp26l1 ep80219_defconfig Build for ep80219 epxal0db_defconfig Build for epxal0db footbridge_defconfig Build for footbridge fortunet_defconfig Build for fortunet h3600_defconfig Build for h3600 h7201_defconfig Build for h7201 h7202_defconfig Build for h7202 hackkit_defconfig Build for hackkit integrator_defconfig Build for integrator iq31244_defconfig Build for iq81244 iq80321_defconfig Build for iq80321 iq80331_defconfig Build for iq80331 1q80332_defconfig Build for iq80332 ixdp2400_defconfig Build for ixdp2400 ixdp2401_defconfig Build for ixdp2401 ixdp2800_defconfig Build for ixdp2800 ixdp2801_defconfig Build for ixdp2801 ixp4xx_defconfig Build for ixp4xx jornada720_defconfig Build for jornada720 lart_defconfig Build for lart 1pd7a400_defconfig Build for 1pd7a400 lpd7a404_defconfig lubbock_defconfig lus17200_defconfig mainstone_defconfig mxlads_defconfig neponset_defconfig netwinder_defconfig omap_h2_1610_defconfig pleb_de
180. ISRs to threads can be disabled at runtime through the proc file system or at boot time by entering a parameter on the kernel command line When enabled in the configuration unless you specify otherwise ISR threading is enabled by default To disable ISR threading at runtime issue the following command as root echo 0 gt proc sys kernel hardirqg_preemption To verify the setting display it as follows cat proc sys kernel hardirg_preemption 1 To disable ISR threading at boot time add the following parameter to the kernel command line hardirq preempt 0 17 3 1 8 Preemptable Softirqs CONFIG PREEMPT SOFTIRQ reduces latency by running softirqs within the context of the kernel s softirq daemon ksoftirqd ksoftirqd is a proper Linux task process As such it can be prioritized and scheduled along with other tasks If your kernel is configured for real time and CONFIG PREEMPT _SOFTIRQ is enabled the ksoftirqd kernel task is elevated to real time priority to handle the softirq processing Listing 17 3 shows the code responsible for this from a recent Linux kernel found in kernel softira c ae See Linux Kernel Development referenced at the end of this chapter to learn more about softirgs Listing 17 3 Promoting ksoftirq to Real Time Status static int ksoftirqd void __bind_cpu struct sched_param param sched_priority 24 printk ksoftirqd started up n ifdef CONFIG_PRE
181. Kernel A Different Perspective we introduced the overall structure of the Linux kernel source tree We spend the majority of this chapter examining the architecture specific branch of the Linux kernel sources Listing 16 1 shows the contents of arch from a recent kernel snapshot As we pointed out in Chapter 4 the arch subdirectory is the second largest in terms of size and in a recent Linux release the largest in terms of file count excluding the include directory Only the drivers subdirectory is larger in size Listing 16 1 Linux Kernel arch Directory Listing chris pluto linux 1s arch alpha cris i386 m68k parisc s390 sparc v850 arm frv ia64 m68knommu_ ppc sh sparc64 x86_64 arm26 h8300 m32r mips ppc64 sh64 um xtensa From this listing you can see support for 24 separate architectures within the Linux kernel We refer to each as an architecture branch to facilitate our discussions Each architecture branch has some common components For example each top level architecture branch contains a Kconfig file You will recall from Chapter 4 that Kconfig drives the kernel configuration utility Of course each top level architecture branch also has a corresponding makefile All the top level architectures contain a kernel subdirectory because a number of kernel features are architecture dependent All but two contain an mm subdirectory This is where the architecture dependent memory manag
182. Memory 62592KB available 1727K code 339K data 112K init 17 Mount cache hash table entries 512 18 CPU Testing write buffer coherency ok 19 softlockup thread O started up 20 NET Registered protocol family 16 21 PCI IXP4xx is host 22 PCI IXP4xx Using direct access for memory space 23 PCI busO Fast back to back transfers enabled 24 dmabounce registered device 0000 00 0f 0 on pci bus 25 NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0 97 double precision 26 JFFS2 version 2 2 NAND C 2001 2003 Red Hat Inc 27 Serial 8250 16550 driver Revision 1 90 2 ports IRQ sharing disabled 28 ttySO at MMIO Oxc8001000 irq 13 is a XScale 29 io scheduler noop registered 30 io scheduler anticipatory registered 3l io scheduler deadline registered 32 io scheduler cfq registered 33 RAMDISK driver initialized 16 RAM disks of 8192K size 1024 blocksize 34 loop loaded max 8 devices 35 eeprol00 c vl 09 j t 9 29 99 Donald Becker http www scyld com network eeprol00 htm1 36 eeprol00 c Revision 1 36 2000 11 17 Modified by Andrey V Savochkin lt saw saw sw com sg gt and others 37 ethO 0000 00 0f 0 O0 0E 0C 00 82 F8 IRQ 28 38 Board assembly 741462 016 Physical connectors present RJ45 39 Primary interface chip i82555 PHY 1 40 General self test passed 41 Serial sub system self test passed 42 Internal registers self test passed 43 ROM checksum self test passed 0x8b51f404 44 IXP4XX Flash 0 Found
183. NG is also enabled This option dumps all the wakeup timing measurements enabled by CONFIG _WAKEUP_TIMING into a file for later analysis An example of this file and its contents is presented shortly when we examine interrupt off history e CRITICAL _PREEMPT_TIMING Measures the time spent in critical sections with preempt disabled e PREEMPT OFF_HIST Similar to WAKEUP_LATENCY_HIST Gathers preempt off timing measurements into a bin for later analysis 17 4 5 Interrupt Off Timing To enable measurement of maximum interrupt off timing configure your kernel with CRITICAL _IRQSOFF_TIMING enabled This option measures time spent in critical sections with irqs disabled This feature works in the same way as wakeup latency timing To enable the measurement do the following as root echo 0 gt proc sys kernel preempt_max_latency When this proc file is set to zero each successive maximum interrupt off timing result is written to this file To read the current maximum simply display the value cat proc sys kernel preempt_max_latency 97 You will notice that the latency measurements for both wakeup latency and interrupt off latency are enabled and displayed using the same proc file This means of course that only one measurement can be configured at a time or the results might not be valid Because these measurements add significant runtime overhead it isn t wise to enable them all at once anyway 17 4 6 Interrupt Off H
184. OCP_FUNC_EMAC 0 117 emacdata def gt additions 118 memcpy emacdata gt mac_addr __res bi_enetaddr 6 119 emacdata gt phy_mode PHY MODE_RMIT 120 gdb p yosemite_setup_arch 1 void void Oxc020f41c lt yosemite_setup_arch gt Referring back to Listing 14 4 notice that the function yosemite_setup_arch actually falls on line 306 of the file yosemite c Compare that with Listing 14 7 We hit the breakpoint but gdb reports the breakpoint at file yosemite c line 116 It appears at first glance to be a mismatch of line numbers between the debugger and the corresponding source code Is this a gdb bug First let s confirm what the compiler produced for debug information Using the readel t tool described in Chapter 13 Development Tools we can examine the debug information for this function produced by the compiler ls Remember to use your cross version of readelffor example ppc_44x readelf for the PowerPC 44x architecture ppc_44x readelf debug dump info vmlinux grep u6 yosemite_setup_arch tail n 7 DW_AT_name indirect string offset 0x9c04 yosemite_setup_arch DW_AT_decl_ file 1 DW_AT_decl_line 307 DW_AT_prototyped 1 DW_AT_low_pc gt OxcO20f4lc DW_AT_high_pc gt OxcO20f794 DW_AT_frame_base 1 byte block 51 DW_OP_regl We don t have to be experts at reading DWARF2 debug records to recognize that the function in question is repo
185. OT_WRITE PROT_EXEC MAP_PRIVATE MAP_FIXED 3 0x130000 Oxffdf000 13 mmap Oxffee000 7228 PROT_READ PROT_WRITE PROT_EXEC MAP_PRIVATE MAP_FIXEDIMAP_ANONYMOUS 1 0 Oxffee000 14 close 3 0 15 brk 0 0x10031050 16 brk 0x10032050 0x10032050 17 brk 0x10033000 0x10033000 18 brk 0x10041000 0x10041000 19 rt_sigaction SIGPIPE SIG_IGN SIG_DFL 8 0 20 stat umconfig txt Ox7ffff9b8 ENOENT No such file or directory 21 uname sys Linux node coyote 0 22 gettimeofday 3301 178955 NULL 0 23 getpidQ 156 24 open etc resolv conf O_RDONLY 3 25 fstat64 0x3 Ox7fffd7f8 0 26 mmap NULL 4096 PROT_READ PROT_WRITE MAP_PRIVATE MAP_ANONYMOUS 1 0 0x30017000 27 read 3 n resolv conf This file is th 4096 83 28 read 3 4096 0 29 close 3 0 lt lt lt Lines 30 81 removed for brevity 82 socket PF_INET SOCK_DGRAM IPPROTO_IP 3 83 connect 3 sa_family AF_INET sin_port htons 53 sin_addr inet_addr 0 0 0 0 28 0 84 send 3 267s 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 6coyotea 0 O 1 0 I 24 0 24 85 gettimeofday 3301 549664 NULL O 86 poll fd 3 events POLLIN revents POLLERR 1 5000 1 87 ioct1 3 0x4004667f Ox7fffe6a8 0 88 recvfrom 3 Ox7ffff1f0 1024 0 Ox7fffe668 Ox7fffe6ac 1 ECONNREFUSED Connection refused 89 close 3 0 90 socket PF_INET SOCK_DGRAM IPPROTO_IP 3 91 connect 3 sa_family AF_INET
186. Obsolete daemon for managing devfs permissions and old device name symlinks Prints the file system space used and space available Strips a nondirectory suffix from a filename Prints or controls the kernel ring buffer Converts a file from DOS format to UNIX format Utility to install remove and manage Debian packages Performs actions on Debian packages debs Summarizes disk space used for each file and or directory Prints a binary keyboard translation table to standard output Displays the DHCP leases granted by udhcpd Prints the specified ARGs to stdout Prints the current environment or runs a program after setting Prints the value of an expression to standard output false fbset fdflush fdformat fdisk find fold free freeramdisk fsckminix ftpget ftpput getopt getty srep gunzip gzip halt hdparm head hexdump hostid hostname httpd hwclock id ifconfig Returns an exit code of FALSE 1 Shows and modifies frame buffer settings Forces floppy disk drive to detect disk change Low level formats a floppy disk Changes partition table Searches for files in a directory hierarchy Wraps input lines in each file Displays the amount of free and used system memory Frees all memory used by the specified ramdisk Performs a consistency check for MINIX file systems Retrieves a remote file via FTP Stores a local file on a remote machine via FTP Parses command options Opens a tty prompts for a login name an
187. ReiserFS guarantees that either a given file system operation completes in its entirety or none of it completes Unlike ext3 Reiser4 has introduced an API for system programmers to guarantee the atomicity of a file system transaction Consider the following example A database program is busy updating records in the database Several writes are issued to the file system Power is lost after the first write but before the last one has completed A journaling file system guarantees that the metadata changes have been stored to the journal file so that when power is again applied to the system the kernel can at least establish a consistent state of the file system That is if file A was reported has having 16KB before the power failure it will be reported as having 16KB afterward and the directory entry representing this file actually the inode properly records the size of the file This does not mean however that the file data was properly written to the file it indicates only that there are no errors on the file system Indeed it is likely that data was lost by the database program in the previous scenario and it would be up to the database logic to recover the lost data if recovery is to occur at all Reiser4 implements high performance atomic file system operations designed to protect both the state of the file system its consistency and the data involved in a file system operation Reiser4 provides a user level API to enable progr
188. S2 File System 1s l total 44 root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 bin root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 dev root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 etc root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 home root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 lib drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x N N N NW LH drwxr xr x root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 proc root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 root root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 sbin root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 tmp root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 usr root root 4096 Aug 14 11 27 var drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x O MYO NH NY DN DW drwxr xr x When suitably populated with runtime files this directory layout can be used as a template for the mkfs jffs2 command The mkfs jffs2 command produces a properly formatted JFFS2 file system image from a directory tree such as that in Listing 9 8 Command line parameters are used to pass mkfs jffs2 the directory location as well as the name of the output file to receive the JFFS2 image The default is to create the JFFS2 image from the current directory Listing 9 9 shows the command for building the JFFS2 image Listing 9 9 mkfs jffs2 Command Example mkfs jffs2 d jffs2 image dir o jffs2 bin is 1 total 4772 rw r r l root root 1098640 Sep 17 22 03 jffs2 bin drwxr xr x 18 root root 4096 Sep 17 22 02 jffs2 image dir The directory structure and files from Listing 9 8 a
189. T 2 2 2 Via SCC PCI controller PCI PCI X PCI PCI X PCI PCI PCI X Rapid 10 Y Y N Y Security engine N Y Y N SCC 3 4 FCC 2 3 SMC 2 0 MCC 0 2 3 2 4 MIPS You might be surprised to learn that 32 bit processors based on the MIPS architecture have been shipping for more than 20 years The MIPS architecture was designed in 1981 by a Stanford University engineering team led by Dr John Hennessey who later went on to form MIPS Computer Systems Inc That company has morphed into the present day MIPS Technologies whose primary role is the design and subsequent licensing of MIPS architecture and cores The MIPS core has been licensed by many companies several of which have become powerhouses in the embedded processor market MIPS is a Reduced Instruction Set Computing RISC architecture with both 32 bit and 64 bit implementations shipping in many popular products MIPS processors are found in a large variety of products from high end to consumer devices It is public knowledge that MIPS processors power many popular well known consumer products such as Sony high definition television sets Linksys wireless access points and the popular Sony PlayStation 2 s game console le Source www mips com content PressRoom PressReleases 2003 12 22 The MIPS Technology website lists 73 licensees who are currently engaged in manufacturing products using MIPS processor cores Some of these companies are household names as with Sony Texas Instrume
190. T Mode Write MR1 default after reset 8 bit no parity Write MR2 after MR1 one stop bit Counter Timer Upper Reg 115 2KB Counter Timer Lower Reg divider 18 Rx Tx sinternal registers sMemory range for SDRAM sROM space 3 PowerPC Logic Default MBAR 3 Linux Kernal type JTAGCLOCK WORKSPACE WAKEUP STARTUP MEMDELAY BOOTADDR REGLIST BREAKMODE POWERUP WAKEUP MMU PTBASE HOST IP FORMAT LOAD PROMPT FLASH CHIPTYPE CHIPSIZE BUSWIDTH WORKSPACE FILE FORMAT ERASE ERASE ERASE ERASE ERASE REGS FILE 0 suse 16 MHz JTAG clock 0x80008000 workspace for fast download 1000 give reset time to complete RESET 2000 sadditional memory access delay Oxff 00100 ALL SOFT or HARD 1000 500 XLAT Ox000000Ff 0 192 168 1 9 ELF MANUAL sload code MANUAL or AUTO after reset uei gt AM29BX16 Flash type AM29F AM29BX8 AM29BX16 I28BX8 I28BX16 0x00400000 sThe size of one flash chip in bytes 16 sThe width of the flash memory bus in bits 8 16 82 0x80008000 sworkspace in internal SRAM u boot bin BIN OxFFF00000 OxFFFOO000 OxFFF10000 OxFFF20000 OxFFF30000 OxFFF40000 Sreg5200 def serase a sector of flash serase a sector of flash serase a sector of flash serase a sector of flash serase a sector of flash
191. THREADS new processes using the fork system call Each newly spawned process executes a body of code defined by the function worker_process When run under GDB in the default mode GDB detects the creation of the new threads of execution processes but remains attached to the parent s thread of execution Listing 15 12 illustrates this GDB session Listing 15 12 GDB in follow fork mode parent gdb target remote 192 168 1 141 2001 0x40000790 in Q gdb b main Breakpoint 1 at Ox8888 file forker c line 104 gdb c Continuing New Thread 356 Switching to Thread 356 Breakpoint 1 main argc O0xl argv Oxbe807dd4 at forker c 104 104 time amp start_ time gdb b worker_process Breakpoint 2 at 0x8784 file forker c line 45 gdb c Continuing Detaching after fork from child process 357 Detaching after fork from child process 358 Detaching after fork from child process 359 Detaching after fork from child process 360 Detaching after fork from child process 361 Detaching after fork from child process 363 a a Detaching after fork from child process 362 a a Detaching after fork from child process 364 Notice that eight child processes were spawned with PID values from 357 to 364 The parent process was instantiated with PID 356 When the breakpoint in main was hit we entered a breakpoint at the worker_process routine wh
192. The MTD layer architecture enables the separation of the low level device complexities from the higher layer data organization and storage formats that use memory devices In this chapter we introduce the MTD subsystem and provide some simple examples of its use First we look at what is required of the kernel to support MTD services We introduce some simple operations on a development workstation with MTD enabled as a means to understand the basics of this subsystem In this chapter we integrate MTD and the JFFS2 file system We next introduce the concept of partitions as they relate to the MTD layer We examine the details of building partitions from a bootloader and how they are detected by the Linux kernel The chapter continues with a brief introduction to the MTD utilities We conclude by putting it all together and booting a target board using an in Flash JFFS2 file system image 10 1 Enabling MTD Services To use MTD services your kernel must be configured with MTD enabled Many configuration options exist for MTD some of which can be confusing The best way to understand the myriad choices is simply to begin working with them To illustrate the mechanics of the MTD subsystem and how it fits in with the system we begin with some very simple examples that you can perform on your Linux development workstation Figure 10 1 shows the kernel configuration invoked per the usual make ARCH lt arch gt gconfig necessary t
193. The secondary loader can span multiple partitions and does most of the work of the bootloader ss This is mostly for historical reasons From the early days of PCs BIOS programs loaded only the first sector of a disk drive and passed control to it Lilo is driven by a configuration file and utility that is part of the lilo executable This configuration file can be read or written to only under control of the host operating system That is the configuration file is not referenced by the early boot code in either the primary or secondary loaders Entries in the configuration file are read and processed by the lilo configuration utility during system installation or administration Listing 7 10 is an example of a simple lilo conf configuration file describing a typical dual boot Linux and Windows installation Listing 7 10 Example Lilo Configuration lilo conf This is the global lilo configuration section These settings apply to all the image sections boot dev hda timeout 50 default linux This describes the primary kernel boot image Lilo will display it with the label linux image boot myLinux 2 6 11 1 label linux initrd boot myInitrd 2 6 11 1 img read only append root LABEL This is the second OS in a dual boot configuration This entry will boot a secondary image from dev hdal other dev hdal optional label that_other_os This configu
194. Using debug effectively displays every printk message Using quiet displays all printk messages of severity KERN _ERR or higher printk messages can be logged to files on your target or via the network Use klogd kernel log daemon and syslogd system log daemon to control the logging behavior of printk messages These popular utilities are described in man pages and many Linux references and are not described here 14 3 7 Magic SysReq Key This useful debugging aid is invoked through a series of special predefined key sequences that send messages directly to the kernel For many target architectures and boards you use a simple terminal emulator on a serial port as a system console For these architectures the Magic SysReq key is defined as a break character followed by a command character Consult the documentation on the terminal emulator you use for how to send a break character Many Linux developers use the minicom terminal emulator For minicom the break character is sent by typing Ctl A F After sending the break in this manner you have 5 seconds to enter the command character before the command times out This useful kernel tool can be very helpful for development and debugging but it can also cause data loss and system corruption Indeed the b command immediately reboots your system without any notification or preparation Open files are not closed disks are not synced and file systems are not unmounted When the reboot b
195. _id initdata str static struct obs_kernel_param __setup_ unique_id __attribute_used__ __attribute__ __section__ init setup __attribute__ aligned sizeof 1ong setup_str_ unique_id fn early define __setup_null_param str unique_id __setup_param str unique_id NULL 0 define __setup str fn __setup_param str fn fn 0 Listing 5 5 is the author s definition of syntactical tedium Recall from Listing 5 4 that our invocation of the original _ setup macro looked like this __setup console console_setup With some slight simplification here is what the compiler s preprocessor produces after macro expansion static char setup_str_console_setupl initdata console static struct obs_kernel_param __setup_console_setup __attribute__ __section__ init setup __setup_str_console_setup console_setup 0 To make this more readable we have split the second and third lines as indicated by the UNIX line continuation character We have intentionally left out two compiler attributes whose description does not add any insight to this discussion Briefly the __attribute_used__ itself a macro hiding further syntactical tedium tells the compiler to emit the function or variable even if the optimizer determines that it is unused The __attribute__ aligned tells the compiler to align the structures on a specific boundary in this case siz
196. _init Board specific bus cntrl init This routine is defined in board ep405 init S in the new board specific directory for our board It provides a hook for very early hardware based initialization This is one of the files that has been customized for our EP405 platform This file contains the board specific code to initialize the 405GP s external bus controller for our application Listing 7 7 contains the meat of the functionality from this file This is the code that initializes the 405GP s external bus controller Listing 7 7 External Bus Controller Initialization lobl ext_bus_cntlr_init ext_bus_cntlr_init mfir r4 save link register bl getAddr getAddr mfir r3 get _this_ address A mtir r4 restore link register addi r4 0 14 prefetch 14 cache lines oy mtctr r4 to fit this function a cache 8x14 112 instr ebcloop icbt r0 r3 prefetch cache line for r3 addi r3 r3 32 move to next cache line Z bdnz ebcloop continue for 14 cache lines fe Delay to ensure all accesses to ROM are complete before changing bank O timings ef 200usec should be enough oh 200 000 000 cycles sec X 000200 sec ey 0x9C40 cycles fF Ki addis r3 0 0x0 ori r3 r3 0xA000 ensure 200usec have passed t mtctr r3 spinlp bdnz spinlp spin loop aes je z Now do the real work of this function eg Memory Bank 0 Flash and SRAM initiali
197. _read write hello_write ioctl hello_ioctl open hello_open release hello_release module_init hello_init module_exit hello_exit MODULE_AUTHOR Chris Hallinan MODULE_DESCRIPTION Hello World Example MODULE_LICENSE GPL This expanded device driver example includes many new lines From the top we ve had to add a new kernel header file to get the definitions for the file system operations We ve also defined a major number for our device driver Note to device driver authors This is not the proper way to allocate a device driver major number Refer to the Linux kernel documentation Documentation devices txt or one of the excellent texts on device drivers for guidance on the allocation of major device numbers For this simple example we simply choose one that we know isn t in use on our system Next we see definitions for four new functions our open close read and write methods In keeping with good coding practices we ve adopted a consistent naming scheme that will not collide with any other subsystems in the kernel Our new methods are called hello_open hello_release hello_readQ and hello_writeQ respectively For purposes of this simple exercise they are do nothing functions that simply print a message to the kernel log subsystem Notice that we ve also added a new function call to our hello_initQ routine This line registers our device driver with the kernel With that registra
198. a loadable device driver module that contains the bare minimum structure to be loaded and unloaded by a running kernel Listing 8 1 Minimal Device Driver Example Minimal Character Device Driver include lt linux module h gt static int __init hello _init void printk Hello Example Init n return 0 static void __exit hello_exit void printk Hello Example Exit n module_init hello_init module_exit hello_exit MODULE_AUTHOR Chris Hallinan MODULE_DESCRIPTION Hello World Example MODULE_LICENSE GPL The skeletal driver in Listing 8 1 contains enough structure for the kernel to load and unload the driver and to invoke the initialization and exit routines Let s look at how this is done because it illustrates some important high level concepts that are useful for device driver development A device driver is a special kind of binary module Unlike a stand alone binary executable application a device driver cannot be simply executed from a command prompt The 2 6 kernel series requires that the binary be in a special kernel object format When properly built the device driver binary module contains a ko suffix The build steps and compiler options required to create the ko module object can be quite complex Here we outline a set of steps to harness the power of the Linux kernel build system without requiring you to become an expert in i
199. a much larger collection of reference boards based on these processors If your board contains one of the supported CPUs porting U Boot is quite straightforward If you must add a new CPU plan on significantly more effort The good news is that someone before you has probably done the bulk of the work Whether you are porting to a new CPU or a new board based on an existing CPU study the existing source code for specific guidance Determine what CPU is closest to yours and clone the functionality found in that CPU specific directory Finally modify the resulting sources to add the specific support for your new CPU s requirements 7 4 1 EP405 U Boot Port The same logic applies to porting U Boot to a new board Let s look at an example We will use the Embedded Planet EP405 board which contains the AMCC PowerPC 405GP processor The particular board used for this example was provided courtesy of Embedded Planet and came with 64MB of SDRAM and 16MB of on board Flash Numerous other devices complete the design The first step is to see how close we can come to an existing board Many boards in the U Boot source tree support the 405GP processor A quick grep of the board configuration header files narrows the choices to those that support the 405GP processor cd u boot include configs grep 1 CONFIG_405GP In a recent U Boot snapshot 25 board configuration files are configured for 405GP After examining a few the AR405
200. a small amount of initialization before they can do anything Many methods are available for getting this initial configuration into the CPU Some CPUs read a hardware configuration word or initial values of specific pins to learn their power on configuration Others rely on reading a default location in a simple nonvolatile storage device such as Flash When using a JTAG probe especially for bringing up a new board design a minimum level of CPU and board initialization must be performed before anything else can be done Many JTAG probes rely on a configuration file for this initialization The Abatron unit uses a configuration file to initialize the target hardware it is connected to as well as to define other operational parameters of the debugger This configuration file contains directives that initialize the CPU memory system and other necessary board level hardware It is the developer s responsibility to customize this configuration file with the proper directives for his own board The details on the configuration command syntax can be found in the JTAG probe s documentation However only the embedded developer can create the unique configuration file required for a given board design This requires detailed knowledge of the CPU and board level design features Much like creating a custom Linux port for a new board there is no shortcut or substitute for this task Appendix F Sample BDI 2000 Configuration File contains a sam
201. a stand alone binary that provides support for many common Linux command line utilities busybox is so pertinent for embedded systems that we devote Chapter 11 BusyBox to this flexible utility Notice in our example minimum file system in Listing 6 1 that there are only eight files in five directories This tiny root file system boots and provides the user with a fully functional command prompt on the serial console Any commands that have been enabled in busybox are available to the user L BusyBox commands are covered in Chapter ll Starting from bin we have the busybox executable and a soft link called sh pointing back to busybox You will see shortly why this is necessary The file in dev is a device node required to open a console device for input and output Although it is not strictly necessary the rcS file in the etc init d directory is the default initialization script processed by busybox on startup Including rcS silences the warning message issued by busybox if rcS is missing H Device nodes are explained in detail in Chapter 8 The final directory entry and set of files required are the two libraries GLIBC libc 2 3 2 s0 and the Linux dynamic loader 1d 2 3 2 so GLIBC contains the standard C library functions such as printf and many others that most application programs depend on The Linux dynamic loader is responsible for loading the binary executable into memory and performing the dynamic linking requir
202. able and external configuration or data files that an application might need We have a tool to find the former but the latter can be supplied only by at least a cursory understanding of the application in question An example will help make this clear The init process is a dynamically linked executable To run init we need to satisfy its library dependencies A tool has been developed for this purpose ldd To understand what libraries a given application requires simply run your cross version of ldd on the binary ppc_4xxFP 1dd init libe so 6 gt opt eldk ppc_4xxFP 1ib libc so 6 1d so l gt opt eldk ppc_4xxFP 1lib 1d so 1 From this ldd output we can see that the PowerPC init executable in this example is dependent on two libraries These are the standard C library libc so 6 and the Linux dynamic loader 1d so 1 To satisfy the second category of dependencies for an executable the configuration and data files that it might need there is little substitute for some knowledge about how the subsystem works For example init expects to read its operational configuration from a data file called inittab located on etc Unless you are using a tool that has this knowledge built in such as those described in the earlier Section 6 1 6 Automated File System Build Tools you must supply that knowledge 6 2 3 Customized Initial Process It is worth noting that the developer can control which initial process is executed
203. ad of killing the process and starting it again With gdbserver it is trivial root coyote workspace ps ax grep tdemo 1030 pts 0 Sl 0 00 tdemo root coyote workspace gdbserver localhost 2001 attach 1030 Attached pid 1030 Listening on port 2001 When you are finished examining the process under debug you can issue the gdb detach command This detaches the gdbserver from the application on the target and terminates the debug session The application continues where it left off This is a very useful technique for examining a running program Be aware though that when you attach to the process it halts waiting for instructions from you It will not resume execution until instructed to do so using either the continue command or the detach command Also note that you can use the detach command at almost any time to end the debug session and leave the application running on the target 15 6 Chapter Summary e Remote cross debugging enables symbolic debugging using host development workstation resources for the heavy lifting preserving often scarce target resources e gdbserver runs on the target system and acts as the glue between the cross gdb running on a development host and the process being debugged on the target GDB on the host typically uses IP connections via Ethernet to send and receive commands to gdbserver running on the target The GDB remote serial protocol is used between GDB and gdbserver GDB
204. age We subsequently issued the command specifying the current directory as the source of the files for the cramfs file system and a file called cramfs image as the destination Finally we listed the file just created and we see a new file called cramfs image Note that if your kernel is configured with cramfs support you can mount this file system image on your Linux development workstation and examine its contents Of course because it is a read only file system you cannot modify it Listing 9 11 demonstrates mounting the cramfs file system on a mount point called mnt flash Listing 9 11 Examining the cramfs File System mount o loop cramfs image mnt flash 1s 1 mnt flash total 6 drwxr xr x 1 root root 704 Dec 31 1969 bin drwxr xr x l root root 0 Dec 31 1969 dev drwxr xr x 1 root root 416 Dec 31 1969 etc drwxr xr x 1 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 home drwxr xr x 1 root root 172 Dec 31 1969 lib drwxr xr x 1 root root O Dec 31 1969 proc drys l root root 0 Dec 31 1969 root drwxr xr x 1 root root 272 Dec 31 1969 sbin drwxrwxrwt 1 root root O Dec 31 1969 tmp drwxr xr x 1 root root 124 Dec 31 1969 usr drwxr xr x 1 root root 212 Dec 31 1969 var You might have noticed the warning message regarding group ID GID when the mkcramfs command was executed The cramfs file system uses very terse metadata to reduce file system size and increase the speed of execution One of the features of the c
205. age most useful for simple detection of malloc free unbalance conditions The dmalloc package enables the detection of a much wider range of dynamic memory management errors Compared to mTRace dmalloc is highly intrusive Depending on the configuration dmalloc can slow your application to a crawl It is definitely not the right tool if you suspect memory errors due to race conditions or other timing issues dmalloc and mtrace to a lesser extent will definitely change the timing of your application dmalloc is a very powerful dynamic memory analysis tool It is highly configurable and therefore somewhat complex It takes some time to learn and master this tool However from QA testing to bug squashing it could become one of your favorite development tools dmalloc is a debug malloc library replacement These conditions must be satisfied to use dmalloc e Application code must include the dmalloc h header file e The application must be linked against the dmalloc library e The dmalloc library and utility must be installed on your embedded target e Certain environment variables that the dmalloc library references must be defined before running your application on the target Although it is not strictly necessary you should include dmalloc h in your application program This allows dmalloc to include file and line number information in the output Link your application against the dmalloc library of your choice The dmal
206. ains up to around 10 000 bins We can easily plot this data using gnuplot as shown in Figure 17 5 Figure 17 5 Interrupt off latency data Interrupt Off Critical Section Timing Samples le 08 i hist_data txt i le 07 le 06 100000 10000 1000 100 10 1 0 20 40 60 80 100 Microseconds 17 4 7 Latency Tracing The LATENCY_TRACE configuration option enables generation of kernel trace data associated with the last maximum latency measurement It is also made available through the proc file system A latency trace can help you isolate the longest latency code path For each new maximum latency measurement an associated trace is generated that facilitates tracing the code path of the associated maximum latency Listing 17 7 reproduces an example trace for a 78 microsecond maximum As with the other measurement tools enable the measurement by writing a O to proc sys kernel preempt_max_latency Listing 17 7 Interrupt Off Maximum Latency Trace cat proc latency_trace preemption latency trace v1 1 5 on 2 6 14 rt intoff tim_trace latency 78 us 50 50 CPU O M rt VP 0 KP 0 SP 1 HP 1 task softirq timer 0 3 uid 0 nice 0 policy rt_prio l _ gt CPUF _ gt irqs off _ gt need resched _ gt hardirg softirgq _ gt preempt depth E delay cmd pid time caller A Z th cat 6637 0D lus common_interrupt
207. all that complex but most of us never need to understand a linker script file The embedded engineer does It is well documented in the GNU LD manual referenced at the end of this chapter 5 3 1 The __ setup Macro As an example of the use of kernel command line parameters consider the specification of the console device We want this device to be initialized early in the boot cycle so that we have a destination for console messages during boot This initialization takes place in a kernel object called printk o The C source file for this module is found in kernel printk c The console initialization routine is called console_setup and takes the kernel command line parameter string as its only argument The challenge is to communicate the console parameters specified on the kernel command line to the setup and device driver routines that require this data in a modular and general fashion Further complicating the issue is that typically the command line parameters are required early before or in time for those modules that need them The startup code in main c where the main processing of the kernel command line takes place cannot possibly know the destination functions for each of hundreds of kernel command line parameters without being hopelessly polluted with knowledge from every consumer of these parameters What is needed is a flexible and generic way to pass these kernel command line parameters to their consumers
208. alling Your Device Driver Now that this driver is built we can load and unload it on a running kernel to observe its behavior Before we can load the module we need to copy it to an appropriate location on our target system Although we could put it anywhere we want a convention is in place for kernel modules and where they are populated on a running Linux system As with module compilation it is easiest to let the kernel build system do that for us The makefile target modules_install automatically places modules in the system in a logical layout You simply need to supply the desired location as a prefix to the default path In a standard Linux workstation installation you might already know that the device driver modules live in lib modules lt kernel version gt ordered in a manner similar to the device driver directory hierarchy in the Linux kernel tree The lt kernel version gt string is produced by executing the command uname r on your target Linux system If you do not provide an installation prefix to the kernel build system by default your modules are installed in your own workstation s lib modules directory This is probably not what you had intended You can point to a temporary location in your home directory and manually copy the modules to your target s file system Alternatively if your target embedded system uses NFS root mount to a directory on your local development workstation you can install the modules
209. ams such as database managers to issue a file system write command that is guaranteed to either succeed in its entirety or fail in a similar manner thus guaranteeing not only that file system consistency is maintained but that no partial data or garbage data remains in files after system crash For more details and the actual software for ReiserFS visit the home page referenced in Section 9 11 1 at the end of this chapter 9 5 JFFS2 Flash memory has been used extensively in embedded products Because of the nature of Flash memory technology it is inherently less efficient and more prone to data corruption caused by power loss from much larger write times The inefficiency stems from the block size Block sizes of Flash memory devices are often measured in the tens or hundreds of kilobytes Flash memory can be erased only a block at a time although writes can usually be executed 1 byte or word at a time To update a single file an entire block must be erased and rewritten It is well known that the distribution of file sizes on any given Linux machine or other OS contains many more smaller files than larger files The histogram in Figure 9 2 generated with gnuplot illustrates the distribution of file sizes on a typical Linux development system Figure 9 2 File sizes in bytes View full size image Typical File Sizes 9 Number of Occurrences 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000 45000 File
210. an issue in your design you should consider the ext3 file system 9 3 ext3 The ext3 file system has become a powerful high performance and robust journaling file system It is currently the default file system for many popular desktop Linux distributions such as Red Hat and the Fedora Core series The ext3 file system is basically an extension of the ext2 file system with added journaling capability Journaling is a technique in which each change to the file system is logged in a special file so that recovery is possible from known journaling points One of the primary advantages of the ext3 file system is its capability to be mounted directly after an unclean shutdown As stated in the previous section when a system shuts down unexpectedly such as during a power failure the system forces a file system consistency check which can be a lengthy operation With ext3 file systems there is no need for a consistency check because the journal can simply be played back to ensure consistency of the file system Without going into design details that are beyond the scope of this book it is worth a quick explanation of how a journaling file system works A journaling file system contains a special file often hidden from the user that is used to store lal and file data itself This special file is referred to as file system metadata the journal Whenever the file system is subject to a change such as a write operation the changes are f
211. arch arm boot compressed vmlinux OBJCOPY arch arm boot zImage Kernel arch arm boot zImage is ready Building modules stage 2 To begin notice the invocation of the build Both the desired architecture ARCH arm and the toolchain CROSS _COMPILE xscale_be were specified on the command line This forces make to use the XScale toolchain to build the kernel image and to use the arm specific branch of the kernel source tree for architecture dependent portions of the build We also specify a target called zImage This target is common to many architectures and is described in Chapter 5 Kernel Initialization The next thing you might notice is that the actual commands used for each step have been hidden and replaced with a shorthand notation The motivation behind this was to clean up the build output to draw more attention to intermediate build issues particularly compiler warnings In earlier kernel source trees each compilation or link command was output to the console verbosely which often required several lines for each step The end result was virtually unreadable and compiler warnings slipped by unnoticed in the noise The new system is definitely an improvement because any anomaly in the build process is easily spotted If you want or need to see the complete build step you can force verbose output by defining V l on the make command line We have omitted most of the actual compilation and link steps i
212. ard s IP locally assigned IP address as follows a See man hosts for details of this system administration file Coyote 192 168 1 21 The IP address we assigned Voila Our program begins to function normally Although we might not know exactly why this would lead to a program failure TCP IP networking experts might our strace output led us to the fact that a DNS lookup for our board name was failing When we corrected that the program started up happily and began serving web pages To recap this was a program for which we had no source code to reference and it had no symbols compiled into its binary image Using strace we were able to determine the cause of the program failure and implement a solution 13 4 2 strace Variations The strace utility has many command line options One of the more useful includes the capability to select a subset of system calls for tracing For example if you want to see only the network related activity of a given process issue the command as follows strace e trace network process_name This produces a trace of all the network related system calls such as socket connect recvfrom and send This is a powerful way to view the network activity of a given program Several other subsets are available For example you can view only the file related activities of a program with open close Q read writeQ and so on Additional subsets include process related system calls
213. are commonly used on Linux systems Some common partition types include Linux FAT32 and Linux Swap Listing 9 1 displays the output of the fdisk utility targeting a CompactFlash device connected to a USB port On this particular target system the USB subsystem assigned the CompactFlash physical device to the device node dev sdb Listing 9 1 Displaying Partition Information Using fdisk fdisk dev sdb Command m for help p Disk dev sdb 49 MB 49349120 bytes 4 heads 32 sectors track 753 cylinders Units cylinders of 128 512 65536 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System dev sdbl 1 180 11504 83 Linux dev sdb2 181 360 11520 83 Linux dev sdb3 361 540 11520 83 Linux dev sdb4 541 753 13632 83 Linux For this discussion we have created four partitions on the device using the fdisk utility One of them is marked bootable as indicated by the asterisk in the column labeled Boot This is simply the setting of a flag in the data structure that represents the partition table on the device As you can see from the listing the logical unit of storage used by fdisk is a cylinder On this device a cylinder contains 64KB On the other hand Linux represents the smallest unit of storage as a logical block You can deduce from this listing that a block is a unit of 1024 bytes a The term cylinder was borrowed from the unit of storage on a rotational media It consists of the data under a group of h
214. are referring to the development workstation that is sitting on your desktop and running your favorite Linux desktop distribution Conversely when we use the term target we are referring to your embedded hardware platform Therefore native development denotes the compilation and building of applications on and for your host system Cross development denotes the compilation and building of applications on the host system that will be run on the embedded system Keeping these definitions in mind will help you stay on track through this chapter U Webster s defines nonsense as an idea that is absurd or contrary to good sense It is my opinion that developing embedded Linux platforms on a non Linux UNIX host is nonsensical Figure 12 1 shows the layout of a typical cross development environment A host PC is connected to a target board via one or more physical connections It is most convenient if both serial and Ethernet ports are available on the target Later when we discuss kernel debugging you will realize that a second serial port can be a very valuable asset Figure 12 1 Cross development setup Ethernet Hub Host Development System In the most common scenario the developer has a serial terminal on the host connected to the RS 232 serial port possibly one or more Telnet terminal sessions to the target board and potentially one or more debug sessions using Ethernet as the connection medium This cross
215. artup scripts can load device driver modules and modules can also be demand loaded when needed The kernel has the capability to request a module when a service is requested that requires a particular module Terminology has never been standardized when discussing kernel modules Many terms have been and continue to be used interchangeably when discussing loadable kernel modules Throughout this and later chapters the terms device driver loadable kernel module LKM loadable module and module are all used to describe a loadable kernel device driver module 8 1 2 Device Driver Architecture The basic Linux device driver model is familiar to UNIX Linux system developers Although the device driver model continues to evolve some fundamental constructs have remained nearly constant over the course of UNIX Linux evolution Device drivers are broadly classified into two basic categories character devices and block devices Character devices can be thought of as serial streams of sequential data Examples of character devices include serial ports and keyboards Block devices are characterized by the capability to read and write blocks of data to and from random locations on an addressable medium Examples of block devices include hard drives and floppy disk drives 8 1 3 Minimal Device Driver Example Because Linux supports loadable device drivers it is relatively easy to demonstrate a simple device driver skeleton Listing 8 1 illustrates
216. ary kernel module stripped of symbols notes and comments head o ARM specific startup code generic to ARM processors It is this object that is passed control by the bootloader piggy gz The file Image compressed with gzip piggy o The file piggy gz in assembly language format so it can be linked with a subsequent object misc o see the text misc o Routines used for decompressing the kernel image piggy gz and the source of the familiar boot message Uncompressing Linux Done on some architectures head xscale o Processor initialization specific to the XScale processor family big endian o Tiny assembly language routine to switch the XScale processor into big endian mode vmlinux Composite kernel image Note this is an unfortunate choice of names because it duplicates the name for the kernel proper the two are not Table 5 1 ARM XScale Low Level Architecture Objects Component Function Description the same This binary image is the result when the kernel proper is linked with the objects in this table See the text for an explanation zImage Final composite kernel image loaded by bootloader See the following text An illustration will help you understand this structure and the following discussion Figure 5 1 shows the image components and their metamorphosis during the build process leading up to a bootable kernel image The following sections describe the components and process in detail Figure
217. as shown in Figure 16 3 this is the entry point for the platform initialization file The rest of the functions in the file are referenced only from within the file itself Let s examine the entry function platform_initQ Listing 16 8 reproduces the platform_initQ function from the 1lite5200 c file Listing 16 8 Lite5200 platform_init Function void __init platform_init unsigned long r3 unsigned long r4 unsigned long r5 unsigned long r6 unsigned long r7 Generic MPC52xx platform initialization TODO Create one and move a max of stuff in it Put this init in the syslib struct bi_record bootinfo find_bootinfo Q if bootinfo parse_bootinfo bootinfo else Load the bd_t board info structure if r3 memcpy void amp __ res void r3 KERNELBASE sizeof bd_t ifdef CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD Load the initrd if r4 initrd start r4 KERNELBASE initrd _end r5 KERNELBASE H endif Load the command line if r6 char r7 KERNELBASE 03 strcpy cmd_line char r6 KERNELBASE PPC Sys identification identify_ppc_sys_by_id mfspr SPRN_SVR BAT setup mpc52xx_set_bat No ISA bus by default isa_io_base 03 isa_mem_base 0 Powersave This is provided as an example on how to do it But you need to be aware that NAP disable bus snoop and that may be required for some devices to work pr
218. ased on a supported processor is relatively straightforward In this chapter we walked through the steps of a typical port to a board with similar support in U Boot There is no substitute for detailed knowledge of your processor and hardware platform when bootloader modification or porting must be accomplished We briefly introduced additional bootloaders in use today so you can make an informed choice for your particular requirements Suggestions for Additional Reading Application Note Introduction to Synchronous DRAM Maxwell Technologies www maxwell com pdf me app_ notes Intro to SDRAM pdf Using LD the GNU linker Free Software Foundation www gnu org software binutils manual 1d 2 9 1 1d html The DENX U Boot and Linux Guide DLUG for TQM8xxL Wolfgang Denx et al Denx Software Engineering www denx de twiki bin view DULG Manual RFC 793 Trivial File Transfer Protocol The Internet Engineering Task Force www ietf org rfc rfc793 txt RFC 951 Bootstrap Protocol The Internet Engineering Task Force www ietf org rfc rfc951 txt RFC 1531 Dynamic Host Control Protocol The Internet Engineering Task Force www ietf org rfc rfcl531 txt PowerPC 405GP Embedded Processor user s manual International Business Machines Inc Programming Environments Manual for 32 bit Implementations of the PowerPC Architecture Freescale Semiconductor Inc Lilo Bootloader www tldp org HOWTO LILO htm1
219. ate an object module that is intended to be linked again into another object In this way unresolved symbols that remain after incremental linking do not generate errorsthey are resolved at the next link stage Armed with that knowledge let s look again at Listing 4 5 This snippet of the configuration file config shows a portion of the USB subsystem configuration The first configuration option CONFIG _USB m declares that the USB subsystem is to be included in this kernel configuration and that it will be compiled as a dynamically loadable module m to be loaded sometime after the kernel has booted The other choice would have been y in which case the USB module would be compiled and statically linked as part of the kernel image itself It would end up in the drivers built in o composite binary that you saw in Listing 4 3 and Figure 4 1 The astute reader will realize that if a driver is configured as a loadable module its code is not included in the kernel proper but rather exists as a stand alone object module a loadable module to be inserted into the running kernel after boot Notice in Listing 4 5 the CONFIG _USB_DEVICEFS y declaration This configuration option behaves in a slightly different manner In this case USB_DEVICEFS as configuration options are commonly abbreviated is not a stand alone module but rather a feature to be enabled or disabled in the USB driver It does not necessarily result in a module that is com
220. atform_init at line 234 ppc_md restart mpcS2xx_restart MPCC SALUL i IPCICAK restart At nne MPCYcCXX FES lari Cie Found 4 matches for Symbols mpcS2xx_restart 13 4 Tracing and Profiling Tools Many useful tools can provide you with various views of the system Some tools offer a high level perspective such as what processes are running on your system and which processes are consuming the most CPU bandwidth Other tools can provide detailed analysis such as where memory is being allocated or even more useful where it is being leaked The next few sections introduce the most important tools and utilities in this category We have space for only a cursory introduction to these tools references are provided where appropriate if you want more details 13 4 1 strace This useful system trace utility is found in virtually all Linux distributions strace captures and displays useful information for every kernel system call executed by a Linux application program strace is especially handy because it can be run on programs for which no source code is available It is not necessary to compile the program with debug symbols as it is with GDB Furthermore strace can be a very insightful educational tool As the man page states Students hackers and the overly curious will find that a great deal can be learned about a system and its system calls by tracing even ordinary programs While preparing the example
221. ation for a resource limited embedded platform This chapter introduces BusyBox and provides a good starting point for customizing your own BusyBox installation We previously alluded to BusyBox in multiple locations In this chapter we present the details of this useful package After a brief introduction to BusyBox we explore the BusyBox configuration utility This is used to tailor BusyBox to your particular requirements We then discuss the requirements for cross compiling the BusyBox package BusyBox operational issues are considered including how it is used in an embedded system We examine the BusyBox initialization sequence and explain how this departs from the standard System V initialization In this section we also present an example initialization script After seeing the steps for installing BusyBox on a target system you will learn about some of the BusyBox commands and their limitations 11 1 Introduction to BusyBox BusyBox has gained tremendous popularity in the embedded Linux community It is remarkably easy to configure compile and use and it has the potential to significantly reduce the overall system resources required to support a wide collection of common Linux utilities BusyBox provides compact replacements for many traditional full blown utilities found on most desktop and embedded Linux distributions Examples include the file utilities such as ls cat cp dir head and tail general utilities su
222. attempt to unify across all platforms Both are supported by many platforms From Listing 16 8 here is the code snippet that saves the bootloader supplied hardware configuration struct bi_record bootinfo find_bootinfo0 if bootinfo parse_bootinfolbootinfo else Load the bd_t board info structure if r3 memcpy void amp __res void r3 KERNELBASE sizeof bd_t First we search for a special tag that identifies the data structure as a struct bi_record If that is found the bootinfo pointer is set to the address of the start of the bootinfo records From there the records are parsed and the hardware related data is gathered This can be seen by inspecting arch ppc kernel setup c Currently bi_records can contain the kernel command line the start and end address of the initrd image the machine type and the size of the memory Of course you can extend this for your own requirements If no bi_record data is found the PowerPC architecture expects this data in the form of U Boot board information structure or bd_info It is the bootloader s responsibility to construct this data structure and pass the address in register r3 Currently many bits of hardware information are available in the bd_info structure including information on DRAM FLASH SRAM processor clock rates bus frequencies serial port baud rate setting and more The bi_record structure can be examined in include asm ppc
223. ault M help Enable compilation option for driver examples config VT bool Virtual terminal if EMBEDDED select INPUT When applied to Kconfig in the drivers char subdirectory of a recent Linux kernel this patch results in a new kernel configuration option called CONFIG_EXAMPLES As a reminder from our discussion on building the Linux kernel in Chapter 4 The Linux KernelA Different Perspective the configuration utility is invoked as follows this example assumes the ARM architecture make ARCH ARM CROSS_COMPILE xscale_be gconfig After the configuration utility is invoked using a command similar to the previous one our new Enable Examples configuration option appears under the Character devices menu as indicated in the patch Because it is defined as type tristate the kernel developer can choose from three choices N No Do not compile examples Y Yes Compile examples and link with final kernel image M Module Compile examples as dynamically loadable module Figure 8 1 shows the resulting gconfig screen with the new configuration option added The dash in the check box selects M odule as indicated in the M column on the right A check mark in the check box selects Y es indicating that the driver module should be compiled as part of the kernel proper An empty check box indicates that the option is not selected Figure 8 1 Kernel configuration with Examples modul
224. be filled with all ones OxFFFF This is because an erased Flash memory array contains all ones This technique not only saves wear and tear on the Flash memory but it also significantly speeds up programming of that sector Listing 7 3 is the complete assembly language file from a recent U Boot distribution that defines the resetvec code section It is contained in an assembly language file called cpu ppc4xx resetvec S Notice that this code section cannot exceed 4 bytes in length in a machine with only 32 address bits This is because only a single instruction is defined in this section no matter what configuration options are present Listing 7 3 Source Definition of resetvec Copyright MontaVista Software Incorporated 2000 include lt config h gt section resetvec ax if defined CONFIG_440 b _start_440 Helse if defined CONFIG_BOOT_PCI amp amp defined CONFIG_MIP405 b _start_pci Helse b _start H endif endif This assembly language file is very easy to understand even if you have no assembly language programming experience Depending on the particular configuration as specified by the CONFIG_ macros an unconditional branch instruction b in PowerPC assembler syntax is generated to the appropriate start location in the main body of code This branch location is a 4 byte PowerPC instruction and as we saw in the snippet from the linker command script in Lis
225. be tested in a court of law and precedent will be established How long that might take is anyone s guess If you are interested in gaining a better understanding of the legal issues surrounding Linux and open source you might enjoy www open bar org 8 6 Chapter Summary This chapter presented a high level overview of device driver basics and how they fit into the architecture of a Linux system Armed with the basics readers new to device drivers can jump into one of the excellent texts devoted to device driver writers Consult Section 8 6 1 for references 8 6 1 Device drivers enforce a rational separation between unprivileged user applications and critical kernel resources such as hardware and other devices and present a well known unified interface to applications The minimum infrastructure to load a device driver is only a few lines of code We presented this minimum infrastructure and built on the concepts to a simple shell of a driver module Device drivers configured as loadable modules can be inserted into and removed from a running kernel after kernel boot Module utilities are used to manage the insertion removal and listing of device driver modules We covered the details of the module utilities used for these functions Device nodes on your file system provide the glue between your userspace application and the device driver Driver methods implement the familiar open read write and close functionality c
226. being displayed by Linux as it initializes the various kernel subsystems Significant portions of the output are common across disparate architectures and machines Two of the more interesting early boot messages are the kernel version string and the kernel command line which is detailed shortly Listing 5 3 reproduces the kernel boot messages for the ADI Engineering Coyote Reference Platform booting Linux on the Intel XScale IXP425 processor The listing has been formatted with line numbers for easy reference Listing 5 3 Linux Boot Messages on IPX425 View full width 1 Uncompressing Linux done booting the kernel 2 Linux version 2 6 14 clh chris pluto gcc version 3 4 3 MontaVista 3 4 38 25 0 30 0501131 2005 07 23 11 Sat Mar 25 11 16 33 EST 2006 CPU XScale IXP42x Family 690541cl revision 1 ARMv5TE Machine ADI Engineering Coyote Memory policy ECC disabled Data cache writeback CPUO D VIVT undefined 5 cache CPUO I cache 32768 bytes associativity 32 32 byte lines 32 sets CPUO D cache 32768 bytes associativity 32 32 byte lines 32 sets O won oun RA W Built 1 zonelists 10 Kernel command line console ttyS0 115200 ip bootp root dev nfs 11 PID hash table entries 512 order 9 8192 bytes 12 Console colour dummy device 80x30 13 Dentry cache hash table entries 16384 order 4 65536 bytes 14 Inode cache hash table entries 8192 order 3 32768 bytes 15 Memory 64MB 64MB total 16
227. ber a minor version number and then a sequence number Before Linux Version 2 6 if the minor version number is even it denotes a production kernel if it is odd it denotes a development kernel For example e Linux 2 4 x Production kernel e Linux 2 5 x Experimental development e Linux 2 6 x Production kernel Currently there is no separate development branch of the Linux 2 6 kernel All new features enhancements and bug fixes are funneled through a series of gatekeepers who ultimately filter and push changes up to the top level Linux source trees maintained by Andrew Morton and Linus Torvalds It is easy to tell what kernel version you are working with The first few lines of the top level makefile in a kernel source tree detail the exact kernel version represented by a given instance It looks like this for the 2 6 14 production kernel a We talk about the kernel build system and makefiles shortly VERSION 2 PATCHLEVEL 6 SUBLEVEL 14 EXTRAVERSION NAME Affluent Albatross Later in the same makefile these macros are used to form a version level macro like this KERNELRELEASE VERSION S PATCHLEVEL SUBLEVEL S EX TRAVERSION This macro is used in several places in the kernel source tree to indicate the kernel version In fact version information is used with sufficient frequency that the kernel developers have dedicated a set of macros derived from the version macros in the makefile These macros are
228. binary program called websdemo stripped From our development workstation we launch GDB passing it the name of the binary executable containing symbolic debug information that we want to debug as an argument After GDB starts up we issue a command to connect to the remote target board Listing 15 4 shows this sequence Listing 15 4 Starting Remote GDB Session xscale_be gdb q websdemo gdb target remote 192 168 1 141 2001 Remote debugging using 192 168 1 141 2001 0x40000790 in gdb p main lt lt lt lt display address of main function 1 int int char 0x12b68 lt main gt gdb b main lt lt lt lt Place breakpoint at main Breakpoint 1 at Oxl2b80 file main c line 72 gdb The sequence in Listing 15 4 invokes cross gdb on your development host When GDB is running we issue the gdb target remote command This command causes GDB to initiate a TCP IP connection from your development workstation to your target board with the indicated IP address on port 2001 When gdbserver accepts the connection request it prints a line similar to this Remote debugging from host 192 168 0 10 Now GDB is connected to the target board s gdbserver process ready to accept commands from GDB The rest of the session is exactly the same as if you were debugging an application locally This is a powerful tool allowing you to use the power of your development workstation for the debug se
229. bled later based on the menu options as well See miscLib main c bl invalidate_icache bl invalidate_dcache yh Enable two 128MB cachable regions i addis r4 r0 0x8000 addi r4 r4 0x0001 mticcr r4 instruction cache isync addis r4 r0 0x0000 addi r4 r4 0x0000 mtdcecr r4 data cache The first code to execute in start S for the 405GP processor starts about a third of the way into the source file where a handful of processor registers are cleared or set to sane initial values The instruction and data caches are then invalidated and the instruction cache is enabled to speed up the initial load Two 128MB cacheable regions are set up one at the high end of memory the Flash region and the other at the bottom normally the start of system DRAM U Boot eventually is copied to RAM in this region and executed from there The reason for this is performance Raw reads from RAM are an order of magnitude or more faster than reads from Flash However for the 4xx CPU there is another subtle reason for enabling the instruction cache as we shall soon discover 7 4 4 Board Specific Initialization The first opportunity for any board specific initialization comes in cpu ppc4xx start S just after the cacheable regions have been initialized Here we find a call to an external assembler language routine called ext_bus_cntlr_init bl ext_bus_cntilr
230. blist_s p malloc sizeof struct blist_s Each variable sized data item in the list was also dynamically generated and added to the list item before being placed at the end of the list This way every list item was created using two calls to malloc one for the list item itself represented by struct blist_s just shown and one for the variable data item We then generated 10 000 records on the list containing variable string data resulting in 20 000 calls to malloc To use mtrace tHRee conditions must be satisfied A header file mcheck h must be included in the source file e The application must call mTRace to install the handlers e The environment variable MALLOC_TRACE must specify the name of a writeable file to which the trace data is written When these conditions are satisfied each call to one of the traced functions generates a line in the raw trace file defined by MALLOC_TRACE The trace data looks like this mt_ex 0x80486ec 0x804a5f8 0x10 The sign signals that the trace line contains an address or function name In the previous example the program was executing at the address in square brackets Ox80486ec Using binary utilities or a debugger we could easily associate this address with a function The plus sign indicates that this is a call to allocate memory A call to free would be indicated by a minus sign The next field indicates the virtual address of the memory location being allocated
231. block loop ko done gdb b loop_init Breakpoint 3 at 0xd1031000 file drivers block loop c line 1244 gdb c Continuing lt lt Breakpoint hit proceed to debug module init function gt gt Breakpoint 3 0xd1031000 in loop init file drivers block loop c line 1244 1244 if max_loop lt 1 max_loop gt 256 gdb 14 3 6 printk Debugging Debugging kernel and device driver code using printk is a popular technique mostly because printk has evolved into a very robust method You can call printk from almost any context including from interrupt handlers printk is the kernel s version of the familiar printfQ C library function printk is defined in kernel printk c It is important to understand the limitations of using printk for debugging First printk requires a console device Moreover although the console device is configured as early as possible during kernel initialization there are many calls to printk before the console device has been initialized We present a method to cope with this limitation later in Section 14 5 When It Doesn t Boot The printk function allows the addition of a string marker that identifies the level of severity of a given message The header file include linux kernel h defines eight levels define KERN_EMERG lt 0 gt system is unusable define KERN_ALERT lt gt action must be taken immediately define KERN_CRIT lt 2 g
232. boot the Linux kernel it discovers the new partition and we can operate on it as we see fit The astute reader might have realized the other benefit of this new partition We can now boot the kernel from Flash instead of having to load it via tftp every time The command is illustrated next Simply pass the Redboot exec command the Flash starting address of the partition and the length of the image to transfer into RAM RedBoot gt exec b 0x50100000 1 0x145cd0 Uncompressing Linux done booting the kernel 10 3 2 Kernel Command Line Partitioning As detailed in Section 10 3 MTD Partitions the raw Flash partition information can be communicated to the kernel using other methods Indeed possibly the most straightforward though perhaps not the simplest method is to manually pass the partition information directly on the kernel command line Of course as we have already learned some bootloaders make that easy for example U Boot whereas others do not have a facility to pass a kernel command line to the kernel upon boot In these cases the kernel command line must be configured at compile time and therefore is more difficult to change requiring a recompile of the kernel itself each time the partitions are modified To enable command line partitioning in the MTD subsystem your kernel must be configured for this support You can see this configuration option in Figure 10 2 under MTD partitioning support Select the option for
233. bootinfo h and the bd_info structure can be found in include asm ppc ppcboot h It is the responsibility of the platform initialization routines to make use of any of the data that might be necessary to complete the hardware setup or to communicate it to the kernel For example platform_init sets up a pointer to a function whose name reveals its purpose The code from Listing 16 8 is reproduced here ppc_md find_end_of_memory mpc52xx_find_end_of_memory Looking at the function mpc52xx_find_end_of_memory which is found in arch ppc syslib mpc52xx_setup c we find the following u32 ramsize __res bi_memsize if ramsize 0 Find it another way return ramsize The __res data structure above is the board information structure whose address was passed to us from the bootloader in register r3 above As you can see the generic setup code stored the residual data as it is often called passed in by the bootloader but it s up to the machine or platform specific code to make use of it 16 3 3 Machine Dependent Calls Many common routines that the kernel needs either for initialization or for operation are architecture and machine CPU dependent From the platform _initQ function reproduced in Listing 16 8 we saw the following Setup the ppc_md struct ppc_md setup_arch 1lite5200_setup_arch ppc_md show_cpuinfo 1lite5200_show_cpuinfo ppc_md show_percpuinfo NULL ppc_md in
234. bout each process running on the system Listing 14 12 defines a gdb macro that displays interesting information from a running process extracted from the struct task_struct for the given process It is invoked like any other gdb command by typing its name followed by any required input parameters Notice that this user defined command requires a single argument either a PID or the address of a task_struct Listing 14 12 gdb Macro Print Process Information 1 define ps 2 Print column headers 3 task _struct_header A set t k amp init_task 5 task_struct_show t 6 find next_task t 7 Walk the list 8 while amp init_task t 9 Display useful info about each task 10 task_struct_show t 1 find _next_task t 12 end 13 end 14 15 document ps 16 Print points of interest for all tasks 17 end This ps macro is similar to the find_task macro except that it requires no input arguments and it adds a macro task_struct_show to display the useful information from each task_struct Line 3 prints a banner line with column headings Lines 4 through 6 set up the loop and display the first task Lines 8 through 11 loop through each task calling the task _struct_show macro for each Notice also the inclusion of the gdb document command This allows the gdb user to get help by issuing the help ps command from the gdb command prompt as follows gdb help ps Print points
235. butes Often resources are limited and user interfaces are simple or nonexistent and are often designed for a specific purpose The bootloader is a critical component of a typical embedded system If your embedded system is based on a custom designed board you must provide a bootloader as part of your design Often this is just a porting effort of an existing bootloader Several software components are required to boot a custom board including the bootloader and the kernel and file system image Flash memory is widely used as a storage medium in embedded Linux systems We introduced the concept of Flash memory and expand on this coverage in Chapters 9 and 10 An application program also called a process lives in its own virtual memory space assigned by the kernel Application programs are said to run in user space A properly equipped and configured cross development environment is crucial to the embedded developer We devote an entire chapter to this important subject in Chapter 12 You need an embedded Linux distribution to begin development of your embedded target Embedded distributions contain many components compiled and optimized for your chosen architecture Suggestions for Additional Reading Linux Kernel Development 2nd Edition Robert Love Novell Press 2005 Understanding the Linux Kernel Daniel P Bovet amp Marco Cesati O Reilly amp Associates Inc 2002 Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager
236. bytes 2592 4002 heap checked 41 2592 4002 alloc calls malloc 2003 calloc 0 realloc 0 free 1999 2592 4002 alloc calls recalloc 0 memalign 0 valloc 0 2592 4002 alloc calls new O delete O 2592 4002 current memory in use 52 bytes 4 pnts 2592 4002 total memory allocated 27546 bytes 2003 pnts 2592 4002 max in use at one time 27546 bytes 2003 pnts 2592 4002 max alloced with 1 call 376 bytes 2592 4002 max unused memory space 37542 bytes 57 2592 4002 top 10 allocations 2592 4002 total size count in use size count source 2592 4002 16000 1000 32 2 mtest_ex c 36 2592 4002 10890 1000 20 2 mtest_ex c 74 2592 4002 256 1 O O mtest_ex c 154 2592 4002 27146 2001 52 4 Total of 3 2592 4002 Dumping Not Freed Pointers Changed Since Start 2592 4002 not freed 0x300204e8 s1 10 bytes from mtest_ex c 74 2592 4002 not freed 0x30020588 s1 16 bytes from mtest_ex c 36 2592 4002 not freed 0x30020688 s1 16 bytes from mtest_ex c 36 2592 4002 not freed 0x300208a8 s1 10 bytes from mtest_ex c 74 2592 4002 total size count source 2592 4002 32 2 mtest_ex c 36 2592 4002 20 2 mtest_ex c 74 2592 4002 52 4 Total of 2 2592 4002 ending time 2592 elapsed since start 0 00 00 It is important to note that this log is generated upon program exit dmalloc has many options and modes of operation it is possible to configure dmalloc to print output l
237. cache This is the branch to initialize the SDRAM controller around line 727 of cpu ppc4xx start S bl sdram_init The execution context now includes a stack pointer and some temporary memory for local data storagethat is a partial C context allowing the developer to use C for the relatively complex task of setting up the system SDRAM controller and other initialization tasks In our EP405 port the sdram_initQ code resides in board ep405 ep405 c and was customized for this particular board and DRAM configuration Because this board does not use a commercially available memory SIMM it is not possible to determine the configuration of the DRAM dynamically like so many other boards supported by U Boot It is hard coded in sdram_init Many off the shelf memory DDR modules have a SPD Serial Presence Detect PROM containing parameters defining the memory module These parameters can be read under program control via 2C and can be used as input to determine proper parameters for the memory controller U Boot has support for this technique but might need to be modified to work with your specific board Many examples of its use can be found in the U Boot source code The configuration option CONFIG_SPD_EEPROM enables this feature You can grep for this option to find examples of its use 7 4 5 Porting Summary By now you can appreciate some of the difficulties of porting a bootloader to a hardware platform There is simply no subst
238. called your modified fs image bin that is the same size as the mtdblockO device which was specified during configuration In our example it would be 8MB Lacking suitable JFFS2 editing facilities this is a perfectly valid way to examine and modify a JFFS2 file system More important it illustrates the basics of the MTD subsystem on our development system without real Flash memory Now let s look at some hardware that contains Flash physical devices 10 2 1 Configuring MTD To use MTD with the Flash memory on your board you must have MTD configured correctly The following list contains the requirements that must be satisfied to configure MTD for your board Flash and Flash layout e Specify the partitioning on your Flash device e Specify the type of Flash and location e Configure the proper Flash driver for your chosen chip e Configure the kernel with the appropriate driver s Each of these steps is explored in the following sections 10 8 MTD Partitions Most Flash devices on a given hardware platform are divided into several sections called partitions similar to the partitions found on a typical desktop workstation hard drive The MTD subsystem provides support for such Flash partitions The MTD subsystem must be configured for MTD partitioning support Figure 10 2 illustrates the configuration options for MTD partitioning support Figure 10 2 Kernel configuration for MTD partitioning support View full size image
239. ce we pointed out that the Linux kernel itself is but a small part of any embedded Linux system After the kernel has initialized itself it must mount a root file system and execute a set of developer defined initialization routines In this chapter we examine the details of post kernel system initialization We begin by looking at the root file system and its layout Next we develop and study a minimal system configuration Later in this chapter we add functionality to the minimal system configuration to produce useful example embedded system configurations We complete the coverage of system initialization by introducing the initial ramdisk or initrd and its operation and use The chapter concludes with a brief look at Linux shutdown logic 6 1 Root File System In Chapter 5 Kernel Initialization we examined the Linux kernel s behavior during the initialization process We made several references to mounting a root file system Linux like many other advanced operating systems requires a root file system to realize the benefits of its services Although it is certainly possible to use Linux in an environment without a file system it makes little sense because most of the features and value of Linux would be lost It would be similar to putting your entire system application into an overbloated device driver or kernel thread The root file system refers to the file system mounted at the base of the file system hierarchy
240. ce to meet the requirements of your particular embedded system 5 1 Composite Kernel Image Piggy and Friends At power on the bootloader in an embedded system is first to get processor control After the bootloader has performed some low level hardware initialization control is passed to the Linux kernel This can be a manual sequence of events to facilitate the development process for example the user types interactive load boot commands at the bootloader prompt or an automated startup sequence typical of a production environment We have dedicated Chapter 7 Bootloaders to this subject so we defer any detailed bootloader discussion to that chapter In Chapter 4 The Linux Kernel A Different Perspective we examined the components that make up the Linux kernel image Recall that one of the common files built for every architecture is the ELF binary named vmlinux This binary file is the monolithic kernel itself or what we have been calling the kernel proper In fact when we looked at its construction in the link stage of vmlinux we pointed out where we might look to see where the first line of code might be found In most architectures it is found in an assembly language source file called head S or similar In the PowerPC ppc branch of the kernel several versions of head S are present depending on the processor For example the AMCC 440 series processors are initialized from a file called head_44x S Some arch
241. ch as dmesg kill halt fdisk mount umount and many more BusyBox also provides support for more complex operations such as ifconfig netstat route and other network utilities BusyBox is modular and highly configurable and can be tailored to suit your particular requirements The package includes a configuration utility similar to that used to configure the Linux kernel and will therefore seem quite familiar The commands in BusyBox are generally simpler implementations than their full blown counterparts In some cases only a subset of the usual command line options is supported In practice however you will find that the BusyBox subset of command functionality is more than sufficient for most general embedded requirements 11 1 1 BusyBox is Easy If you are able to configure and build the Linux kernel you will find BusyBox very straightforward to configure build and install The steps are similar Execute a configuration utility and enable your choice of features Run make dep to build a dependency tree Run make to build the package PF ON Install the binary and a series of symbolic links on your target system M We cover the details of symbolic links shortly You can build and install BusyBox on your development workstation or your target embedded system BusyBox works equally well in both environments However you must take care when installing on your development workstation that you keep it isolated in a
242. ch series However this is no easy task It involves poring over the entire kernel source code base analyzing exactly what data must be protected from concurrency and disabling preemption at only those locations The method used for this has been to instrument the kernel for latency measurements find the longest latency code paths and fix them The more recent Linux 2 6 kernels can be configured for very low latency applications because of the effort that has gone into this lock breaking methodology 17 2 3 SMP Kernel It is interesting to note that much of the work involved in creating an efficient multiprocessor architecture also benefits real time The SMP challenge is more complex than the uniprocessor challenge because there is an additional element of concurrency to protect against In the uniprocessor model only a single task can be executing in the kernel at a time Protection from concurrency involves only protection from interrupt or exception processing In the SMP model multiple threads of execution in the kernel are possible in addition to the threat from interrupt and exception processing SMP has been supported from early Linux 2 x kernels A Big Kernel Lock BKL was used to protect against concurrency in the transition from uniprocessor to SMP operation The BKL is a global spinlock which prevents any other tasks from executing in the kernel In his excellent book Linux Kernel Development Novell Press 2005 Rober
243. chine_init including our platform initialization takes place in this context If you encounter data access errors PowerPC DSI exception while debugging your new kernel port you should immediately suspect that you have not properly mapped the memory region your code is trying to access el The AMCC PPC405 is a perfect example of this The interested reader is encouraged to examine the BAT registers in this processor g Refer to the Programming Environments Manual referenced at the end of this chapter for details of the PowerPC DSI exception 16 3 Platform Initialization Following is a quick review of the code flow during early initialization Figure 16 3 shows the flow of execution from the bootloader or bootstrap loader to your platform initialization code Figure 16 3 Platform initialization flow of control From bootloader head S machine_init setup c platform_init myplat c _g i The files head S and setup c are both found in the arch ppc kernel directory for the PowerPC architecture Our custom platform initialization file will be placed in the arch ppc platforms directory In Figure 16 3 it is represented by the file myplat c We are now in a position to examine the platform specific initialization file in detail In Listing 16 3 we listed the functions in the lite5200 c platform initialization file Every function except platform_initQ is declared as static Therefore
244. chips and devices Chances are very good that your chosen chip has also been supported The most common Flash chips support the Common Flash Interface CFI mentioned earlier Older Flash chips might have JEDEC support which is an older Flash compatibility standard Figure 10 4 shows the kernel configuration from a recent Linux kernel snapshot This version supports many Flash types Figure 10 4 Flash device support View full size image Eile Options Help Sa I Il Ees Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand e v Z Memory Technology Device MTD support MTD C Debugging MTD_DEBUG O MTD concatenating support MTD_CONCAT b X MTD partitioning support User Modules And Translation Layers MTD_PARTITIONS Direct char device access to MTD devices MTD_CHAR Caching block device access to MTD devices MTD_BLOCK CJ FTL Flash Translation Layer support FTL CI NFTL NAND Flash Translation Layer support NFTL C INFTL inverse NAND Flash Translation Layer support INFTL RAM ROM Flash chip drivers Detect flash chips by Common Flash Interface CFI probe MTD_CFI CI Detect non CFI AMD JEDEC compatible flash chips MTD_JEDECPROBE CI Flash chip driver advanced configuration options Support for Intel Sharp flash chips MTD_CFI_LADV_OPTIONS MTD_CFI_LINTELEXT C Support for AMD Fujitsu flash chips MTD_CFILAMDSTD CI Support for ST Advanced Architecture flash chips MTD_CFI_LSTAA C Support for RAM chips in bus mapping
245. ck sizes increase the file system overhead of managing the metadata that describes the block to file mapping Benchmark testing on your particular hardware implementation is the only way to be sure you have selected an optimum block size 9 2 1 Mounting a File System After a file system has been created we can mount that file system on a running Linux system provided that we have access to the hardware device and that the kernel has been compiled with support for our particular file system type either as a compiled in module or a dynamically loadable module The following command mounts the previously created ext2 file system on a mount point that we specify mount dev sdbl mnt flash This example assumes that we have a directory created on our target Linux machine called mnt flash This is called the mount point because we are installing mounting the file system rooted at this point in our file system hierarchy We are mounting the Flash device described earlier that the kernel assigned to the device dev sdbl On a typical Linux desktop development machine we need to have root privileges to execute this command The mount point is any place on your file system that you decide which becomes the top level root of your newly mounted device In the previous example to reference any files on your Flash device you must prefix the path with mnt flash a File systems can be made mountable by nonroot users as with cdrom T
246. command can destroy your system so use it with care In this example we asked mke2fs to format a file rather than a hard drive partition block device for which it was intended As such mke2fs detected that fact and asked us to confirm the operation After confirming mke2fs proceeded to write an ext2 superblock and file system data structures into the file We then can mount this file like any block device using the Linux loopback device mount o loop my new fs image mnt flash This command mounts the file my new fs image as a file system on the mount point named mnt flash The mount point name is not important you can mount it wherever you want as long as the mount point exists Use mkdir to create your mount point After the newly created image file is mounted as a file system we are free to make changes to it We can add and delete directories make device nodes and so on We can use tar to copy files into or out of it When the changes are complete they are saved in the file assuming that you didn t exceed the size of the device Remember using this method the size is fixed at creation time and cannot be changed 9 11 Chapter Summary e Partitions are the logical division of a physical device Numerous partition types are supported under Linux e lt A file system is mounted on a mount point in Linux The root file system is mounted at the root of the file system hierarchy and referred to as e Th
247. compressed Data Size 607149 Bytes 592 9 kB Load Address 00000000 Entry Point 00000000 Verifying Checksum OK Uncompressing Kernel Image OK id mach done lt Start of messages enabled by MU enter lt CONFIG_SERIAL_TEXT_DEBUG MU hw init MU mapin MU setio S 5s Ss S S MU exit setup_arch enter setup_arch bootmem arch exit arch real exit Using this feature you can often tell where your board is getting stuck during the boot process Of course you can add your own early debug messages in other places in the kernel Here is an example of its usage found in arch ppc mm init c Map in all of RAM starting at KERNELBASE if ppc_md progress ppc_md progress MMU mapin 0x301 mapin_ramQ The AMCC Yosemite platform is an excellent example of this infrastructure Consult the following files in the Linux source tree for details of how this debugging system is implemented a All these filenames are unique so they can be found without full pathname references File Function Purpose gen550_dbg c gen550_init Serial port setup called by yosemite c platform initialization file gen550_dbg c gen550_ progress Low level serial output routine ibm44x_common c ibm44x_platform_ini Binds platform specific progress routine to t generic ppc machine dependent infrastructure 14 5 2 Dumping the printk Log Buffer When we discussed printk debugging in Section 14 3 6 we
248. conds As with the other timing parameters this value is dictated by the SDRAM chip specifications A typical SDRAM chip requires one refresh cycle for each row Each row must be refreshed in the minimum time specified by the manufacturer In the chip referenced in Section D 4 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading the manufacturer specifies that 8 192 rows must be refreshed every 64 milliseconds This requires generating a refresh cycle every 7 8 microseconds to meet the specifications for this particular device D 4 Summary SDRAM devices are quite complex This appendix presented a very simple example to help you navigate the complexities of SDRAM controller setup The SDRAM controllers perform a critical function and must be properly set up There is no substitute to diving into a specification and digesting the information presented The two example documents referenced in this appendix are excellent starting points D 4 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading AMCC 405GP Embedded Processor User s Manual AMCC Corporation www amcc com Embedded Micron Technology Inc Synchronous DRAM MT48LC64M4A2 Data Sheet http download micron com pdf datasheets dram sdram 256MSDRAM pdf Appendix E Open Source Resources Source Repositories and Developer Information Mailing Lists Linux News and Developments Open Source Insight and Discussion Source Repositories and Developer Information Several locations on the Web focus
249. connect the terminal emulator from the target before trying to connect with gdb Listing 14 2 highlights the gdb connection process This assumes that we have already exited our terminal emulator and freed the serial port for gdb to use Listing 14 2 Connecting to KGDB ppc_4xx gdb silent vmlinux gdb target remote dev ttyS0O Remote debugging using dev ttyS0O breakinst at arch ppc kernel ppc stub c 825 825 gdb 1 820 return 821 822 823 asm globl breakinst n 824 breakinst long 0x7d821008 825 826 827 ifdef CONFIG_KGDB_CONSOLE 828 Output string in GDB O packet format if GDB has connected If nothing 829 output returns 0 caller must then handle output gdb Here we have performed three actions e Invoked gdb passing it the kernel ELF file vmlinux e Connected to the target using the target remote command within gdb e Issued the list command using its abbreviated form to display our location in the source code At the risk of pointing out the obvious the vmlinux image that we pass to gdb must be from the same kernel build that produced the target kernel binary It also must have been compiled with the g compiler flag to contain debug information When we issued the target remote command gdb responded by displaying the location of the program counter PC In this example the kernel is stopped at the breakpoint defined by t
250. core 22 1 void 0xd102c000 23 gdb add symbol file drivers block loop ko 0xd102c000 24 add symbol table from file drivers block loop ko at 25 text_addr 0xdl02c000 26 y or n y 27 Reading symbols from home chris sandbox 1linux 2 6 13 amcc drivers block loop ko done Starting with line 2 we use the gdb user defined macro connect created earlier in Listing 14 10 to connect to the target board and set our initial breakpoints We then add the breakpoint in module c as shown in line 7 and we issue the continue command c Now the kernel completes the boot process and we establish a telnet session into the target and load the loop ko module not shown When the loopback module is loaded we immediately hit breakpoint 3 gdb then displays the information shown in lines 14 through 16 At this point we need to discover the address where the Linux kernel linked our module s text section Linux stores this address in the module information structure struct module in the module_core element Using the lsmod macro we defined in Listing 14 16 we obtain the address of the struct module associated with our loop ko module This is shown in lines 17 through 19 Now we use this structure address to obtain the module s text address from the module core structure member We pass this address to the gdb add symbol file command and gdb uses this address to adjust its internal symbol table to match the actual ad
251. cript Although simple this example startup script is designed to illustrate the mechanism and guide you in designing your own system startup and shutdown behavior This example is based on busybox which has a slightly different initialization behavior than init These differences are covered in detail in Chapter 1l In a typical embedded appliance that contains a web server we might want several servers available for maintenance and remote access In this example we enable servers for HTTP and Telnet access via inetd Listing 6 8 contains a simple resysinit script for our hypothetical web server appliance Listing 6 8 Web Server rc sysinit 1 bin sh echo This is rc sysinit busybox mount t proc none proc Load the system loggers syslogd klogd Enable legacy PTY support for telnetd busybox mkdir dev pts busybox mknod dev ptmx c 5 2 busybox mount t devpts devpts dev pts In this simple initialization script we first enable the proc file system The details of this useful subsystem are covered in Chapter 9 Next we enable the system loggers so that we can capture system information during operation This is especially useful when things go wrong The last entries enable support for the UNIX PTY subsystem which is required for the implementation of the Telnet server used for this example Listing 6 9 contains the commands in the runlevel 2 startup script This script
252. cter to the makefile found in drivers char The additional lines of context are there so that the patch utility can determine where to insert the new line Our new examples directory was added to the end of the list of directories already being searched in this makefile which seemed like a logical place to put it Other than for consistency and readability the location is irrelevant Having completed the steps in this section the infrastructure is now in place to build the example device driver The beauty of this approach is that the driver is built automatically whenever a kernel build is invoked As long as the configuration option defined in Listing 8 3 is selected either M or Y the driver module is included in the build Building for an arbitrary ARM system the command line for building modules might look like this make ARCH arm CROSS_COMPILE xscale_be modules Listing 8 4 shows the build output after a typical editing session on the module all other modules have already been built in this kernel source tree Listing 8 4 Module Build Output make ARCH arm CROSS_COMPILE xscale_be modules CHK include linux version h make 1 arch arm kernel asm offsets s is up to date makel1 include asm arm mach types h is up to date CC M drivers char examples hellol o Building modules stage 2 MODPOST LD M drivers char examples hellol ko 8 1 5 Inst
253. current task if arg0 r2 printf lt else printf end State if arg0 gt state 0 printf Running else if arg0 gt state 1 printf Sleeping else if Garg0 gt state 2 printf Disksleep else if S arg0 gt state 4 printf Zombie else if Sarg0 gt state 8 printf sTopped else if arg0 gt state 16 printf Wpaging else printf 2d SargO gt state end end end end end end 40 41 User NIP 42 if Sarg0 gt thread regs 43 printf Ox 08X Sarg0 gt thread regs gt nip 44 else 45 printf k 46 end 47 48 Display the kernel stack pointer 49 printf 0x 08X arg0 gt thread ksp 50 51 device 52 if arg0 gt signal gt tty 53 printf s Sarg0 gt signal gt tty gt name 54 else 55 printf none 56 end 5T 58 comm 59 printf s n Sarg0 gt comm 60 end Line 3 displays the address of the task_struct Lines 8 through 12 display the process ID If this is the current process the process that was currently running on this CPU at the time the breakpoint was hit it is marked with a lt character Lines 14 through 39 decode and display the state of the process This is followed by displaying the user process next instruction pointer NIP and the kernel stack pointer SP Finally the device associated with the process is displayed followed by the name of the process stored
254. d 2 3 3 so the Linux dynamic linker loader You can use this technique to get rough ideas of where your code is if you don t have symbolic debug information for a process or shared library Remember that we are executing this cross readelf command on our development host Therefore the 1d 2 3 3 so file itself an XScale binary object must be accessible to your development host Most typically this file resides on your development host and is a component of your embedded Linux distribution installed on your host 15 3 1 Shared Library Events in GDB GDB can alert you to shared library events This can be useful for understanding your application s behavior or the behavior of the Linux loader or for setting breakpoints in shared library routines you want to debug or step through Listing 15 7 illustrates this technique Normally the complete path to the library is displayed This listing has been edited for better readability Listing 15 7 Stopping GDB on Shared Library Events xscale_be gdb q websdemo gdb target remote 192 168 1 141 2001 Remote debugging using 192 168 1 141 2001 0x40000790 in gdb i shared lt lt lt Display loaded shared libs No shared libraries loaded at this time gdb b main lt lt lt Break at main Breakpoint 1 at Oxl2b80 file main c line 72 gdb c Continuing Breakpoint 1 main argc Oxl argv Oxbec7fdc4 at main c 72 72 int localvar 9 gdb i shared From To Sym
255. d Systemmap and the kernel proper vmlinux Both are described shortly 4 2 2 Compiling the Kernel Understanding a large body of software such as Linux can be a daunting task It is too large to simply step through the code to follow what is happening Multithreading and preemption add to the complexity of analysis In fact even locating the entry point the first line of code to be executed upon entry to the kernel can be challenging One of the more useful ways to understand the structure of a large binary image is to examine its built components The output of the kernel build system produces several common files as well as one or more architecture specific binary modules Common files are always built regardless of the architecture Two of the common files are Systemmap and vmlinux introduced earlier The former is useful during kernel debug and is particularly interesting It contains a human readable list of the kernel symbols and their respective addresses The latter is an architecture specific ele file in executable format It is produced by the top level kernel makefile for every architecture If the kernel was compiled with symbolic debug information it will be contained in the vmlinux image In practice although it is an ELF executable this file is usually never booted directly as you will see shortly a Executable and Linking Format a de facto standard format for binary executable files Listing 4 2 is a snippet of
256. d real time For soft real time systems the value of a computation or result is diminished if a deadline is missed For hard real time systems if a single deadline is missed the system is considered to have failed and might have catastrophic consequences 17 1 3 Linux Scheduling UNIX and Linux were both designed for fairness in their process scheduling That is the scheduler tries its best to allocate available resources across all processes that need the CPU and guarantee each process that they can make progress This very design objective is counter to the requirement for a real time process A real time process must run as soon as possible after it is ready to run Real time means having predictable and repeatable latency 17 1 4 Latency Real time processes are often associated with a physical event such as an interrupt arriving from a peripheral device Figure 17 1 illustrates the latency components in a Linux system Latency measurement begins upon receipt of the interrupt we want to process This is indicated by time tO in Figure 17 1 Sometime later the interrupt is taken and control is passed to the Interrupt Service Routine ISR This is indicated by time tl This interrupt latency is almost entirely dictated by the maximum interrupt off time the time spent in a thread of execution that has hardware interrupts disabled H We neglect the context switching time for interrupt processing because it is often negligible com
257. d a small root file system based on BusyBox We configured BusyBox for static linking eliminating the need for any shared libraries Listing 11 6 contains a tree listing of this root file system We built this small file system using the steps outlined in Chapter 9 File Systems Section 9 10 Building a Simple File System We do not detail the procedure again here The files in our simple file system are those shown in Listing 11 6 Listing 11 6 Minimal BusyBox Root File System tree busybox cat gt busybox dmesg gt busybox echo gt busybox ls gt busybox ps gt busybox hostname gt busybox pwd gt busybox sh gt busybox console etc proc 4 directories 10 files This BusyBox based root file system occupies little more than the size needed for busybox itself In this configuration using static linking and supporting nearly 100 utilities the BusyBox executable came in at less than 1MB 1s 1 bin busybox rwxr xXr X 1 root root 824724 Dec 3 2005 bin busybox Now let s see how this system behaves Listing 11 7 captures the console output on power up on this BusyBox based embedded system Listing 11 7 BusyBox Default Startup Looking up port of RPC 100003 2 on 192 168 1 9 Looking up port of RPC 100005 1
258. d methods gt diskboot 0x400000 0 0 To understand this syntax you must first understand how U Boot numbers disk devices The 0 0 in this example specifies the device and partition In this simple example U Boot performs a raw binary load of the image found on the first IDE device IDE device 0 from the first partition found on this device The image is loaded into system memory at physical address 0x400000 After the kernel image has been loaded into memory the U Boot bootm command boot from memory is used to boot the kernel gt bootm 0x400000 7 4 Porting U Boot One of the reasons U Boot has become so popular is the ease in which new platforms can be supported Each board port must supply a subordinate makefile that supplies board specific definitions to the build process These files are all given the name config mk and exist in the board xxx subdirectory under the U Boot top level source directory where xxx specifies a particular board As of a recent U Boot 1 1 4 snapshot more than 240 different board configuration files are named config mk under the boards subdirectory In this same U Boot version 29 different CPU configurations are supported counted in the same manner Note that in some cases the CPU configuration covers a family of chips such as ppc4xx which has support for several processors in the PowerPC 4xx family U Boot supports a large variety of popular CPUs and CPU families in use today and
259. d not based on any scientific data 3 2 1 PowerPC PowerPC is a Reduced Instruction Set Computer RISC architecture jointly designed by engineers from Apple IBM and Motorola s semiconductor division now an independent entity spun off as Freescale Semiconductor Many good documents describe the PowerPC architecture in great detail Consult the Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of this chapter as a starting point PowerPC processors have found their way into embedded products of every description From automotive consumer and networking applications to the largest data and telecommunications switches PowerPC is one of the most popular architectures for embedded applications Because of this popularity there exists a large array of hardware and software solutions from numerous manufacturers targeted at PowerPC 3 2 2 AMCC PowerPC Some of the examples later in this book are based on the AMCC PowerPC 440EP Embedded Processor The 440EP is a popular integrated processor found in many networking and communications products The following list highlights some of the features of the 440EP e On chip dual data rate DDR SDRAM controller e Integrated NAND Flash controller e PCI bus interface e Dual 10 100Mbps Ethernet ports e On chip USB 2 0 interface e Up to four user configurable serial ports e Dual IC controllers e Programmable Interrupt Controller e Serial Peripheral Interface SPI controller e Program
260. d pluto onto a local mount point called workspace For this syntax to work two requirements must be met on the embedded target First for the target to recognize the symbolic machine name pluto it must be capable of resolving the symbolic name The easiest way to do this is to place an entry in the etc hosts file on the target This allows the networking subsystem to resolve the symbolic name to its corresponding IP address The entry in the target s etc hosts file would look like this 192 168 10 9 pluto The second requirement is that the embedded target must have a directory in its root directory called workspace This is called a mount point The previous mount command causes the contents of the NFS server s home chris workspace directory to be available on the embedded system s workspace path This is quite useful especially in a cross development environment Let s say that you are working on a large project for your embedded device Each time you make changes to the project you need to move that application to your target so you can test and debug it Using NFS in the manner just described assuming that you are working in the NFS exported directory on your host the changes are immediately available on your target embedded system without the need to upload the newly compiled project files This can speed development considerably 9 7 1 Root File System on NFS Mounting your project workspace on your target embedded
261. d the address of the function being named in the macro In the example defined by Listings 5 7 and 5 8 the data item would be as follows simplified by omitting the section attribute static initcall_t __initcall_customize_machine customize_machine This data item is placed in the kernel s object file in a section called nitcalllinit The level N is used to provide an ordering of initialization calls Functions declared using the core_initcal1 macro are called before all others Functions declared using the postcore_initcal1 macros are called next and so on while those declared with late_initcallQ are the last initialization functions to be called In a fashion similar to the __setup macro you can think of this family of initcall macros as registration functions for kernel subsystem initialization routines that need to be run once at kernel startup and then never used again These macros provide a mechanism for causing the initialization routine to be executed during system startup and a mechanism to discard the code and reclaim the memory after the routine has been executed The developer is also provided up to seven levels of when to perform the initialization routines Therefore if you have a subsystem that relies on another being available you can enforce this ordering using these levels If you grep the kernel for the string a z _initcall you will see that this family of macros is used extensively One final note
262. d then invokes bin login Searches for PATTERN in each file or standard input Uncompresses file or standard input Compresses file s with maximum compression Halts the system Gets sets hard disk parameters Prints first 10 lines of each file to standard output Dumps files in user specified binary octal hex character or decimal format Prints a unique 32 bit identifier for the machine Gets or sets the hostname Listens for incoming http server requests Queries and sets the hardware clock RTC Prints information for USERNAME or the current user Configures a network interface ifdown ifup inetd init insmod install ip ipaddr ipcalc iplink iproute iptunnel kill killall klogd lash last length in loadfont loadkmap logger login logname logread losetup 1s 1smod Deconfigures an interface Configure an interface Listenss for network connections and launches programs BusyBox version of init Loads the specified kernel modules into the kernel Copies files and sets attributes TCP IP configuration utility Manipulates interface addresses Calculates IP network settings from an IP address Manipulates interface settings Displays sets routing table entries BusyBox iptunnel utility Sends a signal default is SIGTERM to the specified process es Sends a signal default is SIGTERM to the specified process es Kernel logger The BusyBox LAme SHell command interpreter Shows a listing of the las
263. dresses where the module was linked into the kernel From there we can proceed in the usual manner to set breakpoints in the module step through code examine data and so on We conclude this section with a demonstration of placing a breakpoint in the loopback module s initialization function so that we can step through the module s initialization code The complication here is that the kernel loads the module s initialization code into a separately allocated portion of memory so that it can be freed after use Recall from Chapter 5 Kernel Initialization our discussion of the __init macro This macro expands into a compiler attribute that directs the linker to place the marked portion of code into a specially named ELF section In essence any function defined with this attribute is placed in a separate ELF section named init text Its use is similar to the following static int __init loop_init void This invocation would place the compiled loop_initQ function into the init text section of the loop ko object module When the module is loaded the kernel allocates a chunk of memory for the main body of the module which is pointed to by the struct module member named module_core It then allocates a separate chunk of memory to hold the init text section After the initialization function is called the kernel frees the memory that contained the initialization function Because the object module is split like this we need to i
264. dware Get the code to compile and then proceed to boot and debug your new kernel There is no shortcut here nor any substitute for experience It is the hard work of porting but now at least you know where to start Many tips and techniques for kernel debugging are presented in Chapter 14 Kernel Debugging Techniques To summarize our porting effort Listing 16 12 details the files that have been added or modified to get Linux running on the PowerDNA board Listing 16 12 PowerDNA New or Modified Kernel Files linux 2 6 14 arch ppc configs powerdna_defconfig linux 2 6 14 arch ppc Kconfig linux 2 6 14 arch ppc platforms Makefile linux 2 6 14 arch ppc platforms powerdna c linux 2 6 14 arch ppc platforms powerdna h linux 2 6 14 drivers net fec_mpc52xx fec c linux 2 6 14 drivers net fec_mpc52xx fec h linux 2 6 14 drivers net fec_mpc52xx fec_phy h linux 2 6 14 include asm ppc mpc52xx h The first file is the default configuration which enables a quick kernel configuration based on defaults It is enabled by invoking make as follows make ARCH ppc CROSS_COMPILE lt cross prefix gt powerdna_defconfig We ve already discussed the changes to the Kconfig file Modification to the makefile is trivialthe purpose is to add support for the new kernel configuration based on CONFIG _POWERDNA The change consists of adding a single line obj S CONFIG_POWERDNA powerdna o The hea
265. dynamically loaded libraries libc 2 3 3 s0 for example are required at runtime on the target system Without this option BusyBox requires some libraries so it can run We can easily determine what libraries BusyBox or any other binary requires on our target system by using the ldd command Listing 11 2 contains the output as displayed on my desktop Linux workstation Listing 11 2 BusyBox Library Dependencies ldd busybox linux gate so l gt Oxffffe000 libc so 6 gt lib tis libc so 6 0x42c70000 1ib 1d linux so 2 gt 1ib 1d linux so 2 0x42c57000 Notice that the BusyBox utility as compiled using the default configuration requires the three shared libraries in Listing 11 2 Had we elected to build BusyBox as a static binary ldd would simply issue a message telling us that the BusyBox binary is not a dynamic executable In other words it requires no shared libraries to resolve any unresolved dependencies in the executable Static linking yields a smaller footprint on a root file system because no shared libraries are required However building an embedded application without shared libraries means that you have none of the familiar C library functions available to your applications We cover the other options from Listing 11 1 in the next section 11 2 1 Cross Compiling BusyBox As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter the authors of BusyBox intended the package to be used in a cr
266. e View full size image File Options Help Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand onions SSCS S T E b Networking support b ISDN subsystem b Telephony Support b Input device support v Character devices 5 Enable Examples EXAMPLES ie O Virtual terminal VT N C Non standard serial port support SERIAL_NONSTANDARD N gt Serial drivers Unix98 PTY support UNIX98_PTYS gt V Legacy BSD PTY suppor LEGACY_PTYS x SS Ee I I U Enable Examples EXAMPLES a Enable compilation option for driver examples g Now that we have added the configuration option to enable compiling our examples device driver module we need to modify the makefile in drivers char to instruct the build system to descend into our new examples subdirectory if the configuration option CONFIG_EXAMPLES is present in our configuration Listing 8 3 contains the patch for this against the makefile in a recent Linux release Listing 8 3 Makefile Patch for Examples diff u base linux 2 6 14 drivers char Makefile drivers char Makefile base linux 2 6 14 drivers char Makefile drivers char Makefile 88 6 88 7 obj CONFIG_DRM drm obj CONFIG_PCMCIA pemcia obj CONFIG_IPMI_HANDLER ipmi obj S CONFIG_EXAMPLES examples obj S CONFIG_HANGCHECK_TIMER hangcheck timer o The patch in Listing 8 3 adds the single line preceded by the chara
267. e The module loading begins at sys_init_module in module c After the module has been loaded into kernel memory and dynamically linked control is passed to the module s _init function This is shown in lines 1906 and 1907 of Listing 14 17 We place our breakpoint here This enables us to add the symbol file to gdb and subsequently set breakpoints in the module We demonstrate this process using the Linux kernel s loopback driver called loop ko This module has no dependencies on other modules and is reasonably easy to demonstrate Listing 14 18 shows the gdb commands to initiate this debugging session on loop ko Listing 14 18 Initiate Module Debug Session loop ko 1 ppc linux gdb silent vmlinux 2 gdb connect 3 breakinst at arch ppc kernel ppc stub c 825 4 825 5 Breakpoint 1 at Oxc0016b18 file kernel panic c line 74 6 Breakpoint 2 at Oxc005a8c8 file fs buffer c line 296 7 gdb b module c 1907 8 Breakpoint 3 at 0xc003430c file kernel module c line 1907 9 gdb c 10 Continuing ll gt gt gt gt Here we let the kernel finish booting 12 and then load the loop ko module on the target 13 14 Breakpoint 3 sys_init_module umod 0x30029000 len 0x2473e 15 uargs 0x10016338 at kernel module c 1907 16 1907 ret mod gt initQ 17 gdb 1smod 18 Address Module 19 OxD102F9A0 loop 20 gdb set m struct module OxD102F9A0 21 gdb p m gt module_
268. e usually a Linux kernel When the bootloader on the target board has completed the BOOTP or DHCP exchange the parameters described previously are used for further configuration For example the bootloader uses the target IP address to bind its Ethernet port with this IP address The bootloader then uses the server name field as a destination IP address to request the file contained in the filename field which in most cases represents a Linux kernel image Although this is the most common use this same scenario could be used to download and execute manufacturing test and diagnostics firmware It should be noted that the DHCP protocol supports many more parameters than those detailed in Table 7 1 These are simply the more common parameters you might encounter for embedded systems See the DHCP specification referenced at the end of this chapter for complete details 7 3 4 Storage Subsystems Many bootloaders support the capability of booting images from a variety of nonvolatile storage devices in addition to the usual Flash memory The difficulty in supporting these types of devices is the relative complexity in both hardware and software To access data on a hard drive for example the bootloader must have device driver code for the IDE controller interface as well as knowledge of the underlying partition scheme and file system This is not trivial and is one of the tasks more suited to full blown operating systems Even with t
269. e Proceedings of the First Dutch International Symposium on Linux Available on http e2fsprogs sourceforge net ext2intro html A Non Technical Look Inside the EXT2 File System Randy Appleton www linuxgazette com issue2 ext2 html Whitepaper Red Hat s New Journaling File System ext3 Michael K Johnson www redhat com support wpapers redhat ext3 ReiserFS Home Page www namesys com JFFS The Journaling Flash File System David Woodhouse http sources redhat com jffs2 jf fs2 pdf README file from cramfs project Unsigned assumed to be the project author http sourceforge net pro jects cramfs NFS home page http nfs sourceforge net The proc file system documentation www tldp org LDP 1kmpg 2 6 htm1 c712 htm File System Performance The Solaris OS UFS Linux ext3 and ReiserFS A technical whitepaper Dominic Kay www sun com software whitepapers solarisl0O fs performance pdf Chapter 10 MTD Subsystem In this chapter e Enabling MTD Services page 248 e MTD Basics page 251 e MTD Partitions page 253 e MTD Utilities page 265 e Chapter Summary page 270 The Memory Technology Devices MTD subsystem grew out of the need to support a wide variety of memory like devices such as Flash memory chips Many different types of Flash chips are available along with numerous methods to program them partly because of the many specialized and high performance modes that are supported
270. e and control a Linux system s startup behavior Several mechanisms are available depending on your embedded Linux system s requirements e The init process was presented in detail This powerful system configuration and control utility can serve as the basis for your own embedded Linux system System initialization based on init was presented along with example startup script configurations e Initial ramdisk is a Linux kernel feature to allow further startup behavior customization before mounting a final root file system and spawning init We presented the mechanism and example configuration for using this powerful feature e initramfs simplifies the initial ramdisk mechanism while providing similar early startup facilities It is easier to use does not require loading a separate image and is built automatically during each kernel build 6 7 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading File System Hierarchy Standard Maintained by freestandards org www pathname com fhs Boot Process Init and Shutdown Linux Documentation Project http tidp org LDP intro linux html sect 04 02 htm1 Init man page Linux Documentation Project http tidp org LDP sag htm1 init html A brief description of System V init http docs kde org en 3 3 kdeadmin ksysv what is sysv init html Booting Linux The History and the Future Werner Almesberger www almesberger net cv papers ols2k 9 ps Chapter 7 Bootloaders In this chapter
271. e focus on how a developer might configure inittab for an embedded system For a detailed explanation of how inittab and init work together view the man page on most Linux workstations by typing man init and man inittab Let s take a look at a typical inittab for a simple embedded system Listing 6 6 contains a simple inittab example for a system that supports a single runlevel as well as shutdown and reboot Listing 6 6 Simple Example inittab etc inittab The default runlevel 2 in this example id 2 initdefault This is the first process actually a script to be run sinsysinit etc re sysinit Execute our shutdown script on entry to runlevel 0 10 0 wait etc init d sys shutdown Execute our normal startup script on entering runlevel 2 12 2 wait etc init d runlvl12 startup This line executes a reboot script runlevel 6 16 6 wait etc init d sys reboot This entry spawns a login shell on the console Respawn means it will be restarted each time it is killed con 2 respawn bin sh This very simple inittab script describes three individual runlevels Each run level is associated with a script which must be created by the developer for the desired actions in each runlevel When this file is read by init the first script to be executed is etc rc sysinit This is denoted by the sysinit tag Then init enters runlevel 2 and executes the script defined f
272. e identified two general execution contexts user space and kernel space When an application program executes a system call that results in a context switch and enters the kernel it is executing kernel code on behalf of a process You will often hear this referred to as process context within the kernel In contrast the interrupt service routine ISR handling the IDE drive or any other ISR for that matter is kernel code that is not executing on behalf of any particular process Several limitations exist in this operational context including the limitation that the ISR cannot block sleep or call any kernel functions that might result in blocking For further reading on these concepts consult Section 2 5 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of this chapter 2 3 7 Process Virtual Memory When a process is spawnedfor example when the user types ls at the Linux command promptthe kernel allocates memory for the process and assigns a range of virtual memory addresses to the process The resulting address values bear no fixed relationship to those in the kernel nor to any other running process Furthermore there is no direct correlation between the physical memory addresses on the board and the virtual memory as seen by the process In fact it is not uncommon for a process to occupy multiple different physical addresses in main memory during its lifetime as a result of paging and swapping Listing 2 4 is the venerable
273. e if the program were loaded by the Linux dynamic linker loader Executed on the target the addresses in Listing 15 5 make perfect sense and we can correlate these with the proc lt pid gt maps listing of the running process on the target Listing 15 10 displays the memory segments for this target process after it is completely loaded and running Listing 15 10 Memory Segments from proc lt pid gt maps on Target root coyote cat proc 197 maps O00008000 00026000 r xp 00000000 00 0e 4852444 workspace websdemo stripped 0002d000 0002e000 rw p 0001d000 00 0e 4852444 workspace websdemo stripped 0002e000 0005e000 rwxp 0002e000 00 00 0 heap 40000000 40017000 r xp 00000000 00 0a 4982583 1ib 1d 2 3 3 so0 40017000 40019000 rw p 40017000 00 00 0 4001e000 4001f000 r p 00016000 00 0a 4982583 lib 1d 2 3 3 so 4001 000 40020000 rw p 00017000 00 0a 4982583 1ib 1d 2 3 3 s0 40020000 4011d000 r xp 00000000 00 0a 4982651 1ib t1s 1ibc 2 3 3 so0 4011d000 40120000 p 000f d000 00 0a 4982651 lib t1s libc 2 3 3 so 40120000 40124000 rw p 000f8000 00 0a 4982651 1ib t1s libc 2 3 3 so0 40124000 40126000 r p 000fc000 00 0a 4982651 lib t1s libc 2 3 3 so 40126000 40128000 rw p O000fe000 00 0a 4982651 1ib t1s libc 2 3 3 so 40128000 4012a000 rw p 40128000 00 00 0 4012a000 40133000 r xp 00000000 00 0a 4982652 1ib tis libnss_files 2 3 3 so 40133000 4013a000 p 00009000 00
274. e popular ext2 file system is mature and fast and is often found on embedded and other Linux systems such as Red Hat and the Fedora Core series e The ext3 file system adds journaling on top of the ext2 file system for better data integrity and system reliability e ReiserFS is another popular and high performance journaling file system found on many embedded and other Linux systems e JFFS2 is a journaling file system optimized for use with Flash memory It contains Flash friendly features such as wear leveling for longer Flash memory lifetime e cramfs is a read only file system perfect for small system boot ROMs and other read only programs and data e NFS is one of the most powerful development tools for the embedded developer It can bring the power of a workstation to your target device Learn how to use NFS as your embedded target s root file system The convenience and time savings will be worth the effort e Many pseudo file systems are available on Linux A few of the more important ones are presented here including the proc file system and sysfs e The RAM based tmpfs file system has many uses for embedded systems Its most significant improvement over traditional ramdisks is the capability to resize itself dynamically to meet operational requirements 9 11 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading Design and Implementation of the Second Extended Filesystem R my Card Theodore Ts o and Stephen Tweedie First published in th
275. e program failure Figure 13 2 shows the DDD display during the later phase of this debugging session Figure 13 2 Debug session in DDD View full size image File Edit View Program Commands Status Source Data i i i 2 wo X v JE se eee te Lenn Mia ee _ Cunsigned char 0x311f0 text htm l AENT RATON f _ _ chart 0x31bd0 Error int ErrorInHandler webs_t wp chart urlPrefix char_t webDir int arg char_t urll char_t path char_t query unsigned char p int siz siz 10000 sizeof BigBlock p malloc siz if p i p return InitBlock p siz i else return 0 uery 0x2f868 at led c 57 ladb graph display p at 69 85 gdb graph display siz at 92 84 adb prah display url at 203 85 9 A Display 1 p enabled scope ErrorInHandler address Oxbefffa74 Notice that in Figure 13 2 we have initiated the display of some important program variables that can help us narrow the cause of the segmentation fault We can watch these variables as we step through the program using the command tool shown in the figure DDD is a powerful graphical front end for GDB It is relatively easy to use and widely supported for many development hosts Consult Section 13 7 1 at the end of this chapter for a link to the GNU DDD documentation 13 3 cbrowser cscope We mention cbrowser here because support for this handy tool has found its way into the Linux kernel source tree cbrowser is
276. e rest of the command directly to the remote hardware device Therefore mon break hard sets the BDI 2000 into hardware breakpoint mode We then set a hardware breakpoint at board_init_f This is a routine that executes while still running out of Flash memory at address Oxfff0457c After the breakpoint is defined we issue the continue c command to resume execution Immediately the breakpoint at board_init_f is encountered and we are free to do the usual debugging activities including stepping through code and examining data You can see that we have issued the bt command to examine the stack backtrace and the i frame command to examine the details of the current stack frame Now we continue execution again but this time we know that U Boot copies itself to RAM and resumes execution from its copy in RAM So we need to change the debugging context while keeping the debugging session alive To accomplish this we discard the current symbol table symbol file command with no arguments and load in the same symbol file again using the add symbol file command This time we instruct gdb to offset the symbol table to match where U Boot has relocated itself to memory This ensures that our source code and symbolic debugging information match the actual memory resident image After the new symbol table is loaded we can add a breakpoint to a location that we know will reside in RAM when it is executed This is where one of the subtle complicatio
277. e snippet after relocation gt gt gdb del 1 gdb symbol file Discard symbol table from home chris sandbox u boot 1 1 4 powerdna u boot y or ay No symbol file now edb add symbol file u boot 0x7fa8000 add symbol table from file u boot at text_addr 0x7fa8000 y or n y Reading symbols from u boot done gdb b board_init_r Breakpoint 2 at Ox7fac6c0 file board c line 608 gdb c Continuing Breakpoint 2 board_init_r id Ox7f85f84 dest_addr 0x7f85f84 at board c 608 608 gd id initialize RAM version of global data gdb i frame Stack level 0 frame at Ox7f85f38 pc Ox7fac6cO in board _init_r board c 608 saved pc Ox7fac6b0 called by frame at Ox7f85f68 source language c Arglist at Ox7f85f38 args id Ox7f85f84 dest_addr O0x7f85f84 Locals at Ox7f85f38 Previous frame s sp is 0x0 gdb mon break soft gdb Study this example carefully Some subtleties are definitely worth taking the time to understand First we connect to the Abatron BDI 2000 using the target remote command The IP address in this case is that of the Abatron unit represented by the symbolic name bar The Abatron BDI 2000 uses port 2001 for its remote gdb protocol connection Hol An entry in the host system s etc hosts file enables the symbolic IP address reference Next we issue a command to the BDI 2000 using the gdb mon command The mon command tells gdb to pass th
278. e today support KGDB Figure 14 1 describes the KGDB debug setup Up to three connections to the target board are used Ethernet is used to enable NFS root mount and telnet sessions from the host If your board has a ramdisk image in Flash that it mounts as a root file system you can eliminate the Ethernet connection Figure 14 1 KGDB debug setup Ethernet Hub Optional n 2nd Serial Por Host System d A serial port is dedicated for the connection between KGBD and gdb running on the development host system and an optional second serial port serves as a console Systems that have only one serial port make KGDB somewhat more cumbersome to use As you can see in Figure 14 1 the debugger your cross version of gdb runs on your development host system KGDB is part of the kernel running on your target system KGDB implements the hooks required to interface gdb with your target board to enable features such as setting breakpoints examining memory and enabling single step program execution 14 2 1 KGDB Kernel Configuration KGDB is a kernel feature and must be enabled in your kernel KGDB is selected from the Kernel Hacking menu as shown in Figure 14 2 As part of the configuration you must select the serial port for KGDB to use Notice also from Figure 14 2 that we enabled the option to compile the kernel with debug information This adds the g compiler flag to the build process to enable symbolic debugging Fig
279. ead Hardirgs PREEMPT_HARDIRQS YY Thread RCU PREEMPT_RCU Y Y C High memory support HIGHMEM N N Ci i gt Preemption Mode 2 Sony no help available for this option yet The real time patch adds a fourth preemption mode called PREEMPT_RT or Preempt Real Time The four preemption modes are as follows e PREEMPT NONE No forced preemption Overall latency is on average good but there can be some occasional long delays Best suited for applications for which overall throughput is the top design criteria e PREEMPT VOLUNTARY First stage of latency reduction Additional explicit preemption points are placed at strategic locations in the kernel to reduce latency Some loss of overall throughput is traded for lower latency e PREEMPT DESKTOP This mode enables preemption everywhere in the kernel except when processing within critical sections This mode is useful for soft real time applications such as audio and multimedia Overall throughput is traded for further reductions in latency e PREEMPT_RT Features from the real time patch are added including replacing spinlocks with preemptable mutexes This enables involuntary preemption everywhere within the kernel except for those areas protected by preempt_disable This mode significantly smoothes out the variation in latency jitter and allows a low and predictable latency for time critical real time applications If kernel preemption is enabled in your kernel configuration
280. eads on a given sector of a disk device Here it is used for compatibility purposes with the existing file system utilities After the CompactFlash has been partitioned in this manner each device representing a partition can be formatted with a file system of your choice When a partition is formatted with a given file system type Linux can mount the corresponding file system from that partition 9 2 ext2 Building on the example of Listing 9 1 we need to format the partitions created with fdisk To do so we use the Linux mke2fs utility mke2fs is similar to the familiar DOS format command This utility makes a file system of type ext2 on the specified partition mke2fs is specific to the ext2 file system other file systems have their own versions of these utilities Listing 9 2 captures the output of this process Listing 9 2 Formatting a Partition Using mke2fs mke2fs dev sdbl L CFlash_Boot_Vol mke2fs 1 37 21 Mar 2005 Filesystem label CFlash_ Boot_Vol OS type Linux Block size 1024 log 0 Fragment size l024 log 0 2880 inodes 11504 blocks 575 blocks 5 00 reserved for the super user First data block 1 Maximum filesystem blocks 11796480 2 block groups 8192 blocks per group 8192 fragments per group 1440 inodes per group Superblock backups stored on blocks 8193 Writing inode tables done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information done This file
281. eature not only adds flexibility to the user but it has proven invaluable to the device driver development effort Assuming that your device driver is reasonably well behaved you can insert and remove the device driver from a running kernel at will during the development cycle instead of rebooting the kernel every time a change occurs Loadable modules have particular importance to embedded systems Loadable modules enhance field upgrade capabilities the module itself can be updated in a live system without the need for a reboot Modules can be stored on media other than the root boot device which can be space constrained Of course device drivers can also be statically compiled into the kernel and for many drivers this is completely appropriate Consider for example a kernel configured to mount a root file system from a network attached NFS server In this scenario you configure the network related drivers TCP IP and the network interface card driver to be compiled into the main kernel image so they are available during boot for mounting the remote root file system You can use the initial ramdisk functionality as described in Chapter 6 System Initialization as an alternative to having these drivers compiled statically as part of the kernel proper In this case the necessary modules and a script to load them would be included in the initial ramdisk image Loadable modules are installed after the kernel has booted St
282. eceded by 43 is the line number of the offending source line from a file called led c From there GDB displays its command prompt and waits for input a Signals and their associated numbers are defined in asm lt arch gt signal h in your Linux kernel source tree To provide some context we enter the gdb list command using its abbreviated form 1 GDB recognizes command abbreviations where there is no ambiguity Here the program error begins to present itself The offending line according to GDB s analysis of the core dump is 43 ptr 0 Next we issue the gdb print command on the ptr variable again abbreviated as p As you can see from Listing 13 1 the value of the pointer ptr is 0 So we conclude that the reason for the segmentation fault is the dereference of a null pointer a common programming error From here we can elect to use the backtrace command to see the call chain leading to this error which might lead us back to the actual source of the error Listing 13 2 displays these results Listing 13 2 Backtrace Command gdb bt 0 Ox00012ac4 in ClearBlock RealBigBlockPtr 0x0 1 100000000 at led c 43 1 0x00012b08 in InitBlock ptr 0x0 n 100000000 at led c 48 2 0x00012b50 in ErrorInHandler wp 0x325c8 urlPrefix 0x2f648 Error webDir 0x2f660 arg 0 url 0x34f30 Error path 0x34d68 Error query 0x321d8 at led c 61 3 0x000126cc in websUrlHandlerRequest wp 0x325c8 at handler c
283. ecture If you purchase a commercial embedded Linux distribution you should make sure that this utility is included for your chosen architecture 13 4 3 ltrace The ltrace and strace utilities are closely related The ltrace utility does for library calls what strace does for system calls It is invoked in a similar fashion Precede the program to be traced by the tracer utility as follows Itrace example Listing 13 7 reproduces the output of Itrace on a small example program that executes a handful of standard C library calls Listing 13 7 Example ltrace Output Itrace example libc_start_main 0x8048594 1 Oxbffff944 0x80486b4 0x80486fc lt unfinished aS malloc 256 0x804a008 getenv HOME home chris strncpy 0x804a008 home 5 0x804a008 fopen foo txt w 0x804all10 printf SHOME s n home chris SHOME home chris 20 fprintf 0x804a110 SHOME s n home chris 20 fclose 0x804a110 0 remove foo txt 0 free 0x804a008 lt void gt exited status 0 For each library call the name of the call is displayed along with varying portions of the parameters to the call Similar to strace the return value of the library call is then displayed As with strace this tool can be used on programs for which source code is not available As with strace a variety of switches affect the behavior of ltrace You can display the value of the progra
284. ed high speed connection PCI clock 33MHz Derived from PLB clock and configured via register settings MemC1k 100OMHz Drives the SDRAM chips directly Derived from CPU clock and configured via register settings Decisions about clock setup normally must be made at hardware design time Pin strapping options determine initial clock configurations upon application of power to the processor Some control over derived clocks is often available by setting divider bits accessible through processor internal registers dedicated to clock and subsystem control In the example we present here based on the 405GP final clock configuration is determined by pin strapping and firmware configuration It is the bootloader s responsibility to set the initial dividers and any other clock options configurable via processor register bits very early after power is applied D 3 SDRAM Setup After the clocks have been configured the next step is to configure the SDRAM controller Controllers vary widely from processor to processor but the end result is always the same You must provide the correct clocking and timing values to enable and optimize the performance of the SDRAM subsystem As with other material in this book there is no substitute for detailed knowledge of the hardware you are trying to configure This is especially so for SDRAM It is beyond the scope of this appendix to explore the design of SDRAM but some basics must be understood Many
285. ed However we are faced with the chicken and egg syndrome We don t have any symbol information until the loadable module has been loaded into the kernel and the add symbol file command is issued to read in the module s symbol information However after the module has been loaded it is too late to set breakpoints and debug the module s init and related functions because they have already executed The solution to this dilemma is to place a breakpoint in the kernel code that is responsible for loading the module after it has been linked but before its initialization function has been called This work is done by kernel module c Listing 14 17 reproduces the relevant portions of module c Listing 14 17 module c Module Initialization 1901 down amp notify_mutex 1902 notifier_call_chain amp module_notify_list MODULE_STATE_COMING mod 1903 up amp notify_mutex 1904 1905 Start the module 1906 if mod gt init NULL 1907 ret mod gt initQ 1908 if ret lt 0 1909 Init routine failed abort Try to protect us from 1910 buggy refcounters 1911 mod gt state MODULE _STATE_ GOING We load the module using the modprobe utility which was demonstrated in Listing 8 5 in Chapter 8 Device Driver Basics and looks like this modprobe loop This command issues a special system call that directs the kernel to load the modul
286. ed the kernel can do little but complain and halt which it does through the panic function call 6 2 1 First User Space Program On most Linux systems sbin init is spawned by the kernel on boot This is why it is attempted first from Listing 6 2 Effectively this becomes the first user space program to run To review this is the sequence 1 Mount the root file system 2 Spawn the first user space program which in this discussion becomes init In our example minimal root file system from Listing 6 2 the first three attempts at spawning a user space process would fail because we did not provide an executable file called init anywhere on the file system Recall from Listing 6 1 that we had a soft link called sh that pointed back to busybox You should now realize the purpose for that soft link It causes busybox to be executed by the kernel as the initial process while also satisfying the common requirement for a shell executable from userspace 3 When busybox is invoked via the sh symbolic link it spawns a shell We cover this in detail in Chapter ll 6 2 2 Resolving Dependencies It is not sufficient to simply include an executable such as init on your file system and expect it to boot For every process you place on your root file system you must also satisfy its dependencies Most processes have two categories of dependencies those that are needed to resolve unresolved references within a dynamically linked execut
287. ed by the application s reference to shared library functions Two additional soft links are included 1d linux so 2 pointing back to 1d 2 3 2 so and libc so 6 referencing libc 2 3 2 so These links provide version immunity and backward compatibility for the libraries themselves and are found on all Linux systems This simple root file system produces a fully functional system On the ARM XScale board on which this was tested the size of this small root file system was about 1 7MB It is interesting to note that more than 80 percent of that size is contained within the C library itself If you need to reduce its size for your embedded system you might want to investigate the Library Optimizer Tool at http libraryopt sourceforge net 6 1 4 The Root FS Challenge The challenge of a root file system for an embedded device is simple to explain It is not so simple to overcome Unless you are lucky enough to be developing an embedded system with a reasonably large hard drive or large Flash storage on board you might find it difficult to fit your applications and utilities onto a single Flash memory device Although costs continue to come down for Flash storage there will always be competitive pressure to reduce costs and speed time to market One of the single largest reasons Linux continues to grow in popularity as an embedded OS is the huge and growing body of Linux application software Trimming a root file system to fit into a giv
288. ed by the bootloader The final partition named FIS directory holds information about the partition table itself When properly configured the Linux kernel can detect and parse this partition table and create MTD partitions representing the physical partitions on Flash Listing 10 6 reproduces a portion of the boot messages that are output from the aforementioned ADI Engineering Coyote board booting a Linux kernel configured with support for detecting Redboot partitions Listing 10 6 Detecting Redboot Partitions on Linux Boot IXP4XX Flash0 Found 1 x16 devices at Ox0O in 16 bit bank Intel Sharp Extended Query Table at 0x0031 Using buffer write method cfi_cmdset_0001 Erase suspend on write enabled Searching for RedBoot partition table in IXP4XX FlashO at offset Oxfe0000 3 RedBoot partitions found on MTD device IXP4XX Flash0O Creating 3 MTD partitions on IXP4XX Flash0 0x00000000 0x00060000 RedBoot Ox00fc0000 0x00fc1000 RedBoot config Ox00fe0000 0x01000000 FIS directory The first message in Listing 10 6 is printed when the Flash chip is detected via the Common Flash Interface CFI driver enabled via CONFIG_MTD_CFI CFI is an industry standard method for determining the Flash chip s characteristics such as manufacturer device type total size and erase block size See Section 10 5 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of this chapter for a pointer to the C
289. ed designs It is not the intent of this chapter to examine the internal technical details of each file system Instead this chapter examines the operational characteristics and development issues related to each file system presented References in Section 9 11 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading are provided at the end of the chapter for the interested reader Starting with the most popular file system in use on earlier Linux desktop distributions we introduce concepts using the Second Extended File System ext2 to lay some foundation for further discussion Next we look at its successor the Third Extended File System ext3 which is the default file system for many popular desktop Linux distributions being shipped today After introducing some fundamentals we examine a variety of specialized file systems including those optimized for data recovery and for storage space and those designed for use on Flash memory devices The Network File System NFS is presented followed by a discussion of the more important Pseudo File Systems including the proc file system and sysfs 9 1 Linux File System Concepts Before delving into the details of the individual file systems let s look at the big picture of how data is stored on a Linux system In our study of device drivers in Chapter 8 Device Driver Basics we looked at the structure of a character device In general character devices store and retrieve data in serial streams The m
290. editors cscope Generate cscope index kernelrelease Output the release version string Static analysers buildcheck List dangling references to vmlinux discarded sections and init sections from non init sections checkstack Generate a list of stack hogs namespacecheck Name space analysis on compiled kernel Kernel packaging rpm pkg Build the kernel as an RPM package binrpm pkg Build an rpm package containing the compiled kernel and modules deb pkg Build the kernel as an deb package tar pkg Build the kernel as an uncompressed tarball targz pkg Build the kernel as a gzip compressed tarball tarbz2 pkg Build the kernel as a bzip2 compressed tarball Documentation targets Linux kernel internal documentation in different formats xmldocs XML DocBook psdocs Postscript pdfdocs PDF htmldocs HTML mandocs man pages use installmandocs to install Architecture specific targets arm 7Image Compressed kernel image arch arm boot zImage Image Uncompressed kernel image arch arm boot Image xiplmage XIP kernel image if configured arch arm boot xipImage bootpImage Combined zIlmage and initial RAM disk supply initrd image via make variable INITRD lt path gt install Install uncompressed kernel zinstall Install compressed kernel Install using your bin installkernel or distribution sbin installkernel or install to SC
291. ee how these parameters are used shortly 10 1 1 Building MTD MTD is included in any recent snapshot of the Linux kernel However if you need to take advantage of MTD features that have been added since your kernel version was released you must download and build the MTD drivers and utilities Because the MTD package contains both kernel components and user space programs it is useful to keep the MTD package in a separate project directory and connect it to your kernel source tree The simplest way to integrate the MTD and your kernel source tree s is to use the scripts provided by the MTD package Download the MTD package from the location given at the end of this chapter Unpack the archive into a directory of your choice using the tar utility Enter the directory and run the patchkernel sh script This script provides several options Execute the script with no parameters for a detailed usage Listing 10 2 shows how to install the kernel components Listing 10 2 Patching Your Kernel for MTD patchkernel sh 2 sources linux 2 6 10 mtd Patching sources linux 2 6 10 mtd Include JFFS2 file system jffs2 Include JFFS3 file system experimental no Method 1n lt lt Will actually create symbolic links Can we start now y Nly Invoking the patchkernel sh script with the 2 parameter indicates that we want support for the JFFS2 file system We provide the path to the kernel source
292. efine CONFIG_CMDLINE_BOOL 1 define CONFIG_CMDLINE console ttySO root dev ram0 rw Now referring back to Listing 16 5 we have the following line stricpy cmd_line CONFIG_CMDLINE sizeof cmd_line You can see that this kernel based string copy function copies the string defined by CONFIG _CMDLINE into a global kernel variable called cmd_line This is important because many functions and device drivers might need to examine the kernel command line early in the boot sequence The global variable cmd_line is hidden away at the start of the data section defined in the assembler file arch ppc kernel head S A subtle detail is worth mentioning here Looking back at Listing 16 4 we see that the machine init assembly language call is made before the call to MMU_init That means that any code we are able to run from machine_init is executed in a context with limited support for accessing memory Many of today s processors that contain an MMU cannot access any memory without some initial mapping via hardware registers in the processor Typically a small amount of memory is made available at boot time to accommodate loading and decompressing the kernel and a ramdisk image Trying to access code or data beyond these early limits will fail Each architecture and platform might have different early limits for accessing memory Values on the order of 8 to 16MB are not untypical We must remember that any code we execute from ma
293. em This is the power of an NFS root mount For development purposes it can only increase productivity if your embedded system is loaded with all the tools and utilities you are familiar with on a Linux workstation Indeed likely dozens of command line tools and development utilities that you have never seen can help you shave time off your development schedule You will learn more about some of these useful tools in Chapter 13 Development Tools To enable your embedded system to mount its root file system via NFS at boot time is relatively straightforward First you must configure your target s kernel for NFS support There is also a configuration option to enable root mounting of an NFS remote directory This is illustrated in Figure 9 3 Figure 9 3 NFS kernel configuration View full size image Eile Options Help Pe a D Options D Miscellaneous filesystems Y Network File Systems V WINES file system support Provide NFSv3 client support C Provide NFSv4 client support EXPERIMENTAL C Allow direct I O on NFS files EXPERIMENTAL C NFS server suppor Root file system on NFS CI Secure RPC Kerberos V mechanism EXPERIMENTAL l Secure RPC SPKM3 mechanism EXPERIMENTAL Notice that the NFS file system support has been selected along with support for Root file system on NFS After these kernel configuration parameters have been selected all that remains is to somehow feed information to the ker
294. embedded products Like the IBM 970FX processor the Pentium M is a superscalar architecture These characteristics make it attractive in embedded applications e The Pentium M is based on the popular x86 architecture and thus is widely supported by a large ecosystem of hardware and software vendors e It consumes less power than other x86 processors e Advanced power management features enable low power operating modes and multiple sleep modes e Dynamic clock speed capability enhances battery powered operations such as standby e On chip thermal monitoring enables automatic transition to lower power modes to reduce power consumption in overtemperature conditions e Multiple frequency and voltage operating points dynamically selectable are designed to maximize battery life in portable equipment Many of these features are especially useful for embedded applications It is not uncommon for embedded products to require portable or battery powered configurations The Pentium M has enjoyed popularity in this application space because of its power and thermal management features 3 1 3 Freescale MPC7448 The Freescale MPC7448 contains what is referred to as a fourth generation PowerPC core commonly called ca This high performance 32 bit processor is commonly found in networking and telecommunications applications Several companies manufacture blades that conform to an industry standard platform specification including this
295. embedded project on your own You will have to decide whether the risks are worth the effort If you find yourself involved with embedded Linux purely for the pleasure of it such as for a hobby or college project this approach might be a good one However plan to spend a significant amount of time assembling all the tools and utilities your project needs and making sure they all interoperate together For starters you will need a toolchain Gcc and binutils are available from www fsf org and other mirrors around the world Both are required to compile the kernel and user space applications for your project These are distributed primarily in source code form and you must compile the tools to suit your particular cross development environment Patches are often required to the most recent stable source trees of these utilities especially when they will be used beyond the x86 IA32 architecture The patches can usually be found at the same location as the base packages The challenge is to discover which patch you need for your particular problem and or architecture 2 5 Chapter Summary This chapter covered many subjects in a broad brush fashion Now you have a proper perspective for the material to follow in subsequent chapters In later chapters this perspective will be expanded to develop the skills and knowledge required to be successful in your next embedded project 2 5 1 Embedded systems share some common attri
296. ement code is found Many top level architecture branches contain a boot subdirectory which is used to build through its own makefile a specific bootable target for that architecture Many also contain mach subdirectories These are used to hold code for specific machines or hardware platforms Another subdirectory that appears frequently in the architecture branch is configs This subdirectory exists for many of the more popular architectures and contains default configurations for each supported hardware platform Throughout the rest of this chapter we focus our discussion and examples on the PowerPC architecture It is one of the most popular with support for many processors and boards Listing 16 2 shows the contents of the configs directory for the arch ppc PowerPC branch of a recent Linux kernel release Listing 16 2 PowerPC configs Directory Contents chris pluto linux 1s arch ppc configs ads amp 8272_defconfig IVMS8_defconfig apus_defconfig katana_defconfig prpmc750_defconfig prpmc800_defconfig bamboo_defconfig bseip_defconfig bubinga_defconfig chestnut_defconfig common_defconfig cpci405_defconfig cpci690_defconfig ebony_defconfig ep405_defconfig est8260_defconfig 1ite5200_defconfig lopec_defconfig luan_defconfig mbx_defconfig mpc834x_sys_defconfig mpc amp 8540_ads_defconfig mpc amp 8548_cds_defconfig mpc8555_cds_defconfig mpc amp 8560_ads_defconfig mpc amp 86x_ads_defconfig rad
297. en storage space requirement can be daunting Many packages and subsystems consist of dozens or even hundreds of files In addition to the application itself many packages include configuration files libraries configuration utilities icons documentation files locale files related to internationalization database files and more The Apache web server from the Apache Software Foundation is an example of a popular application often found in embedded systems The base Apache package from one popular embedded Linux distribution contains 254 different files Furthermore they aren t all simply copied into a single directory on your file system They need to be populated in several different locations on the file system for the Apache application to function without modification These concepts are some of the fundamental aspects of distribution engineering and they can be quite tedious Linux distribution companies such as Red Hat in the desktop and enterprise market segments and Monta Vista Software in the embedded market segment spend considerable engineering resources on just this packaging a collection of programs libraries tools utilities and applications that together make up a Linux distribution By necessity building a root file system employs elements of distribution engineering on a smaller scale 6 1 5 Trial and Error Method Until recently the only way to populate the contents of your root file system was to use the tria
298. enable int 0 MODULE_PARM_DESC debug_enable Enable module debug mode struct file_operations hello_fops static int hello _open struct inode inode struct file file printk hello_open successful n return 0 static int hello_release struct inode inode struct file file printk hello_release successful n return 0 static ssize_t hello_read struct file file char buf size_t count loff_t ptr printk hello_read returning zero bytes n return 0 static ssize_t hello_write struct file file const char buf size_t count loff_t ppos printk hello_read accepting zero bytes n return 0 static int hello _iocti struct inode inode struct file file unsigned int cmd unsigned long arg printk hello_ioctl cmd ld arg 1d n cmd arg return 0 static int __init hello_init void int ret printk Hello Example Init debug mode is s n debug_enable enabled disabled ret register_chrdev HELLO_MAJOR hellol amp hello_fops if ret lt 0 printk Error registering hello device n goto hello_faill printk Hello registered module successfully n Init processing here return 0 hello_faill return ret static void __exit hello_exit void printk Hello Example Exit n struct file operations hello _fops owner THIS_ MODULE read hello
299. endous asset in an embedded environment GRUB offers a command line interface at boot time to modify the boot configuration Like Lilo GRUB is driven by a configuration file Unlike Lilo s static configuration however the GRUB bootloader reads this configuration at boot time This means that the configured behavior can be modified at boot time for different system configurations Listing 7 11 is an example GRUB configuration file This is the configuration file from the PC on which this manuscript is being written The GRUB configuration file is called grub conf and is usually placed in a small partition dedicated to storing boot images On the machine from which this example is taken that directory is called boot Listing 7 ll Example GRUB Configuration File grub conf default 0 timeout 3 splashimage hd0 1 grub splash xpm gz title Fedora Core 2 2 6 9 root hd0 1 kernel bzImage 2 6 9 ro root LABEL rhgb proto imps quiet initrd initrd 2 6 9 img title Fedora Core 2 6 5 1 358 root hd0 1 kernel vmlinuz 2 6 5 1 358 ro root LABEL rhgb quiet title That Other OS rootnoverify hd0 0 chainloader 1 GRUB first presents the user with a list of images that are available to boot The title entries from Listing 7 ll are the image names presented to the user The default tag specifies which image to boot if no keys have been pressed in the timeout period which is 3 seconds in this example
300. ent UNIX and Linux distributions The FHS standard allows your application software and developers to predict where certain system elements including files and directories can be found on the file system 6 1 2 File System Layout Where space is a concern many embedded systems developers create a very small root file system on a bootable device such as Flash memory and later mount a larger file system from another device perhaps a hard disk or network NFS server In fact it is not uncommon to mount a larger root file system right on top of the original small one Youll see an example of that when we examine the initial ramdisk initrd later in this chapter A simple Linux root file system might contain the following top level directory entries bin dey l etc I lib sbin usr var I tmp Table 6 1 details the most common contents of each of these root directory entries Table 6 1 Top Level Directories Directo ry Contents bin Binary executables usable by all users on the system dev Device nodes see Chapter 8 Device Driver Basics etc Local system configuration files lib System libraries such as the standard C library and many others sbin Binary executables usually reserved for superuser accounts on the system usr A secondary file system hierarchy for application programs usually read only var Contains variable files such as system logs and temporary configuration files
301. ent their own challenges to source level debugging The module s initialization routine can be debugged by placing a breakpoint in module c at the call to module gt init e printk and the Magic SysReq key provide additional tools to help isolate problems during kernel development and debugging e Hardware assisted debugging via a JTAG probe enables debugging Flash or ROM resident code where other debugging methods can be cumbersome or otherwise impossible e Enabling CONFIG _SERIAL_TEXT DEBUG on architectures where this feature is supported is a powerful tool for debugging a new kernel port e Examining the printk log _ buf often leads to the cause of a silent kernel crash on boot e KGDB passes control to gdb on a kernel panic enabling you to examine a backtrace and isolate the cause of the kernel panic 14 6 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading Linux Kernel Development 2nd Edition Robert Love Novell Press 2005 The Linux Kernel Primer Claudia Salzberg Rodriguez et al Prentice Hall 2005 Using the GNU Compiler Collection Richard M Stallman and the GCC Developer Community GNU Press a division of Free Software Foundation http gcc gnu org onlinedocs KGDB Sourceforge home page http sourcef orge net pro jects KGDB Debugging with GDB Richard Stallman Roland Pesch Stan Shebs et al Free Software Foundation www gnu org software gdb documentation Tool Interface Standards DWARF Debugging Informat
302. ents our device driver module If we list this file to the console it looks like this 1s 1 dev hellol crw r r l root root 234 0 Jul 14 2005 dev hellol The parameters we passed to mknod include the name type and major and minor numbers for our device driver The name we chose of course was hellol Because we are demonstrating the use of a character driver we use c to indicate that The major number is 234 the number we chose for this example and the minor number is 0 By itself the device node is just another file on our file system However because of its special status as a device node we use it to bind to an installed device driver If an application process issues an open system call with our device node as the path parameter the kernel searches for a valid device driver registered with a major number that matches the device nodein our case 234 This is the mechanism by which the kernel associates our particular device to the device node As most C programmers know the open system call or any of its variants returns a reference file descriptor that our applications use to issue subsequent file system operations such as read write and close This reference is then passed to the various file system operations such as read write or their variants For those curious about the purpose of the minor number it is a mechanism for handling multiple devices or subdevices with a single device driver It is
303. eof long l8 Normally the compiler will complain if a variable is defined static and never referenced in the compilation unit Because these variables are not explicitly referenced the warning would be emitted without this directive What we have left after simplification is the heart of the mechanism First the compiler generates an array of characters called setup_str_console_ setupl initialized to contain the string console Next the compiler generates a structure that contains three members a pointer to the kernel command line string the array just declared the pointer to the setup function itself and a simple flag The key to the magic here is the section attribute attached to the structure This attribute instructs the compiler to emit this structure into a special section within the ELF object module called init setup During the link stage all the structures defined using the __setup macro are collected and placed into this init setup section in effect creating an array of these structures Listing 5 6 a snippet from init main c shows how this data is accessed and used Listing 5 6 Kernel Command Line Processing 1 extern struct obs_kernel_param __setup_start __setup_end 2 3 static int __init obsolete_checksetup char line 4 5 struct obs_kernel_param p 6 7 p __setup_start 8 do 9 int n strlen p gt str 10 if strncmp line p gt str
304. er you have done so you will have a better appreciation for the capabilities of BusyBox and how it might be applicable to your own embedded Linux project As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter many of the BusyBox commands contain a limited subset of features and options compared to their full featured counterparts In general you can get help on any given BusyBox command at runtime by invoking the command with the help option This produces a usage message with a brief description of each supported command option The BusyBox gzip applet is a useful example of a BusyBox command that has support for a limited set of options Listing 11 10 displays the output from gzip help on a BusyBox target Listing 11 10 BusyBox gzip Applet Usage gzip help BusyBox v1 01 2005 12 01 21 11 0000 multi call binary Usage gzip OPTION FILE Compress FILE s with maximum compression When FILE is or unspecified reads standard input Implies c Options c Write output to standard output instead of FILE gz d Decompress f Force write when destination is a terminal The BusyBox version of gzip supports just three command line options Its full featured counterpart contains support for more than 15 different command line options For example the full featured gzip utility supports a list option that produces compression statistics for each file on the command line No such s
305. ere we connect to the target resulting in the Remote debugging message in Listing 15 14 set a breakpoint just past the loop where we spawned the new threads and continue When the new thread is created GDB displays a notice along with the thread ID Thread 1059 is the TDemo application doing its work directly from the main function Threads 1060 through 1063 are the new threads created from the call to pthread_create When GDB hits the breakpoint it displays the message Switching to Thread 1059 indicating that this was the thread of execution that encountered the breakpoint It is the active thread for the debugging session referred to as the current thread in the GDB documentation GDB enables us to switch between threads and perform the usual debugging operations such as setting additional breakpoints examining data displaying a backtrace and working with the individual stack frames within the current thread Listing 15 16 provides examples of these operations continuing directly with our debugging session started in Listing 15 15 Listing 15 16 GDB Operations on Threads gdb c Continuing lt lt lt Ctl C to interrupt program execution Program received signal SIGINT Interrupt 0x400db9c0 in read from opt mv1 l1ib t1s libc so 6 gdb i threads 5 Thread 1063 0x400bc714 in nanosleep from opt mv1 1ib tls libc so 6 4 Thread 1062 0x400bc714 in nanosleep from opt mv1
306. erial interface capable of implementing many serial based communications protocols including Ethernet HDLC SDLC AppleTalk synchronous and asynchronous UARTs IrDA and other bit stream data The Serial Management Controller SMC is a module capable of similar serial communications protocols and includes support for ISDN serial UART and SPI protocols Using a combination of these SCCs and SMCs it is possible to create very flexible I O combinations An internal time division multiplexer even allows these interfaces to implement channelized communications such as Tl and El I O Table 3 3 summarizes a small sampling of the PQ I product line Table 3 3 Freescale Select PowerQUICC I Highlights Feature MPC850 MPC860 MPC875 MPC885 Core speeds PowerPC PowerPC PowerPC 8xx PowerPC 8xx 8xx 8xx Up to Up to Up to Up to 80MHz 80MHz 183MHz 133MHz DRAM controller Y Y y Y USB Y N X X SPI controller Y Y Y Y IC controller Y Y Y Y SCC controllers 2 4 1 3 SMC controllers 2 2 1 1 Security engine N N X Y Dedicated Fast Ethernet N N 2 2 controller The next step up in the Freescale PowerPC product line is PowerQUICC II PQ II incorporates the company s G2 PowerPC core derived from the 603e embedded PowerPC core These integrated communications processors operate at 133 450MHz and feature multiple 10 100Mbps Ethernet interfaces security engines and ATM and PCI support among many others The PQ II encompasses the MPC82xx products
307. ernel loggers 11 3 3 BusyBox Target Installation The discussion of BusyBox installation can proceed only when you understand the use and purpose of symlinks The BusyBox makefile contains a target called install Executing make install creates a directory structure containing the busybox executable and a symlink tree This environment needs to be migrated to your target embedded system s root directory complete with the symlink tree The symlink tree eliminates the need to type busybox command for each command Instead to see a listing of files in a given directory the user need only type 1s The symlink executes busybox as described previously and invokes the 1s functionality Review Listing 11 4 and Listing 11 5 to see the symlink tree Note that the BusyBox build system creates links only for the functionality that you have enabled via the configuration utility The easiest way to populate your root file system with the necessary symlink farm is to let the BusyBox build system do it for you Simply mount your root file system on your development workstation and pass a PREFIX to the BusyBox makefile Listing 11 9 shows the procedure Listing 11 9 Installing BusyBox on Root File System mount o loop bbrootfs ext2 mnt remote make PREFIX mnt remote install bin sh applets install sh mnt remote mnt remote bin ash gt busybox mnt remote bin cat gt busybox mnt remote bin chgrp gt busybox mnt remote b
308. ernel source tree Table 4 1 lists each component in Figure 4 1 together with a short description of each binary element that makes up the vmlinux image Table 4 1 vmlinux Image Components Description Component arch arm kernel head o init_task o init built in o usr built in o arch arm kernel built in o arch arm mm built in o arch arm common built in o arch arm mach ixp4xx built in o arch arm nwfpe built in o kernel built in o mm built in o ipc built in o security built in o lib lib a arch arm lib lib a lib built in o drivers built in o sound built in o Description Kernel architecture specific startup code Initial thread and task structs required by kernel Main kernel initialization code See Chapter 5 Built in initramfs image See Chapter 5 Architecture specific kernel code Architecture specific memory management code Architecture specific generic code Varies by architecture Machine specific code usually initialization Architecture specific floating point emulation code Common components of the kernel itself Common components of memory management code Interprocess communications such as SysV IPC Linux security components Archive of miscellaneous helper functions Architecture specific common facilities Varies by architecture Common kernel helper functions All the built in driversnot loadable modules Sound drivers Table 4 1
309. ernel source tree On any given machine it might be located anywhere but on a desktop Linux workstation it is often found in usr src linux x y z where X y z represents the kernel version Throughout the book we use the shorthand to represent the top level kernel source directory The top level kernel source directory contains the following subdirectories We have omitted the nondirectory entries in this listing as well as directories used for source control for clarity and brevity arch crypto Documentation drivers fs include init ipc kernel lib mm net scripts security sound usr Many of these subdirectories contain several additional levels of subdirectories containing source code makefiles and configuration files By far the largest branch of the Linux kernel source tree is found under drivers Here you can find support for Ethernet network cards USB controllers and the numerous hardware devices that the Linux kernel supports As you might imagine the arch subdirectory is the next largest containing support for more than 20 unique processor architectures Additional files found in the top level Linux subdirectory include the top level makefile a hidden configuration file dot config introduced in Section 4 3 1 The Dot Config and various other informational files not involved in the build itself Finally two important build targets are found in the top level kernel source tree after a successful buil
310. ernel stops at a KGDB enabled breakpoint very early in the boot cycle to allow you to connect to the target using gdb Figure 14 3 shows the logic for generating an initial breakpoint when KGDB is enabled Figure 14 3 KGDB logic Early Serial Map Serial port initialization Setup debug traps Wait for Host GDB Connection Normal Boot KGDB requires a serial port for connection to the host The first step in setting up KGDB is to enable a serial port very early in the boot process In many architectures the hardware UART must be mapped into kernel memory before access After the address range is mapped the serial port is initialized Debug trap handlers are installed to allow processor exceptions to trap into the debugger a Notwithstanding the comments made earlier about KGDB over Ethernet Listing 14 1 displays the terminal output when booting with KGDB enabled This example is based on the AMCC 440EP Evaluation Kit Yosemite board which ships with the U Boot bootloader Listing 14 1 Booting with KGDB Enabled Using U Boot gt sete bootargs console ttyS1 115200 root dev nfs rw ip dhcp gdb gt bootm 200000 Booting image at 00200000 Image Name Linux 2 6 18 Image Type PowerPC Linux Kernel Image gzip compressed Data Size 1064790 Bytes 1 MB Load Address 00000000 Entry Point 00000000 Verifying Checksum OK Uncompressing Kerne
311. es a file of 512KB containing nothing but zeros We fill the file with zeros to aid in compression later and to have a consistent data pattern for uninitialized data blocks within the file system Use caution with the dd command Executing dd with no boundary count or with an improper boundary can fill up your hard drive and possibly crash your system dd is a powerful tool use it with the respect it deserves Simple typos in commands such as dd executed as root have destroyed countless file systems When we have the new image file we actually format the file to contain the data structures defined by a given file system In this example we build an ext2 file system Listing 9 20 details the procedure Listing 9 20 Creating an ext2 File System Image sbin mke2fs my new fs image mke2fs 1 35 28 Feb 2004 my new fs image is not a block special device Proceed anyway yn y Filesystem label OS type Linux Block size 1024 log 0 Fragment size l024 log 0 64 inodes 512 blocks 25 blocks 4 88 reserved for the super user First data block 1 1 block group 8192 blocks per group 8192 fragments per group 64 inodes per group Writing inode tables done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information done This filesystem will be automatically checked every 24 mounts or 180 days whichever comes first Use tune2fs c or i to override As with dd the mke2fs
312. et embedded system might not have a graphical display keyboard or mouse This is where your cross development tools and an NFS root mount environment can yield large dividends Many tools especially GDB have been architected to execute on your development host while actually debugging code on a remote target GDB can be used to interactively debug your target code or to perform a postmortem analysis of a core file generated by an application crash We covered the details of application core dump analysis in Chapter 13 15 2 Remote Cross Debugging Cross development tools were developed primarily to overcome the resource limitations of embedded platforms A modest size application compiled with symbolic debug information can easily exceed several megabytes With cross debugging the heavy lifting can be done on your development host When you invoke your cross version of GDB on your development host you pass it an ELF file compiled with a the symbolic debug information On your target there is no reason you can t strip ELF file of all unnecessary debugging info to keep the resulting image to its minimum size 1 Remember to use your cross version of strip for example ppc_82xx strip We introduced the readelf utility in Chapter 13 In Chapter 14 Kernel Debugging Techniques we used it to examine the debug information in an ELF file compiled with symbolic debugging information Listing 15 1 contains the outpu
313. ets are listed in the top level U Boot makefile For example to configure for the Spectrum Digital OSK which contains a TI OMAP 5912 processor issue this command make omap5912o0sk_config This configures the U Boot source tree with the appropriate soft links to select ARM as the target architecture the ARM926 core and the 5912 OSK as the target platform The next step in configuring U Boot for this platform is to edit the configuration file specific to this board This file is found in the U Boot include configs subdirectory and is called omap5912osk h The README file that comes with the U Boot distribution describes the details of configuration and is the best source for this information Configuration of U Boot is done using configuration variables defined in a board specific header file Configuration variables have two forms Configuration options are selected using macros in the form of CONFIG_XXXX Configuration settings are selected using macros in the form of CFG_XXXX In general configuration options CONFIG_XXX are user configurable and enable specific U Boot operational features Configuration settings CFG_XXX are usually hardware specific and require detailed knowledge of the underlying processor and or hardware platform Board specific U Boot configuration is driven by a header file dedicated to that specific platform that contains configuration options and settings appropriate for the underlying platform The U
314. every Linux distribution ldd lists the shared object library dependencies for a given object file or files We introduced ldd in Chapter 11 BusyBox See Listing ll 2 for an example usage The ldd script is particularly useful during development of ramdisk images One of the most common failures asked about on the various embedded Linux mailing lists is a kernel panic after mounting root VFS Mounted root nfs filesystem Freeing unused kernel memory 96k init Kernel panic not syncing No init found Try passing init option to kernel One of the most common causes is that the root file system image be it ramdisk Flash or NFS root file system does not have the supporting libraries for the binaries that the kernel is trying to execute Using ldd you can determine which libraries each of your binaries requires and make sure that you include them in your ramdisk or other root file system image In the previous example kernel panic init was indeed on the file system but the Linux dynamic loader ld so l was missing Using ldd is quite straightforward xscale_be l1dd init libe so 6 gt opt mv1 lib libc so 6 Oxdead1000 1d linux so 3 gt opt mv1 1ib 1d linux so 3 Oxdead2000 This simple example demonstrates that the init binary requires two dynamic library objects libc and 1d linux Both must be on your target and must be accessible to your init binarythat is they must be readable and executable 13 6 5
315. f the listing at address 0x100004b0 This is a PowerPC function call Because this program was compiled as a dynamically linked object we will not have an address for the printfQ function until runtime when it is linked with the shared library printf routine Had we compiled this as a statically linked object we would see the symbol and corresponding address for the call to printf 13 5 4 objcopy objcopy formats and optionally converts the format of a binary object file This utility is quite useful for generating code for ROM or Flash resident images The U Boot bootloader introduced in Chapter 7 makes use of objcopy to produce binary and s record output formats from the final ELF file This example usage illustrates the capabilities of objcopy and its use to build Flash images 91 S record files are an ASCII representation of a binary file used by many device programmers and software binary utilities ppc_82xx objcopy gap fill Oxff O binary u boot u boot bin This objcopy invocation shows how an image might be prepared for Flash memory The input fileu boot in this exampleis the complete ELF U Boot image including symbols and relocation information The objcopy utility takes only the relevant sections containing program code and data and places the image in the output file specified here as u boot bin Flash memory contains all ones in its erased state Therefore filling gaps in a binary image with al
316. fconfig poodle_defconfig pxa255 idp_defconfig rpc_defconfig s3c2410_defconfig shannon_defconfig shark_defconfig simpad_defconfig smdk2410_defconfig spitz_defconfig versatile_defconfig Build for Build for 1pd7a404 lubbock Build for 1us17200 Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for Build for mainstone mxlads neponset netwinder omap_h2_ 1610 pleb poodle pxa255 idp rpc s3c2410 shannon shark simpad smdk2410 spitz versatile make V O 1 targets 0 gt quiet build default 1 gt verbose build make O dir targets Locate all output files in dir including config make C l make C 2 targets Check all c source with SCHECK sparse targets Force check of all c source with CHECK sparse Execute make or make all to build all targets marked with For further info see the README file and a default configuration The default configuration was ixp4xx_defconfig which appears in this list of ARM targets This is a good way to discover all the default configurations available for a particular kernel release and architecture Many of these targets you might never use However it is useful to know that they exist As you can see from Listing 4 7 the targets listed with an asterisk are bui
317. for example no console limited memory mapping and so on The Linux kernel has matured into a very high performance operating system capable of competing with the best commercial operating systems Many areas within the kernel do not lend themselves to easy analysis by simply reading the source code Knowledge of the architecture and detailed design are often necessary to understand the code flow in a particular area Several good books are available that describe the kernel design in detail Refer to Section 14 6 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading for recommendations GCC is an optimizing compiler By default the Linux kernel is compiled with the 02 compiler flag This enables many optimization algorithms that can change the fundamental structure and order of your code For example the Linux kernel makes heavy use of inline functions Inline functions are small functions declared with the inline keyword which results in the function being included directly in the execution thread instead of generating a function call and the associated overhead 2 Taline functions require a minimum of Ol optimization level Therefore you cannot turn off optimization which would be desirable for easier debugging i See the GCC manual referenced at the end of this chapter in Section 14 6 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading for details on the optimization levels El Inline functions are like macros but with the advantage of co
318. for user input The final message about job control is a result of the fact that we are creating the system console on a serial terminal The Linux kernel contains code to disable job control if it detects the console on a serial terminal This example produced a working system with nearly 100 Linux utilities available including core utilities file utilities network support and a reasonably capable shell You can see that this simple package provides a powerful platform upon which to build your own system applications Of course it should be noted that without any support for libc and other system libraries you would face a formidable task implementing your applications You would have to provide support for all the usual system calls and other library functions that a typical C program relies on Alternatively you could statically link your applications against the libraries it depends on but if you have more than a couple applications using this method your applications will likely exceed the combined size of linking dynamically and having the shared libraries on your target 11 3 2 Example rcS Initialization Script Before BusyBox spawns an interactive shell it tries to execute commands from a script called etc init d rcS as shown in Listing 11 7 It is here where your applications come to life in a BusyBox system A simple rcS initialization script is provided in Listing 11 8 Listing 11 8 Simple rcS BusyBox Startup Script
319. found in include linux version h in the Linux kernel source tree They are reproduced here as Listing 4 1 2 Throughout this book three dots preceding any path are used to indicate whatever path it might take on your system to reach the top level Linux source tree Listing 4 1 Kernel include File include linux version h define UTS RELEASE 2 6 14 define LINUX_VERSION_CODE 132622 define KERNEL_VERSION a b c a lt lt 16 b lt lt 8 You can check the kernel version from a command prompt on a running Linux system like this cat proc version Linux version 2 6 13 chris pluto gcc version 4 0 0 DENX ELDK 4 0 4 0 0 2 Thu Feb 16 19 30 13 EST 2006 One final note about kernel versions You can make it easy to keep track of the kernel version in your own kernel project by customizing the EXtrAVERSION field For example if you were developing enhancements for some new kernel feature you might set EXtrAVERSION to something like this EXTRAVERSION foo Later when you use cat proc version you would see Linux version 2 6 13 foo and this would help you distinguish between development versions of your own kernel 4 1 2 Kernel Source Repositories The official home for the kernel source code is www kernel org There you can find both current and historical versions of the Linux kernel as well as numerous patches The primary FTP repository found at ftp kernel or
320. free Ok buffers Swap Ok total Ok used Ok free 11840k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S CPU MEM TIME COMMAND 978 root 16 0 1924 952 780 R 0 3 1 5 0 01 22 top 1 root 16 0 1416 508 452 S 0 0 0 8 0 00 47 init 2 root 5 10 0 O OS 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 ksoftirqd 0 3 root 5 10 0 0 0S 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 desched 0 4 root 2 5 0 0 0S 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 events 0 5 root 10 5 O O OS 0 0 0 0 0 00 09 khelper 10 root 18 5 0 0 O S 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 kthread 21 root 20 5 0 0 0S 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 kblockd 0 62 root 20 O 0 OS 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 pdflush 63 root 15 0 0 0 OS 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 pdflush 65 root 19 5 0 0 0S 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 aio O 36 root 25 0 0 0 O S 00 0 0 0 00 00 kapmd 64 root 25 0 0 0 O S 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 kswapd0 617 root 25 Q 0 0 O S 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 mtdblockd 638 root 1 0 0 O S 00 0 0 0 00 34 rpciod 834 bin 15 0 1568 444 364 S 0 0 0 7 0 00 00 portmap 861 root 20 0 0 0 O S 00 0 0 0 00 00 lockd 868 root 16 O 1488 596 504 S 0 0 1 0 0 00 11 syslogd 876 root 19 O 1416 456 396 S 0 0 0 7 0 00 00 klogd 884 root 18 0 1660 700 612 S 0 0 1 1 0 00 02 rpc statd 896 root 16 0 1668 584 504 S 0 0 09 0 00 00 inetd 909 root 15 O 2412 1872 1092 S 0 0 2 2 0 00 34 bash 953 telnetd 16 O 1736 736 616 S 0 00 12 0 00 27 in telnetd 954 root 15 O 2384 1348 1096 S 0 0 22 0 00 16 bash The default columns from Listing 13 10 are the PID the user the process priority the process nice value the virtual memory used by the process the res
321. g 8 9 modinfo Output modinfo hellol filename 1ib modules char examples hellol ko author Chris Hallinan description Hello World Example license GPL vermagic 2 6 14 ARMv5 gcc 3 3 depends parm debug_enable Enable module debug mode int The first field is obvious It is the full filename of the device driver module For readability in this listing we have truncated the path again The next lines are a direct result of the descriptive macros found at the end of Listing 8 6namely the filename author and license information These are simply tags for use by the module utilities and do not affect the behavior of the device driver itself You can learn more about modinfo from its man page and the modinfo source itself One very useful feature of modinfo is to learn what parameters the module supports From Listing 8 9 you can see that this module supports just one parameter This was the one we added in Listing 8 6 debug_enable The listing gives the name type in this case an int and descriptive text field we entered with the MODULE_PARM_DESCQ macro This can be very handy especially for modules in which you might not have easy access to the source code 8 3 Driver Methods We ve covered much ground in our short treatment of module utilities In the remaining sections of this chapter we describe the basic mechanism for communicating with a device driver from a user space program you
322. g contains subdirectories going all the way back to Linux Version 1 0 This site is the primary focus for the ongoing development activities within the Linux kernel If you download a recent Linux kernel from kernel org you will find files in the source tree for 25 different architectures and subarchitectures Several other development trees support the major architectures One of the reasons is simply the sheer volume of developers and changes to the kernel If every developer on every architecture submitted patches to kernel org the maintainers would be inundated with changes and patch management and would never get to do any feature development As anyone involved with kernel development will tell you it s already very busy Several other public source trees exist outside the mainline kernel org source mostly for architecture specific development For example a developer working on the MIPS architecture might find a suitable kernel at www linux mips org Normally work done in an architecture tree is eventually submitted to the kernel org kernel Most architecture developers try to sync up to the mainline kernel often to keep up with new developments whenever possible However it is not always straightforward to get one s patches included in the mainline kernel and there will always be a lag Indeed differences in the architecture kernel trees exist at any given point in time If you are wondering how to find a kernel for your pa
323. ge Flash memory can be written to and erased under software control Although hard drive technology remains the fastest writable media Flash writing and erasing speeds have improved considerably over the course of time though flash write and erase time is still considerably slower Some fundamental differences exist between hard drive and Flash memory technology that you must understand to properly use the technology Flash memory is divided into relatively large erasable units referred to as erase blocks One of the defining characteristics of Flash memory is the way in which data in Flash is written and erased In a typical Flash memory chip data can be changed from a binary 1 to a binary 0 under software control 1 bit word at a time but to change a bit from a zero back to a one an entire block must be erased Blocks are often called erase blocks for this reason A typical Flash memory device contains many erase blocks For example a 4MB Flash chip might contain 64 erase blocks of 64KB each Flash memory is also available with nonuniform erase block sizes to facilitate flexible data storage layout These are commonly referred to as boot block or boot sector Flash chips Often the bootloader is stored in the smaller blocks and the kernel and other required data are stored in the larger blocks Figure 2 3 illustrates the block size layout for a typical top boot Flash Figure 2 38 Boot block flash architecture Top of Flash 8 KB
324. ge it and or distribute copies of it under certain conditions Type show copying to see the conditions There is absolutely no warranty for GDB Type show warranty for details This GDB was configured as host i686 pc linux gnu target powerpc hardhat linux gdb Notice the last lines of this GDB startup message This is the configuration compiled into this version of GDB It was compiled to execute on a Pentium i686 PC host running GNU Linux and to debug binary programs compiled for a PowerPC processor running GNU Linux This is specified by the host and target variables displayed by the banner text and is also a part of the configuration string passed to configure when building GDB 15 3 Debugging with Shared Libraries Now that you understand how to invoke a remote debug session using GDB on the host and gdbserver on the target we turn our attention to the complexities of shared libraries and debug symbols Unless your application is a statically linked executable linked with the static linker command line switch many symbols in your application will reference code outside your application Obvious examples include the use of standard C library routines such as fopen printf malloc and memcpy Less obvious examples might include calls to application specific functions such as jack_transport_locate a routine from the JACK low latency audio server
325. gister and usually indicates the return address for the currently executing subroutine SP is the stack pointer REGS indicates the kernel address for the data structure containing the register dump data and TRAP indicates the type of exception that this oops message relates to Referring to the PowerPC architecture reference manual referenced at the end of Chapter 7 Bootloaders we see that a TRAP 0300 is the PowerPC Data Storage Interrupt which is triggered by a data memory access error On the third line of the oops message we see additional PowerPC machine registers such as MSR machine state register and a decode of some of its bits On the next line we see the DAR data access register which often contains the offending memory address The DSISR register contents can be used in conjunction with the PowerPC architecture reference to discover much detail about the specific reason for the exception An oops message also contains the task pointer and the decoded task name to quickly determine what task or thread was running at the time of the oops We also see a detailed processor register dump which can be used for additional clues Again we need knowledge of the architecture and compiler register usage to make sense of the clues from the register values For example the PowerPC architecture uses the r3 register for return values from C functions The last part of the oops message provides a stack backtrace with symbol decode
326. h ppc kernel pci c 1263 1 Oxc020e728 in do_initcalls at init main c 563 2 Oxc020e7c4 in do_basic_setup at init main c 605 3 Oxc0001374 in init unused 0x20 at init main c 677 4 Oxc00049d0 in kernel_thread Previous frame inner to this frame corrupt stack gdb The crash in this example was contrived by a simple write to an invalid memory location all ones We first establish a connection from gdb to KGDB and allow the kernel to continue to boot Notice that we didn t even bother to set breakpoints When the crash occurs we see the line of offending code and get a nice backtrace to help us determine its cause 14 6 Chapter Summary e Linux kernel debugging presents many complexities especially in a cross development environment Understanding how to navigate these complexities is the key to successful kernel debugging e KGDB is a very useful kernel level gdb stub that enables direct symbolic source level debugging inside the Linux kernel and device drivers It uses the gdb remote protocol to communicate to your host based cross gdb e Understanding and minimizing compiler optimizations helps make sense of seemingly strange debugger behavior when stepping through compiler optimized code e gdb supports user defined commands which can be very useful for automating tedious debugging tasks such as iterating kernel linked lists and accessing complex variables e Kernel loadable modules pres
327. he config file snippet in Listing 4 5 a corresponding entry is created in autoconf h This is how the source files in the kernel source tree reference the kernel configuration Listing 4 6 Linux autoconf h i USB support define CONFIG_USB_MODULE 1 undef CONFIG_USB_DEBUG Miscellaneous USB options 7 define CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS 1 undef CONFIG_USB_BANDWIDTH undef CONFIG_USB_DYNAMIC_MINORS USB Host Controller Drivers F define CONFIG_USB_EHCI_HCD_MODULE 1 Fundef CONFIG_USB_EHCI_SPLIT_ISO Fundef CONFIG_USB_EHCI_ROOT_HUB_TT define CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD_MODULE 1 define CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD_MODULE 1 If you haven t already done so execute make gconfig in your top level kernel source directory and poke around this configuration utility to see the large number of subsections and configuration options available to the Linux developer As long as you don t explicitly save your changes they are lost upon exiting the configuration editor and you can safely explore without modifying your kernel configuration Many configuration parameters contain helpful explanation text which can add to your understanding of the different configuration options E Better yet make a backup copy of your config file 4 3 3 Makefile Targets If you type make help at the top level Linux source directory you are presented with a list of targets that can be generated from
328. he cumulative result of several initiatives to reduce Linux kernel latency The patch had many contributors and it is currently maintained by Ingo Molnar you can find it at http people redhat com mingo realtime preempt The soft real time performance of the 2 6 Linux kernel has improved significantly since the early 2 6 kernel releases When 2 6 was first released the 2 4 Linux kernel was substantially better in soft real time performance Since about Linux 2 6 12 soft real time performance in the single digit milliseconds on a reasonably fast x86 processor is readily achieved To get repeatable performance beyond this requires the real time patch The real time patch adds several important features to the Linux kernel Figure 17 4 displays the configuration options for Preemption mode when the real time patch has been applied Figure 17 4 Preemption modes with real time patch View full size image File Options Help Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand Options Name IN IM Value v Platform options O PC PS 2 style Keyboard PC_KEYBOARD N N CI Symmetric multi processing support SMP N o W Preemption Mode Complete P O No Forced Preemption Server PREEMPT_NONE N N O Voluntary Kemel Preemption Desktop PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY N WN Preemptible Kernel Low Latency Desktop PREEMPT_DESKTOP N N Complete Preemption Real Time PREEMPT_RT Y X Thread Softirgs PREEMPT_SOFTIRQS Thr
329. he CFI interface Because we also enabled CONFIG_MTD_REDBOOT_PARTS see Figure 10 2 MTD scans for the Redboot partition table on the Flash chip Notice also that the chip has been enumerated with the device name IXP4XX Flash0 You can see from Listing 10 6 that the Linux kernel has detected three partitions on the Flash chip as enumerated previously using the fis list command in Redboot When the infrastructure is in place as described here the Linux kernel automatically detects and creates kernel data structures representing the three Flash partitions Evidence of these can be found in the proc file system when the kernel has completed initialization as shown in Listing 10 7 Listing 10 7 Kernel MTD Flash Partitions root coyote cat proc mtd dev size erasesize name mtd0 00060000 00020000 RedBoot mtdl 00001000 00020000 RedBoot config mtd2 00020000 00020000 FIS directory We can easily create a new Redboot partition We use the Redboot FIS commands for this example but we do not detail the Redboot commands in this book However the interested reader can consult the Redboot user documentation listed in Section 10 5 1 at the end of this chapter Listing 10 8 shows the details of creating a new Redboot partition Listing 10 8 Creating a New Redboot Partition RedBoot gt load r v b 0x01008000 coyote 40 zImage Using default protocol TFTP Raw file loaded 0x
330. he MMU is enabled That s why a debugger can t single step through this portion of code as with ordinary code al Often called Instruction Pointer the register which holds the address of the next machine instruction in memory The second point worth noting is the limited available mapping at this early stage of the kernel boot process Many developers have stumbled into this limitation while trying to modify head o for their particular platform One such scenario might go like this Let s say you have a hardware device that needs a firmware load very early in the boot cycle One possible solution is to compile the necessary firmware statically into the kernel image and then reference it via a pointer to download it to your device However because of the limited memory mapping done at this point it is quite possible that your firmware image will exist beyond the range that has been mapped at this early stage in the boot cycle When your code executes it generates a page fault because you have attempted to access a memory region for which no valid mapping has been created inside the processor Worse yet a page fault handler has not yet been installed at this early stage so all you get is an unexplained system crash At this early stage in the boot cycle you are pretty much guaranteed not to have any error messages to help you figure out what s wrong a Modifying head S for your custom platform is highly discouraged There is almost al
331. he function start_kernel Q is by far the largest function in main c Most of the Linux kernel initialization takes place in this routine Our purpose here is to highlight those particular elements that will prove useful in the context of embedded systems development It is worth repeating Studying main c is a great way to spend your time if you want to develop a better understanding of the Linux kernel as a system 5 2 3 Architecture Setup Among the first few things that happen in init main c in the start_kernel function is the call to setup_arch Q This function takes a single parameter a pointer to the kernel command line introduced earlier and detailed in the next section setup_arch amp command_1line This statement calls an architecture specific setup routine responsible for performing initialization tasks common across each major architecture Among other functions setup_archQ calls functions that identify the specific CPU and provides a mechanism for calling high level CPU specific initialization routines One such function called directly by setup_arch is setup_processor found in arch arm kernel setup c This function verifies the CPU ID and revision calls CPU specific initialization functions and displays several lines of information on the console during boot An example of this output can be found in Listing 5 3 lines 3 through 8 Here you can see the CPU type ID string and revision read directly f
332. he inline assembler statement at line 823 in file arch ppc kernel ppc stub c When we issue the continue c command execution resumes starting at line 825 as indicated 14 2 3 Useful Kernel Breakpoints We have now established a debug connection with the kernel on our target board When we issue the gdb continue c command the kernel proceeds to boot and if there are no problems the boot process completes There is one minor limitation of using KGDB on many architectures and processors An engineering trade off was made between the need to support very early kernel debugging for example before a full blown interrupt driven serial port driver is installed and the desire to keep the complexity of the KGDB debug engine itself very simple and therefore robust and portable KGDB uses a simple polled serial driver that has zero overhead when the kernel is running As a drawback to this implementation the traditional Ctl C or Break sequence on the serial port will have no effect Therefore it will be impossible to stop execution of the running kernel unless a breakpoint or other fault is encountered For this reason it has become common practice to define some system wide breakpoints which provide the capability to halt the current thread of execution Two of the most common are highlighted in Listing 14 3 Listing 14 3 Common Kernel Breakpoints gdb b panic Breakpoint 1 at Oxc0016b18 file kernel pan
333. he kernel A common scenario is that the bootloader loads a compressed kernel image into memory and then loads an initrd image into another section of available memory In doing so it becomes the bootloader s responsibility to pass the load address of the initrd image to the kernel before passing control to it The exact mechanism differs depending on the architecture bootloader and platform implementation However the kernel must know where the initrd image is located so it can load it Some architectures and platforms construct a single composite binary image This scheme is used when the bootloader does not have specific Linux support for loading initrd images In this case the kernel and initrd image are simply concatenated together You will find reference to this type of composite image in the kernel makefiles as bootpImage Presently this is used only for arm architecture So how does the kernel know where to find the initrd image Unless there is some special magic in the bootloader it is usually sufficient simply to pass the initrd image start address and size to the kernel via the kernel command line Here is an example of a kernel command line for a popular ARM based reference board containing the TI OMAP 5912 processor console ttyS0 115200 root dev nfs nf sroot 192 168 1 9 home chris sandbox omap target initrd 0x10800000 0x14af47 The previous kernel command line has been separated into several lines to fit in the s
334. he market traditional Flash memory such as that described in the previous section was referred to as NOR Flash These distinctions relate to the internal Flash memory cell architecture NAND Flash devices improve upon some of the limitations of traditional NOR Flash by offering smaller block sizes resulting in faster and more efficient writes and generally more efficient use of the Flash array NOR Flash devices interface to the microprocessor in a fashion similar to many microprocessor peripherals That is they have a parallel data and address bus that are connected directly to the microprocessor data address bus Each byte or word in the Flash array can be individually addressed in a random fashion In contrast NAND devices are accessed serially through a complex interface that varies among vendors NAND devices present an operational model more similar to that of a traditional hard drive and associated controller Data is accessed in serial bursts which are far smaller than NOR Flash block size Write cycle lifetime for NAND Flash is an order of magnitude greater than for NOR Flash although erase times are significantly smaller i Directly in the logical sense The actual circuitry may contain bus buffers or bridge devices etc In summary NOR Flash can be directly accessed by the microprocessor and code can even be executed directly out of NOR Flash though for performance reasons this is rarely done and then only on systems
335. he mount command is a powerful command with many options Many of the options that mount accepts depend on the target file system type of the mount operation Most of the time mount can determine the type of file system on a properly formatted file system known to the kernel We provide additional usage examples for the mount command as we proceed through this chapter Listing 9 3 displays the directory contents of a Flash device configured for an arbitrary embedded system Listing 9 3 Flash Device Listing 1s 1 mnt flash total 24 root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 bin root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 boot root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 dev root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 etc root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 home drwxr xr x root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 lib drw 2 root root 12288 Jul 17 13 02 lost found drwxr xr x 2 root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 proc drwxr xr x 2 root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 root drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x Y NY NH NY WNW DW root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 sbin root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 tmp root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 usr root root 1024 Jul 18 20 18 var drwxr xr x drwxr xr x drwxr xr x O N N N drwxr xr x Listing 9 3 is an example of what an embedded systems root file system might look like at the top root level Chapter 6 System Initialization provides guidance and examples for how to determine the contents of the root fi
336. he underlying complexity methods exist for loading images from this class of device The simplest method is to support the hardware only In this scheme no knowledge of the file system is assumed The bootloader simply raw loads from absolute sectors on the device This scheme can be used by dedicating an unformatted partition from sector 0 on an IDE compatible device such as CompactFlash and loading the data found there without any structure imposed on the data This is an ideal configuration for loading a kernel image or other binary image Additional partitions on the device can be formatted for a given file system and can contain complete file systems After the kernel boots device drivers can be used to access the additional partitions U Boot can load an image from a specified raw partition or from a partition with a file system structure Of course the board must have a supported hardware device an IDE subsystem and U Boot must be so configured Adding CFG_CMD_IDE to the board specific configuration file enables support for an IDE interface and adding CFG_CMD_BOOTD enables support for booting from a raw partition If you are porting U Boot to a custom board you will have to modify U Boot to understand your particular hardware 7 3 5 Booting from Disk U Boot As described in the previous section U Boot supports several methods for booting a kernel image from a disk subsystem This simple command illustrates one of the supporte
337. he utility to invoke its functionality For example to configure a network interface using the busybox ifconfig utility the user might enter a command similar to this ifconfig ethl 192 168 1 14 This would invoke the busybox executable through the ifconfig symlink BusyBox examines how it was calledthat is it reads argv 0 to determine what functionality is executed 11 3 1 BusyBox Init Notice the symlink in Listing 11 5 called init In Chapter 6 System Initialization you learned about the init program and its role in system initialization Recall that the kernel attempts to execute a program called sbin init as the last step in kernel initialization There is no reason why BusyBox can t emulate the init functionality and that s exactly how the system illustrated by Listing 11 5 is configured BusyBox handles the init functionality BusyBox handles system initialization differently from standard System V init A Linux system using the System V SysV initialization as described in Chapter 6 requires an inittab file accessible in the etc directory BusyBox also reads an inittab file but the syntax of the inittab file is different In general you should not need to use an inittab if you are using BusyBox I agree with the BusyBox man page If you need run levels use System V initialization a We covered the details of System V initialization in Chapter 6 Let s see what this looks like on an embedded system We have create
338. hedule void those strategic locations as above while current gt need_resched ctx_sw_offQ current gt state TASK_PREEMPTED schedule current gt state amp TASK PREEMPTED ctx_sw_on_no_preempt Hendif The first snippet of code in Listing 17 2 simplified from the actual code is invoked at those strategic locations described earlier where it is known that the kernel is safe to preempt The second snippet of code in Listing 17 2 is the actual code from an early Linux 2 4 kernel with the preempt patch applied This interesting while loop causes a context switch via the call to schedule until all requests for preemption have been satisfied Although this approach led to reduced latencies in the Linux system it was not ideal The developers working on low latency soon realized the need to flip the logic With earlier preemption models we had this e The Linux kernel was fundamentally nonpreemptable e Preemption checks were sprinkled around the kernel at strategic locations known to be safe for preemption e Preemption was enabled only at these known safe points To achieve a further significant reduction in latency we want this in a preemptable kernel e The Linux kernel is fully preemptable everywhere e Preemption is disabled only around critical sections This is where the kernel developers have been heading since the original preemptable kernel pat
339. heduler The OQ scheduler has been around since the days of Linux 2 5 It is mentioned here because it is a critical component of a real time solution The OQ scheduler is a significant improvement over the previous Linux scheduler It scales better for systems with many processes and helps produce lower overall latency In case you are wondering O 1 is a mathematical designation for a system of the first order In this context it means that the time it takes to make a scheduling decision is not dependent on the number of processes on a given runqueue The old Linux scheduler did not have this characteristic and its performance degraded with the number of processes m We refer you again to Robert Love s book for an excellent discussion of the 001 scheduler and a delightful diatribe on algorithmic complexity from which the notation O 1 derives 17 3 3 Creating a Real Time Process You can designate a process as real time by setting a process attribute that the scheduler uses as part of its scheduling algorithm Listing 17 4 shows the general method Listing 17 4 Creating a Real Time Process include lt sched h gt define MY_RT_ PRIORITY MAX _USER_RT_PRIO Highest possible int main int argc char argv int rc old_scheduler_policy struct sched param my_params Passing zero specifies caller s our policy old_scheduler_policy sched_getscheduler 0 my_params
340. home chris sandbox pdna target Then we load a kernel via our TFTP server Listing 12 8 shows what this might look like on a PowerPC embedded target Listing 12 8 Loading Kernel via TFTP Server gt tftpboot 200000 ulmage pdna lt lt lt Entered at U Boot prompt Using FEC ETHERNET device TFTP from server 192 168 1 9 our IP address is 192 168 1 68 Filename ulmage pdna Load address 0x200000 Loading FRHRAFRAFAAAATAA RARE RAR FRR AR RHR E SARS RRS SS RARER SRS RSE SaE LALA AALAAAAAAAAALALAAALAAAAAAAAALALAAALAAALALAAALAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALAAAAaAaAALai done Bytes transferred 911984 dea70 hex gt When we boot the kernel we see specific evidence of our NFS root mount configuration Listing 12 9 reproduces selected output from the kernel boot messages to demonstrate this This output has been formatted many lines omitted and whitespace added for readability Listing 12 9 Booting with NFS Root Mount View full width Uncompressing Kernel Image OK Linux version 2 6 14 chris pluto gcc version 3 3 3 DENX ELDK 3 1 1 3 3 3 10 1 Mon Jan 2 11 58 48 EST 2006 Kernel command line console ttyS0 115200 root dev nfs rw nfsroot 192 168 1 9 home chris sandbox pdna target ip dhcp Sending DHCP requests OK IP Config Got DHCP answer from 192 168 1 9 my address is 192 168 1 68 IP Config Complete device ethO addr 192 168 1 68 mask 255 255 255 0 SW 255 255 255 255
341. hreads When a breakpoint is hit in a thread all threads within the process are halted for examination GDB marks the current thread with an asterisk You can set unique breakpoints within each threadassuming of course that they exist in a unique context If you set a breakpoint in a common portion of code where all threads execute the thread that hits the breakpoint first is arbitrary The GDB user documentation referenced at the end of this chapter contains more useful information related to debugging in a multithreaded environment 15 4 3 Debugging Bootloader Flash Code Debugging Flash resident code presents its own unique challenges The most obvious limitation is the way in which GDB and gdbserver cooperate in setting target breakpoints When we discussed the GDB remote serial protocol in Chapter 14 you learned how breakpoints are inserted into an application GDB replaces the opcode at the breakpoint location with an architecture specific opcode that passes control to the debugger However in ROM or Flash GDB cannot overwrite the opcode so this method of setting breakpoints is useless 5l Refer back to Listing 14 5 in Chapter 14 Most modern processors contain some number of debug registers that can be used to get around this limitation These capabilities must be supported by architecture and processor specific hardware probes or stubs The most common technique for debugging Flash and ROM resident code is to
342. ial than the date and time changed from one build to the next It is a way for developers to keep track of the build in a generic and automatic fashion You will notice in this example that this was the eleventh build in this series as indicated by the 11 on line 2 of Listing 5 3 The version string is stored in a hidden file in the top level Linux directory and is called version It is automatically incremented by a build script found in scripts mkversion and by the top level makefile In short it is a version string that is automatically incremented whenever anything substantial in the kernel is rebuilt 5 2 Initialization Flow of Control Now that we have an understanding of the structure and components of the composite kernel image let s examine the flow of control from the bootloader to the kernel in a complete boot cycle As we discussed in Chapter 2 Your First Embedded Experience the bootloader is the low level component resident in system nonvolatile memory Flash or ROM that takes control immediately after the power has been applied It is typically a small simple set of routines designed primarily to do low level initialization boot image loading and system diagnostics It might contain memory dump and fill routines for examining and modifying the contents of memory It might also contain low level board self test routines including memory and I O tests Finally a bootloader contains logic for loading and passing control
343. ic c line 74 gdb b sys_sync Breakpoint 2 at Oxc005a8c8 file fs buffer c line 296 gdb Using the gdb breakpoint command again using its abbreviated version we enter two breakpoints One is at panic and the other is at the sync system call entry sys_sync The former allows the debugger to be invoked if a later event generates a panic This enables examination of the system state at the time of the panic The second is a useful way to halt the kernel and trap into the debugger from user space by entering the sync command from a terminal running on your target hardware We are now ready to proceed with our debugging session We have a KGDB enabled kernel running on our target paused at a KGDB defined early breakpoint We established a connection to the target with our host based cross debuggerin this case invoked as ppc_4xx gdband we have entered a pair of useful system breakpoints Now we can direct our debugging activities to the task at hand One caveat By definition we cannot use KGDB for stepping through code before the breakpoint function in arch ppc setup c used to establish the connection between a KGDB enabled kernel and cross gdb on our host Figure 14 3 is a rough guide to the code that executes before KGDB gains control Debugging this early code requires the use of a hardware assisted debug probe We cover this topic shortly in Section 14 4 Hardware Assisted Debugging 14 3 Debugging
344. ich each child process executes upon fork Letting the program continue from main we see each of the new processes spawned and detached by the debugger They never hit the breakpoint because GDB is attached to the main process which never executes the worker_process routine If you need to debug each process you must execute a separate independent GDB session and attach to the child process after it is forked The GDB documentation referenced at the end of this chapter outlines a useful technique to place a call to sleep in the child process giving you time to attach a debugger to the new process Attaching to a new process is explained in Section 15 5 2 Attaching to a Running Process If you simply need to follow the child process set the follow fork mode to follow child before your parent reaches the forkQ system call Listing 15 13 shows this Listing 15 13 GDB in follow fork mode child gdb target remote 192 168 1 141 2001 0x40000790 in gdb set follow fork mode child gdb b worker_process Breakpoint 1 at 0x8784 file forker c line 45 gdb c Continuing New Thread 401 Attaching after fork to child process 402 New Thread 402 Switching to Thread 402 Breakpoint 1 worker_process at forker c 45 45 int my_pid getpidQ gdb c Continuing Here we see the parent process being instantiated as PID 401 When the first
345. ident memory footprint the amount of shared memory used by the task and other fields that are identical to those described in the previous ps example Space permits only a cursory introduction to these useful utilities You are encouraged to spend an afternoon with the man pages for top and ps to explore the richness of their capabilities 13 4 6 mtrace The mtrace package is a simple utility that analyzes and reports on calls to malloc reallocQ and free in your application It is easy to use and can potentially help spot trouble in your application As with other userland tools we have been describing in this chapter you must have the mtrace package configured and compiled for your architecture mtrace is a malloc replacement library that is installed on your target Your application enables it with a special function call Your embedded Linux distribution should contain the mtrace package To demonstrate this utility we created a simple program that creates dynamic data on a simple linked list Each list item was dynamically generated as was each data item we placed on the list Listing 13 11 reproduces the simple list structure Listing 13 11 Simple Linear Linked List struct blist_s struct blist_s next char data_item int item_size int index Each list item was dynamically created using malloc as follows and subsequently placed at the end of the linked list struct
346. if symbols are enabled in the kernel Using this information we can construct a sequence of events that led to the offending condition In this simple example we have learned a great deal of information from this oops message We know that it was a PowerPC Data Storage Exception caused by an error in a data memory access as opposed to an instruction fetch memory access The DAR register tells us that the data address that generated this exception was 0x0000_0000 We know that the modprobe process produced the error From the backtrace and NIP next instruction pointer we know that it was in a call to strcpy that can be traced directly back to the loop_initQ function in the loop ko module which modprobe was trying to insert at the time of the exception Given this information tracking down the source of this errant null pointer dereference should be quite trivial 13 5 Binary Utilities Binary utilities or binutils are a critical component of any toolchain Indeed to build a compiler you must first have successfully built binutils In this section we briefly introduce the more useful tools that the embedded developer needs to know about As with most of the other tools in this chapter these are cross utilities and must be built to execute on your development host while operating on binary files targeted to your chosen architecture Alternatively you could compile or obtain versions of these to run on your target but
347. ight make this more clear bal The term thread here is used in the generic sense to indicate any sequential flow of instructions Consider an application that opens a file and issues a read request see Figure 2 6 The read function call begins in user space in the C library read function The C library then issues a read request to the kernel The read request results in a context switch from the user s program to the kernel to service the request for the file s data Inside the kernel the read request results in a hard drive access requesting the sectors containing the file s data Figure 2 6 Simple file read request Application Program Read Request Linux Kernel IDE H W Interrupt SE IDE Driver eg Hard Disk Usually the hard drive read is issued asynchronously to the hardware itself That is the request is posted to the hardware and when the data is ready the hardware interrupts the processor The application program waiting for the data is blocked on a wait queue until the data is available Later when the hard disk has the data ready it posts a hardware interrupt This description is intentionally simplified for the purposes of this illustration When the kernel receives the hardware interrupt it suspends whatever process was executing and proceeds to read the waiting data from the drive This is an example of a thread of execution operating in kernel context To summarize this discussion we hav
348. ill find most of the scripts that enable and disable individual services Services can be configured manually by invoking the script and passing one of the appropriate arguments to the script such as start stop or restart Listing 6 3 displays an example of restarting the nfs service Listing 6 3 NFS Restart Shutting Shutting Shutting Shutting Starting Starting Starting etc re d init d nfs restart down NFS mountd OK down NFS daemon OK down NFS quotas OK down NFS services OK NFS services Ook NFS quotas OK NFS daemon OK NFS mountd OK Starting If you have spent any time with a desktop Linux distribution such as Red Hat or Fedora you have undoubtedly seen lines like this during system startup A runlevel is defined by the services that are enabled at that runlevel Most Linux distributions contain a directory structure under etc that contains symbolic links to the service scripts in etc rce d init d These runlevel directories are typically rooted at etc rc d Under this directory you will find a series of runlevel directories that contain startup and shutdown specifications for each runlevel init simply executes these scripts upon entry and exit from a runlevel The scripts define the system state and inittab instructs init on which scripts to associate with a given runlevel Listing 6 4 contains the directory structure beneath etc re d that drive
349. imilar to this to define the Flash support for your own board 10 4 MTD Utilities The MTD package contains a number of system utilities useful for setting up and managing your MTD subsystem The utilities are built separately from the primary MTD subsystem which should be built from within your Linux kernel source tree The utilities can be built in a similar manner to any other cross compiled user space code You must use caution when using these utilities because there is no protection from mistakes A single digit typo can wipe out the bootloader on your hardware platform which can definitely ruin your day unless you ve backed it up and know how to reprogram it using a JTAG Flash programmer In keeping with a common practice throughout this book we cannot devote sufficient space to cover every MTD utility We highlight the most common and useful ones and leave it as an exercise for the reader to explore the rest A recent MTD snapshot contained more than 20 binary utilities The flash_ family of utilities is useful for raw device operations on an MTD partition These include flashcp flash_erase flash_info flash _lock flash_unlock and others Hopefully their names are descriptive enough to give some idea of their function After partitions are defined and enumerated as kernel devices any of these user space utilities can be run on a partition We repeat the warning we issued earlier If you execute flash_erase on the
350. in chmod gt busybox mnt remote bin chown gt busybox mnt remote usr bin xargs gt bin busybox mnt remote usr bin yes gt bin busybox mnt remote usr sbin chroot gt bin busybox You will probably need to make your busybox binary setuid root to ensure all configured applets will work properly chmod s mnt remote bin busybox 1s 1 mnt remote bin busybox rwsr sr x l root root 863188 Dec 4 15 54 mnt remote bin busybox First we mount the root file system binary image on our desired mount pointin this case mnt remote a favorite of mine Then we invoke the BusyBox make install command passing it a PREFIX specifying where we want the symlink tree and busybox executable file to be placed As you can see from the listing the makefile invokes a script called applets install sh to do the bulk of the work The script walks through a file containing all the enabled BusyBox applets and creates a symlink for each one on the path we have specified using the PREFIX The script is very chatty it outputs a line for each symlink created For brevity only the first few and last few symlink announcements are displayed The ellipsis in the listing represents those we have eliminated The message about setuid is also displayed by the install script to remind you that it might be necessary to make your busybox executable setuid root This is to allow BusyB
351. in multimedia consumer devices such as portable game platforms PDAs and cellular handsets The Freescale ARM product portfolio includes the i MX21 and iMX31 application processors The i MX21 features an ARM9 core and the i MX3l has an ARMII core Like their TI counterparts these SOCs contain many integrated peripherals required by portable consumer electronics devices with multimedia requirements The iMX21 31 contain some of the following integrated interfaces e Graphics accelerator e MPEG 4 encoder e Keypad and LCD controllers e Camera interface e Audio multiplexer e IrDA infrared I O e SD MMC interface e Numerous external I O such as PCMCIA USB DRAM controllers and UARTs for serial port connection 3 2 11 Intel ARM XScale Intel manufactures and markets several integrated processors based on the ARM v5TE architecture Intel uses the XScale name for the architecture These products are grouped into several application categories Table 3 10 summarizes the XScale families by application type Table 3 10 Intel XScale Processor Summary Category Application Example Processors Application Cellular handsets and PDAs PXA27x PXA29x processors I O processors High speed data processing used in storage I0P331 332 333 printing telematics and so on Network Networking and communications data plane TXP425 IXP465 processors processing fast packet processing and so on I XP2350 IXP2855 Many consumer and netw
352. in the gt comm element of the task_struct It is important to note that this macro is architecture dependent as shown in lines 7 and 8 In general macros such as these are highly architecture and version dependent Any time a change in the underlying structure is made macros such as these must be updated However if you spend a lot of time debugging the kernel using gdb the payback is often worth the effort For completeness we present the find_next_task macro Its implementation is less than obvious and deserves explanation It is assumed that you can easily deduce the task _struct_header that completes the series necessary for the ps macro presented in this section It is nothing more than a single line arranging the column headers with the correct amount of whitespace Listing 14 15 presents the find_next_task macro used in our ps and find_task macros Listing 14 15 gdb find_next_task Macro define find _next_task Given a task address find the next task in the linked list set t struct task_struct arg0 set offset char amp t gt tasks char t set t struct task_struct char t gt tasks next char offset end The function performed by this macro is simple The implementation is slightly less than straightforward The goal is to return the gt next pointer which points to the next task_struct on the linked list However the task_struct st
353. include linux list h Using gdb macros we can traverse the task list and display useful information about the tasks It is easy to modify the macros to extract the data you might be interested in It is also a very useful tool for learning the details of kernel internals The first macro we examine in Listing 14 11 is a simple one that searches the kernel s linked list of task struct structures until it finds the given task If it is found it displays the name of the task Listing 14 11 gdb find_task Macro 1 Helper function to find a task given a PID or the 2 address of a task_struct 3 The result is set into t 4 define find_task 5 Addresses greater than _end kernel data 6 user passed in an address 7 if unsigned arg0 gt unsigned amp _end 8 set t struct task struct arg0 9 else 10 User entered a numeric PID 1l Walk the task list to find it 12 set t amp init_task 13 if init_task pid unsigned arg0 14 find_next_task t 15 while amp init_task t amp amp t gt pid unsigned arg0 16 find_next_task t 17 end 18 if t amp init_task 19 printf Couldn t find task using init_task n 20 end 21 end 22 end 23 printf Task s An t gt comm 24 end Place this text into your gdbinit file and restart gdb or source it using gdb s source command We explain the find_next_task macro later in Listing 14 15 Invoke it as follows a A helpf
354. ines when errors are detected The first half of the output log reports high level statistics about the heap and the overall memory usage of the application Totals are produced for each of the malloc library calls such as malloc freeQ and realloc Interestingly this default log reports on the top 10 allocations and the source location where they occurred This can be very useful for overall system level profiling Toward the end of the log we see evidence of memory leaks in our application You can see that the dmalloc library detected four instances of memory that was allocated that was apparently never freed Because we included dmalloc h and compiled with debug symbols the source location where the memory was allocated is indicated in the log As with the other tools we ve covered in this chapter space permits only a brief introduction of this very powerful debug tool dmalloc can detect many other conditions and limits For example dmalloc can detect when a freed pointer has been written It can tell whether a pointer was used to access data outside its bounds but within the application s permissible address range In fact dmalloc can be configured to log almost any memory transaction through the malloc family of calls dmalloc is a tool that is sure to pay back many times the effort taken to become proficient with it 13 4 8 Kernel Oops Although not strictly a tool a kernel oops contains much useful information
355. ing the industry trend away from in house proprietary hardware and software platforms Many of the largest equipment manufacturers in the telecommunications and networking markets have been slowly moving away from the custom in house designed hardware platforms This trend is also evident in the software platforms from operating systems to so called middleware such as high availability and protocol stack solutions Downsizing and time to market pressures are two key factors driving this trend ATCA is defined by several PICMG specifications Table 3 11 summarizes these specifications Table 3 11 ATCA PICMG 3 x Specification Summary Specificati Summary on PICMG 3 0 Mechanical specifications including interconnects power cooling and base system management PICMG 3 1 Ethernet and Fiber Channel switching fabric interface PICMG 3 2 Infiniband switching fabric interface PICMG 3 3 StarFabric interface PICMG 3 4 PCI Express interface PICMG 3 5 RapidIO Interface The platforms described in this section are the most relevant in any discussion of embedded Linux platforms today Especially with ATCA the industry is increasingly moving toward commercial off the shelf COTS technology Both ATCA and Linux play increasingly important roles in this industry trend 3 4 Chapter Summary e Many stand alone processors are supported under Linux The most widely supported of these are IA32 IA64 and PowerPC architectures These stand
356. into multiple partitions Several methods are available for communicating the partition information to the Linux kernel These include Redboot partition information kernel command line parameters and mapping drivers A mapping driver together with definitions supplied by your architecture specific board support defines your Flash configuration to the kernel MTD comes with a number of user space utilities to manage the images on your Flash devices The Journaling Flash File System 2 JFFS2 is a good companion to the MTD subsystem for small efficient Flash based file systems In this chapter we built a JFFS2 image and mounted it as root on our target device 10 5 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading MTD Linux home page www linux mtd infradead org Redboot user documentation http ecos sourceware org ecos docs latest redboot redboot guide html Common Flash Memory Interface Specification AMD Corporation www amd com us en assets content_ type DownloadableAssets cfi r20 pdf Chapter 11 BusyBox In this chapter e Introduction to BusyBox page 274 e BusyBox Configuration page 275 e BusyBox Operation page 278 e Chapter Summary page 288 The man page for BusyBox declares that BusyBox is The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux This is a fitting description for BusyBox is a small and efficient replacement for a large collection of standard Linux command line utilities It often serves as the found
357. ion http sourceforge net pro jects kbuild The Linux Documentation Project www tldp org Tool Interface Standard TIS Executable and Linking Format ELF Specification Version 1 2 TIS Committee May 1995 Linux kernel source tree Documentation kbuild makefiles txt Linux kernel source tree Documentation kbuild kconfig language txt Linux Kernel Development 2nd Edition Rovert Love Novell Press 2005 Chapter 5 Kernel Initialization In this chapter e Composite Kernel Image Piggy and Friends page 100 e Initialization Flow of Control page 109 e Kernel Command Line Processing page 114 e Subsystem Initialization page 121 e The init Thread page 123 e Chapter Summary page 128 When the power is applied to an embedded Linux system a complex sequence of events is started After a few seconds the Linux kernel is operational and has spawned a series of application programs as specified by the system init scripts A significant portion of these activities are governed by system configuration and are under the control of the embedded developer This chapter examines the initial sequence of events in the Linux kernel We take a detailed look at the mechanisms and processes used during kernel initialization We describe the Linux kernel command line and its use to customize the Linux environment on startup With this knowledge you will be able to customize and control the initialization sequen
358. ion First notice that the parameters to machine_init represent the PowerPC general purpose registers r3 through 72 You saw that they were initialized just before the machine language call to machine _init As you can see from Listing 16 5 these register values are passed unmodified to platform_init We need to modify this function for our platform We have more to say about that in a moment a By convention parameters in C are passed in these PowerPC registers Listing 16 5 also contains some machine specific calls for power management functions If your kernel is configured for PowerPC 6xx support CONFIG_6xx defined in your config file a pointer to a machine specific power management function ppc6xx_idle is stored in a structure Similarly if your kernel is configured for a PowerPC G5 core CONFIG _POWER4 a pointer to its machine specific power management routine is stored in the same structure member This structure is described in Section 16 3 3 Machine Dependent Calls 16 2 3 Static Kernel Command Line One of the more interesting operations in the machine_init function reproduced in Listing 16 5 is to store the default kernel command line This operation is enabled if CONFIG _CMDLINE is enabled in your kernel configuration On some platforms the bootloader does not supply the kernel command line In these cases the kernel command line can be statically compiled into the kernel Figure 16 2 illustrates the
359. ion Format Specification Version 2 0 TIS Committee May 1995 Chapter 15 Debugging Embedded Linux Applications In this chapter e Target Debugging page 400 e Remote Cross Debugging page 400 e Debugging with Shared Libraries page 405 e Debugging Multiple Tasks page 411 e Additional Remote Debug Options page 417 e Chapter Summary page 419 In the previous chapter we explored the use of GDB for debugging kernel code and code resident in Flash such as bootloader code In this chapter we continue our coverage of GDB for debugging application code in user space We extend our coverage of remote debugging and the tools and techniques used for this peculiar debugging environment 15 1 Target Debugging We already explored several important debugging tools in Chapter 13 Development Tools strace and ltrace can be used to observe and characterize a process s behavior and often isolate problems dmalloc can help isolate memory leaks and profile memory usage ps and top are both useful for examining the state of processes These relatively small tools are designed to run directly on the target hardware Debugging Linux application code on an embedded system has its own unique challenges Resources on your embedded target are often limited RAM and nonvolatile storage limitations might prevent you from running target based development tools You might not have an Ethernet port or other high speed connection Your targ
360. iple processors spanning more than one architecture Investing in a single bootloader across multiple platforms ultimately results in lower development costs In this section we study an existing bootloader that has become very popular in the embedded Linux community The official name for this bootloader is Das U Boot It is maintained by Wolfgang Denk and hosted on SourceForge at http u boot sourceforge net U Boot has support for multiple architectures and has a large following of embedded developers and hardware manufacturers who have adopted it for use in their projects and have contributed to its development 7 3 1 System Configuration U Boot For a bootloader to be useful across many processors and architectures some method of configuring the bootloader is necessary As with the Linux kernel itself configuration of a bootloader is done at compile time This method significantly reduces the complexity of the bootloader which in itself is an important characteristic In the case of U Boot board specific configuration is driven by a single header file specific to the target platform and a few soft links in the source tree that select the correct subdirectories based on target board architecture and CPU When configuring U Boot for one of its supported platforms issue this command make lt platform gt _config Here platform is one of the many platforms supported by U Boot These platform configuration targ
361. irst written to the journal The file system drivers make sure that this write is committed to the journal before the actual changes are posted and committed to the storage media disk or Flash for example After the changes have been logged in the journal the driver posts the changes to the actual file and metadata on the media If a power failure occurs during the media write and a reboot occurs all that is necessary to restore consistency to the file system is to replay the changes in the journal a Metadata is data about the file as opposed to the file s data itself Examples include a file s date time size blocks used and so on One of the most significant design goals for the ext3 file system was that it be both backward and forward compatible with the ext2 file system It is possible to convert an ext2 file system to ext3 file system and back again without reformatting or rewriting all the data on the disk Let s see how this is done Listing 9 6 details the procedure et Converting a file system in this manner should be considered a development activity only Listing 9 6 Converting ext2 File System to ext3 File System mount dev sdbl mnt flash lt lt lt Mount the ext2 file system tune2fs j dev sdbl lt lt lt Create the journal tune2fs 1 37 21 Mar 2005 Creating journal inode done This filesystem will be automatically checked every 23 mounts or 180 days whichever comes first Use t
362. is is a cross debug session with GDB running on your development host debugging a program running on your target We cover complete details of remote application debugging in Chapter 15 Debugging Embedded Linux Applications Listing 13 4 Initiating a GDB Debug Session xscale_be gdb silent webs gdb target remote 192 168 1 21 2001 0x40000790 in gdb b main Breakpoint 1 at Oxl2b74 file main c line 78 gdb c Continuing Breakpoint 1 main argc l argv Oxbefffe04 at main c 78 78 bopen NULL 60 1024 B_USE_MALLOC gdb b ErrorInHandler Breakpoint 2 at Oxl2b30 file led c line 57 gdb c Continuing Breakpoint 2 ErrorInHandler wp 0x3lla0 urlPrefix O0x2f648 Error webDir 0x2f660 arg 0 ur1 0x31e88 Error path 0x31918 Error query 0x318e8 at led c 57 57 siz 10000 sizeof BigBlock gdb next 59 p malloc siz gdb next 61 return InitBlock p siz gdb p p 1 unsigned char 0x0 gdb p siz 2 100000000 gdb Following through this simple debug session first we connect to our target board using the gdb target command We cover remote debugging in more detail in Chapter 15 When we are connected to our target hardware we set a breakpoint at main using the gdb break abbreviated b command Then we issue the gdb continue abbreviated c command to resume execution of the program If we had any program arguments we could have is
363. is line numbers do not line up with his source code Here we present an example to illustrate the complexities that optimizing compilers bring to source level debugging In this example the line numbers that gdb reports when a breakpoint is hit do not match up with the line numbers in our source file due to function inlining For this demonstration we use the same debug code snippet as shown in Listing 14 4 However for this example we have compiled the kernel with the compiler optimization flag O2 This is the default for the Linux kernel Listing 14 7 shows the results of this debugging session Listing 14 7 Optimized Architecture Setup Code ppc_44x gdb silent vmlinux gdb target remote dev ttyS0O Remote debugging using dev ttyS0O breakinst at arch ppc kernel ppc stub c 825 825 gdb b panic Breakpoint 1 at Oxc0016b18 file kernel panic c line 74 gdb b sys_sync Breakpoint 2 at Oxc005a8c8 file fs buffer c line 296 gdb b yosemite_setup_arch Breakpoint 3 at Oxc020f438 file arch ppc platforms 4xx yosemite c line 116 gdb c Continuing Breakpoint 3 yosemite_setup_arch at arch ppc platforms 4xx yosemite c 116 116 def ocp_get_one_device OCP_VENDOR_IBM OCP_FUNC_EMAC 0 gdb 1 111 struct ocp_def def 112 struct ocp_func_emac_data emacdata 113 114 Set mac_addr and phy mode for each EMAC 115 116 def ocp_get_one_device OCP_VENDOR_IBM
364. istory Enabling INTERRUPT_OFF_HIST provides functionality similar to that with WAKEUP_LATENCY_HIST This option gathers interrupt off timing measurements into a file for later analysis This data is formatted as a histogram with bins ranging from O microseconds to just over 10 000 microseconds In the example just given we saw that the maximum latency was 97 microseconds from that particular sample Therefore we can conclude that the latency data in histogram form will not contain any useful information beyond the 97 microsecond bin History data is obtained by reading a special proc file This output is redirected to a regular file for analysis or plotting as follows cat proc latency_hist interrupt_off_latency CPUO gt hist_data txt Listing 17 6 displays the first 10 lines of the history data Listing 17 6 Interrupt Off Latency History Head cat proc latency_hist interrupt_off_latency CPUO head Minimum latency 0 microseconds Average latency 1 microseconds Maximum latency 97 microseconds Total samples 60097595 There are 0 samples greater or equal than 10240 microseconds usecs 0 1 2 3 samples 18475417 38914907 2714349 442308 From Listing 17 6 we can see the minimum and maximum values the average of all the values and the total number of samples In this case we accumulated slightly more than 60 million samples The histogram data follows the summary and cont
365. it 1 7 printf s read returning d bytes n argvlO rc close fd return 0 This simple file compiled on an ARM XScale system demonstrates the binding of application to device driver through the device node Like the device driver it doesn t do any useful work but it does demonstrate the concepts as it exercises some of the methods we introduced in the device driver of Listing 8 10 First we issue an open system call w on our device node created earlier If the open succeeds we indicate that with a message to the console Next we issue a read command and again print a message to the console on success Notice that a read of O bytes is perfectly acceptable as far as the kernel is concerned and in actual practice indicates an end of file or out of data condition Your device driver defines that special condition When complete we simply close the file and exit Listing 8 12 captures the output of running this example application on an ARM XScale target a Actually the openQ call is a C library wrapper function around the Linux sys_open system call Listing 8 12 Using the Example Driver modprobe hellol Hello Example Init debug mode is disabled Hello registered module successfully use hello use hello entered use hello open successful use hello read returning zero bytes 8 5 Device Drivers and the GPL Much discussion and
366. it can be disabled at boot time by adding the following kernel parameter to the kernel command line preempt 0 17 3 1 Real Time Features Several new Linux kernel features are enabled with CONFIG _PREEMPT_RT From Figure 17 4 we see several new configuration settings These and other features of the real time Linux kernel patch are described here 17 3 1 1 Spinlock Converted to Mutex The real time patch converts most spinlocks in the system to mutexes This reduces overall latency at the cost of slightly reduced throughput The benefit of converting spinlocks to mutexes is that they can be preempted If Process A is holding a lock and Process B at a higher priority needs the same lock Process A can preempt Process B in the case where it is holding a mutex 17 3 1 2 ISRs as Kernel Tasks With CONFIG_PREEMPT_HARDIRQ selected interrupt service routines ISRs are forced to run in process context This gives the developer control over the priority of ISRs because they become schedulable entities As such they also become preemptable to allow higher priority hardware interrupts to be handled first M Also called HARDIRQs This is a powerful feature Some hardware architectures do not enforce interrupt priorities Those that do might not enforce the priorities consistent with your specified real time design goals Using CONFIG PREEMPT HARDIRQ you are free to define the priorities at which each IRQ will run Conversion of
367. it_IRQ mpc52xx_init_irq ppc_md get_irg mpc5S2xx_get_irq ifdef CONFIG_PCI ppc_md pci_map_irq 1ite5200_map_ira endif ppc_md find_end_of_ memory mpc52xx_find_end_of_memory ppc_md setup_io_mappings mpc52xx_map_io ppc_md restart mpc5S2xx_restart ppc_md power_off mpc52xx_power_off ppc_md halt mpc52xx_ halt Lines similar to these make up the rest of the platform_initQ function Here the bulk of the platform specific needs are communicated to the Linux kernel The global variable ppc_md of type struct machdep_calls provides the hooks to easily customize the Linux kernel for a PowerPC platform This variable is declared in arch ppc kernel setup c Many places in the PowerPC specific kernel branch call functions indirectly through this structure For example Listing 16 10 reproduces a portion of arch ppc kernel setup c which contains support for the restart power off and halt functions Listing 16 10 Generic PowerPC Machine Functions void machine_restart char cmd ifdef CONFIG_NVRAM nvram_sync endif ppc_md restart cmd void machine_power_off void ifdef CONFIG_NVRAM nvram_syncQ Fendif ppc_md power_offQ void machine_halt void ifdef CONFIG_NVRAM nvram_syncQ Fendif ppc_md haltQ These functions are called via the ppc_md structure and contain the machine or platform specific variants of these functions You can see that some of the
368. itecture you pass on the make invocation Listing 4 7 illustrates an invocation that specifies the ARM architecture as you can see from the make command line Listing 4 7 Makefile Targets make ARCH arm help Cleaning targets clean remove most generated files but keep the config mrproper remove all generated files config various backup files Configuration targets config Update current config utilising a line oriented program menuconfig Update current config utilising a menu based program xconfig Update current config utilising a QT based front end gconfig Update current config utilising a GTK based front end oldconfig Update current config utilising a provided config as base randconfig New config with random answer to all options defconfig New config with default answer to all options allmodconfig New config selecting modules when possible allyesconfig New config where all options are accepted with yes allnoconfig New minimal config Other generic targets all Build all targets marked with vmlinux Build the bare kernel modules Build all modules modules_install Install all modules dir Build all files in dir and below dir filelois Build specified target only dir file ko Build module including final link rpm Build a kernel as an RPM package tags TAGS Generate tags file for
369. itectures and bootloaders are capable of directly booting the vmlinux kernel image For example platforms based on PowerPC architecture and the U Boot bootloader can usually boot the vmlinux image directly after conversion from ELF to binary as you will shortly see In other combinations of architecture and bootloader additional functionality might be needed to set up the proper context and provide the necessary utilities for loading and booting the kernel a The kernel image is nearly always stored in compressed format unless boot time is a critical issue In this case the image might be called ulmage a compressed vmlinux file with a U Boot header See Chapter 7 Bootloaders Listing 5 1 details the final sequence of steps in the kernel build process for a hardware platform based on the ADI Engineering Coyote Reference Platform which contains an Intel IXP425 network processor This listing uses the quiet form of output from the kernel build system which is the default As pointed out in Chapter 4 it is a useful shorthand notation allowing more focus on errors and warnings during the build Listing 5 1 Final Kernel Build Sequence ARM IXP425 Coyote make ARCH arm CROSS_COMPILE xscale_be zImage lt many build steps omitted for clarity gt LD vmlinux SYSMAP System map OBJCOPY arch arm boot Image Kernel arch arm boot Image is ready AS arch arm boot compressed head o GZIP arch arm boot compressed piggy g
370. itrd image is simply discarded If the kernel command line contains a root parameter specifying a ramdisk root dev ram0O for example the previously described initrd behavior changes in two important ways First the processing of the linuxrc executable is skipped Second no attempt is made to mount another file system as root This means that you can have a Linux system with initrd as the only root file system This is useful for minimal system configurations in which the only root file system is the ramdisk Placing dev ramO on the kernel command line allows the full system initialization to complete with the initrd as the final root file system 6 4 6 Building an initrd Image Constructing a suitable root file system image is one of the more challenging aspects of embedded systems Creating a proper initrd image is even more challenging because it needs to be small and specialized For this section we examine initrd requirements and file system contents Listing 6 12 was produced by running the tree utility on our example initrd image from this chapter Listing 6 12 Contents of Example initrd I bin H busybox echo gt busybox mount gt busybox sh gt busybox dev H console H ramo ttyS0 etc I linuxrc proc 4 directories 8 files As you can see it is very small indeed it takes up a little m
371. itute for a detailed knowledge of the underlying hardware Of course we d like to minimize our investment in time required for this task After all we usually are not paid based on how well we understand every hardware detail of a given processor but rather on our ability to deliver a working solution in a timely manner Indeed this is one of the primary reasons open source has flourished We just saw how easy it was to port U Boot to a new hardware platformnot because we re world class experts on the processor but because many before us have done the bulk of the hard work already Listing 7 8 is the complete list of new or modified files that complete the basic EP405 port for U Boot Of course if there had been new hardware devices for which no support exists in U Boot or if we were porting to a new CPU that is not yet supported in U Boot this would have been a much more significant effort The point to be made here at the risk of sounding redundant is that there is simply no substitute for a detailed knowledge of both the hardware CPU and subsystems and the underlying software U Boot to complete a port successfully in a reasonable time frame If you start the project from that frame of mind you will have a successful outcome Listing 7 8 New or Changed Files for U Boot EP405 Port diff purN u boot u boot ep405 grep u boot ep405 board ep405 config mk u boot ep405 board ep405 ep405 c u b
372. k switching etc and it probably never will support anything other than AT harddisks as that s all I have Since that initial release Linux has matured into a full featured operating system with robustness reliability and high end features that rival those of the best commercial operating systems By some estimates more than half of the Internet servers on the Web are powered by Linux servers It is no secret that the online search giant Google uses a large collection of low cost PCs running a fault tolerant version of Linux to implement its popular search engine 4 1 1 Kernel Versions You can obtain the source code for a Linux kernel and complementary components in numerous places Your local bookstore might have several versions as companion CD ROMs in books about Linux You also can download the kernel itself or even complete Linux distributions from numerous locations on the Internet The official home for the Linux kernel is found at www kernel org You will often hear the terms mainline source or mainline kernel referring to the source trees found at kernel org As this book is being written Linux Version 2 6 is the current version Early in the development cycle the developers chose a numbering system designed to differentiate between kernel source trees intended for development and experimentation and source trees intended to be stable production ready kernels The numbering scheme contains a major version num
373. l keep it bit 18 Ack Active 0x0 bit 19 CE Enable Oxl 20 21 Address Size 0x10 24 bits 22 23 Data size field Oxll 32 bits 24 25 Bank bits 0x00 26 27 WaitType 0x11 28 Write Swap 0x0 no swap 29 Read Swap 0x0 no swap bit 30 Write Only 0x0 read enable bit 3l Read Only 0x0 write enable Master LPC Enable Micron 46V32M16 75E 8 MEG x 16 x 4 banks 64 MB per Chip for a total of 128 MB arranged as a single space i e 1 CS with the following configuration 8 Mb x 16 x 4 banks Refresh count 8K Row addressing 8K A0 12 13 bits Column addressing 1K A0 9 10 bits Bank Addressing 4 BAO 1 2 bits Key Timing Parameters 75E Clockrate CL 2 133 MHz DO Window 2 5 ns 3 Access Window 75 ns 3 DQS DQ Skew 0 5 ns t REFI 7 8 us MAX Initialization Requirements General Notes The memory Mode Extended Mode registers must be initialized during the system boot sequence But before 3 writing to the controller Mode register the mode_en and cke bits in the Control register must be set to l After memory initialization is complete the Control register mode_en bit should be cleared to prevent subsequent access s to the controller Mode register SDRAM init sequence 1 Setup and enable chip selects 2 Setup config registers 3 Setup TAP Delay Setup and enable SDRAM CS WM82 0x80000034 Ox000000la SDRAM CSO 128MB 0x00000
374. l Image OK T0440 c000ae5c 01 c0205fa0 d9 lt lt lt See text Most of the boot sequence is familiar from our coverage of U Boot in Chapter 7 Bootloaders This kernel boot sequence has two unique features the command line parameter to enable KGDB and the odd looking text string after the kernel is uncompressed Recall from Chapter 7 that the kernel command line is defined by the U Boot bootargs environment variable Notice that we have added the gdb parameter which instructs the kernel to force an early breakpoint and wait for the host debugger your cross gdb to connect As diagrammed in Figure 14 3 the kernel detects the presence of the gdb parameter and attempts to pass control to the remote host based debugger This is evidenced by the sequence of ASCII characters dumped to the serial port in Listing 14 1 If you are curious about this gdb remote serial protocol it is documented in the gdb manual cited at the end of this chapter In this example KGDB is sending a Stop Reply packet reporting the breakpoint trap to the remote gdb session on the host The two 32 bit parameters indicate the location of the program and the stack frame Now that the kernel is set up and waiting for the host debugger we can begin our debugging session We invoke cross gdb from our host development workstation and connect to the target via gdb s remote protocol In this example we are sharing the serial port so we must dis
375. l and error method Perhaps the process can be automated by creating a set of scripts for this purpose but the knowledge of which files are required for a given functionality still had to come from the developer Tools such as Red Hat Package Manager rpm can be used to install packages on your root file system rpm has reasonable dependency resolution within given packages but it is complex and involves a steep learning curve Furthermore using rpm does not lend itself easily to building small root file systems because it has limited capability to strip unnecessary files from the installation such as documentation and unused utilities in a given package 6 1 6 Automated File System Build Tools The leading vendors of embedded Linux distributions ship very capable tools designed to automate the task of building root file systems in Flash or other devices These tools are usually graphical in nature enabling the developer to select files by application or functionality They have features to strip unnecessary files such as documentation and other unneeded files from a package and many have the capability to select at the individual file level These tools can produce a variety of file system formats for later installation on your choice of device Contact your favorite embedded Linux distribution vendor for details on these powerful tools 6 2 Kernel s Last Boot Steps In the previous chapter we introduced the steps the kernel takes in
376. l baud rates And loading your ramdisk can take much longer because ramdisk images can grow to many tens of megabytes and more depending on your requirements The investment in your time to configure and use TFTP will surely pay off and is highly recommended There are very few designs that can t afford the real estate to include an Ethernet port during development even if it is depopulated for production 12 3 1 TFTP Server Configuring TFTP on your Linux development host is not difficult Of course the details might vary depending on which Linux distribution you choose for your development workstation The guidelines presented here are based on Red Hat and Fedora Core Linux distributions TFTP is a TCP IP service that must be enabled on your workstation To enable TFTP service you must instruct your server to respond to incoming TFTP packets and spawn your TFTP server On many Linux distributions this is done by editing a configuration file used by the xinetd Internet superserver For example on the Red Hat and Fedora desktop Linux distributions this file is etc xinetd d tftp Listing 12 4 contains a TFTP configuration from a Fedora Core 2 development workstation to enable the TFTP service It has been slightly rearranged to fit the page Listing 12 4 TFTP Configuration default off description The tftp server serves files using the trivial file transfer protocol The tftp protocol is often used to boot diskless wo
377. l configuration Execute make ARCH lt arch gt gconfig and select JFFS2 under File Systems Miscellaneous File Systems Another useful hint is to use the v verbose flag on the MTD utilities This provides progress updates and other useful information during the Flash operations We have already seen how to boot a kernel with the Redboot exec command Listing 10 17 details the sequence of commands to load and boot the Linux kernel with our new JFFS2 file system as root Listing 10 17 Booting with JFFS2 as Root File System RedBoot gt load r v b 0x01008000 coyote zImage Using default protocol TFTP Raw file loaded 0x01008000 0x01ll4decb assumed entry at Ox01008000 RedBoot gt exec c console ttyS0 115200 rootfstype jffs2 root dev mtdblock2 Using base address 0x01008000 and length 0x00145ecc Uncompressing Linux done booting the kernel 10 5 Chapter Summary The Memory Technology Devices MTD subsystem provides support for memory devices such as Flash memory in the Linux kernel MTD must be enabled in your Linux kernel configuration Several figures in this chapter detailed the configuration options As part of the MTD kernel configuration the proper Flash driver s for your Flash chips must be selected Figure 10 4 presented the collection of chip drivers supported in a recent Linux kernel snapshot Your Flash memory device can be managed as a single large device or can be divided
378. l ones improves programming efficiency and prolongs the life of the Flash memory which today has limited write cycles This is done with the gap fill parameter to ob copy This is but one simple example usage of ob jcopy This utility can be used to generate s records and convert from one format to another See the man page for complete details 13 6 Miscellaneous Binary Utilities Your toolchain contains several additional useful utilities Learning to use these utilities is straightforward You will find many uses for these helpful tools 13 6 1 strip The strip utility can be used to remove symbols and debug information from a binary This is frequently used to save space on an embedded device In the cross development model it is convenient to place stripped binaries on the target system and leave the unstripped version on your development host Using this method symbols are available for cross debugging on your development host while saving space on the target strip has many options which are described in the man page 13 6 2 addr2line When we highlighted mtrace in Listing 13 12 you saw that the output from the mtrace analysis script contained file and line number information The mTRace Perl script used the addr2line utility to read the debug information contained in the executable ELF file and display a line number corresponding to the address Using the same mtrace example executable we can find a filename and li
379. le system 9 2 2 Checking File System Integrity The e2fsck command is used to check the integrity of an ext2 file system A file system can become corrupted for several reasons but by far the most common reason is an unexpected power failure or intentional power down without first closing all open files and unmounting the file systems Linux distributions perform these operations during the shutdown sequence assuming an orderly shutdown of the system However when we are dealing with embedded systems unexpected power downs are common and we need to provide some defensive measures against these cases e2fsck is our first line of defense for unexpected power down using the ext2 file system Listing 9 4 shows the output of e2fsck run on our CompactFlash from the previous examples It has been formatted and properly unmounted there should be no errors Listing 9 4 Clean File System Check e2fsck dev sdbl e2fsck 1 37 21 Mar 2005 CFlash_Boot_Vol clean 23 2880 files 483 11504 blocks The e2fsck utility checks several aspects of the file system for consistency If no issues are found e2fsck issues a message similar to that shown in Listing 9 4 Note that e2fsck should be run only on an unmounted file system Although it is possible to run it on a mounted file system doing so can cause significant damage to internal file system structures on the disk or Flash device To create a more intere
380. lity has considerable overlap with the readelf tool However one of the more useful features of objdump is its capability to display disassembled object code Listing 13 17 provides an example of disassembly of the text section of the simple hello world PowerPC version We include only the main routine to save space The entire dump including C library prologue and epilogue would consume many pages Listing 13 17 Disassembly Using objdump ppc_82xx objdump S m powerpc common j text hello 10000488 lt main gt 10000488 94 21 ff e0 stwu r1 32 rl 1000048c 7c 08 02 a6 mfir ro 10000490 93 el 00 Ic stw r31 28 r1 10000494 90 01 00 24 stw r0 36 r1 10000498 7c 3f Ob 78 mr r3lr1 1000049c 90 7f 00 08 stw r3 8 r31 100004a0 90 9f 00 Oc stw r4 12 r31 100004a4 3d 20 10 00 lis r9 4096 100004a8 38 69 08 54 addi r3 r9 2132 100004ac 4c c6 31 82 crclr 4 crlt eq 100004b0 48 01 05 11 bl 100109c0O lt __ bss_start 0x60 gt 100004b4 38 00 00 00 li r0 0 100004b8 7c 03 03 78 mr r3 r0 100004be 81 61 00 00 lwz r11 0 r1 100004c0 80 Ob 00 04 lwz r0 4 r11 100004c4 7c 08 03 a6 mtir ro 100004c8 83 eb ff fc lwz r31 4 r11 100004cc 7d 61 5b 78 mr rl r1l 100004q0 4e 80 00 20 blr Much of the code from the simple main routine is stack frame creation and destruction The actual call to printfQ is represented by the branch link bl instruction near the center o
381. loc package can be configured to generate several different libraries depending on your selections during package configuration In the examples to follow we have chosen to use the libdmalloc so shared library object Place the library or a symlink to it in a path where your compiler can find it The command to compile your application might look something like this ppc_82xx gcec g Wall o mtest_ex L dmalloc 5 4 2 ldmalloc mtest_ex c This command line assumes that you ve placed the dmalloc library libdmalloc so in a location searched by the L switch on the command linenamely the dmalloc 5 4 2 directly just above the current directory To install the dmalloc library on your target place it in your favorite location perhaps usr local lib You might need to configure your system to find this library On our example PowerPC system we added the path usr local lib to the etc 1d so conf file and invoked the ldconfig utility to update the library search cache The last step in preparation is to set an environment variable that the dmalloc library uses to determine the level of debugging that will be enabled The environment variable contains a debug bit mask that concatenates a number of features into a single convenient variable Yours might look something like this DMALLOC_OPTIONS debug 0x4f4ed03 inter 100 log dmalloc log Here debug is the debug level bit mask and inter sets an interval count a
382. lone processors refer to processor chips that are dedicated solely to the processing function As opposed to integrated processors stand alone processors require additional support circuitry for their basic operation In many cases this means a chipset or custom logic surrounding the processor to handle functions such as DRAM controller system bus addressing configuration and external peripheral devices such as keyboard controllers and serial ports Stand alone processors often offer the highest overall CPU performance Numerous processors exist in both 32 bit and 64 bit implementations that have seen widespread use in embedded systems These include the IBM PowerPC 970FX the Intel Pentium M and the Freescale MPC74xx Host Processors among others la 32 bit and 64 bit refer to the native width of the processor s main facilities such as its execution units register file and address bus Here we present a sample from each of the major manufactures of stand alone processors These processors are well supported under Linux and have been used in many embedded Linux designs 3 1 1 IBM 970FX The IBM 970FX processor core is a high performance 64 bit capable stand alone processor The 970FX is a superscalar architecture This means the core is capable of fetching issuing and obtaining results from more than one instruction at a time This is done through a pipelining architecture which provides the effect of multiple streams of instructi
383. lt and as mentioned elsewhere it is a very useful development configuration However a set of details must be correct before it will work The steps required are as follows l Configure your NFS server and export a proper target file system for your architecture 2 Configure your target kernel with NFS client services and root file system on NFS Enable kernel level autoconfiguration of your target s Ethernet interface Provide your target Ethernet IP configuration via the kernel command line or static kernel configuration option 5 Provide a kernel command line enabled for NFS We presented the kernel configuration in Figure 12 2 when we explained the NFS server configuration You must make sure that your target kernel configuration has NFS client services enabled and in particular you must enable the option for Root file system on NFS Specifically make sure that your kernel has CONFIG NFS _FS y and CONFIG ROOT _NFS y Obviously you cannot configure NFS as loadable modules if you intend to boot NFS root mount Kernel level autoconfiguration is a TCP IP configuration option found under the Networking tab in the kernel configuration utility Enable CONFIG_IP_PNP on your target kernel When selected you are presented with several options for automatic configuration Select either BOOTP or DHCP as described earlier Figure 12 3 illustrates the kernel configuration for kernel level autoconfiguration Figure 12 3 Ker
384. lt by default Notice the numerous default configurations listed as Recall from Section 4 2 2 Compiling the Kernel the command we used to preconfigure a pristine kernel source tree We invoked make with an architecture 4 3 4 Kernel Configuration Keonfig or a file with a similar root followed by an extension such as Kconfig ext exists in almost 300 kernel subdirectories Kconfig drives the configuration process for the features contained within its subdirectory The contents of Kconfig are parsed by the configuration subsystem which presents configuration choices to the user and contains help text associated with a given configuration parameter The configuration utility such as gconf presented earlier reads the Kconfig files starting from the arch subdirectory s Kconfig file It is invoked from the Kconfig makefile with an entry that looks like this gconfig obj gconf lt arch ARCH Kconfig Depending on which architecture you are building gconf reads this architecture specific Kconfig as the top level configuration definition Contained within Kconfig are a number of lines that look like this source drivers pci Kconfig This directive tells the configuration editor utility to read in another Kconfig file from another location within the kernel source tree Each architecture contains many such Kconfig files taken together these determine the complete set of menu options presented to the user when
385. ludes by examining what is required for a complete embedded Linux system 4 1 Background Linus Torvalds wrote the original version of Linux while he was a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland His work began in 1991 In August of that year Linus posted this now famous announcement on comp os minix From torvalds klaava Helsinki FI Linus Benedict Torvalds Newsgroups comp os minix Subject What would you like to see most in minix Summary small poll for my new operating system Message ID lt 1991Aug25 205708 9541 klaava Helsinki FI gt Date 25 Aug 91 20 57 08 GMT Organization University of Helsinki Hello everybody out there using minix I m doing a free operating system just a hobby won t be big and professional like gnu for 386 486 AT clones This has been brewing since april and is starting to get ready I d like any feedback on things people like dislike in minix as my OS resembles it somewhat same physical layout of the file system due to practical reasons among other things I ve currently ported bash 08 and gcc 1 40 and things seem to work This implies that I ll get something practical within a few months and I d like to know what features most people would want Any suggestions are welcome but I won t promise I ll implement them Linus torvalds kruuna helsinki fi PS Yes it s free of any minix code and it has a multi threaded fs It is NOT protable uses 386 tas
386. ly recharged to maintain their value This is referred to as SDRAM refresh A refresh cycle is a special memory cycle that neither reads nor writes data to the memory It simply performs the required refresh cycle One of the primary responsibilities of an SDRAM controller is to guarantee that refresh cycles are issued in time to meet the chip s requirements The chip manufacturers specify minimum refresh intervals and it is the designer s job to guarantee it Usually the SDRAM controller can be configured directly to select the refresh interval The PowerPC 405GP presented here has a register specifically for this purpose We will see this shortly D 2 Clocking The term synchronous implies that the data read and write cycles of an SDRAM device coincide with the clock signal from the CPU SDR SDRAM is read and written on each SDRAM clock cycle DDR SDRAM is read and written twice on each clock cycle once on the rising edge of the clock and once on the falling edge Modern processors have complex clocking subsystems Many have multiple clock rates that are used for different parts of the system A typical processor uses a relatively low frequency crystal generated clock source for its primary clock signal A phase locked loop internal to the processor generates the CPU s primary clock the clock rate we speak of when comparing processor speeds Because the CPU typically runs much faster than the memory subsystem the processor ge
387. ly has a favorite invocation One particularly useful general purpose invocation is ps aux This displays every process on the system Listing 13 9 is an example from a running embedded target board Listing 13 9 Process Listing ps aux USER PID CPU MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 1 0 0 0 8 1416 508 S 00 00 0 00 init 3 root 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 S lt 00 00 0 00 ksoftirqd 0 root 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 S lt 00 00 0 00 desched 0 root 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 S lt 00 00 0 00 events 0 root 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 S lt 00 00 0 00 khelper root 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 S lt 00 00 0 00 kthread root 21 0 0 0 0 0 0 S lt 00 00 0 00 kblockd 0 root 62 0 0 0 0 0 0 S 00 00 0 00 pdf1ush root 63 0 0 0 0 root 65 0 0 0 0 root 36 0 0 0 0 root 64 0 0 0 0 root 617 0 0 0 0 root 638 0 0 0 0 bin 834 0 0 0 7 root 861 0 0 0 0 root 868 0 0 0 9 root 876 0 0 0 7 root 884 0 0 1 1 usr sbin rpc statd root 896 0 0 0 9 root 909 0 0 22 telnetd 9538 0 3 1 1 root 954 0 2 2 1 root 960 0 0 1 2 O QO OC oO 1568 0 1488 1416 1660 1668 2412 1736 2384 2312 0 0 0 0 0 0 444 0 596 456 700 584 1372 732 S S lt S S S S Ss S Ss Ss Ss Ss Ss S 1348 pts 0 Ss 772 pts 0 R 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 58 05 58 05 59 pdflush aio 0 0 00 kapmd 0 00 kswapd0 0 00 mtdblockd 0 00 rpci
388. m counter at each library call which can be helpful in understanding your application s program flow As with strace you can use c to accumulate and report count error and time statistics making a useful simple profiling tool Listing 13 8 displays the results of our simple example program using the c option Listing 13 8 Profiling Using ltrace Itrace c example SHOME home chris time seconds usecs call calls function 24 16 0 000231 231 l printf 16 53 0 000158 158 1 fclose 16 00 0 000153 153 1 fopen 13 70 0 000131 131 1 malloc 10 67 0 000102 102 1 remove 9 31 0 000089 89 1 fprintf 3 35 0 000032 32 1 getenv 3 14 0 000030 30 1 free 3 14 0 000030 30 1 strncpy 100 00 0 000956 9 total The ltrace tool is available only for programs that have been compiled to use dynamically linked shared library objects This is the usual default so unless you explicitly specify static when compiling you can use ltrace on the resulting binary Again similar to strace you must use an ltrace binary that has been compiled for your target architecture These utilities are run on the target not the host development system 13 4 4 ps With the possible exception of strace and ltrace no tools are more often neglected by the embedded systems developer than top and ps Given the myriad options available for each utility we could easily devote an entire chapter to these useful system profiling tools
389. mable timers e JTAG interface for debugging This is indeed a complete system on chip SOC Figure 3 2 is a block diagram of the AMCC PowerPC 440EP Embedded Processor With the addition of memory chips and physical I O hardware a complete high end embedded system can be built around this integrated microprocessor with minimal interface circuitry required Figure 3 2 AMCC PPC 440EP Embedded Processor Courtesy AMCC Corporation View full size image Bees EB var sa Bridge External cee Ban Peripheral OPB i Controler Badge m PLB3 64 Bit p LMA Controller I Many manufacturers offer reference hardware platforms to enable a developer to explore the capabilities of the processor or other hardware The examples later in this book Chapters 14 Kernel Debugging Techniques and 15 Debugging Embedded Linux Applications were executed on the AMCC Yosemite board which is the company s reference platform containing the 440EP shown in Figure 3 2 Numerous product configurations are available with PowerPC processors As demonstrated in Figure 3 2 the AMCC 440EP contains sufficient I O interfaces for many common products with very little additional circuitry Because this processor contains an integrated floating point unit FPU it is ideally suited for products such as network attached imaging systems general industrial control and networking equipment AMCC s PowerPC product lineup incl
390. manufacturers data sheets on SDRAM devices contain helpful technical descriptions You are urged to familiarize yourself with the content of these data sheets You don t need a degree in hardware engineering to understand what must be done to properly configure your SDRAM subsystem but you need to invest in some level of understanding Here we examine how the SDRAM controller is configured on the 405GP processor as configured by the U Boot bootloader we covered in Chapter 7 Bootloaders Recall from Chapter 7 that U Boot provides a hook for SDRAM initialization from the assembly language startup code found in start S in the 4xx specific cpu directory Refer back to Section 7 4 4 Board Specific Initialization in Chapter 7 Listing D 1 reproduces the sdram_init function from U Boot s cpu ppc4xx sdram c file Listing D ppc4xx sdram_init from U Boot 01 void sdram_init void 02 03 ulong sdtrl 04 ulong rtr 05 06 O7 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 J5 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 int i Vii Support for 100MHz and 133MHz SDRAM 7 if get_bus_freq 0 gt 100000000 J 133 MHz SDRAM Y sdtrl 0x01074015 rtr 0x07f00000 else Vig default 100 MHz SDRAM s sdtrl 0x0086400d rtr 0x05f00000 for i 0 i lt N_MBOCF i 25 26 27 28 29 30
391. mmarized here in Table B 1 from a recent U Boot snapshot In addition to these are a large number of nonstandard commands some of which depend on specific hardware or are experimental For the complete and up to date listing consult the source code The commands are defined in the include cmd_confdefs h header file from the top level U Boot source directory Table B 1 U Boot Configurable Commands Command Set Commands CFG_CMD_BDI bdinfo CFG_CMD_LOADS loads CFG_CMD_LOADB loadb Table B l U Boot Configurable Commands Command Set CFG_CMD_IMI CFG_CMD_CACHE CFG_CMD_FLASH CFG_CMD_MEMORY CFG_CMD_NET CFG_CMD_ENV CFG_CMD_KGDB CFG_CMD_PCMCIA CFG_CMD_IDE CFG_CMD_PCI CFG_CMD_IRQ CFG_CMD_BOOTD CFG_CMD_CONSOLE CFG_CMD_EEPROM CFG_CMD_ASKENV CFG_CMD_RUN CFG_CMD_ECHO CFG_CMD_I2C CFG_CMD_REGINFO CFG_CMD_IMMAP CFG_CMD_DATE CFG_CMD_DHCP CFG_CMD_BEDBUG CFG_CMD_FDC CFG_CMD_SCSI CFG_CMD_AUTOSCRI PT CFG_CMD_MII Commands iminfo icache dcache flinfo erase protect md mm nm mw cp cmp crc base loop mtest bootp tftpboot rarpboot saveenv kgdb PCMCIA support IDE hard disk support pciinfo irqinfo bootd coninfo EEPROM read write support ask for environment variable run command in environment variable echo arguments T2C serial bus support Register dump IMMR dump support Support for RTC date time and so on DHCP support Includes BedBug debugger Floppy disk support SCSI support
392. modification by an additional link stage This absolute symbol indicates the start of the bss section and is used by the code that clears the bss on startup as required for a C execution environment 13 6 6 prelink The prelink utility is often used in systems in which startup time is important A dynamically linked ELF executable must be linked at runtime when the program is first loaded This can take significant time in a large application prelink prepares the shared libraries and the object files that depend on them to provide a priori knowledge of the unresolved library references In effect this can reduce the startup time of a given application The man page has complete details on the use of this handy utility 13 7 Chapter Summary e The GNU Debugger GDB is a complex and powerful debugger with many capabilities We presented the basics to get you started e The DDD graphical front end for GDB integrates source code and data display with the power of GDB command line interface capabilities e cbrowser is a useful aid for understanding large projects It uses the cscope database to rapidly find and display symbols and other elements of C source code e Linux is supported by many profiling and trace tools We presented several including strace ltrace top and ps and the memory profilers mtrace and dmaltloc e Embedded developers often need to build custom images such as those required for bootloaders and firmware images
393. mpile time type checking In many areas within the Linux kernel single stepping through code is difficult or impossible The most obvious examples are code paths that modify the virtual memory settings When your application makes a system call that results in entry into the kernel this results in a change in address space as seen by the process In fact any transition that involves a processor exception changes the operational context and can be difficult or impossible to single step through 14 2 Using KGDB for Kernel Debugging Two popular methods enable symbolic source level debugging within the Linux kernel e Using KGDB as a remote gdb agent e Using a hardware JTAG probe to control the processor We cover JTAG debugging in Section 14 4 Hardware Assisted Debugging KGDB Kernel GDB is a set of Linux kernel patches that provide an interface to gdb via its remote serial protocol KGDB implements a gdb stub that communicates to a cross gdb running on your host development workstation Until very recently KGDB on the target required a serial connection to the development host Some targets support KGDB connection via Ethernet although this is relatively new Complete support for KGDB is still not in the mainline kernel org kernel You need to port KGDB to your chosen target or obtain an embedded Linux distribution for your chosen architecture and platform that contains KGDB support Most embedded Linux distributions availabl
394. mvl1td OxOFF66C7C OxCFEF7CEO ttySl getty OxOFF4B85C OxCF6EBCEO none in telnetd OxOFEB6950 OxCF675DB0 ttypO bash OxOFF6EB6C OxCF7C3870 ttypO sync The bulk of the work done by this ps macro is performed by the task_struct_show macro As shown in Listing 14 13 the task_struct_show macro displays the following fields from each task_struct e Address Address of the task_struct for the process e PID Process ID e State Current state of the process e User_NIP Userspace Next Instruction Pointer e Kernel _SP Kernel Stack Pointer e device Device associated with this process e comm Name of the process or command It is relatively easy to modify the macro to show the items of interest for your particular kernel debugging task The only complexity is in the simplicity of the macro language Because function equivalents such as strlen do not exist in gdb s user defined command language screen formatting must be done by hand Listing 14 14 reproduces the task_struct_show macro that produced the previous listing Listing 14 14 gdb task_struct_show Macro 1 define task_struct_show 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ll 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 task_struct addr and PID printf Ox 08X 5d Sarg0 arg0 gt pid Place a lt marker on the current task if argO current For PowerPC register r2 points to the
395. n routine simply waits for keyboard input to terminate the application Each thread displays a short message on the screen and sleeps for a predetermined time Listing 15 14 shows the startup sequence on the target board Listing 15 14 Target Threads Demo Startup root coyote workspace gdbserver localhost 2001 tdemo Process tdemo created pid 671 Listening on port 2001 Remote debugging from host 192 168 1 10 AAARKAKAKR Previous three lines displayed by gdbserver tdemo main entered My pid is 671 Starting worker thread 0 Starting worker thread 1 Starting worker thread 2 Starting worker thread 3 As in our previous examples gdbserver prepares the application for running and waits for a connection from our host based cross gdb When GDB connects gdbserver reports the connection with the Remote debugging message Now we start GDB on the host and connect Listing 15 15 reproduces this half of the session Listing 15 15 Host GDB Connecting to Target Threads Demo xscale_be gdb q tdemo gdb target remote 192 168 1 141 2001 0x40000790 in O gdb b tdemo c 97 Breakpoint 1 at Ox88ec file tdemo c line 97 gdb c Continuing New Thread 1059 New Thread 1060 New Thread 1061 New Thread 1062 New Thread 1063 Switching to Thread 1059 Breakpoint 1 main argc O0xl argv Oxbefffdd4 at tdemo c 98 98 int c getchar Q gdb H
396. n execute busybox with one of the defined functions passed on the command line Thus to display a listing of files in the current directory execute this command root coyotel busybox 1s Another important message from the BusyBox usage message in Listing 11 3 is the short description of the program It describes BusyBox as a multicall binary combining many common utilities into a single executable This is the purpose of the symlinks mentioned earlier BusyBox was intended to be invoked by a symlink named for the function it will perform This removes the burden of having to type a two word command to invoke a given function and it presents the user with a set of familiar commands for the similarly named utilities Listings 11 4 and l1 5_ should make this clear Listing 11 4 BusyBox Symlink StructureTop Level root coyote 1s 1 total 12 drwxrwxr x 2 root root 4096 Dec 3 13 38 bin lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root ll Dec 3 13 38 linuxre gt bin busybox drwxrwxr x 2 root root 4096 Dec 3 13 38 sbin drwxrwxr x 4 root root 4096 Dec 3 13 38 usr Listing 11 4 shows the target directory structure as built by the BusyBox package via the make install command The executable busybox file is found in the bin directory and symlinks have been populated throughout the rest of the structure pointing back to bin busybox Listing 11 5 expands on the directory structure of Listing 11 4 Listing 11 5 BusyBox Symlink St
397. n Listing 4 2 for clarity This particular build has more than 900 individual compile and link commands in the build That would have made for a long listing indeed After all the intermediate files and library archives have been built and compiled they are put together in one large ELF build target called vmlinux Although it is architecture specific this vmlinux target is a common targetit is produced for all supported Linux architectures 4 2 3 The Kernel Proper vmlinux Notice this line in Listing 4 2 LD arch arm boot compressed vmlinux The vmlinux file is the actual kernel proper It is a fully stand alone monolithic image No unresolved external references exist within the vmlinux binary When caused to execute in the proper context by a bootloader designed to boot the Linux kernel it boots the board on which it is running leaving a completely functional kernel In keeping with the philosophy that to understand a system one must first understand its parts let s look at the construction of the vmlinux kernel object Listing 4 3 reproduces the actual link stage of the build process that resulted in the vmlinux ELF object We have formatted it with line breaks indicated by the UNIX line continuation character to make it more readable but otherwise it is the exact output produced by the vmlinux link step in the build process from Listing 4 2 If you were building the kernel by hand this is the link command you would i
398. n in the boot process this processing is done 5 4 Subsystem Initialization Many kernel subsystems are initialized by the code found in main c Some are initialized explicitly as with the calls to init_timers and console_initQ which need to be called very early Others are initialized using a technique very similar to that described earlier for the __setup macro In short the linker builds lists of function pointers to various initialization routines and a simple loop is used to execute each in turn Listing 5 7 shows how this works Listing 5 7 Example Initialization Routine static int __init customize_machine void customizes platform devices or adds new ones if 4nit_machine init _machine Q return 0 arch_initcall customize_machine This code snippet comes from arch arm kernel setup c It is a simple routine designed to provide a customization hook for a particular board 5 4 1 The __initcall Macros Notice two important things about the initialization routine in Listing 5 7 First it is defined with the __init macro As we saw earlier this macro applies the section attribute to declare that this function gets placed into a section called lt init text in the vmlinux ELF file Recall that the purpose of placing this function into a special section of the object file is so the memory space that it occupies can be reclaimed when it is no longer needed The second thing to
399. n see the definitions for the CPU CPU family 4xx PLL clock frequency serial port baud rate and PCI support We have included examples of configuration variables CONFIG_XXX and configuration settings CFG_XXX The last few lines are actual processor register values required to initialize the external bus controller for memory banks O and 1 You can see that these values can come only from a detailed knowledge of the board and processor Many aspects of U Boot can be configured using these mechanisms including what functionality will be compiled into U Boot support for DHCP memory tests debugging support and so on This mechanism can be used to tell U Boot how much and what kind of memory is on a given board and where that memory is mapped The interested reader can learn much more by looking at the U Boot code directly especially the excellent README file 7 3 2 U Boot Command Sets U Boot supports more than 60 standard command sets that enable more than 150 unique commands using CFG_ macros A command set is enabled in U Boot through the use of configuration setting CFG_ macros For a complete list from a recent U Boot snapshot consult Appendix B U Boot Configurable Commands Here are just a few to give you an idea of the capabilities available Command Set Commands CFG_CMD_FLAS Flash memory commands H CFG_CMD_MEMO Memory dump fill copy compare and so on RY CFG_CMD_DHCP DHCP Support CFG_CMD_PING Ping
400. n to be available Figure 13 4 shows the configuration options under the General Setup main menu Figure 13 4 Symbol support for oops View full size image File Options Help B ol Il E Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand Name gt y Configure standard kemel features for small systems EMBEDDED S Load all symbols for debugging kksymoops KALLSYMS C Include all symbols in kallsyms KALLSYMS_ALL C Do an extra kallsyms pass KALLSYMS_EXTRA_PASS Load all symbols for debugging kksymoops KALLSYMS Say Y here to let the kernel print out symbolic crash information and symbolic stack backtraces This increases the size of the kemel somewhat as all symbols have to be loaded into the kernel image Much of the information in a kernel oops message is directly related to the processor Having some knowledge of the underlying architecture is necessary to fully understand the oops message Analyzing the oops in Listing 13 14 we see right away that the oops was generated due to a kernel access of bad area sig 11 We already know from previous examples in this chapter that signal ll is a segmentation fault The first section is a summary showing the reason for the oops a few important pointers and the offending task In Listing 13 14 NIP is the next instruction pointer which is decoded later in the oops message This points to the offending code that led to the oops LR is a PowerPC re
401. nd the new Kbuild system to be a huge improvement We limit our discussion in this section to this and later kernel versions based on Kbuild ls Not all these makefiles are directly involved in building the kernel Some for example build documentation files 4 3 1 The Dot Config Introduced earlier the dot config file is the configuration blueprint for building a Linux kernel image You will likely spend significant effort at the start of your Linux project building a configuration that is appropriate for your embedded platform Several editors both text based and graphical are designed to edit your kernel configuration The output of this configuration exercise is written to a configuration file named config located in the top level Linux source directory that drives the kernel build You have likely invested significant time perfecting your kernel configuration so you will want to protect it Several make commands delete this configuration file without warning The most common is make mrproper This make target is designed to return the kernel source tree to its pristine unconfigured state This includes removing all configuration data from the source treeand yes it deletes your config As you might know any filename in Linux preceded by a dot is a hidden file in Linux It is unfortunate that such an important file is marked hidden this has brought considerable grief to more than one developer If you execute make mrproper
402. ne For example the command to start NFS services from a root command prompt for a Fedora Core 2 Linux desktop is as follows etc init d nfs start or restart You must do this each time you start your desktop Linux workstation This and other services can be started automatically on bootingconsult the documentation for your desktop Linux distribution In addition to enabling the service your kernel must be compiled with support for NFS Although DHCP and TFTP are both user space utilities NFS requires kernel support This is true on both your development workstation and your target board Figure 12 2 illustrates the configuration options for NFS in the kernel Notice that there are configuration options for both NFS server and client support Note also the option for root file system on NFS Your target kernel must have this option configured for NFS root mount operation Figure 12 2 NFS kernel configuration View full size image Eile Options Help SB I Il E Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand Options Network File Systems v V NES file system support b X Provide NFSv3 client support CI Provide NFSv4 client support EXPERIMENTAL C Allow direct I O on NFS files EXPERIMENTAL 2 NFS server suppor C Provide NFSv3 server support NEW Provide NFS server over TCP suppor NEW Root file system on NFS fo eee me NFS server support NFSD The NFS server gets its instruction
403. ne number for a virtual address addr2line f e mt_ex Ox80487c6 put_data home chris examples mt_ex c 64 Notice that the function put_dataQ is also listed together with the file and line number This says that the address Ox80487c6 is on line 64 of the mt_ex c file in the put_data Q function This is even more useful in larger binaries consisting of multiple filenames such as the Linux kernel ppc_82xx addr2line f e vmlinux c000d95c mpc5S2xx_restart arch ppc syslib mpc52xx_setup c 41 This particular example highlights one of the points repeated throughout this chapter This is an architecture specific tool You must use a tool configured and compiled to match the architecture of the target binary that you are using As with the cross compiler addr2line is a cross tool and part of the binary utilities package 13 6 3 strings The strings utility examines ASCII string data in binary files This is especially useful for examining memory dumps when source code or debug symbols might not be available You might often discover that you can narrow the cause of a crash by tracing the strings back to the offending binary Although strings does have a few command line options it is easy to learn and use See the man page for further details 13 6 4 idd Although not strictly a binary utility the ldd script is another useful tool for the embedded developer It is part of the C library package and exists on virtually
404. nel level autoconfiguration View full size image File Options Help 9B O lle Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand C v x Networking support NET v Networking options b Packet socket PACKET Unix domain sockets UNIX CI PF_KEY sockets NET_KEY v TCP IP networking INET C IP multicasting IP_MULTICAST C IP advanced router IP_ADVANCED_ROUTER z IP kernel level autoconfiguration IP_PNP IP DHCP support IP_PNP_DHCP IP BOOTP support IP_PNP_BOOTP O IP RARP support IP_PNP_RARP g DIE Eee IP kernel level autoconfiguration IP_PNP gt When your server and target kernel are configured you need to provide your target Ethernet configuration via one of the methods described earlier If your bootloader supports a kernel command line that is the easiest method Here is what a kernel command line might look like to support NFS root mount console ttyS0 115200 root dev nfs rw ip dhcp nf sroot 192 168 1 9 home chris sandbox pdna target 12 3 5 U Boot NFS Root Mount Example U Boot is a good example of a bootloader that supports a configurable kernel command line Using U Boot s nonvolatile environment feature we can store our kernel command line in a parameter specially named for this purpose To enable the NFS command line in U Boot we do the following all on one line in our serial terminal setenv bootargs console ttyS0 115200 root dev nfs rw ip dhcp nfsroot 192 168 1 9
405. nel so that it knows where to look for the NFS server Several methods can be used for this and some depend on the chosen target architecture and choice of bootloader At a minimum the kernel can be passed the proper parameters on the kernel command line to configure its IP port and server information on power up A typical kernel command line might look like this console ttyS0 115200 ip bootp root dev nfs This tells the kernel to expect a root file system via NFS and to obtain the relevant parameters server name server IP address and root directory to mount from a BOOTP server This is a common and tremendously useful configuration during the development phase of a project If you are statically configuring your target s IP address your kernel command line might look like this console ttyS0 115200 ip 192 168 1 139 192 168 1 1 192 168 1 1 255 255 255 0 coyotel eth0 off nfsroot 192 168 1 1 home chris sandbox coyote target root dev nfs Of course this would all be on one line The ip parameter is defined in net ipv4 ipconfig c and has the following syntax all on one line ip lt client ip gt lt server ip gt lt gw ip gt lt netmask gt lt hostname gt lt device gt lt PROTO gt Here client ip is the target s IP address server ip is the address of the NFS server gw ip is the gateway router in case the server ip is on a different subnet and netmask defines the class of IP addressing hostname i
406. nel will halt displaying the message passed in the panic system call If you have been working with embedded systems for any length of time and especially if you have experience working on root file systems you are more than familiar with this kernel panic and its message If you search on Google for this panicQ error message you will find page after page of hits for this FAQ When you complete this chapter you will be an expert at troubleshooting this common failure al In actuality modern Linux kernels create a userspace like environment earlier in the boot sequence for specialized activities which are beyond the scope of this book Notice a key ingredient of these processes They are all programs that are expected to reside on a root file system that has a similar structure to that presented in Listing 6 1 Therefore we know that we must at least satisfy the kernel s requirement for an init process that is capable of executing within its own environment In looking at Listing 6 2 this means that at least one of the run_init_process function calls must succeed You can see that the kernel tries to execute one of four programs in the order in which they are encountered As you can see from the listing if none of these four programs succeeds the booting kernel issues the dreaded panic function call and dies right there Remember this snippet of code from init main c is executed only once on bootup If it does not succe
407. nerates a submultiple of the main CPU clock to feed to the SDRAM subsystem You need to configure this clocking ratio for your particular CPU and SDRAM combination The processor and memory subsystem clocks must be correctly configured for your SDRAM to work properly Your processor manual contains a section on clock setup and management and you must consult this to properly set up your particular board design The AMCC 405GP is typical of processors of its feature set It takes a single crystal generated clock input source and generates several internal and external clocks required of its subsystems It generates clocks for the CPU PCI interface Onboard Peripheral Bus OPB Processor Local Bus PLB Memory Clock MemC1k and several internal clocks for peripherals such as timer and UART blocks A typical configuration might look like those in Table D l Table D 1 Typical PPC405GP Clock Configuration Clock Rate Comments Crystal 33MHz Fundamental reference supplied to processor reference CPU clock 133MHz Derived from processor s internal PLL controlled by hardware pin strapping and register settings PLB clock 66MHz Derived from CPU clock and configured via hardware pin strapping and register settings Used for internal processor local bus data interchange among its high speed modules OPB clock 66MHz Derived from PLB clock and configured via register settings Used for internal connection of peripherals that do not ne
408. nfigured There should be a linker cache produced by running ldconfig The linker cache substantially speeds up searching for shared library references This was subsequently resolved by running ldconfig on the target Down through line 19 is more basic housekeeping mostly by the loader and libc initializing Notice in line 20 that the program is looking for a configuration file but did not find one That could be an important issue when we get the software running Starting with line 24 the program begins to set up and configure the appropriate networking resources that it needs Lines 24 through 29 open and read a Linux system file containing instructions for the DNS service to resolve hostnames Local network configuration activity continues through line 81l Most of this activity consists of network setup and configuration necessary to build the networking infrastructure for the program itself This portion of the listing has been removed for brevity and clarity Notice especially the network activity starting with line 82 Here we have the program trying to establish a TCP IP connection to an IP address of all zeros Line 82 is reproduced here for convenience socket PF_INET SOCK_DGRAM IPPROTO_IP 3 A couple points about Listing 13 5 are worth noting We might not know all the details of every system call but we can get a general idea of what is happening The socket system call is similar to a file system open call The retu
409. nform gdb of this addressing scheme to be able to use symbolic data for debugging the initialization function Listing 14 19 demonstrates these steps a As of this writing there is a bug in gdb that prevents this technique from working properly Hopefully by the time you read this it will be fixed Listing 14 19 Debugging Module init Code ppc_4xx gdb slient vmlinux gdb target remote dev ttyS0 Remote debugging using dev ttyS0 breakinst at arch ppc kernel ppc stub c 825 825 lt lt Place a breakpoint before calling module init gt gt gdb b module c 1907 Breakpoint 1 at 0xc0036418 file kernel module c line 1907 gdb c Continuing Breakpoint l sys_init_module umod 0xdl02ef40 len 0x23cb3 uargs 0x10016338 ia at kernel module c 1907 1907 ret mod gt initQ lt lt Discover init addressing from struct module gt gt gdb 1smod Address Module OxD102EF40 loop gdb set m struct module OxD102EF40 gdb p m gt module_core 1 void Oxd102b000 gdb p m gt module_init 2 void Oxd1031000 lt lt Now load a symbol file using the core and init addrs gt gt gdb add symbol file drivers block loop ko Oxdl02b000 s init text 0Oxd1031000 add symbol table from file drivers block loop ko at text_addr 0xd102b000 init text_addr 0xd1031000 y or n y Reading symbols from home chris sandbox linux 2 6 13 amcc drivers
410. ng the list command it would not be difficult to trace the code back to the source of the errant null pointer In fact the astute reader will notice the source of the segmentation fault we have produced for this example From Listing 13 3 we see that the check of the return value in the call to malloc has been commented out In this example the malloc call failed leading to the operation on a null pointer two frames later in the call chain Although this example is both contrived and trivial many crashes of this type are remarkably easy to track down using a similar method with GDB and core dumps You can also see the null pointer by looking at the parameter values in the function call This often leads you directly to the frame where the null pointer originated 13 1 3 Debug Session in GDB We conclude this introduction to GDB by showing a typical debug session In the previous demonstration of a program crash we could have elected to step through the code to narrow down the cause of the failure Of course if you get a core dump you should always start there However in other situations you might want to set breakpoints and step through running code Listing 13 4 details how we start GDB in preparation for a debug session Note that the program must have been compiled with the debug flag enabled in the gcc command line for GDB to be useful in this context Refer back to Figure 12 1 in Chapter 12 Embedded Development Environment th
411. nk configured by this register There are BE four of these memory bank configuration registers in the 405GP The values in this table must be determined by the designer based on the choice of memory module in use on the board Let s look at a timing example for more detail on the timing requirements of a typical SDRAM controller Assuming a 100MHz SDRAM clock speed and 64MB memory size the timing constants selected by the sdram_initQ function in Listing D 1 are selected as follows SDRAM Timing Register Refresh Timing Register 0x0086400d 0x05f00000 The PowerPC 405GP User s Manual describes the fields in Table D 3 for the SDRAM Timing Register Table D 3 405GP SDRAM Timing Register Fields Valu Field e CAS Latency Ox CASL Precharge Oxl Command to Next Activate PTA Read Write to 0x2 Precharge Command Minimum CTP SDRAM Command Oxl Comments SDRAM CAS Latency This value comes directly from the SDRAM chip specifications It is the delay in clock cycles required by the chip between issuance of the read command CAS signal until the data is available on the data bus In this case the Oxl represents two clock cycles as seen from the 405GP user s manual The SDRAM Precharge command deactivates a given row In contrast the Activate command enables a given row for subsequent access such as during a burst cycle This timing parameter enforces the minimum time between Precharge to a subse
412. not defined in this file If we omit the include directive containing the prototype for the printfQ function the compiler emits the familiar message hello c 5 warning implicit declaration of function printf This introduces some interesting questions e Where is the file stdio h located and how is it found e Where does the printfQ function live and how is this reference resolved in the binary executable Somehow it seems that the compiler just knows how to put together a proper binary file that is executable from the command line To further complicate matters the final executable contains startup and shutdown prologue code that we never see but that the linker automatically includes This prologue deals with details such as the environment and arguments passed to your program startup and shutdown housekeeping exit handling and more To build the hello world application we can use a simple command line invocation of the compiler similar to this gcc o hello hello c This produces the binary executable file called hello which we can execute directly from the command line Defaults referenced by the compiler provide guidance on where include files will be found In a similar fashion the linker knows how to resolve the reference to the printfQ function by including a reference to the library where it is defined This of course is the standard C library We can query the toolchain to see some of the defa
413. note gnu arm ide NOTE debug_ranges shstrtab symtab strtab Key to Flags W write A alloc X execute M merge S strings I Gnfo L link order G group x unknown O extra OS processing required o OS specific p processor specific PROGBITS STRTAB SYMTAB STRTAB 00008888 000888 000211 00 00008a9a 000a9a 00008b28 000b28 00008b48 000b48 00008d60 000d60 00008d78 000d78 000090b0 0010b0 00023094 01b094 000230b0 01b0b0 00025480 01d480 00025480 01d480 00008c 02 000020 00 000218 08 000018 00 000338 04 019fe4 00 000018 00 0023d0 00 000000 00 000008 00 00025488 01d488 00002c 00 000254b4 Old4b4 O00007c 00 0002d530 01d530 000004 00 0002d534 01d534 000004 00 0002d538 01d538 000004 00 0002d53c Old53c 0000d0 08 0002d60c O1d60c 000118 04 0002d728 01d728 0003c0 00 0002dae8 Oldae8 O0001c8 00 00000000 Oldae8 amp 000940 00 00000000 01e428 0004a0 00 00000000 Ole amp c8 OOlaae 00 00000000 020376 013d27 00 00000000 03409d 002ede 00 00000000 O36f7b 0034a2 00 00000000 03a420 003380 00 00000000 03d7a0 000679 00 00000000 O3del9 0000lc 00 00000000 O03de35 000018 00 00000000 O3de4d 000183 00 00000000 O3e5e8 004bd0 10 00000000 0431b8 0021bf 00 gt gt gt gt AX AX AX AX AL WA WA WA WA WA WA WA O o CoO CO OWN oa o mE I O OO CO OOo O 12 o PoP OO O 2 DY Nes OD Do COP oO CeO eo He Dao COP CSC Oa Co oO Oo 0 38 O 0 ennaa mee EP or Fo FF p Ap A
414. ns is exposed Because we know that U Boot is currently running in Flash but is about to move itself to RAM and jump to its RAM based copy we must still use a hardware breakpoint Consider what happens at this point if we use a software breakpoint gdb dutifully writes the breakpoint opcode into the specified memory location but U Boot overwrites it when it copies itself to RAM The net result is that the breakpoint is never hit and we begin to suspect that our tools are broken After U Boot has entered the RAM copy and our symbol table has been updated to reflect the RAM based addresses we are free to use RAM based breakpoints This is reflected by the last command in Listing 14 21 setting the Abatron unit back to soft breakpoint mode Why do we care about using hardware versus software breakpoints If we had unlimited hardware breakpoint registers we wouldn t But this is never the case Here is what it looks like when you run out of processor supported hardware breakpoint registers during a debug session gdb b flash_init Breakpoint 3 at Ox7fbebeO file flash c line 70 gdb c Continuing warning Cannot insert breakpoint 3 Error accessing memory address Ox7fbebeO Unknown error 4294967295 Because we are debugging remotely we aren t told about the resource constraint until we try to resume after entering additional breakpoints This is because of the way gdb handles breakpoints When a breakpoint is hit gdb rest
415. nsight into how to customize for your particular set of requirements We found the kernel entry point in head o and followed the flow of control into the first kernel C file main c We looked at a booting system and the messages it produced along with an overview of many of the important initialization concepts The kernel command line processing and the mechanisms used to declare and process kernel command line parameters was presented This included a detailed look at some advanced coding techniques for calling arbitrary unknown setup routines using linker produced tables The final kernel boots steps produce the first userspace processes Understanding this mechanism and its options will enable you to customize and troubleshoot embedded Linux startup issues Suggestions for Additional Reading GNU Compiler Collection documentation http u r u cc gnu org onlinedocs gcc Especially the sections on function attributes type attributes and variable attributes Using LD the GNU linker http www gnu org software binutils manual 1d 2 9 1 1d htm1 Kernel documentation Documentation kernel parameters txt Chapter 6 System Initialization In this chapter Root File System page 130 Kernel s Last Boot Steps page 136 The Init Process page 139 Initial RAM Disk page 145 Using initramfs page 152 e Shutdown page 153 e Chapter Summary page 154 In Chapter 2 Your First Embedded Experien
416. nts Cisco s Scientific Atlanta a leading manufacturer of cable TV set top boxes Motorola and others Certainly one of the largest and most successful of these is Broadcom Corporation 3 2 5 Broadcom MIPS Broadcom is a leading supplier of SOC solutions for markets such as cable TV set top boxes cable modems HDTV wireless networks Gigabit Ethernet and Voice over IP VoIP Broadcom s SOCs have been very popular in these markets We mentioned earlier that you likely have Linux in your home even if you don t know it Chances are if you do it is running on a Broadcom MIPS based SOC In 2000 Broadcom acquired SiByte Inc which resulted in the communications processor product lineup the company is currently marketing These processors currently ship in single core dual core and quad core configurations The company still refers to them as SiByte processors The single core SiByte processors include the BCM1122 and BCM1125H They are both based on the MIPS64 core and operate at clock speeds at 400 900MHz They include on chip peripheral controllers such as DDR SDRAM controller 10 100Mbps Ethernet and PCI host controller Both include SMBus serial configuration interface PCMCIA and two UARTs for serial port connections The BCM1125H includes a triple speed 10 100 1000Mbps Ethernet controller One of the more striking features of these processors is their power dissipation Both feature a 4W operating budget at 400MHz opera
417. o enable the bare minimum MTD functionality Listing 10 1 displays the config file entries resulting from the selections shown in Figure 10 1 Listing 10 1 Basic MTD Configuration from config CONFIG_MTD y CONFIG_MTD_CHAR y CONFIG_MTD_BLOCK y CONFIG_MTD_MTDRAM m CONFIG_MTDRAM_TOTAL_SIZE 8192 CONFIG_MTDRAM_ERASE_SIZE 128 The MTD subsystem is enabled via the first configuration option which is selected via the first check box shown in Figure 10 1 Memory Technology Device MTD Support The next two entries from the configuration shown in Figure 10 1 enable special device level access to the MTD devices such as Flash memory from user space The first one CONFIG_MTD_CHAR enables character device mode access essentially a sequential access characterized by byte at a time sequential read and write access The second CONFIG_MTD_BLOCK enables access to the MTD device in block device mode the access method used for disk drives in which blocks of multiple bytes of data are read or written at a time These access modes allow the use of familiar Linux commands to read and write data to the Flash memory as you shall shortly see Figure 10 1 MTD configuration View full size image Eile Options Help gt D g I E Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand Options Name Y amp Memory Technology Device MTD support MTD C Debugging MTD_DEBUG C MT
418. o the Linux kernel source tree and is built automatically when you build the kernel image Making changes to it is far easier than building and loading a new initrd image Listing 6 13 shows the contents of the Linux kernel usr directory where the initramfs image is built The contents of Listing 6 13 are shown after a kernel has been built Listing 6 13 Kernel initramfs Build Directory 1s 1 total 56 rw rw r 1 chris chris 834 Mar 25 11 13 built in o chris chris 11512 Mar 25 11 13 gen_init_cpio chris chris 10587 Oct 27 2005 gen_init_cpio c rwxrwXxr X rw rw r rw rw r chris chris 512 Mar 25 11 13 initramfs_data cpio rw rw r chris chris 133 Mar 25 11 13 initramfs_data cpio gz chris chris 1024 Oct 27 2005 initramfs_data S chris chris 113 Mar 25 11 13 initramfs_list chris chris 1619 Oct 27 2005 Kconfig chris chris 2048 Oct 27 2005 Makefile 1 1 1 1 rw rw r 1 chris chris 786 Mar 25 11 13 initramfs_data o rw rw r _ 1l rw ry r l rw rw r 1l 1 Fw rw re The file initramfs_list contains a list of files that will be included in the initramfs archive The default for recent Linux kernels looks like this dir dev 0755 0 0 nod dev console 0600 0 0c 51 dir root 0700 0 0 This produces a small default directory structure containing the root and dev top level directories as well as a single device node representing the cons
419. ocessors are supported by Linux today Table 3 9 compares some of the more recent members of the TI OMAP family Feature Core speeds DRAM controller UARTs USB IC controller MMC SD interface Keypad controller Camera interface Graphics accelerator Integrated DSP Video acceleration hardware Security accelerator Audio codec support Bluetooth amp RF modem support interface Table 3 9 TI ARM OMAP Highlights Summary OMAP1710 OMAP2420 ARM926 ARM11 TEJ Up to 330MHz 200MHz Y Y Y Client Client host host X X Y Y Y Y Y Y 2D 2D 3D TM320C55x TM320C55x N Imaging Video Accelerator IVA Y Y Y Y Y Y OMAP2430 ARM1136 330MHz Y X Client host 2D 3D N Imaging Video Accelerator IVA 2 Y OMAP3430 ARM Cortex A8 550MHz X X Client host N Imaging Video Accelerator IVA 2 Y Table 3 9 TI ARM OMAP Highlights Summary Feature OMAP1710 OMAP2420 OMAP2430 OMAP3430 LCD controller Y Y Y Y Display controllers N PAL NTSC PAL NTSC PAL NTSC VGA QVGA VGA QVGA QVGA XGA 3 2 10 Freescale ARM The success of the ARM architecture is made more evident by the fact that leading manufacturers of competing architectures have licensed ARM technology As a prime example Freescale Semiconductor has licensed ARM technology for its line of iMX application processors These popular ARM based integrated processors have achieved widespread industry success
420. oco_debug 9 to the device driver The same action is taken upon discovery of the sound card hardware Notice the optional parameters associated with the sound driver snd intel8x0 8 2 5 depmod How does modprobe know about the dependencies of a given module The depmod utility plays a key role in this process When modprobe is executed it searches for a file called modules dep in the same location where the modules are installed The depmod utility creates this module dependency file This file contains a list of all the modules that the kernel build system is configured for along with dependency information for each It is a simple file format Each device driver module occupies one line in the file If the module has dependencies they are listed in order following the module name For example from Listing 8 7 we saw that the ext3 module had a dependency on the jbd module The dependency line in modules dep would look like this ext3 ko jbd ko In actual practice each module name is preceded by its absolute path in the file system to avoid ambiguity We have omitted the path information for readability A more complicated dependency chain such as sound drivers might look like this snd intel8x0 ko snd ac97 codec ko snd pcm ko snd timer ko snd ko soundcore ko snd page alloc ko Again we have removed the leading path components for readability Each module filename in the modules dep file is an absolute filename wi
421. od 0 00 sbin portmap 0 00 lockd 0 00 sbin syslogd r 0 00 sbin klogd x 0 00 0 00 0 00 0 00 usr sbin inetd 0 00 bash 0 00 in telnetd 0 00 bash 0 00 ps aux This is but one of the many ways to view output data using ps The columns are explained in the following text e The USER and process ID PID fields should be self explanatory e The CPU field expresses the percent of CPU utilization since the beginning of the process s lifetime thus CPU usage will virtually never add up to 100 percent e The MEM field indicates the ratio of the process s resident memory footprint to the total available physical memory e The VSZ field is the virtual memory size of the process in kilobytes e RSS is resident set size and indicates the nonswapped physical memory that a process has used also in kilobytes e TTY is the controlling terminal of the process Most of the processes in this example are not associated with a controlling terminal The ps command that generated Listing 13 9 was issued from a Telnet session which is indicated by the pts 0 terminal device The STAT field describes the state of the process at the time this snapshot was produced Here S means that the process is sleeping waiting on an event of some type often I 0 R means that the process is in a runnable state that is the scheduler is free to give it control of the CPU if nothing of a higher priority is waiting
422. ode we discovered that the compiler had placed the yosemite_set_emacdata subroutine inline with the function where we entered a breakpoint causing potential confusion This explains the line numbers reported by gdb when the original breakpoint in yosemite_setup_arch Q was hit Compilers employ many different kinds of optimization algorithms This example presented but one function inlining Each can confuse a debugger the human and the machine in a different way The challenge is to understand what is happening at the machine level and translate that into what we as developers had intended You can see now the benefits of using the minimum possible optimization level for debugging 14 3 3 gdb User Defined Commands You might already realize that gdb looks for an initialization file on startup called gdbinit When first invoked gdb loads this initialization file usually found in the user s home directory and acts on the commands within it One of my favorite combinations is to connect to the target system and set initial breakpoints In this case the contents of gdbinit would look like Listing 14 10 Listing 14 10 Simple gdb Initialization File cat gdbinit set history save on set history filename gdb_history set output radix 16 define connect target remote bdi 2001 target remote dev ttyS0O b panic b sys_sync end This simple gdbinit file enables the
423. ode until it compiles and then debug it until it is running without error There is no magic formula Porting any bootloader to a new board requires knowledge of many areas of hardware and software Some of these disciplines such as setting up SDRAM controllers are rather specialized and complex Virtually all of this work involves a detailed knowledge of the underlying hardware The net result Be prepared to spend many entertaining hours poring over your processor s hardware reference manual along with the data sheets of numerous other components that reside on your board 7 4 2 U Boot Makefile Configuration Target Now that we have a code base to start from we must make some modifications to the top level U Boot makefile to add the configuration steps for our new board Upon examining this makefile we find a section for configuring the U Boot source tree for the various supported boards We now add support for our new one so we can build it Because we derived our board from the ESD AR405 we will use that rule as the template for building our own If you follow along in the U Boot source code you will see that these rules are placed in the makefile in alphabetical order of their configuration name We shall be good open source citizens and follow that lead We call our configuration target EP405 config again in concert with the U Boot conventions EBONY_config unconfig mkconfig _config ppc ppc4xx ebony EP405_ config unc
424. oes it support my chosen processor e Has it been ported to a board similar to my own e Does it support the features I need e Does it support the hardware devices I intend to use e Is there a large community of users where I might get support e Are there any commercial vendors from which I can purchase support These are some of the questions you must answer when considering what bootloader to use in your embedded project Unless you are doing something on the bleeding edge of technology using a brand new processor you are likely to find that someone has already done the bulk of the hard work in porting a bootloader to your chosen platform Use the resources at the end of this chapter to help make your final decisions 7 6 Chapter Summary e The bootloader s role in an embedded system cannot be overstated It is the first piece of software that takes control upon applying power e This chapter examined the role of the bootloader and discovered the limited execution context in which a bootloader must exist e Das U Boot has become a popular universal bootloader for many processor architectures It supports a large number of processors reference hardware platforms and custom boards 7 6 1 U Boot is configured using a series of configuration variables in a board specific header file Appendix B contains a list of all the standard U Boot command sets supported in a recent U Boot release Porting U Boot to a new board b
425. of encryption decryption PCI host controller 4 SPCs and Security engine 3 2 7 Other MIPS As we pointed out earlier nearly 100 current MIPS licensees are shown on the MIPS Technologies licensees web page at www mips com content Licensees ProductCatalog licensees Unfortunately it is not possible in the space provided here to cover them all Start your search at the MIPS technologies website for a good cross section of the MIPS processor vendors For example ATI Technologies uses a MIPS core in its Xilleon set top box family of chipsets Cavium Network s Octeon family uses MIPS64 cores in a variety of multicore processor implementations Integrated Device Technology Inc IDT has a family of integrated communications processors called Interprise based on the MIPS architecture PMC Sierra NEC Toshiba and others have integrated processors based on MIPS All of these and more are well supported under Linux 3 2 8 ARM The ARM architecture has achieved a very large market share in the consumer electronics marketplace Many popular and now ubiquitous products contain ARM cores Some well known examples include the Sony PlayStation Portable PSP Apple iPod Nano Nintendo Game Boy Micro and DS TomTom GO 300 GPS and the Motorola E680i Mobile Phone which features embedded Linux Processors containing ARM cores power a majority of the world s digital cellular phones according to the ARM Corporate Backgrounder at www
426. of interest for all tasks Listing 14 13 displays the output of this macro on a target board running only minimal services Listing 14 13 gdb ps Macro Output gdb ps Address PID State User_NIP Kernel SP device comm 0xC01D3750 O Running 0xC0205E90 none swapper OxCO4ACBI10 1 Sleeping OxOFF6E85C OxCO4FFCEO none init OxCO4AC770 2 Sleeping OxC0501E90 none ksoftirqd 0 OxCO4AC3D0 3 Sleeping 0OxC0531E30 none events 0 0xC04AC030 4 Sleeping 0xC0533E30 none khelper OxC04CDB30 5 Sleeping OxC0535E30 none kthread OxC04CD790 23 Sleeping OxCO6FBE30 none kblockd 0 OxC04CD3FO 45 Sleeping OxCO6FDE5O none pdflush OxC04CD050 46 Sleeping OxCO6FFESO none pdflush OxC054B7B0 48 Sleeping 0xC0703E30 none aio 0 OxC054BB50 OxC054B410 OxC054B070 OxCFFDEODO OxCF95B110 OxCFC24090 OxCF804490 OxCFE350B0 OxCFFDE810 OxCFC24B70 OxCFE35B90 OxCFE357FO OxCFFDE470 OxCFFDEBBO gdb 47 Sleeping 629 Sleeping 663 Sleeping 675 Sleeping 879 Sleeping 910 Sleeping 918 Sleeping 948 Sleeping 960 Sleeping 964 Sleeping 973 Sleeping 974 Sleeping 979 Sleeping 982 lt Running OxC0701E20 none kswapd0 OxCO781E60 none kseriod OxCFC59E30 none rpciod 0 OxOFF6E85C OxCF86DCEO none udevd OxOFFOBE58 OxCF517D80 none portmap OxOFF6E85C OxCF61BCEO none syslogd OxOFF66C7C OxCF65DD70 none klogd OxOFFOE85C OxCF67DCEO none rpc statd OxOFF6E85C OxCF5C7CEO none inetd OxOFEEBEAC OxCF64FD80 none
427. olatile storage The runtime libraries operating system and compiler work together to create the infrastructure necessary to load a program from nonvolatile storage into memory and pass control to it The aforementioned Hello World program is a perfect example When compiled it can be loaded into memory and executed simply by typing the name of the executable hello on the command line assuming of course that the executable exists somewhere on your PATH This infrastructure does not exist when a bootloader gains control upon power on Instead the bootloader must create its own operational context and move itself if required to a suitable location in RAM Furthermore additional complexity is introduced by the requirement to execute from a read only medium 7 2 3 Image Complexity As application developers we do not need to concern ourselves with the layout of a binary executable file when we develop applications for our favorite platform The compiler and binary utilities are preconfigured to build a binary executable image containing the proper components needed for a given architecture The linker places startup prologue and shutdown epilogue code into the image These objects set up the proper execution context for your application which typically starts at main in your application This is absolutely not the case with a typical bootloader When the bootloader gets control there is no context or prior execution environmen
428. ole Add to this file to build your own initramfs You can also specify a source for your initramfs files via the kernel configuration facility Enable INITRAMFS SOURCE in your kernel configuration and point it to a location on your development workstation the kernel build system will use those files as the source for your initramfs image The final output of this build directory is the initramfs_data_cpio gz file This is a compressed archive containing the files you specified either through the initramfs_list or via the INITRAMFS_SOURCE kernel configuration option This archive is linked into the final kernel image This is another advantage of initramfs over initrd There is no need to load a separate initrd image at boot time as is the case with initrd 6 6 Shutdown Orderly shutdown of an embedded system is often overlooked in a design Improper shutdown can affect startup times and can even corrupt certain file system types One of the more common complaints using the EXT2 file system the default in many desktop Linux distributions for several years is the time it takes for an fsck file system check on startup after unplanned power loss Servers with large disk systems can take on the order of hours to properly fsck through a collection of large EXT2 partitions Each embedded project will likely have its own shutdown strategy What works for one might or might not work for another The scale of shutdown can range from a f
429. om the gdbserver output in Listing 15 3 Our process was assigned PID 197 Given that we can see the memory segments in use right after process startup as shown in Listing 15 6 Listing 15 6 Initial Target Memory Segment Mapping root coyote cat proc 197 maps O00008000 00026000 r xp 00000000 00 0e 4852444 websdemo stripped 0002d000 0002e000 rw p 0001d000 00 0e 4852444 websdemo stripped 40000000 40017000 r xp 00000000 00 0a 4982583 1ib 1d 2 3 3 so 4001e000 40020000 rw p 00016000 00 0a 4982583 1ib 1d 2 3 3 so bedf 9000 bee0e000 rwxp bedf9000 00 00 O stack root coyote Here we see the target websdemo stripped application occupying two memory segments The first is the read only executable segment at Ox8000 and the second is a read write data segment at Ox2d000 The third memory segment is the one of interest It is the Linux dynamic linker s executable code segment Notice that it starts at address 0x40000000 If we investigate further we can confirm that GDB is actually sitting at the first line of code for the dynamic linker before any code from our own application has been executed Using our cross version of readelf we can confirm the starting address of the linker as follows xscale_be readelf S 1d 2 3 3 s0 grep text 9 text PROGBITS 00000790 000790 012c6c 00 AX O 016 From this data we conclude that the address GDB reports on startup is the first instruction from 1
430. omer to embedded development When a given program is compiled the compiler often knows how to find include files and where to find libraries that might be required for the compilation to succeed To illustrate these concepts let s look again at the Hello World program The example reproduced in Listing 2 4 above was compiled with the following command line gcc Wall o hello hello c From Listing 2 4 we see an include the file stdio h This file does not reside in the same directory as the hello c file specified on the gcc command line So how does the compiler find them Also the printfQ function is not defined in the file hello c Therefore when hello c is compiled it will contain an unresolved reference for this symbol How does the linker resolve this reference at link time Compilers have built in defaults for locating include files When the reference to the include file is encountered the compiler searches its default list of locations to locate the file A similar process exists for the linker to resolve the reference to the external symbol printf Q The linker knows by default to search the C library libc for unresolved references Again this default behavior is built into the toolchain Now consider that you are building an application targeting a PowerPC embedded system Obviously you will need a cross compiler to generate binary executables compatible with the PowerPC processor architecture If you iss
431. ommonly found in UNIX Linux device drivers This mechanism was explained by example including a simple user application to exercise these driver methods We concluded this chapter with an introduction to the relationship between kernel device drivers and the Open Source GNU Public License Suggestions for Additional Reading Linux Device Drivers 3rd Edition Alessandro Rubini and Jonathan Corbet O Reilly Publishing 2005 Filesystem Hierarchy Standard Edited by Rusty Russel Daniel Quinlan and Christopher Yeoh The File Systems Hierarchy Standards Group www pathname com fhs Rusty s Linux Kernel Page Module Utilities for 2 6 Rusty Russell http kernel org pub linux kernel people rusty Chapter 9 File Systems In this chapter e Linux File System Concepts page 214 e ext2 page 216 e ext3 page 221l e ReiserFS page 224 e JFFS2 page 225 e cramfs page 228 e Network File System page 230 e Pseudo File Systems page 234 e Other File Systems page 240 e Building a Simple File System page 242 e Chapter Summary page 243 Perhaps one of the most important decisions an embedded developer makes is which file system s to deploy Some file systems optimize for performance whereas others optimize for size Still others optimize for data recovery after device or power failure This chapter introduces the major file systems in use on Linux systems and examines the characteristics of each as they apply to embedd
432. on Linux development Here is a list of the most important websites for the various architectures and projects Primary kernel source tree www kernel org Primary kernel GIT repository www kernelor it PowerPC related development and mailing lists http ozlabs or MIPS related developments www linux mips org ARM related Linux development www arm linux org uk Primary home for a huge collection of open source projects http sourceforge net Mailing Lists Hundreds if not thousands of mailing lists cater to every aspect of Linux and open source development Here are a few to consider Make sure you familiarize yourself with mailing list etiquette before posting to these lists Most of these lists maintain archives that are searchable This is the first place that you should consult In a great majority of the cases your question has already been asked and answered Start your reading here for advice on how to best use the public mail lists The Linux Kernel Mailing List FAQ www tux org 1kml1 List server serving various Linux kernel related mail lists http vger kernel org Linux Kernel Mailingvery high volume kernel development only http vger kernel org vger lists html linux kernel Linux News and Developments Many news sites are worth browsing occasionally Some of the more popular are listed here LinuxDevices com www linuxdevices com PowerPC News and other information
433. on management architecture described in the previous paragraphs makes it easy to customize and add features A quick peek into a typical Kconfig file shows the structure of the configuration script language As an example assume that you have two hardware platforms based on the IXP425 network processor and that your engineering team had dubbed them Vega and Constellation Each board has specialized hardware that must be initialized early during the kernel boot phase Let s see how easy it is to add these configuration options to the set of choices presented to the developer during kernel configuration Listing 4 9 is a snippet from the top level ARM Kconfig file Listing 4 9 Snippet from arch arm Kconfig source init Kconfig menu System Type choice prompt ARM system type default ARCH_RPC config ARCH _CLPS7500 bool Cirrus CL PS7500FE config ARCH_CLPS711X bool CLPS711x EP721x based source arch arm mach ixp4xx Kconfig In this Kconfig snippet taken from the top level ARM architecture Kconfig you see the menu item System Type being defined After the ARM System type prompt you see a list of choices related to the ARM architecture Later in the file you see the inclusion of the IXP4xx specific Kconfig definitions In this file you add your custom configuration switches Listing 4 10 reproduces a snippet of this file Again for readability and convenience we ve omitted
434. on simultaneously The IBM 970FX contains up to 25 stages of pipelining depending on the instruction stream and operations contained therein Some of the key features of the 970FX are as follows A 64 bit implementation of the popular PowerPC architecture Deeply pipelined design for very high performance computing applications Static and dynamic power management features Multiple sleep modes to minimize power requirements and maximize battery life Dynamically adjustable clock rates supporting lower power modes Optimized for high performance low latency storage management The IBM 970FX has been incorporated into a number of high end server blades and computing platforms including IBM s own Blade Server platform 3 1 2 Intel Pentium M Certainly one of the most popular architectures x86 in both 32 and 64 bit flavors more properly called IA32 and IA64 respectively has been employed for embedded devices in a variety of applications In the most common form these platforms are based on a variety of commercial off the shelf COTS hardware implementations Numerous manufacturers supply x86 single board computers and complete platforms in a variety of form factors See Section 3 2 Integrated Processors Systems on Chip later in this chapter for a discussion of the more common platforms in use today The Intel Pentium M has been used in a wide variety of laptop computers and has found a niche in
435. on the kernel command line and it is set via the __ setup macro we examined earlier in this chapter An example kernel command line incorporating several concepts discussed in this chapter might look like this initcall_debug init sbin myinit console ttyS1 115200 root dev hdal This kernel command line instructs the kernel to display all the initialization routines as encountered configures the initial console device as dev ttySl at 115 kbps and executes a custom user space initialization process called myinit located in the sbin directory on the root file system It directs the kernel to mount its root file system from the device dev hdal which is the first IDE hard drive Note that in general the order of parameters given on the kernel command line is irrelevant The next chapter covers the details of user space system initialization 5 6 Chapter Summary e The Linux kernel project is large and complex Understanding the structure and composition of the final image is key to learning how to customize your own embedded project e Many architectures concatenate an architecture specific bootstrap loader onto the kernel binary image to set up the proper execution environment required by the Linux kernel We presented the bootstrap loader build steps to differentiate this functionality from the kernel proper 5 6 1 Understanding the initialization flow of control will help deepen your knowledge of the Linux kernel and provide i
436. onfig mkconfig _config ppc ppc4xx ep405 EA ERIC_config unconfig mkconfig _config ppc ppc4xx eric Our new configuration rule has been inserted as shown in the three lines preceded with the character unified diff format Upon completing the steps just described we have a U Boot source tree that represents a starting point It probably will not even compile cleanly and that should be our first step At least the compiler can give us some guidance on where to start 7 4 3 EP405 Processor Initialization The first task that your new U Boot port must do correctly is to initialize the processor and the memory DRAM subsystems After reset the 405GP processor core is designed to fetch instructions starting from OxFFFF_FFFC The core attempts to execute the instructions found here Because this is the top of the memory range the instruction found here must be an unconditional branch instruction This processor core is also hard coded to configure the upper 2MB memory region so that it is accessible without programming the external bus controller to which Flash memory is usually attached This forces the requirement to branch to a location within this address space because the processor is incapable of addressing memory anywhere else until our bootloader code initializes additional memory regions We must branch to somewhere at or above OxFFEO 0000 How did we know all this Because we read the 405GP user s man
437. ood the test of time in the embedded market More recent successful platforms include CompactPCI and its derivatives Me VMEbus isn t really a hardware reference platform per se but based on Eurocard physical standards the level of compatibility among multiple vendors qualifies it for the label 3 3 1 CompactPCI The CompactPCI cPCI hardware platform is based on PCI electrical standards and Eurocard physical specifications cPCI has the following general features e Vertical cards of 3U or 6U heights e Latch system for securing and ejecting cards e Front or rear panel I O connections supported e High density backplane connector e Staggered power pins for hot swap support e Support by many vendors e Compatibility with standard PCI chipsets You can view highlights of and obtain specifications for the cPCI architecture at the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group PICMG cPCI web page at www picmg org compactpci stm 3 3 2 ATCA A successor to the successful cPCI Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture is the name given to the architecture and platforms designed around the PICMG 3 x series of specifications Many top tier hardware manufacturers are shipping or developing new ATCA based platforms The primary applications for ATCA platforms are carrier class telecommunications switching and transport equipment and high end data center server and storage equipment ATCA platforms are lead
438. oot ep405 board ep405 ep405 h u boot ep405 board ep405 flash c u boot ep405 board ep405 init S u boot ep405 board ep405 Makefile u boot ep405 board ep405 u boot 1ds u boot ep405 include config h u boot ep405 include config mk u boot ep405 include configs EP405 h u boot ep405 include ppc405 h u boot ep405 Makefile Recall that we derived all the files in the board ep405 directory from another directory Indeed we didn t create any files from scratch for this port We borrowed from the work of others and customized where necessary to achieve our goals 7 4 6 U Boot Image Format Now that we have a working bootloader for our EP405 board we can load and run programs on it Ideally we want to run an operating system such as Linux To do this we need to understand the image format that U Boot requires U Boot expects a small header on the image file that identifies several attributes of the image U Boot uses the mkimage tool part of the U Boot source code to build this image header Recent Linux kernel distributions have built in support for building images directly bootable by U Boot Both the ARM and PPC branches of the kernel source tree have support for a target called ulmage Let s look at the PPC case The following snippet from the Linux kernel PPC makefile arch ppc boot images Makefile contains the rule for building the U Boot target
439. operly like USB aye powersave_nap 1 Setup the ppc_md struct ppc_md setup_arch 1lite5200_setup_arch ppc_md show_cpuinfo 1lite5200_show_cpuinfo ppc_md show_percpuinfo NULL ppc_md init_IRQ mpc52xx_init_irdq ppc_md get_irq mpc52xx_get_irdq ifdef CONFIG_PCI ppc_md pci_map_irq lite5200_map_irq H endif ppc_md find end of memory mpc52xx_find_end_of_memory ppc_md setup_io_mappings mpc52xx_map_io ppc_md restart mpc52xx_ restart ppc_md power_off mpc52xx_power_off ppc_md halt mpc52xx_ halt No time keeper on the LITE5200 ppc_md time_init NULL ppc_mdget_rtc_time NULL ppc_md set_rtc_time NULL ppc_md calibrate_decr mpc52xx_calibrate_decr ifdef CONFIG_SERIAL_TEXT_DEBUG ppc_md progress mpc52xx_ progress endif This function contains much of the customizing that is required for this particular platform It starts by searching for board specific data supplied by the bootloader We defer discussion of the details of this until Section 16 3 2 Board Information Structure Following this if your kernel is configured for an initial ramdisk initrd the start and end addresses of the ramdisk image are saved Notice that they are passed in the PowerPC general purpose registers r4 and r5 by convention It is the bootloader s responsibility to pass the initrd addresses in these registers Later the kernel will
440. or runlevel 2 From this example this would be etc init d runlvl2 startup As you might guess from the wait tag in Listing 6 6 init waits until the script completes before continuing When the runlevel 2 script completes init spawns a shell on the console through the bin sh symbolic link as shown in the last line of Listing 6 6 The respawn keyword instructs init to restart the shell each time it detects that it has exited Listing 6 7 shows what it looks like during boot a This inittab is a nice example of a small purpose built embedded system Listing 6 7 Example Startup Messages VFS Mounted root nfs filesystem Freeing init memory 304K INIT version 2 78 booting This is re sysinit INIT Entering runlevel 2 This is runlvl2 startup The startup scripts in this example do nothing except announce themselves for illustrative purposes Of course in an actual system these scripts enable features and services that do useful work Given the simple configuration in this example you would enable the services and applications for your particular widget in the etc init d runlvl2 startup script and do the reversedisable your applications services and devicesin your shutdown and or reboot scripts In the next section we look at some typical system configurations and the required entries in the startup scripts to enable these configurations 6 3 2 Example Web Server Startup S
441. or the PowerPC architecture the board specific files reside in a directory called arch ppc platforms Of course this is not strictly necessary but if you ever intend to submit your patches to the Linux kernel development community for consideration proper form and consistency matter We find in the platforms directory a file called lite5200 c It s a fairly simple file containing two data structures and five functions Listing 16 3 presents the functions from this file Listing 16 3 Functions from 5200 Platform File 1ite5200_show_cpuinfo Prints user specified text string 1ite5200_map_irqQ Sets h w specific INT logic routing 1ite5200_setup_cpuQ CPU specific initialization 1ite5200_setup_archQ Arch specific initialization platform_initQ Machine or board specific init Let s look at how these functions are used We briefly examined the low level kernel initialization in Chapter 5 Here we look at the details for a particular architecture Details differ between architectures but when you can navigate one the others will be easier to learn From Chapter 5 we saw the early flow of control on power up The bootloader passed control to the kernel s bootstrap loader which then passed control to the Linux kernel via the kernel s head o module Here the platform specific initialization begins Listing 16 4 reproduces the pertinent lines from arch ppc kernel head S
442. orce system policies such as power management and hot plug capability 9 9 Other File Systems Numerous file systems are supported under Linux Space does not permit coverage of all of them However you should be aware of some other important file systems frequently found in embedded systems The ramfs file system is best considered from the context of the Linux source code module that implements it Listing 9 19 reproduces the first several lines of that file Listing 9 19 Linux ramfs Source Module Comments 7 Resizable simple ram filesystem for Linux Copyright C 2000 Linus Torvalds 2000 Transmeta Corp Usage limits added by David Gibson Linuxcare Australia This file is released under the GPL F J NOTE This filesystem is probably most useful not as a real filesystem but as an example of how virtual filesystems can be written It doesn t get much simpler than this Consider that this file implements the full semantics of 3k a POSIX compliant read write filesystem This module was written primarily as an example of how virtual file systems can be written One of the primary differences between this file system and the ramdisk facility found in modern Linux kernels is its capability to shrink and grow according to its use A ramdisk does not have this property This source module is compact and well written It is presented here for its educational value You are
443. ore than 500KB in uncompressed form Since it is based on busybox it has many capabilities Because busybox is statically linked it has no dependencies on any system libraries You will learn more about busybox in Chapter 1l 6 5 Using initramfs initramfs is a relatively new Linux 2 6 mechanism for executing early user space programs It is conceptually similar to initrd as described in the previous section Its purpose is also similar to enable loading of drivers that might be required before mounting the real root file system However it differs in significant ways from the initrd mechanism The technical implementation details differ significantly between initrd and initramfs For example initramfs is loaded before the call to do_basic_setup0 which provides a mechanism for loading firmware for devices before its driver has been loaded For more details the Linux kernel documentation for this subsystem is relatively up to date See e do_basic_setup is called from init main c and calls do_initcalls This causes driver module initialization routines to be called This was described in detail in Chapter 5 and shown in Listing 5 10 Documentation filesystems ramfs rootfs initramfs txt From a practical perspective initramfs is much easier to use initramfs is a cpio archive whereas initrd is a gzipped file system image This simple difference contributes to the easy of use of initramfs It is integrated int
444. ores all the breakpoints with the original opcodes for that particular memory location When it resumes execution it restores the breakpoint opcodes at the specified locations You can observe this behavior by enabling gdb s remote debug mode gdb set debug remote 1 14 5 When It Doesn t Boot One of the most frequently asked questions on the various mailing lists that serve embedded Linux goes something like this I am trying to boot Linux on my board and I get stuck after this message prints to my console Uncompressing Kernel Image OK Thus starts the long and sometimes frustrating learning curve of embedded Linux Many things that can go wrong could lead to this common failure With some knowledge and a JTAG debugger there are ways to determine what went awry 14 5 1 Early Serial Debug Output The first tool you might have available is CONFIG SERIAL TEXT DEBUG This Linux kernel configuration option adds support for debug messages very early in the boot process At the present time this feature is limited to the PowerPC architecture but nothing prevents you from duplicating the functionality in other architectures Listing 14 22 provides an example of this feature in use on a PowerPC target using the U Boot bootloader Listing 14 22 Early Serial Text Debug Booting image at 00200000 Image Name Linux 2 6 14 Created 2005 12 19 22 24 03 UTC Image Type PowerPC Linux Kernel Image gzip
445. orking products have been developed using Intel XScale architecture processors Some well known examples include the GPS iQue M5 from Garmin the iPAQ by Hewlett Packard smart phones from Palm Treo and Motorola A760 and many others Linux currently supports all these processors Intel s network processors are found in high performance networking equipment where requirements exist for fast data path processing Examples include deep packet inspection data encryption decryption packet filtering and signal processing These network processors each contain an ARM core coupled with one or more dedicated processing engines called a network processing engine NPE These NPEs are dedicated to specific data path manipulation in real time at wire speeds The NPE is a microprocessor in the sense that it can execute microcoded algorithms in parallel with the thread of execution in the ARM core Refer to the Intel website at www intel com for additional information on this powerful family of integrated processors 3 2 12 Other ARM More than 100 semiconductor companies are developing integrated solutions based on ARM technologyfar too many to list here Many offer specialized application processors serving vertical markets such as the handset market storage area networking network processing and the automotive market as well as many more These companies include Altera PMC Sierra Samsung Electronics Philips Semiconductor Fujitsu
446. ory This early initialization code is part of the bootloader and is responsible for breathing life into the processor and related hardware components Most processors have a default address from which the first bytes of code are fetched upon application of power and release of reset Hardware designers use this information to arrange the layout of Flash memory on the board and to select which address range s the Flash memory responds to This way when power is first applied code is fetched from a well known and predictable address and software control can be established The bootloader provides this early initialization code and is responsible for initializing the board so that other programs can run This early initialization code is almost always written in the processor s native assembly language This fact alone presents many challenges some of which we examine here Of course after the bootloader has performed this basic processor and platform initialization its primary role becomes booting a full blown operating system It is responsible for locating loading and passing execution to the primary operating system In addition the bootloader might have advanced features such as the capability to validate an OS image the capability to upgrade itself or an OS image and the capability to choose from among several OS images based on a developer defined policy Unlike the traditional PC BIOS model when the OS takes control
447. oss development environment so building BusyBox in such an environment is quite easy In most cases the only requirement is to specify the prefix to the cross compiler on your development workstation This is specified in Build Options in the BusyBox configuration utility by selecting the option to build BusyBox with a cross compiler You then are presented with an option to enter the cross compiler prefix The prefix you enter depends on your cross development environment Some examples include xscale_be or ppc linux We cover this in more detail in the next chapter when we examine the embedded development environment The final option in Listing 1l 1 is for any extra flags you might want to include on the compiler command line These might include options for generating debug information g options for setting the optimization level 02 for example and other compiler options that might be unique to your particular installation and target system 11 3 BusyBox Operation When you build BusyBox you end up with a binary called you guessed it busybox BusyBox can be invoked from the binary name itself but it is more usually launched via a symlink When BusyBox is invoked without command line parameters it produces a list of the functions that were enabled via the configuration Listing 11 3 shows such an output it has been formatted slightly to fit the page width Listing 11 3 BusyBox Usage
448. ost basic example of a character device is a serial port or magnetic tape drive In contrast block devices store and retrieve data in equal sized chucks of data at a time For example a typical IDE hard disk controller can transfer 512 bytes of data at a time to and from a specific addressable location on the physical media File systems are based on block devices 9 1 1 Partitions Before we begin our discussion of file systems we start by introducing partitions the logical division of a physical device upon which a file system exists At the highest level data is stored on physical devices in partitions A partition is a logical division of the physical medium hard disk Flash memory whose data is organized following the specifications of a given partition type A physical device can have a single partition covering all its available space or it can be divided into multiple partitions to suit a particular task A partition can be thought of as a logical disk onto which a complete file system can be written Figure 9 1 shows the relationship between partitions and file systems Figure 9 1 Partitions and file systems Partition File System Metadata File System Data Partition Flash Memory Device Linux uses a utility called fdisk to manipulate partitions on block devices A recent fdisk utility found on many Linux distributions has knowledge of more than 90 different partition types In practice only a few
449. ot command and executing the iminfo command on the image Listing 7 9 U Boot iminfo Command gt tftpboot 400000 ulmage ep405 ENET Speed is 100 Mbps FULL duplex connection TFTP from server 192 168 1 9 our IP address is 192 168 1 33 Filename ulmage ep405 Load address 0x400000 Loading HHHH H done Bytes transferred 891228 d995c hex gt iminfo Checking Image at 00400000 Image Name Linux 2 6 11 6 Image Type PowerPC Linux Kernel Image gzip compressed Data Size 891164 Bytes 870 3 kB Load Address 00000000 Entry Point 00000000 Verifying Checksum OK 7 5 Other Bootloaders Here we introduce the more popular bootloaders describe where they might be used and give a summary of their features This is not intended to be a thorough tutorial because to do so would require a book of its own The interested reader can consult the Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of this chapter for further study 7 5 1 Lilo The Linux Loader or Lilo was widely used in commercial Linux distributions for desktop PC platforms as such it has its roots in the Intel x86 IA32 architecture Lilo has several components It has a primary bootstrap program that lives on the first sector of a bootable disk drive The primary loader is limited to a disk sector size usually 512 bytes Therefore its primary purpose is simply to load and pass control to a secondary loader
450. ou see the default search directories for include directives But what if we want to build hello c for a different architecture such as PowerPC When we compile an application program for a PowerPC target using a cross compiler on our host machine we must make sure that the compiler does not use the default host include directories or library paths Using a properly configured cross compiler is the first step and having a well designed cross development environment is the second Listing 12 3 is the output from a popular open source cross development toolchain known as the Embedded Linux Development Kit ELDK assembled and maintained by Denx Software Engineering This particular installation was configured for the PowerPC 82xx toolchain Again we have added some whitespace to the output for readability Listing 12 3 Default Cross Search Directories View full width ppc_82xx cpp v Reading specs from opt eldk usr bin lib gcc lib ppc linux 3 3 3 specs Configured with configure prefix usr mandir usr share man infodir usr share info enable shared enable threads posix disable checking with system zlib enable __cxa_atexit with newlib enable languages c c disable libgcj host i386 redhat linux target ppc linux Thread model posix gcc version 3 3 3 DENX ELDK 3 1 1 3 3 3 10 opt eldk usr bin 1ib gcc
451. ount lt n gt at exit time Many more messages are possiblethese are just a few examples of the kinds of problems that can be detected These messages will help you avoid deadlocks and other erroneous or dangerous programming semantics when using real time kernel features For more details on the messages and conditions under which they are emitted browse the Linux kernel source file kernel rt debug c 17 4 3 Debug Wakeup Timing To enable wakeup timing enable CONFIG _WAKEUP_TIMING in the kernel configuration This debug option enables measurement of the time taken from waking up a high priority process to when it is scheduled on a CPU Using it is simple When configured measurement is disabled To enable the measurement do the following as root echo 0 gt proc sys kernel preempt_max_latency When this proc file is set to zero each successive maximum wakeup timing result is written to this file To read the current maximum simply display the value cat proc sys kernel preempt_max_latency 84 As long as any of the latency measurement modes are enabled in the kernel configuration preempt_max_latency will always be updated with the maximum latency value It cannot be disabled Writing 0 to this proc variable simply resets the maximum to zero to restart the cumulative measurement 17 4 4 Wakeup Latency History To enable wakeup latency history enable CONFIG _WAKEUP_ LATENCY _HIST while CONFIG_WAKEUP_TIMI
452. output resulting from executing make in a recent kernel tree configured for the ARM XScale architecture The kernel source tree was configured for the ADI Engineering Coyote reference board based on the Intel IXP425 network processor using the following command make ARCH arm CROSS_COMPILE xscale_be ixp4xx_defconfig This command does not build the kernel it prepares the kernel source tree for the XScale architecture including an initial default configuration for this architecture and processor It builds a default configuration the dot config file that drives the kernel build based on the defaults found in the ixp4xx_defconfig file We have more to say about the configuration process later in Section 4 3 Kernel Build System Listing 4 2 shows the command that builds the kernel Only the first few and last few lines of the build output are shown for this discussion Listing 4 2 Kernel Build Output make ARCH arm CROSS _COMPILE xscale_be zImage CHK include linux version h HOSTCC scripts basic fixdep lt hundreds of lines of output omitted here gt LD vmlinux SYSMAP System map SYSMAP tmp_System map OBJCOPY arch arm boot Image Kernel arch arm boot Image is ready AS arch arm boot compressed head o GZIP arch arm boot compressed piggy gz AS arch arm boot compressed piggy o CC arch arm boot compressed misc o AS arch arm boot compressed head xscale o AS arch arm boot compressed big endian o LD
453. ow this information can be useful in Chapter 14 Kernel Debugging Techniques when we discuss the challenge of debugging optimized kernel code Debug information can be very large Displaying all the debug information in the Linux kernel ELF file vmlinux produces more than six million lines of output However daunting it might appear having at least a familiarity with debug information will make you a better embedded engineer Listing 13 16 is a partial listing of the contents of the debug_info section from a small example application For space considerations we have shown only a few records Listing 13 16 Partial Debug Info Dump ppc linux readelf debug dump info ex_sync 1 The section debug_info contains 2 3 Compilation Unit 0 4 Length 109 5 Version 2 6 Abbrev Offset 0 7 Pointer Size 4 8 lt 0 gt lt b gt Abbrev Number 1 DW_TAG_compile_unit 9 DW_AT_stmt_list 0 10 DW_AT_low_pc 0x10000368 11 DW_AT_high_pc Ox1000038c 12 DW_AT_name sysdeps powerpc powerpc32 elf start S 13 DW_AT_comp_dir var tmp BUILD g1libc 2 3 3 csu 14 DW_AT_ producer GNU AS 2 15 94 15 DW_AT_language 32769 MIPS assembler 394 lt l gt lt 5al gt Abbrev Number 14 DW_TAG_subprogram 395 DW_AT_sibling lt Sfa gt 396 DW_AT_external 2 1 397 DW_AT_name main 398 DW_AT_decl_ file a 399 DW_AT_decl_line 9 400 DW_AT_prototyped 1 401 DW_AT_type gt lt 248 gt
454. ow useful NFS can be in the embedded environment See Section 9 11 1 at the end of this chapter for a pointer to detailed information about NFS including the complete NFS Howto On your development workstation with NFS enabled a file contains the names of each directory that you want to export via the Network File System On Red Hat and other distributions this file is located in the etc directory and is named exports Listing 9 12 illustrates a sample etc exports such as might be found on a development workstation used for embedded development Listing 9 12 Contents of etc exports cat etc exports etc exports home chris sandbox coyote target rw sync no_root_squash home chris workspace rw sync no_root_squash This file contains the names of two directories on a Linux development workstation The first directory contains a target file system for an ADI Engineering Coyote reference board The second directory is a general workspace that contains projects targeted for an embedded system This is arbitrary you can set things up any way you choose On an embedded system with NFS enabled the following command mounts the workspace directory exported by the NFS server on a mount point of our choosing mount t nfs pluto home chris workspace workspace Notice some important points about this command We are instructing the mount command to mount a remote directory on a machine name
455. ox functions that require root access to function properly even when invoked by a nonroot user This is not strictly necessary especially in an embedded Linux environment where it is common to have only a root account on a system If this is necessary for your installation the required command chmod s is shown in Listing Il 9 The result of this installation step is that the busybox binary and symlink tree are installed on our target root file system The end result looks very similar to Listing ll 4 It is useful to note that BusyBox also has an option to enable creation of this symlink tree on the target system at runtime This option is enabled in the BusyBox configuration and is invoked at runtime by executing busybox with the install option You must have the proc file system mounted on your target system for this support to work 11 3 4 BusyBox Commands In a recent BusyBox snapshot 197 commands also called applets were documented in the man page There is sufficient support for reasonably complex shell scripts including support for Bash shell scripting BusyBox has support for awk and sed frequently found in Bash scripts BusyBox supports network utilities such as ping ifconfig TRaceroute and netstat Some commands are specifically included for scripting support including true false and yes Spend a few moments perusing Appendix C BusyBox Commands where you can find a summary of each BusyBox command Aft
456. pace provided In actual practice it is a single line with the individual elements separated by spaces This kernel command line defines the following kernel behavior e Specify a single console on device ttySO at 115 kilobaud e Mount a root file system via NFS the network file system e Find the NFS root file system on host 192 168 1 9 from directory home chris sandbox omap target e Load and mount an initial ramdisk from physical memory location 0x10800000 which has a size of Ox14AF47 1 355 591 bytes One additional note regarding this example Almost universally the initrd image is compressed The size specified on the kernel command line is the size of the compressed image 6 4 3 Bootloader Support for initrd Let s look at a simple example based on the popular U Boot bootloader running on an ARM processor This bootloader has been designed with Linux kernel support Using U Boot it is easy to include an initrd image with the kernel image Listing 6 10 examines a typical boot sequence containing an initial ramdisk image Listing 6 10 Booting Kernel with Ramdisk Support tftpboot 0x10000000 kernel ulmage Load address 0xl0000000 Loading HHHHHHHHHHR RRR aaa eee done Bytes transferred 1069092 105024 hex tftpboot 0x10800000 initrd uboot Load address 0xl0800000 Loading HHHHHRHHR Raa eee done Bytes transferred 282575 44fcf hex bootm 0x10000000 0x10800040 Uncompressing kernel
457. pap FH or BB BR 1 1 773 4 1 You can see from Listing 15 1 that there are many sections containing debug information There is also a comment section that contains more than 2KB 0x940 of information that is not necessary for the application to function The size of this example file including debug information is more than 275KB 1s 1 websdemo rwxrwxr x 1 chris chris 283511 Nov 8 18 48 websdemo If we strip this file using the strip utility we can minimize its size to preserve resources on our target system Listing 15 2 shows the results Listing 15 2 Strip Target Application xscale_be strip s R comment o websdemo stripped websdemo 1s 1 websdemo rwxrwxr x 1 chris chris 283491 Apr 9 09 19 websdemo rwxrwxr x 1 chris chris 123156 Apr 9 09 21 websdemo stripped Here we strip both the symbolic debug information and the comment section from the executable file We specify the name of the stripped binary using the o command line switch You can see that the resulting size of the stripped binary is less than half of its original size Of course for larger applications this space savings can be even more significant A recent Linux kernel compiled with debug information was larger than 18MB After stripping as in Listing 15 2 the resulting binary was slightly larger than 2MB For debugging in this fashion you place the stripped version of the binary on
458. pared to interrupt off time Figure 17 1 Latency components Interrupt ISR ISR Signals RT Process Event Runs RT Process Runs m o t0 tl t2 t3 S ia sG oN Interrupt Interrupt Scheduling Latency Processing Latency K J D Interrupt to Process Latency It is considered good design practice to minimize the processing done in the actual interrupt service routine Indeed this execution context is limited in capability for example an ISR cannot call a blocking function one that might sleep so it is desirable to simply service the hardware device and leave the data processing to a Linux bottom halt also called softIRQs l2 Robert Love explains bottom half processing in great detail in his book Linux Kernel Development See Section 17 5 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of this chapter for the reference When the ISR bottom half has finished its processing the usual case is to wake up a user space process that is waiting for the data This is indicated by time t2 in Figure 17 1 At some point in time later the real time process is selected by the scheduler to run and is given the CPU This is indicated by time t3 in Figure 17 1 Scheduling latency is affected primarily by the number of processes waiting for the CPU and the priorities among them Setting the Real Time attribute on a process gives it higher priority over normal Linux processes and allows it to be the next process selected to run
459. piled into the kernel proper y instead it enables one or more features often represented as additional object modules to be included in the overall USB device driver module Usually the help text in the configuration editor or the hierarchy presented by the configuration editor makes this distinction clear 4 3 2 Configuration Editor s Early kernels used a simple command line driven script to configure the kernel This was cumbersome even for early kernels in which the number of configuration parameters was much smaller This command line style interface is still supported but using it is tedious to say the least A typical configuration from a recent kernel requires answering more than 600 questions from the command line entering your choice followed by the Enter key for each query from the script Furthermore if you make a mistake there is no way to back up you must start from the beginning again That can be profoundly frustrating if you make a mistake on the 599th entry In some situations such as building a kernel on an embedded system without graphics using the command line configuration utility is unavoidable but this author would go to great lengths to find a way around it The kernel configuration subsystem uses several graphical front ends In fact a recent Linux kernel release included 10 such configuration targets They are summarized here from text taken directly from the output of make help e
460. ple Abatron configuration file for a custom board based on the Freescale Semiconductor MPC5200 embedded controller In that appendix you can see the necessary setup for a custom board Notice the liberal use of comments describing various registers and initialization details This makes it easier to update and maintain over time and it can help you to get it right the first time Hardware probes are generally used in two ways Most have a user interface of some type that enables the developer to use features of the probe Examples of this are to program Flash or download binary images The second usage is as a front end to gdb or other source level debuggers We demonstrate both usage scenarios 14 4 1 Programming Flash Using a JTAG Probe Many hardware probes include the capability to program a wide variety of Flash memory chips The Abatron BDI 2000 is no exception The BDI 2000 configuration file includes a FLASH section to define the characteristics of the target Flash Refer to Appendix F for a sample The FLASH section defines attributes of the Flash chip as used in a particular design such as the chip type the size of the device and its data bus width Also defined are the location in memory and some way to describe the chip s storage organization When updating one portion of the Flash you often want to preserve the contents of other portions of the same Flash In this case your hardware probe must have some way to limi
461. pointed out some of the limitations of this method printk itself is a very robust implementation One of its shortcomings is that you can t see any printk messages until later in the boot sequence when the console device has been initialized Very often when your board hangs on boot quite a few messages are stuck in the printk buffer If you know where to find them you can often pinpoint the exact problem that is causing the boot to hang Indeed many times you will discover that the kernel has encountered an error that led to a call to panic The output from panic has likely been dumped into the printk buffer and you can often pinpoint the exact line of offending code This is best accomplished with a JTAG debugger but it is still possible to use a bootloader and its memory dump capability to display the contents of the printk buffer after a reset Some corruption of memory contents might occur as a result of the reset but log buffer text is usually very readable The actual buffer where printk stores its message text is declared in the printk source file kernel printk c static char __log_buf __LOG_BUF_LEN We can easily determine the linked location of this buffer from the Linux kernel map file System map grep __log buf System map c022e5a4 b __log_ buf Now if the system happens to hang upon booting right after displaying the Uncompressing Kernel Image OK message reboot and use the bootloader to e
462. ptures some of the output of the Redboot bootloader upon power up Listing 10 4 Redboot Messages on Power Up Platform ADI Coyote XScale IDE Parallel Port CPLD Version 1 0 Copyright C 2000 2001 2002 Red Hat Inc RAM Ox00000000 0x04000000 Ox0001f960 O0x03fd1000 available FLASH 0x50000000 0x51000000 128 blocks of Ox00020000 bytes each This tells us that RAM on this board is physically mapped starting at address 0x00000000 and that Flash is mapped at physical address 0x50000000 through 0x51000000 We can also see that the Flash has 128 blocks of 0x00020000 128KB each Redboot contains a command to create and display partition information on the Flash Listing 10 5 contains the output of the fis list command part of the Flash Image System family of commands available in the Redboot bootloader Listing 10 5 Redboot Flash Partition List RedBoot gt fis list Name FLASH addr Mem addr Length Entry point RedBoot 0x50000000 Ox50000000 Ox00060000 Ox00000000 RedBoot config Ox50FC0000 Ox50FCOO0O0 Ox00001000 0x00000000 FIS directory OxSOFEO000 OxSOFE0000 0x00020000 0x00000000 RedBoot gt From Listing 10 5 we see that the Coyote board has three partitions defined on the Flash The partition named RedBoot contains the executable Redboot bootloader image The partition named RedBoot config contains the configuration parameters maintain
463. quent Activate cycle and is dictated by the SDRAM chip The correct value must be obtained from the SDRAM chip specification In this case Oxl represents two clock cycles as determined from the 405GP user s manual This timing parameter enforces the minimum time delay between a given SDRAM read or write command to a subsequent Precharge command The correct value must be obtained from the SDRAM chip specification In this case Ox2 represents three clock cycles as determined from the 405GP user s manual This timing parameter enforces the minimum time delay Table D 3 405GP SDRAM Timing Register Fields Valu Field e Comments Leadoff LDF between assertion of address or command cycle to bank select cycle The correct value must be obtained from the SDRAM chip specification In this case Oxl represents two clock cycles as determined from the 405GP user s manual The final timing parameter configured by the U Boot example in Listing D 1 is the refresh timing register value This register requires a single field that determines the refresh interval enforced by the SDRAM controller The field representing the interval is treated as a simple counter running at the SDRAM clock frequency In the example here we assumed 1OOMHz as the SDRAM clock frequency The value programmed into this register in our example is Ox05f0 0000 From the PowerPC 405GP User s Manual we determine that this will produce a refresh request every 15 2 microse
464. r environment For example to enable the DHCP server on a Fedora Core 2 Linux distribution simply type the following command from a root command prompt etc init d dhcpd start or restart You must do this each time you start your development workstation unless you configure it to start automatically Many nuances are involved with installing a DHCP server so unless your server is on a private network it is advisable to check with your system administrator before going live with your own If you coexist with a corporate LAN it is very possible that you will interfere with its own DHCP service 12 3 3 NFS Server Using an NFS root mount for your target board is a very powerful development tool Some of the advantages of this configuration for development are e Your root file system is not size restricted by your board s own limited resources such as Flash memory e Changes made to your application files during development are immediately available to your target system e You can debug and boot your kernel before developing and debugging your root file system Setting up an NFS server varies depending on the desktop Linux distribution you are using As with the other services described in this chapter you must consult the documentation for your own Linux distribution for the details appropriate to your configuration The NFS service must be started from either your startup scripts a graphical menu or the command li
465. r Makefile conditional on the menu item created in step 2 4 Create a makefile for the new examples directory and add the hellol o module object to be compiled conditional on the menu item created in step 2 5 Finally create the driver hellol c source file from Listing 8 1 Adding the examples directory under the drivers char subdirectory is self explanatory After this directory is created two files are created in this directory the module source file itself from Listing 8 1 and the makefile for the examples directory The makefile for examples is quite trivial It will contain this single line obj S CONFIG_EXAMPLES hellol o Adding the menu item to the kernel configuration utility is a little more involved Listing 8 2 contains a patch that when applied to the drivers char Kconfig file from a recent Linux release adds the configuration menu item to enable our examples configuration option For those readers not familiar with the diff patch format each line in Listing 8 1 preceded by a single plus character is inserted in the file between the indicated lines those without the leading character Listing 8 2 Kconfig Patch for Examples diff u base linux 2 6 14 drivers char Kconfig drivers char Kconfig base linux 2 6 14 drivers char Kconfig drivers char Kconfig 4 6 4 12 menu Character devices config EXAMPLES tristate Enable Examples def
466. r all other processes to inherit including such things as PATH and CONSOLE Its primary role is to spawn additional processes under the direction of a special configuration file This configuration file is usually stored as etc inittab init has the concept of a runlevel A runlevel can be thought of as a system state Each runlevel is defined by the services enabled and programs spawned upon entry to that runlevel init can exist in a single runlevel at any given time Runlevels used by init include runlevels from O to 6 and a special runlevel called S Runlevel O instructs init to halt the system while runlevel 6 results in a system reboot For each run level a set of startup and shutdown scripts is usually provided that define the action a system should take for each runlevel Actions to perform for a given runlevel are determined by the etc inittab configuration file described shortly Several of the runlevels have been reserved for specific purposes in many distributions Table 6 2 details the runlevels and their purpose in common use in many Linux distributions Runlev el 0 Table 6 2 Runlevels Purpose System shutdown halt Single user system configuration for maintenance User defined General purpose multiuser configuration User defined Multiuser with graphical user interface on startup System restart reboot The runlevel scripts are commonly found under a directory called etc rc d init d Here you w
467. r application code We have introduced the two fundamental methods responsible for one time initialization and exit processing of the module Recall from Listing 8 1 that these are module_initQ and module_exit We discovered that these routines are invoked at the time the module is inserted into or removed from a running kernel Now we need some methods to interface with our device driver from our application program After all two of the more important reasons we use device drivers are to isolate the user from the perils of writing code in kernel space and to present a unified method to communicate with hardware or kernel level devices 8 3 1 Driver File System Operations After the device driver is loaded into a live kernel the first action we must take is to prepare the driver for subsequent operations The open method is used for this purpose After the driver has been opened we need routines for reading and writing to the driver A release routine is provided to clean up after operations when complete basically a close call Finally a special system call is provided for nonstandard communication to the driver This is called ioct1 Listing 8 10 adds this infrastructure to our example device driver Listing 8 10 Adding File System Ops to Hello c include lt linux module h gt include lt linux fs h gt define HELLO MAJOR 234 static int debug_enable 0 module_param debug_
468. r root file system The following command creates a new partition on the Flash called RootFS starting at physical memory Ox50300000 with a length of 30 blocks Remember a block generically called an erase unit is 128KB on this Flash chip RedBoot gt fis create f 0x50300000 1 Ox600000 n RootFS Next we boot the kernel and copy the root file system image into the new partition we have named RootFS This is accomplished with the following command from a Linux command prompt on your target board Note that this assumes you have already placed your file system image in a directory accessible to your board As mentioned many times throughout this book NFS is your best choice for development root coyote flashcp rootfs ext2 dev mtd2 The file system can be anywhere from a couple megabytes up to the largest size we have allowed on this partition so this can take some time Remember this operation involves programming sometimes called flashing the image into the Flash memory After copying we can mount the partition as a file system Listing 10 14 displays the sequence Listing 10 14 Mounting MTD Flash Partition as ext2 File System root coyote mount t ext2 dev mtdblock2 mnt remote ro root coyote 1s 1 mnt remote total 16 root root 1024 Nov 19 2005 bin root root 1024 Oct 26 2005 boot root root 1024 Nov 19 2005 dev root root 1024 Nov 19 2005 etc root root 1024 Oct 26 2005 home root root 1024 Nov 19 2005
469. rameters These specify the location in memory where the new image is to be loaded the name of the image file and the format of the filein this case a binary file You can specify these parameters in the BDI 2000 configuration file In this case the command reduces to simply prog without parameters This example only scratches the surface of these two BDI 2000 commands Many more combinations of usage and capabilities are supported Each hardware JTAG probe has its own way to specify Flash erasure and programming capabilities Consult the documentation for your particular device for the specifics 14 4 2 Debugging with a JTAG Probe Instead of interfacing directly with a JTAG probe via its user interface many JTAG probes can interface with your source level debugger By far the most popular debugger supported by hardware probes is the gdb debugger In this usage scenario gdb is instructed to begin a debug session with the target via an external connection usually an Ethernet connection Rather than communicate directly with the JTAG probe via a user interface the debugger passes commands back and forth between itself and the JTAG probe In this model the JTAG probe uses the gdb remote protocol to control the hardware on behalf of the debugger Refer again to Figure 14 6 for connection details JTAG probes are especially useful for source level debugging of bootloader and early startup code In this example we demonstrate the u
470. ramfs file system is that it truncates the group ID field to 8 bits Linux uses 16 bit group ID field The result is that files created with group IDs greater than 255 are truncated with the warning issued in Listing 9 10 Although somewhat limited in terms of maximum file sizes maximum number of files and so on the cramfs file system is ideal for boot ROMS in which read only operation and fast compression are ideally suited 9 7 Network File System Those of you who have developed in the UNIX environment will undoubtedly be familiar with the Network File System or simply NFS Properly configured NFS enables you to export a directory on an NFS server and mount that directory on a remote client machine as if it were a local file system This is useful in general for large networks of UNIX Linux machines and it can be a panacea to the embedded developer Using NFS on your target board an embedded developer can have access to a huge number of files libraries tools and utilities during development and debugging even if the target embedded system is resource constrained As with the other file systems your kernel must be configured with NFS support for both the server side functionality and the client side NFS server and client functionality is independently configured in the kernel configuration Detailed instructions for configuring and tuning NFS are beyond the scope of this book but a short introduction helps to illustrate h
471. ration file instructs the Lilo configuration utility to use the master boot record of the first hard drive dev hda It contains a delay instruction to wait for the user to press a key before the timeout 5 seconds in this case This gives the system operator the choice to select from a list of OS images to boot If the system operator presses the Tab key before the timeout Lilo presents a list to choose from Lilo uses the label tag as the text to display for each image The images are defined with the image tag in the configuration file In the example presented in Listing 7 10 the primary default image is a Linux kernel image with a file name of myLinux 2 6 11 1 Lilo loads this image from the hard drive It then loads a second file to be used as an initial ramdisk This is the file myInitrd 2 6 11 l img Lilo constructs a kernel command line containing the string root LABEL and passes this to the Linux kernel upon execution This instructs Linux where to get its root file system after boot 7 5 2 GRUB Many current commercial Linux distributions now ship with the GRUB bootloader GRUB or GRand Unified Bootloader is a GNU project It has many enhanced features not found in Lilo The biggest difference between GRUB and Lilo is GRUB s capability to understand file systems and kernel image formats Furthermore GRUB can read and modify its configuration at boot time GRUB also supports booting across a network which can be a trem
472. rd info data extern unsigned char __res static int __init init _pq2fads_mtd void bd_t bd bd_t __res physmap_configure bd gt bi_flashstart bd gt bi_flashsize PQ2FADS_BANK_WIDTH NULL physmap_set_partitions pq2fads_partitions sizeof pq2fads_ partitions sizeof pq2fads_partitions 0 return 0 static void __exit cleanup_paq2fads_mtd void module_initGinit_pq2fads_mtd module_exit cleanup_pq2fads_ mtd This simple but complete Linux device driver communicates the PQ2FADS Flash mapping to the MTD subsystem Recall from Chapter 8 that when a function in a device driver is declared with the module_init Q macro it is automatically invoked during Linux kernel boot at the appropriate time In this PQ2FADS mapping driver the module initialization function init _pq2fads_mtdQ performs just two simple calls physmap_configure passes to the MTD subsystem the Flash chip s physical address size and bank width along with any special setup function required to access the Flash e physmap_set_partitions passes the board s unique partition information to the MID subsystem from the partition table defined in the pq2fads_partitions array found at the start of this mapping driver Following this simple example you can derive a mapping driver for your own board 10 3 4 Flash Chip Drivers MTD has support for a wide variety of Flash
473. re complex if your requirements include having support for multiple architectures and processors on your development workstation This is the reason that embedded Linux distributions exist 12 2 1 Hardware Debug Probe In addition to the components listed previously you should consider some type of hardware assisted debugging This consists of a hardware probe connected to your host often via Ethernet and connected to your target via a debug connector on the board Many solutions are on the market today We cover this topic in detail in Chapter 14 Kernel Debugging Techniques 12 3 Hosting Target Boards Referring back to Figure 12 1 you will notice an Ethernet connection from the target embedded board to the host development system This is not strictly necessary and indeed some smaller embedded devices do not have an Ethernet interface However this is the exception rather than the rule Having an Ethernet connection available on your target board is worth its cost in silicon While developing the kernel you will compile and download kernels to your embedded board many times Many embedded development systems and bootloaders have support for TFTP and assume that the developer will use it TFTP is a lightweight protocol for moving files between a TFTP server and TFTP client similar to FTP Using TFTP from your bootloader to load the kernel will save you countless hours waiting for serial downloads even at higher seria
474. re in the jffs2 image dir directory in our example We arbitrarily execute the mkfs jffs2 command from the directory above our file system image Using the d flag we tell the mkfs jffs2 command where the file system template is located We use the o flag to name the output file to which the resulting JFFS2 image is written The resulting image jffs2 bin is used in Chapter 10 MTD Subsystem when we examine the JFFS2 file together with the MTD subsystem It should be pointed out that any Flash based file system that supports write operations is subject to conditions that can lead to premature failure of the underlying Flash device For example enabling system loggers syslogd and klogd configured to write their data to Flash based file systems can easily overwhelm a Flash device with continuous writes Some categories of program errors can also lead to continuous writes Care must be taken to limit Flash writes to values within the lifetime of Flash devices 9 6 cramfs From the README file in the cramfs project the goal of cramfs is to cram a file system into a small ROM The cramfs file system is very useful for embedded systems that contain a small ROM or FLASH memory that holds static data and programs Borrowing again from the cramfs README file cramfs is designed to be simple and small and compress things well The cramfs file system is read only It is created with a command line utility called mkcramfs If you
475. reporting e Jumps to the start of the kernel proper main c These functions contain some hidden complexities Many novice embedded developers have tried to single step through parts of this code only to find that the debugger becomes hopelessly lost Although a discussion of the complexities of assembly language and the hardware details of virtual memory is beyond the scope of this book a few things are worth noting about this complicated module When control is first passed to the kernel s head o from the bootstrap loader the processor is operating in what we used to call real mode in x86 terminology In effect the logical address contained in the processor s program counter or any other register for that matter is the actual physical address driven onto the processor s electrical memory address pins Soon after the processor s registers and kernel data structures are initialized to enable memory translation the processor s memory management unit MMU is turned on Suddenly the address space as seen by the processor is yanked from beneath it and replaced by an arbitrary virtual addressing scheme determined by the kernel developers This creates a complexity that can really be understood only by a detailed analysis of both the assembly language constructs and logical flow as well as a detailed knowledge of the CPU and its hardware address translation mechanism In short physical addresses are replaced by logical addresses the moment t
476. rget lib libc so 6 Oxdead1000 1d linux so 3 gt opt mv1 xscale_be target lib 1d linux so 3 Oxdead2000 Your cross toolchain should be preconfigured with these library locations Not only does your host GDB need to know where they are located but of course your compiler and linker also need this knowledge GDB can tell you where it is configured to look for these libraries using the show solib absolute prefix command L Of course your compiler also needs to know the location of target files such as architecture specific system and library header files gdb show solib absolute prefix Prefix for loading absolute shared library symbol files is opt mv1 pro devkit arm xscale_be target gdb You can set or change where GDB searches for shared libraries using the GDB commands set solib absolute prefix and set solib search path If you are developing your own shared library modules or have custom library locations on your system you can use solib search path to instruct GDB where to look for your libraries For more details about these and other GDB commands consult the online GDB manual referenced at the end of this chapter in Section 15 6 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading One final note about ldd You might have noticed the addresses from Listing 15 8 and 15 9 associated with the libraries ldd displays the load address for the start of these code segments as they would b
477. ripts Contains basic system startup and shutdown scripts e apache Implements the popular Apache web server e telnet server Contains files necessary to implement telnet server functionality which allows you to establish Telnet sessions to your embedded target e glibc Standard C library e busybox Compact versions of dozens of popular command line utilities commonly found on UNIX Linux systems 15 This package is important enough to warrant its own chapter Chapter 11 BusyBox covers BusyBox in detail This is the purpose of a Linux distribution as the term has come to be used A typical Linux distribution comes with several CD ROMs full of useful programs libraries tools utilities and documentation Installation of a distribution typically leaves the user with a fully functional system based on a reasonable set of default configuration options which can be tailored to suit a particular set of requirements You may be familiar with one of the popular desktop Linux distributions such as RedHat or Suse A Linux distribution for embedded targets differs in several significant ways First the executable target binaries from an embedded distribution will not run on your PC but are targeted to the architecture and processor of your embedded system Of course if your embedded Linux distribution targets the x86 architecture this statement does not apply A desktop Linux distribution tends to have many GUI tools aimed at the
478. rkstations download configuration files to network aware printers and to start the installation process Se te Ht for some operating systems service tftp socket_type dgram protocol udp wait yes user root server usr sbin in tftpd server_args c s tftpboot disable no per_ source 11 cps 100 2 flags Pv4 In this typical setup the TFTP service has been enabled disable no and configured to serve files located in this workstation s tftpboot directory When the xinetd Internet superserver receives an incoming TFTP request it consults this configuration and spawns the server specified usr sbin in tftpd The command line arguments specified by server_args are passed to the in tftpd process In this case the s switch tells in tftpd to switch to the specified directory tftpboot and the c flag allows the creation of new files This is useful to write files to the server from the target Consult the documentation that came with your desktop distribution for details specific to your environment 12 3 2 BOOTP DHCP Server Having a DHCP server on your development host simplifies the configuration management for your embedded target We have already established the reasons why an Ethernet interface on your target hardware is a good idea When Linux boots on your target board it needs to configure the Ethernet interface before the interface will be useful Moreover if
479. rn value indicated by the sign in this case represents a Linux file descriptor Knowing this we can associate the activity from line 82 through the close system call in line 89 with file descriptor 3 We are interested in this group of related system calls because we see an error message in line 88 Connection refused At this point we still don t know why the program won t run but this appears abnormal Let s investigate Line 82 the system call to socket establishes an endpoint for IP communication Line 83 is quite curious because it tries to establish a connection to a remote endpoint socket containing an IP address of all zeros We don t have to be network experts to suspect that this might be causing trouble Line 83 provides another important clue The port parameter is set to 53 A quick Google search for TCP IP port numbers reveals that port 53 is the Domain Name Service or DNS 5 k Sometimes an all zeros address is appropriate in this context However we are investigating why the program bailed abnormally so we should consider this suspect Line 84 provides yet another clue Our board has a hostname of coyote This can be seen as part of the command prompt in line Ol of Listing 13 5 It appears that this activity is a DNS lookup for our board s hostname which is failing As an experiment we add an entry in our target system s etc hosts file to associate our locally defined hostname with the bo
480. rnel build system for just this reason For the average developer who simply needs to add support for his custom hardware the design of the kernel build system makes these kinds of customizations very straightforward In actuality the kernel build system is very complicated but most of the complexity is cleverly hidden from the average developer As a result it is relatively easy to add modify or delete configurations without having to be an expert Looking at this makefile it might be obvious what must be done to introduce new hardware setup routines conditionally based on your configuration options Simply add the following two lines at the bottom of the makefile and you re done obj S CONFIG_ARCH_VEGA vega_setup o obj S CONFIG_ARCH_ CONSTELLATION costellation_setup o These steps complete the simple addition of setup modules specific to the hypothetical example custom hardware Using similar logic you should now be able to make your own modifications to the kernel configuration build system 4 3 7 Kernel Documentation A wealth of information is available in the Linux source tree itself It would be difficult indeed to read it all because there are nearly 650 documentation files in 42 subdirectories in the Documentation directory Be cautious in reading this material Given the rapid pace of kernel development and release this documentation tends to become outdated quickly Nonetheless it often provides a great
481. rocessors Part of this success is based around the company s PowerQUICC product line The PowerQUICC architecture has been shipping for more than a decade It is based on a PowerPC core integrated with a QUICC engine also called a communications processor module or CPM in the Freescale literature The QUICC engine is an independent RISC processor designed to offload the communications processing from the main PowerPC core thus freeing up the PowerPC core to focus on control and management applications The QUICC engine is a complex but highly flexible communications peripheral controller lsi On the Freescale website navigate to Media Center Press Releases This one was dated 10 31 2005 from Austin Texas In its current incarnation PowerQUICC encompasses four general families For convenience as we discuss these PowerQUICC products we refer to it as PQ The PQ I family includes the original PowerPC based PowerQUICC implementations and consists of the MPC8xx family of processors These integrated communications processors operate at 50 133MHz and feature the embedded PowerPC 8xx core The PQ I family has been used for ATM and Ethernet edge devices such as routers for the home and small office SOHO market residential gateways ASDL and cable modems and similar applications The CPM or QUICC engine incorporates two unique and powerful communications controllers The Serial Communication Controller SCC is a flexible s
482. rom the processor core This is followed by details of the processor cache type and size In this example the IXP425 has a 32KB I instruction cache and 32KB D data cache along with other implementation details of the internal processor cache One of the final actions of the architecture setup routines is to perform any machine dependent initialization The exact mechanism for this varies across different architectures For ARM you will find machine specific initialization in the arch arm mach series of directories depending on your machine type MIPS architecture also contains directories specific to supported reference platforms For PowerPC there is a machine dependent structure that contains pointers to many common setup functions We examine this in more detail in Chapter 16 Porting Linux 5 3 Kernel Command Line Processing Following the architecture setup main c performs generic early kernel initialization and then displays the kernel command line Line 10 of Listing 5 3 is reproduced here for convenience Kernel command line console ttyS0 115200 ip bootp root dev nfs In this simple example the kernel being booted is instructed to open a console device on serial port device ttySO usually the first serial port at a baud rate of 115Kbps It is being instructed to obtain its initial IP address information from a BOOTP server and to mount a root file system via the NFS protocol We cover BOOTP later in Chap
483. root coyote busybox BusyBox v1 01 2005 12 03 18 00 0000 multi call binary Usage busybox function arguments or function arguments BusyBox is a multi call binary that combines many common Unix utilities into a single executable Most people will create a link to busybox for each function they wish to use and BusyBox will act like whatever it was invoked as Currently defined functions ash basename bunzip2 busybox bzcat cat chgrp chmod chown chroot chvt clear cmp cp cut date dd deallocvt df dirname dmesg du echo egrep env expr false fgrep find free grep gunzip gzip halt head hexdump hostname id ifconfig init install kill killall klogd linuxrc In logger ls mkdir mknod mktemp more mount mv openvt pidof ping pivot_root poweroff ps pwd readlink reboot reset rm rmdir route sed sh sleep sort strings swapoff swapon sync syslogd tail tar tee test time touch tr true tty umount uname uniq unzip uptime usleep vi wc wget which whoami xargs yes zcat From Listing 11 3 you can see the list of functions that are enabled in this BusyBox build They are listed in alphabetical order from ash a shell optimized for small memory footprint to zcat a utility used to decompress the contents of a compressed file This is the default set of utilities enabled in this particular BusyBox snapshot To invoke a particular functio
484. rporation of wear leveling As discussed earlier Flash blocks are subject to a finite write lifetime Wear leveling algorithms are used to distribute writes evenly over the physical erase blocks of the Flash memory Another limitation that arises from the Flash architecture is the risk of data loss during a power failure or premature shutdown Consider that the Flash block sizes are relatively large and that average file sizes being written are often much smaller relative to the block size You learned previously that Flash blocks must be written one block at a time Therefore to write a small 8KB file you must erase and rewrite an entire Flash block perhaps 64KB or 128KB in size in the worst case this can take tens of seconds to complete This opens a significant window of risk of data loss due to power failure One of the more popular Flash file systems in use today is JFFS2 or Journaling Flash File System 2 It has several important features aimed at improving overall performance increasing Flash lifetime and reducing the risk of data loss in case of power failure The more significant improvements in the latest JFFS2 file system include improved wear leveling compression and decompression to squeeze more data into a given Flash size and support for Linux hard links We cover this in detail in Chapter 9 File Systems and again in Chapter 10 MTD Subsystem when we discuss the Memory Technology Device MTD subsystem 2 3 5
485. rt of the changes come in the powerdnalclh files and changes to the FEC Fast Ethernet Controller layer There were minor differences between powerdna c and 1ite5200 c the file from which it was derived Two primary issues required changes First PCI was disabled because it is not used in the PowerDNA design This required some minor tweaking Second the PowerDNA design incorporates an unmanaged Ethernet physical layer chip that required slight changes in the hardware setup and the FEC layer This work constituted the majority of the porting effort The patch file consists of 1120 lines but the bulk of those lines are the default configuration which is only a convenience for the developer and is not strictly necessary Removing that the patch reduces to 411 lines 16 4 1 Other Architectures We examined the details of how a given platform fits into the kernel and the facilities that exist for porting to a new board Our reference for this chapter and the discussions within came from the PowerPC architecture branch of the kernel The other architectures differ in many detailed aspects of how various hardware platforms are incorporated but the concepts are similar When you have learned how to navigate a single architecture you have the knowledge and tools to learn the details of the other architectures 16 5 Chapter Summary e Porting Linux to a custom board based on a Linux supported CPU can be relatively straightforward There is
486. rted at line 307 in our source file We can confirm this using the addr2line utility also introduced in Chapter 13 Using the address derived from gdb in Listing 14 7 lel A reference for the Dwarf debug specification appears at the end of this chapter in Section 14 6 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading ppc_44x addr2line e vmlinux Oxc020f4lc arch ppc platforms 4xx yosemite c 307 At this point gdb is reporting our breakpoint at line 116 of the yosemite c file To understand what is happening we need to look at the assembler output of the function as reported by gdb Listing 14 8 is the output from gdb after issuing the disassemble command on the yosemite_setup_arch function Listing 14 8 Disassemble Function yosemite_setup_arch gdb disassemble yosemite_setup_arch Oxc020f4lc lt yosemite_setup_arch 0 gt mfir ro Oxc020f420 lt yosemite_setup_arch 4 gt stwu r1 48 r1 Oxc020f424 lt yosemite_setup_arch 8 gt li r4 512 OxcO020f428 lt yosemite_setup_archt 2 gt li r5 0 OxcO20f42c lt yosemite_setup_arch 16 gt li r3 4116 Oxc020f430 lt yosemite_setup_arch 20 gt stmw r25 20 r1 Oxc020f434 lt yosemite_setup_archt 24 gt stw r0 52 r1 OxcO020f438 lt yosemite_setup_arch 28 gt bl Oxc000d344 lt ocp_get_one_device gt Oxc020f43c lt yosemite_setup_arch 32 gt lwz r31 32 r3 Oxc020f440 lt yosemite_setup_arch 36 gt lis r4 16350 Oxc020f444 lt yosemite_setup_arch 40 gt li r28 2 Oxc020f
487. rticular application the best way to proceed is to obtain the latest stable Linux source tree Check to see if support for your particular processor exists and then search the Linux kernel mailing lists for any patches or issues related to your application Also find the mailing list that most closely matches your interest and search that archive also Appendix E Open Source Resources contains several good references and sources of information related to kernel source repositories mailing lists and more 4 2 Linux Kernel Construction In the next few sections we explore the layout organization and construction of the Linux kernel Armed with this knowledge you will find it much easier to navigate this large complex source code base Over time there have been significant improvements in the organization of the source tree especially in the architecture branch which contains support for numerous architectures and specific machines As this book is being written an effort is underway to collapse the ppc and ppc64 architecture branches into a single common powerpc branch When the dust settles there will be many improvements including elimination of duplicate code better organization of files and partitioning of functionality 4 2 1 Top Level Source Directory We make frequent reference to the top level source directory throughout the book In every case we are referring to the highest level directory contained in the k
488. rticular processor and board These are the components of an embedded Linux distribution 4 5 Chapter Summary e The Linux kernel is more than 10 years old and has become a mainstream well supported operating system for many architectures e The Linux open source home is found at www kernel org Virtually every release version of the kernel is available there going all the way back to Linux 1 0 e We leave it to other great books to describe the theory and operation of the Linux kernel Here we discussed how it is built and identified the components that make up the image Breaking up the kernel into understandable pieces is the key to learning how to navigate this large software project e This chapter covered the kernel build system and the process of modifying the build system to facilitate modifications e Several kernel configuration editors exist We chose one and examined how it is driven and how to modify the menus and menu items within These concepts apply to all the graphical front ends e The kernel itself comes with an entire directory structure full of useful kernel documentation This is a helpful resource for understanding and navigating the kernel and its operation e This chapter concluded with a brief introduction to the options available for obtaining an embedded Linux distribution 4 5 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading Linux Kernel HOWTO www tldp org HOWTO Kernel HOWTO Kernel Kbuild documentat
489. ructureTree Detail root coyote tree ash gt busybox busybox cat gt busybox cp gt busybox zcat gt busybox I linuxrc gt bin busybox I sbin halt gt bin busybox ifconfig gt bin busybox klogd gt bin busybox init gt bin busybox i syslogd gt bin busybox I bin I gt bin busybox I basename gt bin busybox eee I xargs gt bin busybox yes gt bin busybox sbin chroot gt bin busybox The output of Listing 11 5 has been significantly truncated for readability and to avoid a three page listing Each line containing an ellipsis indicates that this listing has been pruned to show only the first few and last few entries of that given directory In actuality more than 100 symlinks can be populated in these directories depending on what functionality you have enabled using the BusyBox configuration utility Notice the busybox executable itself the second entry from the bin directory Also in the bin directory are symlinks pointing back to busybox for ash cat cp all the way to zcat Again the entries between cp and zcat have been omitted from this listing for readability With this symlink structure the user simply enters the actual name of t
490. ructures are linked by the address of the struct list head member called tasks as opposed to the common practice of being linked by the starting address of the task_struct itself Because the gt next pointer points to the address of the task structure element in the next task_struct on the list we must subtract to get the address of the top of the task_struct itself The value we subtract from the gt next pointer is the offset from that pointer s address to the top of task struct First we calculate the offset and then we use that offset to adjust the gt next pointer to point to the top of task_struct Figure 14 5 should make this clear Figure 14 5 Task structure list linking struct task_struct task_struct state task_struct thread info task_struct thread info state thread info flags tasks next tasks next Now we present one final macro that will be useful in the next section when we discuss debugging loadable modules Listing 14 16 is a simple macro that displays the kernel s list of currently installed loadable modules Listing 14 16 gdb List Modules Macro 1 define 1lsmod 2 printf Address t tModule n 3 set m struct list_head amp modules 4 set Sdone 0 5 while done 6 list_head is 4 bytes into struct module 7 set mp struct module char m gt next char 4 8 printf 0x 08X t
491. s Read Shared Object Library 0x40033300 0x4010260c Yes opt mv1 1ib t1s libc so 6 Ox40000790 Ox400133fc Yes opt mv1 1ib 1d linux so 3 gdb set stop on solib events 1 gdb c Continuing Stopped due to shared library event gdb i shared From To Syms Read Shared Object Library 0x40033300 0x4010260c Yes opt mv1 lib t1s libc so 6 Ox40000790 Ox400133fc Yes opt mv1 1ib 1d linux so 3 0x4012bad8 0x40132104 Yes opt mv1 libnss_files so 2 gdb When the debug session is first started of course no shared libraries are loaded You can see this with the first i shared command This command displays the shared libraries that are currently loaded Setting a breakpoint at our application s mainQ function we see that two shared libraries are now loaded These are the Linux dynamic linker loader and the standard C library component libc From here we issue the set stop on solib event command and continue program execution When the application tries to execute a function from another shared library that library is loaded In case you are wondering the gethostbyname function is encountered and causes the next shared object load This example illustrates an important cross development concept The binary application ELF image running on the target contains information on the libraries it needs to resolve its external references We can view this information easily using the
492. s a string that is passed as the target hostname device is the Linux device name such as eth0 and PROTO defines the protocol used to obtain initial IP parameters 9 8 Pseudo File Systems A number of file systems fall under the category of Pseudo File Systems in the kernel configuration menu Together they provide a range of facilities useful in a wide range of applications For additional information especially on the proc file system spend an afternoon poking around this useful system facility Where appropriate references to additional reading material can be found in Section 9 11 1 at the end of this chapter 9 8 1 Proc File System The proc file system took its name from its original purpose an interface that allows the kernel to communicate information about each running process on a Linux system Over the course of time it has grown and matured to provide much more than process information We introduce the highlights here a complete tour of the proc file system is left as an exercise for the reader The proc file system has become a virtual necessity for all but the simplest of Linux systems even embedded ones Many user level functions rely on the contents of the proc file system to do their job For example the mount command issued without any parameters lists all the currently active mount points on a running system from the information delivered by proc mounts If the proc file system is not available
493. s file as a guide but not a definitive reference More than 400 distinct kernel command line parameters are documented in this file and it cannot be considered a comprehensive list For that you must refer directly to the source code The basic syntax for kernel command line parameters is fairly simple and mostly evident from the example in line 10 of Listing 5 3 Kernel command line parameters can be either a single text word a key value pair or a key valuel value2 key and multivalue format It is up to the consumer of this information to process the data as delivered The command line is available globally and is processed by many modules as needed As noted earlier setup_arch in main c is called with the kernel command line as its only argument This is to pass architecture specific parameters and configuration directives to the relevant portions of architecture and machine specific code Device driver writers and kernel developers can add additional kernel command line parameters for their own specific needs Let s take a look at the mechanism Unfortunately some complications are involved in using and processing kernel command line parameters The first of these is that the original mechanism is being deprecated in favor of a much more robust implementation The second complication is that we need to comprehend the complexities of a linker script file to fully understand the mechanism a It s not necessarily
494. s from an exports file located on your server It is commonly found in etc exports Listing 12 7 is an example of a simple exports entry Listing 12 7 Simple NFS exports File cat etc exports etc exports home chris sandbox coyote target rw sync no_root_squash home chris sandbox pdna target rw sync no_root_squash home chris workspace rw sync no_root_squash These entries on my workstation allow a client to remotely mount any of the three directories shown The attributes following the directory specification instruct the NFS server to allow connections from any IP address and to mount the respective directories with the given attributes read write with no_root_squash The latter attribute enables a client with root privileges to exercise those privileges on the given directory It is usually required when working with embedded systems because they often have only root accounts You can test your NFS configuration right from your workstation Assuming that you have NFS services enabled requires both NFS server and client components enabled you can mount a local NFS export as you would mount any other file system mount t nfs localhost home chris workspace mnt remote If this command succeeds and the files in workspace are available on mnt remote your NFS server configuration is working 12 3 4 Target NFS Root Mount Mounting your target via NFS root mount is not difficu
495. s of Linux as an embedded OS is rapid support of new chipsets Linux currently has support for those chipsets mentioned here as well as many others Consult the Linux source code and configuration utility for information on your chosen chipset 3 2 Integrated Processors Systems on Chip In the previous section we highlighted stand alone processors Although they are used for many applications including some high horsepower processing engines the vast majority of embedded systems employ some type of integrated processor or system on chip SOC Literally scores if not hundreds exist to choose from We examine a few from the industry leaders and look at some of the features that set each group apart As in the section on stand alone processors we focus only on those integrated processors with strong Linux support Several major processor architectures exist and each architecture has examples of integrated SOCs PowerPC has been a traditional leader in many networking and telecommunications related embedded applications while MIPS might have the market lead in lower end consumer grade equipment ARM is used in many cellular phones These represent the major architectures in widespread use in embedded Linux systems However as you will see in Chapter 4 The Linux Kernel A Different Perspective Linux supports more than 20 different hardware architectures today a These are the author s own opinions based on market observation an
496. s presented in this chapter That would take an entire book by itself Rather than provide a complete reference our goal is to provide an introduction on the basic usage of each one You are encouraged to pursue additional study on these and other important development tools The man page or other documentation for each tool is a great place to start The GNU Debugger GDB is introduced first followed by a brief look at the Data Display Debugger a graphical front end for GDB Next we introduce a series of utilities designed to give the developer a look at the behavior of programs and the system as a whole These include strace Itrace top and ps often overlooked by inexperienced Linux developers We then present some crash dump and memory analysis tools The chapter concludes by introducing some of the more useful binary utilities 13 1 GNU Debugger GDB If you spend much time developing Linux applications you will undoubtedly spend many hours getting to know the GNU Debugger GDB is arguably the most important tool in the developer s toolbox It has a long history and its capabilities have blossomed to include low level hardware specific debugging support for a wide variety of architectures and microprocessors It should be noted that the user manual for GDB is nearly as large as this book Our intention here is to introduce GDB to get you started You are encouraged to study the user manual referenced later under Section 13 7 1
497. s significant challenges on the initial body of code designed to initialize the hardware As a result one of the first tasks the bootloader performs on startup is to configure enough of the hardware to enable at least some minimal amount of RAM Some processors designed for embedded use have small amounts of on chip static RAM available This is the case with the PPC 405GP we ve been discussing When RAM is available a stack can be allocated using part of that RAM and a proper context can be constructed to run higher level languages such as C This allows the rest of the processor and platform initialization to be written in something other than assembly language 7 3 A Universal Bootloader Das U Boot Many open source and commercial bootloaders are available and many more one of a kind home grown designs are in widespread use today Most of these have some level of commonality of features For example all of them have some capability to load and execute other programs particularly an operating system Most interact with the user through a serial port Support for various networking subsystems such as Ethernet is less common but a very powerful feature Many bootloaders are specific to a particular architecture The capability of a bootloader to support a wide variety of architectures and processors can be an important feature to larger development organizations It is not uncommon for a single development organization to have mult
498. s that control its behavior As we saw earlier modprobe can be used to remove modules including the modules upon which a given module depends Here is an example of module removal that removes both jbd ko and ext3 ko modprobe r ext3 The modprobe utility is driven by a configuration file called modprobe conf This enables a system developer to associate devices with device drivers For a simple embedded system modprobe conf might be empty or might contain very few lines The modprobe utility is compiled with a set of default rules that establish the defaults in the absence of a valid modprobe conf Invoking modprobe with only the c option displays the set of default rules used by modprobe Listing 8 8 represents a typical modprobe conf which might be found on a system containing two Ethernet interfaces one is a wireless adapter based on the Prism2 chipset and the other is a typical PCI Ethernet card This system also contains a sound subsystem based on an integrated Intel sound chipset Listing 8 8 Typical modprobe conf File cat etc modprobe conf alias ethl orinoci_pci options ethl orinoco_debug 9 alias ethO el00 alias snd card 0O snd intel8x0 options snd card O index 0 When the kernel boots and discovers the wireless chipset this configuration file instructs modprobe to load the orinoco_pci device driver bound to kernel device ethl and pass the optional module parameter orin
499. s the runlevel startup and shutdown behavior upon entry to or exit from the specified runlevel respectively Listing 6 4 Runlevel Directory Structure 1s 1 etc re d total 96 drwxr xr x 2 root root 4096 Oct 20 10 19 init d rwxr xr x l root root 2352 Mar 16 2004 rc drwxr xr x 2 root root 4096 Mar 22 2005 rc0O d drwxr xr x 2 root root 4096 Mar 22 2005 rcl d drwxr xr x 2 root root 4096 Mar 22 2005 rc2 d drwxr xr x 2 root root 4096 Mar 22 2005 rc3 d drwxr xr x 2 root root 4096 Mar 22 2005 rc4 d drwxr xr x 2 root root 4096 Mar 22 2005 rc5 d drwxr xr x 2 root root 4096 Mar 22 2005 rc6 d rwxr xr x 1 root root 948 Dec 31 16 36 rc local rwxr xr x 1 root root 25509 Jan 11 2005 rc sysinit Each of the runlevels is defined by the scripts contained in the rcN d where N is the runlevel Inside each rcN d directory you will find numerous symlinks arranged in a specific order These symbolic links start with either a K or an S Those beginning with S point to service scripts which are invoked with startup instructions those starting with a K point to service scripts that are invoked with shutdown instructions An example with a very small number of services might look like Listing 6 5 Listing 6 5 Example Runlevel Directory irwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 Nov 25 2004 Sl0network gt init d network lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Nov 25 2004 Sl2syslog gt init d syslog irwxrwxrwx
500. s to look for in a bootloader include support for the BOOTP DHCP and TFTP protocols For those unfamiliar with these BOOTP Bootstrap Protocol and DHCP Dynamic Host Control Protocol are protocols that enable a target device with an Ethernet port to obtain an IP address and other network related configuration information from a central server TFTP Trivial File Transfer Protocol allows the target device to download files such as a Linux kernel image from a TFTP server References to these protocol specifications are listed at the end of this chapter Servers for these services are described in Chapter 12 Embedded Development Environment Figure 7 1 illustrates the flow of information between the target device and a BOOTP server The client U Boot in this case initiates a broadcast packet searching for a BOOTP server The server responds with a reply packet that includes the client s IP address and other information The most useful data includes a filename used to download a kernel image Figure 7 1 BOOTP client server handshake U Boot BOOTP DHCP Server Start Broadcast BOOTREQUEST Unicast BOOTREPLY Time In practice dedicated BOOTP servers no longer exist as stand alone servers DHCP servers included with your favorite Linux distribution also support BOOTP protocol packets The DHCP protocol builds upon BOOTP It can supply the target with a wide variety of configuration information In practice the
501. sched_priority MY _RT PRIORITY Passing zero specifies callers our pid rc sched_setscheduler 0 SCHED_RR amp my_params if re 1 handle_error Q This code snippet does two things in the call to sched_setscheduler It changes the scheduling policy to SCHED _RR and raises its priority to the maximum possible on the system Linux supports three scheduling policies The man page for sched_setscheduler provides more detail on the three different SCHED_OTHER Normal Linux process fairness scheduling SCHED_RR Real time process with a time slicethat is if it does not block it is allowed to run for a given period of time determined by the scheduler SCHED FIFO Real time process that runs until it either blocks or explicitly yields the processor or until another higher priority SCHED FIFO process becomes runnable scheduling policies 17 3 4 Critical Section Management When writing kernel code such as a custom device driver you will encounter data structures that you must protect from concurrent access The easiest way to protect critical data is to disable preemption around the critical section Keep the critical path as short as possible to maintain a low maximum latency for your system Listing 17 5 shows an example Listing 17 5 Protecting Critical Section in Kernel Code i Declare and initialize a global lock for your critical data DEFINE_SPINLOCK my_1lock
502. se functions are machine specific and come from mpc52xx_ variants of the functions Examples of these include mpc52xx_restart and mpc52xx_map_io Others are specific to the hardware platform Examples of platform specific routines include lite5200_map_irg and 1lite5200_setup_arch 16 4 Putting It All Together Now that we have a reference from which to proceed we can create the necessary files and functions for our own custom board We copy the Lite5200 platform files for our baseline and modify them for our custom PowerPC platform We ll call our new platform PowerDNA The steps we will perform for this custom port are as follows l Add a new configuration option to arch ppc Kconfig 2 Copy lite5200 to powerdna as a baseline 3 Edit new powerdna files as appropriate for our platform 4 Edit arch ppc Makefile to conditionally include powerdna o 5 Compile load and debug You learned how to add a configuration option to Kconfig in Chapter 4 The configuration option for our new PowerDNA port is detailed in Listing 16 11 Listing 16 11 Configuration Option for PowerDNA config POWERDNA bool United Electronics Industries PowerDNA select PPC_MPC52xx help Support for the UEI PowerDNA board This Kconfig entry is added just below the entry for LITE5200 because they are related Figure 16 4 illustrates the results when the configuration utility is invoked 19 To preserve space we
503. se of gdb and an Abatron BDI 2000 for debugging portions of the U Boot bootloader on a PowerPC target board Many processors contain debugging registers that include the capability to set traditional address breakpoints stop when the program reaches a specific address as well as data breakpoints stop on conditional access of a specified memory address When debugging code resident in read only memory such as Flash this is the only way to set a breakpoint However these registers are typically limited Many processors contain only one or two such registers This limitation must be understood before using hardware breakpoints The following example demonstrates this Using a setup such as that shown in Figure 14 6 assume that our target board has U Boot stored in Flash When we presented bootloaders in Chapter 7 you learned that U Boot and other bootloaders typically copy themselves into RAM as soon as possible after startup This is because hardware read and write cycles from RAM are orders of magnitude faster than typical read only memory devices such as Flash This presents two specific debugging challenges First we cannot modify the contents of read only memory to insert a software breakpoint so we must rely on processor supported breakpoint registers for this purpose The second challenge comes from the fact that only one of the execution contexts Flash or RAM can be represented by the ELF executable file from which gdb
504. secondary loader found in the PC architecture Figure 5 2 makes this concept clear The bootstrap loader is concatenated to the kernel image for loading Figure 5 2 Composite kernel image for ARM XScale Binary piggy o gt Kernel Image misc o endian o Bootstrap head Loader xscale o head o a f In the example we have been studying the bootstrap loader consists of the binary images shown in Figure 5 2 The functions performed by this bootstrap loader include the following e Low level assembly processor initialization which includes support for enabling the processor s internal instruction and data caches disabling interrupts and setting up a C runtime environment These include head o and head xscale o e Decompression and relocation code embodied in misc o e Other processor specific initialization such as big endian o which enables the big endian mode for this particular processor It is worth noting that the details we have been examining in the preceding sections are specific to the ARM XScale kernel implementation Each architecture has different details although the concepts are similar Using a similar analysis to that presented here you can learn the requirements of your own architecture 5 1 4 Boot Messages Perhaps you ve seen a PC workstation booting a desktop Linux distribution such as Red Hat or SUSE Linux After the PC s own BIOS messages you see a flurry of console messages
505. shed within the manufacturer s timing specifications and respond to the various read and write commands from the processor Setting up a DRAM controller is the source of much frustration for the newcomer to embedded development It requires detailed knowledge of DRAM architecture the controller itself the specific DRAM chips being used and the overall hardware design Though this is beyond the scope of this book the interested reader can learn more about this important concept by referring to the references at the end of this chapter Appendix D SDRAM Interface Considerations provides more background on this important topic Very little can happen in an embedded system until the DRAM controller and DRAM itself have been properly initialized One of the first things a bootloader must do is to enable the memory subsystem After it is initialized memory can be used as a resource In fact one of the first actions many bootloaders perform after memory initialization is to copy themselves into DRAM for faster execution 7 2 2 Flash Versus RAM Another complexity inherent in bootloaders is that they are required to be stored in nonvolatile storage but are usually loaded into RAM for execution Again the complexity arises from the level of resources available for the bootloader to rely on In a fully operational computer system running an operating system such as Linux it is relatively easy to compile a program and invoke it from nonv
506. signal related system calls and PC related system calls It is worth noting that strace is capable of dealing with tracing programs that spawn additional processes Invoking strace with the f option instructs strace to follow child processes that are created using the forkQ system call Numerous possibilities exist with the strace command The best way to become proficient with this powerful utility is to use it Make it a point with this and all the tools we present to seek out and read the latest open source documentation In this case man strace on most Linux hosts will produce enough material to keep you experimenting for an afternoon One very useful way to employ strace is using the c option This option produces a high level profiling of your application Using the c option strace accumulates statistics on each system call how many times it was encountered how many times errors were returned and the time spent in each system call Listing 13 6 is an example of running strace c on the webs demo from the previous example Listing 13 6 Profiling Using strace root coyote strace c webs time seconds usecs call calls errors syscall 29 80 0 034262 189 181 send 18 46 0 021226 1011 21 10 open 14 11 0 016221 130 125 read 11 87 0 013651 506 27 8 stat64 5 88 0 006762 193 35 select 5 28 0 006072 76 80 fcnt164 3 47 0 003994 65 61 time 2 79 0 003205 3205 1 execve 171 0 0
507. signed long cal1 printk n call O This code is self explanatory except for the two labels marking the loop boundaries __initcall_ start and __initcall_end These labels are not found in any C source or header file They are defined in the linker script file used during the link stage of vmlinux These labels mark the beginning and end of the list of initialization functions populated using the _initcall family of macros You can see each of the labels by looking at the System map file in the top level kernel directory They all begin with the string initcall as described in Listing 5 8 In case you were wondering about the debug print statements in do_initcallsQ you can watch these calls being executed during bootup by setting the kernel command line parameter initcall debug This command line parameter enables the printing of the debug information shown in Listing 5 10 Simply start your kernel with the kernel command line parameter initcall_ debug to enable this diagnostic output You might have to lower the default loglevel on your system to see these debug messages This is described in many references about Linux system administration In any case you should see them in the kernel log file Here is an example of what you will see when you enable these debug statements Calling initcall Oxc00168f4 tty_class_init 0x0 0x3c Q Calling initcall Oxc000c32c customize_machinet 0x0 0x2c Calling initcall O
508. sin_port htons 53 sin_addr inet_addr 0 0 0 0 28 0 92 send 3 267s 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 6coyote 0 O 1 0 1 24 0 24 93 gettimeofday 3301 552839 NULL O 94 poll fd 3 events POLLIN revents POLLERR 1 5000 1 95 ioctl 3 0x4004667f Ox7fffe6a8 0 96 recvfrom 3 Ox7ffff1f0 1024 0 Ox7fffe668 Ox7fffe6ac 1 ECONNREFUSED Connection refused 97 close 3 0 98 exit l 99 root coyote home websdemo I a See man ldconfig for details on creating a linker cache for your target system Line numbers have been added to the output produced by strace to make this listing more readable Invocation of the command is found on line number Ol In its simplest form simply add the strace command directly in front of the program you want to examine This is how the output in Listing 13 5 was produced Each line of this trace represents the websdemo process making a system call into the kernel We don t need to analyze and understand each line of the trace although it is quite instructive to do so We are looking for any anomalies that might help pinpoint why the program won t run In the first several lines Linux is setting up the environment in which the program will execute We see several open system calls to etc 1d so which are the Linux dynamic linker loader 1d so doing its job In fact line 06 was my clue that this example embedded board had not been properly co
509. softirqd timer thread gt lt gt 3 0D 2 74us __switch_to __schedule lt gt 3 0D 2 76us __schedule lt cat 6637 gt 74 62 lt gt 3 OD 2 77us __ schedule schedule Zag OD 2 78us trace_irqs_on __ schedule lt output truncated here for brevity gt We have trimmed this listing significantly for clarity but the key elements of this trace are obvious This trace resulted from a timer interrupt In the hardirg thread little is done beyond queuing up some work for later in a softirq context This is seen by the wakeup_softirgqd function at 23 microseconds and is typical for interrupt processing This triggers the need_resched flag as shown in the trace by the n in the third column of the second field At 49 microseconds after some processing in the timer softirq the scheduler is invoked for preemption At 74 microseconds control is passed to the actual softirqd timer 0 thread running in this particular kernel as PID 3 The process name was truncated to fit the field width and is shown as lt gt Most of the fields of Listing 17 7 have obvious meanings The irqs off field contains a D for sections of code where interrupts are off Because this latency trace is an interrupts off trace we see this indicated throughout the trace The need_resched field mirrors the state of the kernel s need_resched flag An n indicates that the scheduler should be run at the soonest opportunity and a
510. specific files In the PowerPC branch you find a platforms directory that contains platform specific code Looking through this directory you will see many source files named after the respective hardware platform There are also a few subdirectories under arch ppc platforms for specific PowerPC variants In contrast the ARM branch contains a series of mach directories each representing a specific hardware platform while the MIPS branch has a set of subdirectories named for a specific platform 16 2 Custom Linux for Your Board When we ported U Boot to a new hardware platform in Chapter 7 Bootloaders we found the configuration that most closely matched our new board and borrowed from that port We use a similar technique to port Linux to our new board We assume that the chosen CPU is already supported in the kernel Porting to a new CPU is significantly more challenging and beyond the scope of this book We have chosen to port Linux to a custom controller board based on the Freescale MPC5200 32 bit embedded PowerPC processor Looking through the default configurations from a recent Linux release as depicted in Listing 16 2 we find one that contains the MPC5200 CPU Because it appears that this is the only configuration that supports this processor we use it as our baseline The hardware platform that we use for this exercise was supplied courtesy of United Electronic Industries The board is called the PowerDN
511. ssion leaving only a small relatively unobtrusive GDB stub and your program being debugged on the target board In case you were wondering gdbserver for this particular ARM target is only 54KB root coyote 1s 1 usr bin gdbserver rwxr xr x 1 root root 54344 Jul 23 2005 usr bin gdbserver There is one caveat and it is the subject of a frequently asked question FAQ on many mailing lists You must be using a GDB on your development host that was configured as a cross debugger It is a binary program that runs on your development workstation but understands binary executable images compiled for another architecture This is an important and frequently overlooked fact You cannot debug a PowerPC target with a native GDB such as that found in a typical Red Hat Linux installation You must have a GDB configured for your host and target combination When GDB is invoked it displays a banner consisting of several lines of information and then displays its compiled configuration Listing 15 5 is an example of the GDB used for some examples in this book which is part of an embedded Linux distribution provided by MontaVista Software configured for PowerPC cross development Listing 15 5 Invocation of cross gdb ppc_82xx gdb GNU gdb 6 0 MontaVista 6 0 8 0 4 0300532 2003 12 24 Copyright 2003 Free Software Foundation Inc GDB is free software covered by the GNU General Public License and you are welcome to chan
512. ssue from the command line Listing 4 3 Link Stage vmlinux xscale_be ld EB p no undefined X o vmlinux T arch arm kernel vmlinux l1ds arch arm kernel head o arch arm kernel init_task o init built in o start group usr built in o arch arm kernel built in o arch arm mm built in o arch arm common built in o arch arm mach ixp4xx built in o arch arm nwf pe built in o kernel built in o mm built in o fs built in o ipc built in o security built in o crypto built in o lib lib a arch arm lib lib a 1ib built in o arch arm 1lib built in o drivers built in o sound built in o net built in o BPO BT GE E GO OG eh Pi OE Bk A end group tmp_kallsyms2 o 4 2 4 Kernel Image Components From Listing 4 3 you can see that the vmlinux image consists of several composite binary images Right now it is not important to understand the purpose of each component What is important is to understand the top level view of what components make up the kernel The first line of the link command in Listing 4 3 specifies the output file o vmlinux The second line specifies the linker script file T vmlinux lds a detailed recipe for how the kernel binary image should be linked a The linker script file has a peculiar syntax The details can be found in the documentation for the GNU linker The third and subsequent
513. starting point from which you can form a foundation on a particular kernel subsystem or concept Do not neglect the Linux Documentation Project found at www tldp org where you Be The might find the most up to date version of a particular document or man page list of suggested reading at the end of this chapter duplicates the URL for the Linux Documentation Project for easy reference Of particular interest to the previous discussion is the Kbuild documentation found in the kernel Documentation kbuild subdirectory an Always assume that features advance faster than the corresponding documentation so treat the docs as a guide rather than indisputable facts No discussion of Kernel documentation would be complete without mentioning Google One day soon Googling will appear in Merriam Webster s as a verb Chances are many problems and questions you might ask have already been asked and answered before Spend some time to become proficient in searching the Internet for answers to questions You will discover numerous mailing lists and other information repositories full of useful information related to your specific project or problem Appendix E contains a useful list of open source resources 4 4 Obtaining a Linux Kernel In general you can obtain an embedded Linux kernel for your hardware platform in three ways You can purchase a suitable commercial embedded Linux distribution you can download a free embedded distribu
514. sting example Listing 9 5 was created by pulling the CompactFlash device out of its socket while still mounted We intentionally created a file and editing session on that file before removing it from the system This can result in corruption of the data structures describing the file as well as the actual data blocks containing the file s data Listing 9 5 Corrupted File System Check e2fsck y dev sdbl e2fsck 137 21 Mar 2005 dev sdbl was not cleanly unmounted check forced Pass 1 Checking inodes blocks and sizes Inode 13 i_blocks is 16 should be amp Fix yes Pass 2 Checking directory structure Pass 3 Checking directory connectivity Pass 4 Checking reference counts Pass 5 Checking group summary information dev sdbl FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED dev sdbl 25 2880 files 4 0 non contiguous 488 11504 blocks From Listing 9 5 you can see that e2fsck detected that the CompactFlash was not cleanly unmounted Furthermore you can see the processing on the file system during e2fsck checking The e2fsck utility makes five passes over the file system checking various elements of the internal file system s data structures An error associated with a file identified by inode E 13 was automatically fixed because the y flag was included on the e2fsck command line A file on a file system is represented by an internal ext2 data structure called an inode Of course in a real
515. stone_defconfig redwood5_defconfig redwood6_defconfig rpx8260_defconfig rpxcllf_defconfig rpxlite_defconfig sandpoint_defconfig spruce_defconfig stx_gp3_defconfig sycamore_defconfig ev64260_defconfig ev64360_defconfig FADS_defconfig gemini_defconfig hdpu_defconfig mpc885ads_defconfig mvme5l00_defconfig ocotea_defconfig pmac_defconfig power3_defconfig TQM823L_defconfig TQM8260_defconfig TQM850L_defconfig TQM860L_defconfig walnut_defconfig ibmchrp_defconfig pplus_defconfig Each one of these entries in the configs directory of the PowerPC architecture branch represents a specific port to a hardware platform For example walnut_defconfig defines the default configuration for the AMCC Walnut PPC405 evaluation platform The mpc amp 8540_ads_defconfig file represents the default configuration for the Freescale MPC8540 ADS evaluation board As described in Chapter 4 to build a kernel for these reference platforms you first configure your kernel source tree with these configuration defaults as follows make ARCH ppc CROSS _COMPILE ppc_85xx mpc8540_ads_defconfig This invocation of make from the top level Linux directory configures the kernel source tree with a default configuration for the Freescale MPC8540 ADS evaluation board One aspect of the Linux kernel source tree that has not achieved significant unification is the way in which each architecture handles platform
516. storing of command history in a user specified file and sets the default output radix for printing of values Then it defines a gdb user defined command called connect User defined commands are also often called macros When issued at the gdb command prompt gdb connects to the target system via the desired method and sets the system breakpoints at panic and sys_sync One method is commented out we discuss this method shortly in Section 14 4 There is no end to the creative use of gdb user defined commands When debugging in the kernel it is often useful to examine global data structures such as task lists and memory maps Here we present several useful gdb user defined commands capable of displaying specific kernel data that you might need to access during your kernel debugging 14 3 4 Useful Kernel gdb Macros During kernel debugging it is often useful to view the processes that are running on the system as well as some common attributes of those processes The kernel maintains a linked list of tasks described by struct task struct The address of the first task in the list is contained in the kernel global variable init_task which represents the initial task spawned by the kernel during startup Each task contains a struct list_head which links the tasks in a circular linked list These two ubiquitous kernel structures are described in the following header files struct task_struct include linux sched h struct list_head
517. sued them on the command line when we invoked GDB We hit the breakpoint set at mainQ and set another one at ErrorInHandler followed by the continue command again abbreviated When this new breakpoint is hit we begin to step through the code using the next command There we encounter the call to malloc Following the malloc call we examine the return value and discover the failure as indicated by the null return value Finally we print the value of the parameter in the malloc call and see that a very large memory region 100 million bytes is being requested which fails Although trivial the GDB examples in this section should enable the newcomer to become immediately productive with GDB Few of us have really mastered GDBit is very complex and has many capabilities Later in Section 13 2 Data Display Debugger we introduce a graphical front end to GDB that can ease the transition for those unfamiliar with GDB One final note about GDB No doubt you have noticed the many banner lines GDB displays on the console when it is first invoked as in Listing 13 1 In these examples as stated earlier we used a cross gdb from the Monta Vista embedded Linux distribution The banner lines contain a vital piece of information that the embedded developer must be aware of GDB s host and target specifications From Listing 13 1 we saw the following output when GDB was invoked This GDB was configured as host i686 pc linu
518. system will be automatically checked every 39 mounts or 180 days whichever comes first Use tune2fs c or i to override Listing 9 2 contains a great deal of detail relating to the ext2 file system and provides an excellent way to begin to understand its operational characteristics Note that this partition was formatted as type ext2 with a volume label of CFlash_Boot_Vol It was created on a Linux partition OS Type with a block size of 1024 bytes Space was allocated for 2 880 inodes occupying 11 504 blocks An inode is the fundamental data structure representing a single file For more detailed information about the internal structure of the ext2 file system the reader is directed to Section 9 11 1 at the end of this chapter Looking at the output of mke2fs in Listing 9 2 we can ascertain certain characteristics of how the storage device is organized We already know that the block size is 1024 bytes If necessary for your particular application mke2fs can be instructed to format an ext2 file system with different block sizes Current implementations allow block sizes of 1 024 2 048 and 4 096 blocks Block size is always a compromise for best performance On one hand large block sizes waste more space on disks with many files because each file must fit into an integral number of blocks Any leftover fragment above block_size n must occupy another full block even if only 1 byte On the other hand very small blo
519. t critical conditions define KERN _ERR lt 3 gt error conditions define KERN_WARNING lt 4 gt warning conditions define KERN_NOTICE lt 5 gt normal but significant condition define KERN_INFO lt 6 gt informational define KERN_DEBUG lt 7 gt debug level messages A simple printk message might look like this printk foo entered w s n arg If the severity string is omitted the kernel assigns a default severity level which is defined in printk c In recent kernels this is set at severity level 4 KERN_WARNING Specifying printk with a severity level might look something like this printk KERN_CRIT vmalloc failed in foo n By default all printk messages below a predefined loglevel are displayed on the system console device The default loglevel is defined in printk c In recent Linux kernels it has the value 7 This means that any printk message that is greater in importance than KERN_DEBUG will be displayed on the console You can set the default kernel loglevel in a variety of ways At boot time you can specify the default loglevel on your target board by passing the appropriate kernel command line parameters to the kernel at boot time Three kernel command line options defined in main c affect the default loglevel e debug Sets the console loglevel to 10 e quiet Sets the console loglevel to 4 e loglevel Sets the console loglevel to your choice of value
520. t which is beyond the scope of this book 8 1 4 Module Build Infrastructure A device driver must be compiled against the kernel on which it will execute Although it is possible to load and execute kernel modules built against a different kernel version it is risky to do so unless you are certain that the module does not rely on any features of your new kernel The easiest way to do this is to build the module within the kernel s own source tree This ensures that as the developer changes the kernel configuration his custom driver is automatically rebuilt with the correct kernel configuration It is certainly possible to build your drivers outside of the kernel source tree However in this case you are responsible for making sure that your device driver build configuration stays in sync with the kernel you want to run your driver on This typically includes compiler switches location of kernel header files and kernel configuration options For the example driver introduced in Listing 8 1 the following changes were made to the stock Linux kernel source tree to enable building this example driver We explain each step in detail l1 Starting from the top level Linux source directory create a directory under drivers char called examples 2 Add a menu item to the kernel configuration to enable building examples and to specify built in or loadable kernel module 3 Add the new examples subdirectory to the drivers cha
521. t Mc021a488 4 4bfffbad dl Ack Packet received OK Sending packet mc021a484 c f3 Ack Packet received 900100244bfffbad3fa0c022 Breakpoint 3 yosemite_setup_arch at arch ppc platforms 4xx yosemite c 308 308 yosemite_set_emacdata gdb The ST packet is a gdb Stop Reply packet It is sent by the target to gdb when a breakpoint is encountered In our example the T packet returned the value of the program counter and register ri The rest of the activity is the reverse of that in Listing 14 5 The PowerPC trap breakpoint instructions are removed and gdb restores the original instructions to their respective memory locations a As pointed out earlier the gdb remote protocol is detailed in the gdb manual cited at the end of this chapter in Section 14 6 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading 14 3 2 Debugging Optimized Kernel Code At the start of this chapter we said that one of the challenges identified in debugging kernel code results from compiler optimization We noted that the Linux kernel is compiled by default with optimization level 02 In the examples up to this point we used Ol optimization to simplify the debugging task Here we illustrate one of the many ways optimization can complicate debugging The related Internet mail lists are strewn with questions related to what appear to be broken tools Sometimes the poster reports that his debugger is single stepping backward or that h
522. t In a typical system there might not be any DRAM until the bootloader initializes the processor and related hardware Consider what this means In a typical C function any local variables are stored on the stack so a simple function like the one in Listing 7 1 is unusable Listing 7 1 Simple C function int setup_memory_controller board_info_t p unsigned int dram _controller_register p gt dc_reg When a bootloader gains control on power on there is no stack and no stack pointer Therefore a simple C function similar to Listing 7 1 will likely crash the processor because the compiler will generate code to create and initialize the pointer dram_controller_register on the stack which does not yet exist The bootloader must create this execution context before any C functions are called When the bootloader is compiled and linked the developer must exercise complete control over how the image is constructed and linked This is especially true if the bootloader is to relocate itself from Flash to RAM The compiler and linker must be passed a handful of parameters defining the characteristics and layout of the final executable image Two primary characteristics conspire to add complexity to the final binary executable image The first characteristic that presents complexity is the need to organize the startup code in a format compatible with the processor s boot sequence The first bytes of e
523. t those interested in a greater knowledge of Linux loadable modules should consult the source code for these utilities Section 8 6 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of this chapter contains a reference for where they can be found 8 2 1 insmod The insmod utility is the simplest way to insert a module into a running kernel You supply a complete pathname and insmod does the work For example insmod 1ib modules 2 6 14 kernel drivers char examples hellol ko This loads the module hellol ko into the kernel The output would be the same as shown in Listing 8 5namely the Hello message The insmod utility is a simple program that does not require or accept any options It requires a full pathname because it has no logic for searching for the module Most often you will use modprobe described shortly because it has many more features and capabilities 8 2 2 Module Parameters Many device driver modules can accept parameters to modify their behavior Examples include enabling debug mode setting verbose reporting or specifying module specific options The insmod utility accepts parameters also called options in some contexts by specifying them after the module name Listing 8 6 shows our modified hellol c example adding a single module parameter to enable debug mode Listing 8 6 Example Driver with Parameter Example Minimal Character Device Driver include lt linux module h gt
524. t Love characterized the BKL as the redheaded stepchild of the kernel In describing the characteristics of the BKL Robert jokingly added evil to its list of attributes Early implementations of the SMP kernel based on the BKL led to significant inefficiencies in scheduling It was found that one of the CPUs could be kept idle for long periods of time Much of the work that led to an efficient SMP kernel also directly benefited real time applicationsprimarily lowered latency Replacing the BKL with smaller grained locking surrounding only the actual shared data to be protected led to significantly reduced preemption latency 17 2 4 Sources of Preemption Latency A real time system must be capable of servicing its real time tasks within a specified upper boundary of time Achieving consistently low preemption latency is critical to a real time system The two single largest contributors to preemption latency are interrupt context processing and critical section processing where interrupts are disabled You have already learned that a great deal of effort has been targeted at reducing the size and thus duration of the critical sections This leaves interrupt context processing as the next challenge This was answered with the Linux 2 6 real time patch 17 3 Real Time Kernel Patch Support for hard real time is not in the mainline kernel org source tree To enable hard real time a patch must be applied The real time kernel patch is t
525. t of readelf for a relatively small web server application compiled for the ARM architecture Listing 15 1 ELF File Debug Info for Example Program xscale_be readelf S websdemo There are 39 section headers starting at offset Ox3dfd0 Section Headers Nr Name Type Addr Off Size ES Fig Lk Inf Al 0 NULL 00000000 000000 000000 00 0 0 0 1 interp PROGBITS 00008154 000154 000013 00 A O O 1 2 note ABI tag NOTE 00008168 000168 000020 00 A 0 0 4 3 note numapolicy NOTE 00008188 000188 000074 00 A O O 4 4 hash HASH 000081fc 000lfc 00022c 04 A 5 0 5 dynsym DYNSYM 00008428 000428 000460 10 A 6 6 Lz 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Sv K 37 38 dynstr gnu version gnu version_r rel plt anit plt itext fini rodata ARM extab ARM exidx eh_frame_hdr ch_frame nit_array fini_array Jer dynamic got data bss comment debug_aranges debug_pubnames debug_info debug_abbrev debug_line debug_frame debug_str STRTAB VERSYM VERNEED REL PROGBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS ARM_EXIDX PROGBITS PROGBITS INIT_ARRAY FINI_ARRAY PROGBITS DYNAMIC PROGBITS PROGBITS NOBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS PROGBITS
526. t the sectors that are erased In the case of the Abatron unit this is done by adding a line starting with the keyword ERASE for each sector to be erased When the erase command is issued to the Abatron unit via its telnet user interface all sectors defined with an ERASE specification are erased Listing 14 20 demonstrates erasing a portion of Flash on a target board and subsequently programming a new U Boot bootloader image Listing 14 20 Erase and Program Flash telnet bdi Trying 192 168 1129 Connected to bdi 192 168 1 129 Escape character is T BDI Debugger for Embedded PowerPC large volume of help text uei gt erase Erasing flash at Oxfff00000 Erasing flash at Oxfff10000 Erasing flash at Oxfff20000 Erasing flash at Oxfff30000 Erasing flash at Oxfff40000 Erasing flash passed uei gt prog Oxfff00000 u boot bin BIN Programming u boot bin please wait Programming flash passed uei gt First we establish a telnet session to the Abatron BDI 2000 After some initialization we are presented with a command prompt When the erase command is issued the Abatron displays a line of output for each section defined in the configuration file With the configuration shown in Appendix F we defined five erase sectors This reserves up to 256KB of space for the U Boot bootloader binary The prog command is shown with all three of its optional pa
527. t users who logged into the system Prints the length of the specified STRING Creates a link named LINK NAME or DIRECTORY to the specified TARGET Loads a console font from standard input Loads a binary keyboard translation table from standard input Writes MESSAGE to the system log Begins a new session on the system Prints the name of the current user Shows the messages from syslogd Associates LOOPDEVICE with file Lists directory contents Lists the currently loaded kernel modules makedevs md5sum mesg mkdir mkfifo mkfsminix mknod mkswap mktemp modprobe more mount mt mv nameif nc netstat nslookup od openvt passwd patch pidof ping ping6 pivot_root poweroff printf ps Creates a range of block or character special files Prints or checks MD5 checksums mesg controls write access to your terminal Creates directory entries Creates a named pipe identical to mknod name p Makes a MINIX file system Creates a special file block character or pipe Prepares a disk partition to be used as a swap partition Creates a temporary file with its name based on TEMPLATE Used for high level module loading and unloading Filter for viewing files one screenful at a time Mounts a file system Controls magnetic tape drive operation Renames and or moves files Renames a network interface while in the down state Netcat opens a pipe to IP port Netstat displays Linux networking information Queries the nameserver for
528. t which the dmalloc library performs extensive checks on itself and the heap The dmalloc library writes its log output to the file indicated by the log variable The dmalloc package comes with a utility to generate the DMALLOC_OPTIONS environment variable based on flags passed to it The previous example was generated with the following dmalloc invocation The documentation in the dmalloc package details this quite thoroughly so we shall not reproduce that here dmalloc p check fence 1 dmalloc log i 100 high When these steps are complete you should be able to run your application against the dmalloc debug library dmalloc produces a quite detailed output log Listing 13 13 reproduces a sample dmalloc log output for an example program that intentionally generates some memory leaks Listing 13 13 dmalloc Log Output 2592 4002 Dmalloc version 5 4 2 from http dmalloc com 2592 4002 flags Ox4f4e503 logfile dmalloc log 2592 4002 interval 100 addr 0 seen O0 limit 0 2592 4002 starting time 2592 2592 4002 process pid 442 2592 4002 Dumping Chunk Statistics 2592 4002 basic block 4096 bytes alignment 8 bytes 2592 4002 heap address range 0x30015000 to Ox38004f000 237568 bytes 2592 4002 user blocks 18 blocks 73652 bytes 38 2592 4002 admin blocks 29 blocks 118784 bytes 61 2592 4002 total blocks 47 blocks 192512
529. ter 12 Embedded Development Environment and NFS in Chapters 9 File Systems and 12 For now we limit the discussion to the kernel command line mechanism Linux is typically launched by a bootloader or bootstrap loader with a series of parameters that have come to be called the kernel command line Although we don t actually invoke the kernel using a command prompt from a shell many bootloaders can pass parameters to the kernel in a fashion that resembles this well known model On some platforms whose bootloaders are not Linux aware the kernel command line can be defined at compile time and becomes hard coded as part of the kernel binary image On other platforms such as a desktop PC running Red Hat Linux the command line can be modified by the user without having to recompile the kernel The bootstrap loader Grub or Lilo in the desktop PC case builds the kernel command line from a configuration file and passes it to the kernel during the boot process These command line parameters are a boot mechanism to set initial configuration necessary for proper boot on a given machine Numerous command line parameters are defined throughout the kernel The Documentation subdirectory in the kernel source contains a file called kernel parameters txt containing a list of kernel command line parameters in dictionary order Remember the previous warning about kernel documentation The kernel changes far faster than the documentation Use thi
530. th complete path information and exists on a single line The previous example has been truncated to two lines to fit in the space on this page Normally depmod is run automatically during a kernel build However in a cross development environment you must have a cross version of depmod that knows how to read the modules that are compiled in the native format of your target architecture Alternatively most embedded distributions have a method and init script entries to run depmod on each boot to guarantee that the module dependencies are kept up to date 8 2 6 rmmod This utility is also quite trivial It simply removes a module from a running kernel Pass it the module name as a parameter There is no need to include a pathname or file extension For example rmmod hellol Hello Example Exit The only interesting point to understand here is that when you use rmmod it 2K executes the module s _exitQ function as shown in the previous example from our hellol c example of Listings 8 1 and 8 6 It should be noted that unlike modprobe rmmod does not remove dependent modules Use modprobe r for this 8 2 7 modinfo You might have noticed the last three lines of the skeletal driver in Listing 8 l and later in Listing 8 6 These macros are there to place tags in the binary module to facilitate their administration and management Listing 8 9 is the result of modinfo executed on our hellol ko module Listin
531. the IP address of the given host Dumps files in octal and other formats Starts a command on a new virtual terminal Changes a user password BusyBox implementation of patch Gets PID of named process Sends ICMP ECHO _REQUEST packets to network hosts Sends ICMP ECHO _REQUEST packets to network hosts Changes the root file system Halts the system and requests that the kernel shut off the power Formats and prints arguments according to user format Reports process status pwd rdate readlink realpath reboot renice reset rm rmdir rmmod route rpm rpm2cpio run parts rx sed seq setkeycodes shalsum sleep sort start stop daemon strings stty su sulogin swapoff Prints the full filename of the current working directory Gets and possibly sets the system date and time from a remote HOST Displays the value of a symbolic link Returns the absolute pathnames of a given argument Reboots the system Changes priority of running processes in allowed priorities range Resets the screen Removes unlink file s Removes directory ies if they are empty Unloads the specified kernel modules from the kernel Edits the kernel s routing tables Manipulates RPM packages Outputs a cpio archive of the rpm file Runs a bunch of scripts in a directory Receives a file using the xmodem protocol Busybox Stream Editor implementation Prints a range of numbers to standard output Sets entries into the kernel s scancode to
532. the Real Time Kernel page 460 e Chapter Summary page 467 When Linux began life on an Intel i386 processor no one ever expected the success Linux would enjoy in server applications That success has led to Linux being ported to many different architectures and used by developers for embedded systems from cellular handsets to telecommunications switches Not long ago if your application had real time requirements you might not have included Linux among the choices for your operating system That has all changed with the developments in real time Linux driven in large part by audio and multimedia applications In this chapter we start with a brief look at the historical development of real time Linux features Then we look at the facilities available to the real time programmer and how these facilities are used 17 1 What Is Real Time Ask five people what real time means and chances are you will get five different answers Some might even cite some numbers For the purposes of the discussion to follow we discuss some scenarios and then propose a definition Many requirements might be said to be soft real time while others are called hard real time 17 1 1 Soft Real Time Most agree that soft real time means that the operation has a deadline but if the deadline is missed the quality of the experience could be diminished but not fatal Your desktop workstation is a perfect example of soft real time requirements When
533. the bootloader is overwritten and ceases to exist i Some embedded designs protect the bootloader and provide callbacks to bootloader routines but this is almost never a good design approach Linux is far more capable than bootloaders so there is often little point in doing so 7 2 Bootloader Challenges Even a simple Hello World program written in C requires significant hardware and software resources The application developer does not need to know or care much about these details because the C runtime environment transparently provides this infrastructure A bootloader developer has no such luxury Every resource that a bootloader requires must be carefully initialized and allocated before it is used One of the most visible examples of this is Dynamic Random Access Memory DRAM 7 2 1 DRAM Controller DRAM chips cannot be directly read from or written to like other microprocessor bus resources They require specialized hardware controllers to enable read and write cycles To further complicate matters DRAM must be constantly refreshed or the data contained within will be lost Refresh is accomplished by sequentially reading each location in DRAM in a systematic manner and within the timing specifications set forth by the DRAM manufacturer Modern DRAM chips support many modes of operation such as burst mode and dual data rate for high performance applications It is the DRAM controller s responsibility to configure DRAM keep it refre
534. the source tree The most common use of make is to specify no target This generates the kernel ELF file vmlinux and is the default binary image for your chosen architecture for example bzImage for x86 Specifying make with no target also builds all the device driver modules kernel loadable modules specified by the configuration Many architectures and machine types require binary targets specific to the architecture and bootloader in use One of the more common architecture specific targets is zIlmage In many architectures this is the default target image that can be loaded and run on the target embedded system One of the common mistakes that newcomers make is to specify bzImage as the make target The bzImage target is specific to the x86 PC architecture Contrary to popular myth the bzImage is not a bzip2 compressed image It is a big zlImage Without going into the details of legacy PC architecture it is enough to know that a bzImage is suitable only for PC compatible machines with an industry standard PC style BIOS Listing 4 7 contains the output from make help from a recent Linux kernel You can see from the listing that many targets are available in the top level Linux kernel makefile Each is listed along with a short description of its use It is important to realize that even the help make target as in make help is architecture specific You get a different list of architecture specific targets depending on the arch
535. the symbolic link is the kernel s representation of the PCI bus and it points to a devices subdirectory called pci0000 00 the PCI bus representation which contains a number of subdirectories and files representing attributes of this specific PCI device As you can see the data is rather difficult to discover and parse A useful utility exists to browse the sysfs file system directory structure Called systool it comes from the sysfsutils package found on sourceforge net Here is how systool would display the PCI bus from the previous discussion systool b pci Bus pci 0000 00 0f 0 8086 1229 Again we see the kernel s representation of the bus and device Of but this time the tool displays the vendor ID 8086 Intel and device ID 1229 eeprol00 Ethernet card obtained from the sys devices pci0000 00 branch of sys where these attributes are kept Executed with no parameters systool displays the top level system hierarchy Listing 9 18 is an example from our Coyote board Listing 9 18 Output from systool systool Supported sysfs buses i2c ide pci platform Supported sysfs classes block i12c adapter i2c dev input mem misc net pci_bus tty Supported sysfs devices pci0000 00 platform system You can see from this listing the variety of system information available from sysfs Many utilities use this information to determine the characteristics of system devices or to enf
536. ting 7 2 this simple branch instruction is placed in the absolute Flash address of OxFFFF_FFFC in the output image As mentioned earlier the PPC 405GP processor fetches its first instruction from this hard coded address This is how the first sequence of code is defined and provided by the developer for this particular architecture and processor combination 7 2 4 Execution Context The other primary reason for bootloader image complexity is the lack of execution context When the sequence of instructions from Listing 7 3 starts executing recall that these are the first machine instructions after power on the resources available to the running program are nearly zero Default values designed into the hardware ensure that fetches from Flash memory work properly and that the system clock has some default values but little else can be assumed The reset state of each processor is usually well defined by the manufacturer but the reset state of a board is defined by the hardware designers 2l The details differ depending upon architecture processor and details of the hardware design Indeed most processors have no DRAM available at startup for temporary storage of variables or worse for a stack that is required to use C program calling conventions If you were forced to write a Hello World program with no DRAM and therefore no stack it would be quite different from the traditional Hello World example This limitation place
537. tion The dual core SiByte processors include the BCM1250 BCM1255 and BCM1280 Also based on the MIPS64 core these processors operate at clock rates from 600MHz BCM1250 to as high as 1 2GHz BCM1255 and BCM1280 These dual core chips include integrated peripheral controllers such as DDR SDRAM controllers various combinations of Gigabit Ethernet controllers 64 bit PCI X interfaces and SMBus PCMCIA and multiple UART interfaces Like their single core cousins these dual core implementations also feature low power dissipation For example the BCM1255 features a 13W power budget at 1GHz operation The quad core SiByte processors include the BCM1455 and BCM1480 communications processors As with the other SiByte processors these are based on the MIPS64 core The cores can be run from 800MHz to 1 2GHz These SOCs include integrated DDR SDRAM controllers four separate Gigabit Ethernet MAC controllers and 64 bit PCI X host controllers and also contain SMBus PCMCIA and four serial UARTs Table 3 7 summarizes select Broadcom SiByte processors Table 3 7 Broadcom Select SiByte Processor Highlights Feature BCM1125H BCM1250 BCM1280 BCM1480 Core speeds SB 1 Dual SB l Dual SB 1 Quad SB 1 MIPS64 MIPS64 MIPS64 MIPS64 400 900MH 600 1000MHz 800 1200MHz 800 1200MHz Z DRAM controller Y DDR Y DDR Y DDR Y DDR Serial interface 2 55Mbps 2 55Mbps 4 UART 4 UART SMBus interface 2 2 2 2 PCMCIA Y Y Y Y Gigabit Ethernet
538. tion if you can find one suitable for your particular architecture and processor or you can find the closest open source Linux kernel to your application and port it yourself We discuss Linux porting in Chapter 16 Porting Linux Although porting an open source kernel to your custom board is not necessarily difficult it represents a significant investment in engineering development resources This approach gives you access to free software but deploying Linux in your development project is far from free as we discussed in Chapter 1 Introduction Even for a small system with minimal application requirements you need many more components than just a Linux kernel 4 4 1 What Else Do I Need This chapter has focused on the layout and construction of the Linux kernel itself As you might have already discovered Linux is only a small component of an embedded system based on Linux In addition to the Linux kernel you need the following components to develop test and launch your embedded Linux widget e Bootloader ported to and configured for your specific hardware platform e Cross compiler and associated toolchain for your chosen architecture e File system containing many packagesbinary executables and libraries compiled for your native hardware architecture processor e Device drivers for any custom devices on your board e Development environment including host tools and utilities e Linux kernel source tree enabled for your pa
539. tion call we pass a structure containing pointers to the required methods The kernel uses this structure of type struct file operations to bind our specific device functions with the appropriate requests from the file system When an application opens a device represented by our device driver and requests a read operation the file system associates that generic read request with our module s hello_read function The following sections examine this process in detail 8 3 2 Device Nodes and mknod To understand how an application binds its requests to a specific device represented by our device driver we must understand the concept of a device node A device node is a special file type in Linux that represents a device Virtually all Linux distributions keep device nodes in a common location specified by the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard EN in a directory called dev A dedicated utility is used to create a device node on a file system This utility is called mknod l Reference to this standard is found in the Suggestions for Additional Reading at the end of this chapter An example of node creation is the best way to illustrate its functionality and the information it conveys In keeping with our simple device driver example let s create the proper device node to exercise it mknod dev hellol c 234 0 After executing this command on our target embedded system we end up with a new file called dev hellol that repres
540. tion function is called We specify the initialization function that will be executed on module insertion using the module_initQ macro We declared it as follows a If you don t see the messages on the console either disable your syslogd logger or lower the console loglevel We describe how to do this in Chapter 14 Kernel Debugging Techniques module_init hello_init In our initialization function we simply print the obligatory hello message and return In a real device driver this is where you would perform any initial resource allocation and hardware device initialization In a similar fashion when we unload the module using the modprobe r command our module exit routine is called As shown in Listing 8 1 the exit routine is specified using the module_exit macro That s all there is to a skeletal device driver capable of live insertion in an actual kernel In the sections to follow we introduce additional functionality to our loadable device driver module that illustrates how a user space program would interact with a device driver module 8 2 Module Utilities We had a brief introduction to module utilities in Listing 8 5 There we used the module utility modprobe to insert and remove a device driver module from a Linux kernel A number of small utilities are used to manage device driver modules This section introduces them You are encouraged to refer to the man page for each utility for complete details In fac
541. tions Help B II E Back Load Save Single Split Full Collapse Expand Options Name W M fy Vae Code maturity level options gt General setup gt Loadable module support gt System Type gt Bus support gt Kemel Features gt Boot options gt Floating point emulation gt Userspace binary formats gt Power management options gt Networking gt Device Drivers gt File systems Code maturity level options When the configuration editor is exited you are prompted to save your changes If you elect to save your changes the global configuration file config is updated or created if it does not already exist This config file introduced earlier drives the kernel build via the top level makefile You will notice in this makefile that the config file is read directly by an include statement Most kernel software modules also read the configuration indirectly via the config file as follows During the build process the config file is processed into a C header file found in the include linux directory called autoconf h This is an automatically generated file and should never be edited directly because edits are lost each time a configuration editor is run Many kernel source files include this file directly using the include preprocessor directive Listing 4 6 reproduces a section of this header file that corresponds to the earlier USB example above Note that for each entry in t
542. tools compiler utilities and so on that will generate binary executables in the proper format for the target system Consider a simple application written on your desktop PC such as the traditional Hello World example After you have created the source code on your desktop you invoke the compiler that came with your desktop system or that you purchased and installed to generate a binary executable image That image file is properly formatted to execute on the machine on which it was compiled This is referred to as native compilation That is using compilers on your desktop system you generate code that will execute on that desktop system Note that native does not imply an architecture Indeed if you have a toolchain that runs on your target board you can natively compile applications for your target s architecture In fact one great way to test a new kernel and custom board is to repeatedly compile the Linux kernel on it Developing software in a cross development environment requires that the compiler running on your development host output a binary executable that is incompatible with the desktop development workstation on which it was compiled The primary reason these tools exist is that it is often impractical or impossible to develop and compile software natively on the embedded system because of resource typically memory and CPU horsepower constraints Numerous hidden traps to this approach often catch the unwary newc
543. ts Process A and assigns the CPU to Process B even though Process A had neither blocked nor completed its kernel processing 17 2 1 Impediments to Preemption The challenge in making the kernel fully preemptable is to identify all the places in the kernel that must be protected from preemption These are the critical sections within the kernel where preemption cannot be allowed to occur For example assume that Process A in Figure 17 2 is executing in the kernel performing a file system operation At some point the code might need to write to an in kernel data structure representing a file on the file system To protect that data structure from corruption the process must lock out all other processes from accessing the shared data structure Listing 17 1 illustrates this concept using C syntax Listing 17 1 Locking Critical Sections preempt_disable Critical section update_shared_dataQ preempt_enable If we did not protect shared data in this fashion the process updating the shared data structure could be preempted in the middle of the update If another process attempted to update the same shared data corruption of the data would be virtually certain The classic example is when two processes are operating directly on common variables and making decisions on their values Figure 17 3 illustrates such a case Figure 17 3 Shared data concurrency error Process A Process B Process A
544. typical desktop user such as fancy graphical clocks calculators personal time management tools email clients and more An embedded Linux distribution typically omits these components in favor of specialized tools aimed at developers such as memory analysis tools remote debug facilities and many more Another significant difference between desktop and embedded Linux distributions is that an embedded distribution typically contains cross tools as opposed to native tools For example the gcc toolchain that ships with an embedded Linux distribution runs on your x86 desktop PC but produces binary code that runs on your target system Many of the other tools in the toolchain are similarly configured They run on the development host usually an x86 PC but operate on foreign architectures such as ARM or PowerPC 2 4 1 Commercial Linux Distributions There are several vendors of commercial embedded Linux distributions The leading embedded Linux vendors have been shipping embedded Linux distributions for some years Linuxdevices com a popular embedded Linux news and information portal has compiled a comprehensive list of commercially available embedded Linux distributions It is somewhat dated but is still a very useful starting point You can find their compilation at www linuxdevices com articles AT9952405558 html 2 4 2 Do It Yourself Linux Distributions You can choose to assemble all the components you need for your
545. ual The behavior of the 405GP processor core as described in the previous paragraph places requirements on the hardware designer to ensure that on power up nonvolatile memory Flash is mapped to the required upper 2MB memory region Certain attributes of this initial memory region assume default values on reset For example this upper 2MB region will be configured for 256 wait states three cycles of address to chip select delay three cycles of chip select to output enable delay and seven cycles of hold time This allows maximum freedom for the hardware designer to select appropriate devices or methods of getting instruction code to the processor directly after reset el This data was taken directly from the 405GP user s manual referenced at the end of this chapter We ve already seen how the reset vector is installed to the top of Flash in Listing 7 2 When configured for the 405GP our first lines of code will be found in the file cpu ppc4xx start S The U Boot developers intended this code to be processor generic In theory there should be no need for board specific code in this file You will see how this is accomplished We don t need to understand PowerPC assembly language in any depth to understand the logical flow in start S Many frequently asked questions FAQs have been posted to the U Boot mailing list about modifying low level assembly code In nearly all cases it is not necessary to modify this code if
546. udes several configurations powered by two proven cores Their 405 core products are available in configurations with and without Ethernet controllers All 405 core configurations include integrated SDRAM controllers dual UARTs for serial ports IC for low level onboard management communications general purpose I O pins and integral timers The AMCC 405 core integrated processors provide economical performance on a proven core for a wide range of applications that do not require a hardware FPU The AMCC 440 based core products raise the performance level and add peripherals The 440EP featured in some of our examples includes a hardware FPU The 440GX adds two triple speed 10 100 1000MB Ethernet interfaces in addition to the two 10 100Mbps Ethernet ports and TCP IP hardware acceleration for high performance networking applications The 440SP adds hardware acceleration for RAID 5 6 applications All these processors have mature Linux support Table 3 1 summarizes the highlights of the AMCC 405xx family Table 3 1 AMCC PowerPC 405xx Highlights Summary Feature Core speeds DRAM controller Ethernet 10 100 GPIO lines UARTs DMA controller IC controller PCI host controller Interrupt controller 405CR 405EP 405GP PowerPC PowerPC PowerPC 405 405 405 133 266MHz 183 333MHz 133 266MHz SDRAM 133 SDRAM 133 SDRAM 133 N 2 1 23 32 24 2 2 2 4 channel 4 channel 4 channel Y Y x N Y Y Y Y Yy 405GPr PowerPC 405 266 40
547. ue a similar compilation command using your cross compiler to compile the hello c example above it is possible that your binary executable could end up being accidentally linked with an x86 version of the C library on your development system attempting to resolve the reference to printf Of course the results of running this bogus hybrid executable containing a mix of PowerPC and x86 binary instructions are predictable crash Hel In fact it wouldn t even compile or link much less run The solution to this predicament is to instruct the cross compiler to look in nonstandard locations to pick up the header files and target specific libraries We cover this topic in much more detail in Chapter 12 Embedded Development Environment The intent of this example was to illustrate the differences between a native development environment and a development environment targeted at cross compilation for embedded systems This is but one of the complexities of a cross development environment The same issue and solutions apply to cross debugging as you will see starting in Chapter 14 Kernel Debugging Techniques A proper cross development environment is crucial to your success and involves much more than just compilers as we shall soon see in Chapter 12 Embedded Development Environment 2 4 Embedded Linux Distributions What exactly is a distribution anyway After the Linux kernel boots it expects to find and mount a root file
548. uired before we mount the real root file system One example might be to load CompactFlash drivers to obtain a real root file system from a CompactFlash device For purposes of this example we simply spawn a busybox shell and halt the boot process for examination You can see the command prompt from Listing 6 10 resulting from this busybox shell If one were to type the exit command here the kernel would continue its boot process until complete After the kernel copies the ramdisk from physical memory into a kernel ramdisk it returns this physical memory back to the available memory pool You can think of this as transferring the initrd image from physical memory at the hard coded address into the kernel s own virtual memory in the form of a kernel ramdisk device One last comment about Listing 6 1 The mount command in which the proc file system is mounted seems redundant in its use of the word proc This command would also work mount t proc none proc Notice that the device field of the mount command has been changed to none The mount command ignores the device field because no physical device is associated with the proc file system The t proc is enough to instruct mount to mount the proc file system on the proc mount point I use the former invocation as a mental reminder that we are actually mounting the kernel pseudo device the proc file system on proc The mount command ignores this argument Use the method that you
549. ul shortcut for macro development is the gdb source command This command opens and reads a source file containing macro definitions gdb find_task 910 Task syslogd or gdb find task OxCFFDE470 Task bash Line 4 defines the macro name Line 7 decides whether the input argument is a PID numeric entry starting at zero and limited to a few million or a task_struct address that must be greater than the end of the Linux kernel image itself defined by the symbol nd If it s an address the only action required is to cast it to the proper type to enable dereferencing the associated task struct This is done at line 8 As the comment in line 3 states this macro returns a gdb convenience variable typecasted to a pointer to a struct task _struct H The symbol _end is defined in the linker script file during the final link If the input argument is a numeric PID the list is traversed to find the matching task_struct Lines 12 and 13 initialize the loop variables gdb does not have a for statement in its macro command language and lines 15 through 17 define the search loop The find_next_task macro is used to extract the pointer to the next task_struct in the linked list Finally if the search fails a sane return value is set the address of init_task so that it can be safely used in other macros Building on the find_task macro in Listing 14 11 we can easily create a simple ps command that displays useful information a
550. ull System V shutdown scheme to a simple script to halt or reboot Several Linux utilities are available to assist in the shutdown process including the shutdown halt and reboot commands Of course these must be available for your chosen architecture A shutdown script should terminate all userspace processes which results in closing any open files used by those processes If init is being used issuing the command init O halts the system In general the shutdown process first sends all processes the SIGTERM signal to notify them that the system is shutting down A short delay ensures that all processes have the opportunity to perform their shutdown actions such as closing files saving state and so on Then all processes are sent the SIGKILL signal which results in their termination The shutdown process should attempt to unmount any mounted file systems and call the architecture specific halt or reboot routines The Linux shutdown command in conjunction with init exhibits this behavior 6 7 Chapter Summary e A root file system is required for all Linux systems They can be difficult to build from scratch because of complex dependencies by each application e The File System Hierarchy standard provides guidance to developers for laying out a file system for maximum compatibility and flexibility e We presented a minimal file system as an example of how root file systems are created e The Linux kernel s final boot steps defin
551. ults that were used Listing 12 2 is a partial listing of the output from cpp when passed the v flag You might already know that cpp is the C preprocessor component of the gcc toolchain We have added some formatting whitespace only to improve the readability Listing 12 2 Default Native Cpp Search Directories View full width cpp v Reading specs from usr lib gcc 1lib i386 redhat linux 3 3 3 specs Configured with configure prefix usr mandir usr share man infodir usr share info enable shared enable threads posix disable checking disable libunwind exceptions with system zlib enable __cxa_atexit host i386 redhat linux Thread model posix gcc version 3 3 3 20040412 Red Hat Linux 3 3 3 7 usr lib gcc 1ib i386 redhat linux 3 3 3 ccl E quiet v ignoring nonexistent directory usr i386 redhat linux include include search starts here include lt gt search starts here usr local include usr lib gcc 1ib i386 redhat linux 3 3 3 include usr include End of search list usr lib This simple query produces some very useful information First we can see how the compiler was configured using the familiar configure utility The default thread model is posix which determines the thread library your application gets linked against if you employ threading functions Finally y
552. une2fs c or i to override Notice that we first mounted the file system on mnt flash for illustrative purposes only Normally we would execute this command on an unmounted ext2 partition The design behavior for tune2fs when the file system is mounted is to create the journal file called journal a hidden file A file in Linux preceded with the period is considered a hidden file most Linux command line file utilities silently ignore files of this type From Listing 9 7 we can see that the ls command was invoked with the a flag which tells the 1s utility to list all files Listing 9 7 ext3 Journal File 1s al mnt flash total 1063 drwxr xr x 15 root root 1024 Aug 25 19 25 drwxrwxrwx 5 root root 4096 Jul 18 19 49 drwxr xr x 2 root root 1024 Aug 14 11 27 bin drwxr xr x 2 root root 1024 Aug 14 11 27 boot drwxr xr x 2 root root 1024 Aug 14 11 27 dev drwxr xr x 2 root root 1024 Aug 14 11 27 etc drwxr xr x 2 root root 1024 Aug 14 11 27 home rw 1 root root 1048576 Aug 25 19 25 journal drwxr xr x 2 root root 1024 Aug 14 11 27 lib drwx 2 root root 12288 Aug 14 11 27 lost found drwxr xr xX 2 root root 1024 Aug 14 11 27 proc drwxr xr x 2 root root 1024 Aug 14 11 27 root root root 1024 Aug 14 11 27 sbin 1 1 drwxr xr x 1 root root 1024 Aug 14 11 27 tmp 1 1 drwxr xr x drwxr xr x root root 1024 Aug 14 root root 1024 Aug 14 1 27 usr
553. up a brand new board design and porting a bootloader and the Linux kernel having a hardware debug probe is without a doubt the most efficient means of debugging problems in these early stages of board porting You can choose from a wide variety of hardware debug probes For the examples in this section we use a unit manufactured by Abatron called the BDI 2000 see www abatron ch These units are often called JTAG probes because they use a low level communications method that was first employed for boundary scan testing of integrated circuits defined by the Joint Test Action Group JTAG A JTAG probe contains a small connector designed for connection to your target board It is often a simple square pin header and ribbon cable arrangement Most modern high performance CPUs contain a JTAG interface that is designed to provide this software debugging capability The JTAG probe connects to this CPU JTAG interface The other side of the JTAG probe connects to your host development system usually via Ethernet USB or a parallel port Figure 14 6 details the setup for the Abatron unit Figure 14 6 Hardware JTAG probe debugging Ethernet Hub JTAG Probe Host System JTAG probes can be complicated to set up This is a direct result of the complexity of the CPU to which it is connected When power is applied to a target board and its CPU comes out of reset almost nothing is initialized In fact many processors need at least
554. upport exists for BusyBox gzip This is usually not a significant limitation for embedded systems We present this information so you can make an informed choice when deciding on BusyBox When the full capabilities of a utility are needed the solution is simple Delete support for that particular utility in the BusyBox configuration and add the standard Linux utility to your target system 11 4 Chapter Summary e BusyBox is a powerful tool for embedded systems that replaces many common Linux utilities in a single multicall binary e BusyBox can significantly reduce the size of your root file system image e BusyBox is easy to use and has many useful features e Configuring BusyBox is straightforward using an interface similar to that used for Linux configuration e BusyBox can be configured as a statically or dynamically linked application depending on your particular requirements e System initialization is somewhat different with BusyBox those differences were covered in this chapter e BusyBox has support for many commands Appendix C itemizes all the available BusyBox commands from a recent release 11 4 1 Suggestions for Additional Reading BusyBox Project home www busybox net BusyBox man page www busybox net downloads BusyBox htm1 Chapter 12 Embedded Development Environment In this chapter e Cross Development Environment page 290 e Host System Requirements page 295 e Hosting Target Boards page 29
555. ur target system and using a separate invocation of GDB on your development host to coordinate a debug session for multiple cooperating but independent processes 15 4 1 Debugging Multiple Processes When a process being debugged under GDB uses the fork system call to spawn a new process GDB can take two courses of action It can continue to control and debug the parent process or it can stop debugging the parent process and attach to the newly formed child process You can control this behavior using the set follow fork mode command The two modes are follow parent and follow child The default behavior is for GDB to follow the parent In this case the child process executes immediately upon a successful fork H We will use the term system call but forkQ in this context is actually the C library function which in turn calls the Linux sys_fork system call Listing 15 11 reproduces a snippet of a simple program that forks multiple processes from its main routine Listing 15 11 Using forkQ to Spawn a Child Process for i 0 i lt MAX PROCESSES i Creating child process pidli forkQ Parent gets non zero PID if pidli 1 perror fork failed exit J if pidlil O Indicates child s code path worker_process The forked process calls this Parent s main control loop while 1 This simple loop creates MAX
556. ure 14 2 Kernel configuration for KGDB View full size image Eile Options Help S amp S B I Load Save Single Split Full E Collapse Expand Options Name 7 Kemel hacking CI Show timing information on printks 7 E Kemel debugging PRINTK_TIME DEBUG_KERNEL Magic SysRq key Kernel log buffer size 16 gt 64KB 17 gt 128KB C Collect scheduler statistics CI Debug memory allocations C Spinlock debugging CI Sleep inside spinlock checking C kobject debugging Compile the kernel with debug info CI Debug Filesystem E Include kgdb kernel debugger X O Serial Pon ttys0 O ttys1 MAGIC_SYSRQ LOG_BUF_SHIFT SCHEDSTATS DEBUG_SLAB DEBUG_SPINLOCK DEBUG_SPINLOCK_SLEEP DEBUG_KOBJECT DEBUG_INFO DEBUG _FS KGDB KGDB_TTYSO KGDB_TTYS1 Include kgdb kernel debugger KGDB Include in kemel hooks for kgdb the Linux kernel source level debugger See lt http kgdb sourceforge net gt for more information Unless you are intending to debug the kernel say N here 14 2 2 Target Boot with KGDB Support After your kernel is built with KGDB support it must be enabled Unfortunately the method to enable it is not yet uniform across all architectures and implementations In general KGDB is enabled by passing a command line switch to the kernel via the kernel command line If KGDB support is compiled into the kernel but not enabled via a command line switch it does nothing When KGDB is enabled the k
557. use these addresses to load the initrd image from raw memory where the bootloader placed it or a nonvolatile Flash image into an internal kernel ramdisk structure ls The initial ramdisk or initrd was introduced in Chapter 6 Next we see code to store the kernel command line whose address is passed into platform_initQ via registers r6 and r7 marking the start and end addresses respectively This differs from the method described earlier for storing a static kernel command line in one specific detail this kernel command line was passed to platform_initQ from the bootloader as opposed to being compiled into the kernel Copying the initrd and kernel command line is very straightforward Basically the registers passed in from the bootloader contain the memory addresses where these data structures reside There is one minor subtlety however You may have already wondered about the purpose of the constant KERNELBASE Understanding this is key to grasping one of the more complex parts of the boot sequence The addresses the bootloader provides are physical addresses This means they are the real hardware addresses where the data resides in the memory chips The bootloader typically operates without support for virtual memory However the kernel itself is statically linked to a well known user configured base address This address is KERNELBASE The value itself is not relevant to the discussionit is user configurable but virtuall
558. using KGDB is to debug loadable kernel modules that is device drivers One of the more convenient features of loadable modules is that under most circumstances it is not necessary to reboot the kernel for each new debugging session You can start a debugging session make some changes recompile and reload the module without the hassle and delay of a complete kernel reboot The complication associated with debugging loadable modules is in gaining access to the symbolic debug information contained in the module s object file Because loadable modules are dynamically linked when they are loaded into the kernel the symbolic information contained in the object file is useless until the symbol table is adjusted Recall from our earlier examples how we invoke gdb for a kernel debugging session ppc_4xx gdb vmlinux This launches a gdb debugging session on your host and reads the symbol information from the Linux kernel ELF file vmlinux Of course you will not find symbols for any loadable modules in this file Loadable modules are separate compilation units and are linked as individual standalone ELF objects Therefore if we intend to perform any source level debugging on a loadable module we need to load its debug symbols from the ELF file gdb provides this capability in its add symbol file command The add symbol file command loads symbols from the specified object file assuming that the module itself has already been load
559. ussion the word task is used to denote any thread of execution regardless of the mechanism used to spawn manage or schedule it High performance microprocessors contain complex hardware engines called Memory Management Units MMUs whose purpose is to enable an operating system to exercise a high degree of management and control over its address space and the address space it allocates to processes This control comes in two primary forms access rights and memory translation Access rights allow an operating system to assign specific memory access privileges to specific tasks Memory translation allows an operating system to virtualize its address space which has many benefits The Linux kernel takes advantage of these hardware MMUs to create a virtual memory operating system One of the biggest benefits of virtual memory is that it can make more efficient use of physical memory by presenting the appearance that the system has more memory than is physically present The other benefit is that the kernel can enforce access rights to each range of system memory that it allocates to a task or process to prevent one process from errantly accessing memory or other resources that belong to another process or to the kernel itself Let s look at some details of how this works A tutorial on the complexities of virtual memory systems is beyond the scope of this book Instead we examine the ramifications of a virtual memory system as it appears to
560. ve your debugging skills inside the kernel and device drivers 14 1 Challenges to Kernel Debugging Debugging a modern operating system involves many challenges Virtual memory operating systems present their own unique challenges Gone are the days when we could replace a processor with an in circuit emulator Processors have become far too fast and complex Moreover pipeline architectures hide important code execution details partly because memory accesses on the bus can be ordered differently from code execution and particularly because of internal caching of instruction streams It is not always possible to correlate external bus activity to internal processor instruction execution except at a rather coarse level Some of the challenges you will encounter while debugging Linux kernel code are e Linux kernel code is highly optimized for speed of execution in many areas e Compilers use optimization techniques that complicate the correlation of C source to actual machine instruction flow Inline functions are a good example of this e Single stepping through compiler optimized code often produces unusual and unexpected results e Virtual memory isolates user space memory from kernel memory and can make various debugging scenarios especially difficult e Some code cannot be stepped through with traditional debuggers e Startup code can be especially difficult because of its proximity to the hardware and the limited resources available
561. video coding and encoding and fast generation of encryption protocols such as DES MDS and SHAI Other chips in the Freescale lineup of stand alone processors include the MPC7410 MPC7445 MPC7447 MPC745x and MPC7xx family 3 1 4 Companion Chipsets Stand alone processors such as those just described require support logic to connect to and enable external peripheral devices such as main system memory DRAM ROM or Flash memory system busses such as PCI and other peripherals such as keyboard controllers serial ports IDE interfaces and the like This support logic is often accomplished by companion chipsets which may even be purpose designed specifically for a family of processors For example the Pentium M is supported by one such chipset called the 855GM The 855GM chipset is the primary interface to graphics and memorythus the suffix GM The 855GM has been optimized as a companion to the Pentium M Figure 3 1 illustrates the relationship between the processor and chipsets in this type of hardware design Figure 3 1 Processor chipset relationship Processor Front Side Bus T Dram Northbridge Southbridge PCI Bus Note the terminology that has become common for describing these chipsets The Intel 855GM is an example of what is commonly referred to as a northbridge chip because it is directly connected to the processor s high speed front side bus FSB Another companion chip that provides I O and PCI bus
562. ways a better way See Chapter 16 Porting Linux for additional information You are wise to consider delaying any custom hardware initialization until after the kernel has booted if at all possible In this manner you can rely on the well known device driver model for access to custom hardware instead of trying to customize the much more complicated assembly language startup code Numerous undocumented techniques are used at this level One common example of this is to work around hardware errata that may or may not be documented A much higher price will be paid in development time cost and complexity if you must make changes to the early startup assembly language code Hardware and software engineers should discuss these facts during early stages of hardware development when often a minor hardware change can lead to significant savings in software development time It is important to recognize the constraints placed upon the developer in a virtual memory environment Many experienced embedded developers have little or no experience in this environment and the scenario presented earlier is but one small example of the pitfalls that await the developer new to virtual memory architectures Nearly all modern 32 bit and larger microprocessors have memory management hardware used to implement virtual memory architectures One of the most significant advantages of virtual memory machines is that they help separate teams of developers write large
563. working directory to avoid overwriting your system s startup files or primary utilities 11 2 BusyBox Configuration To initiate the BusyBox configuration the command is the same as that used with the Linux kernel for the ncurses library based configuration utility make menuconfig Figure 11 1 shows the top level BusyBox configuration Figure 11 1 Top Level BusyBox Configuration menu File Edit View Terminal Tabs Help A BusyBox Configuration General Configuration gt uild Opti iv Space does not permit coverage of each configuration option However some of the Pes O OO S gt kr i pm E corun gt s options deserve mention Some of the more important BusyBox configuration options are found under Build Options Here you will find configuration options necessary to cross compile the BusyBox application ting 1 details the options found under BuildOptions in a recent BusyBox snapshot Select Build Options from the top level BusyBox configuration utility to navigate to this screen Listing 11 1 BusyBox Build Options Build BusyBox as a static binary no shared libs Build with Large File Support for accessing files gt 2 GB Do you want to build BusyBox with a Cross Compiler Q Any extra CFLAGS options for the compiler The first option is useful for building very minimal embedded systems It allows BusyBox to be compiled and linked statically so that no
564. wxrwxrwx l root root O Jan 1 00 25 root gt r r r l root root O Jan 1 00 21 stat r r r l root root O Jan 1 00 25 statm r r r l root root O Jan 1 00 21 status dr xr xr X 3 root root O Jan 1 00 25 task r r r l root root O Jan 1 00 25 wchan These entries which are present in the proc file system for each running process contain much useful information especially for analyzing and debugging a process For example the cmdline entry contains the complete command line used to invoke the process including any arguments The cwd and root directories contain the processes view of the current working directory and the current root directory One of the more useful entries for system debugging is the maps entry This contains a list of each virtual memory segment assigned to the program along with attributes about each Listing 9 16 is the output from proc 1 maps in our example of the init process Listing 9 16 init Process Memory Segments from proc cat proc 1 maps 00008000 0000f000 r xp 00000000 00 0a 9537567 sbin init 00016000 00017000 rw p 00006000 00 0a 9537567 sbin init 00017000 0001b000 rwxp 00017000 00 00 0 40000000 40017000 r xp 00000000 00 0a 9537183 lib 1d 2 3 2 so 40017000 40018000 rw p 40017000 00 00 0 4001 000 40020000 rw p 00017000 00 0a 9537183 1ib 1d 2 3 2 so 40020000 40141000 r xp 00000000 00 0a 9537518 1ib libc 2 3 2 so 4
565. x gnu target armv5teb montavista linuxeabi In this instance we were invoking a version of GDB that was compiled to execute from a Linux PCspecifically an i686 running the GNU Linux operating system Equally critical this instance of GDB was compiled to debug ARM binary code generated from the armv5teb big endian toolchain One of the most common mistakes made by newcomers to embedded development is to use the wrong GDB while trying to debug target executables If something isn t working right you should immediately check your GDB configuration to make sure that it makes sense for your environment You cannot use your native GDB to debug target code 13 2 Data Display Debugger The Data Display Debugger DDD is a graphical front end to GDB and other command line debuggers DDD has many advanced features beyond simply viewing source code and stepping through a debug session Figure 13 1 is a screen shot of the DDD s main screen Figure 13 1 Data Display Debugger View full size image main c 64 EA f Lvs FC Verity AU ule iat Main entry point from LINUX int main int argc char argy Ed Initialize the memory allocator Allow use of malloc and start with a 60K heap For each page request approx 8KB is allocated 60KB allows for several concurrent page requests If more space is required malloc will be used for the overflow bopen NULL 60 1024 B_USE_MALLOC signal SIGPIPE SI
566. xamine the buffer Because the relationship between kernel virtual memory and physical memory is fixed and constant on a given architecture we can do a simple conversion The address of __log buf shown earlier is a kernel virtual address we must convert it to a physical address On this particular PowerPC architecture that conversion is a simple subtraction of the constant KERNELBASE address Oxc0000000 This is where we probe in memory to read the contents if any of the printk log buffer Listing 14 23 is an example of the listing as displayed by the U Boot memory dump command Listing 14 23 Dump of Raw printk Log Buffer gt md 22e5a4 0022e5a4 3c358e4c 696e7578 20766572 73696f6e lt 5 gt Linux version 0022e5b4 20322e36 2 313320 28636872 6973406a 2 6 13 chris 0022e5c4 756e696 72292028 67636320 76657273 junior gcc 0022e5d4 696f6e20 332e342e 3320284d 6f 6e7461 version 3 4 3 Monta 0022e5e4 56697374 6120332e 342 332d 32352630 Vista 3 4 3 25 0 0022e5f 4 2e37302e 30353031 39363120 32303035 70 0501961 2005 0022e604 2d31322d 31382929 20233131 20547565 12 18 11 Tue 0022e614 20466562 20313420 32313a30 353a3036 Feb 14 21 05 06 0022e624 20455354 20323030 360a3c34 3e414d43 EST 2006 lt 4 gt AMC 0022e634 4320506 77657250 43203434 30455020 C PowerPC 440EP 0022e644 596 7365 6d697465 20506c61 74666 72 Yosemite Platform 0022e654 6d0a3c37 3e4 6e20 6e6f6465 20302074 lt 7 gt 0n node 0
567. xc000c4f0 topology_init 0x0 0x24 Calling initcall OxcO000e8f4 coyote_pci_init 0x0 0x200 PCI IXP4xx is host PCI IXP4xx Using direct access for memory space Notice the call to customize_machine the example of Listing 5 7 The debug output includes the virtual kernel address of the function Oxc000c32c in this case and the size of the function Ox2c here This is a useful way to see the details of kernel initialization especially the order in which various subsystems and modules get called Even on a modestly configured embedded system dozens of these initialization functions are invoked in this manner In this example taken from an ARM XScale embedded target there are 92 such calls to various kernel initialization routines 5 5 2 Final Boot Steps Having spawned the initQ thread and all the various initialization calls have completed the kernel performs its final steps in the boot sequence These include freeing the memory used by the initialization functions and data opening a system console device and starting the first userspace process Listing 5 11 reproduces the last steps in the kernel s initQ from main c Listing 5 11 Final Kernel Boot Steps from main c if execute_command run_init_process execute_command printk KERN_WARNING Failed to execute s Attempting defaults n execute_command run_init_process sbin init run_init_process etc init run_init_process bin init
568. xecutable code must be at a predefined location in Flash depending on the processor and hardware architecture For example the AMCC PowerPC 405GP processor seeks its first machine instructions from a hard coded address of OxFFFF_FFFC Other processors use similar methods with different details Some processors are configurable at power on to seek code from one of several predefined locations depending on hardware configuration signals How does a developer specify the layout of a binary image The linker is passed a linker description file also called a linker command script This special file can be thought of as a recipe for constructing a binary executable image Listing 7 2 contains a snippet from an existing linker description file in use in a popular bootloader which we discuss shortly Listing 7 2 Linker Command ScriptReset Vector Placement SECTIONS resetvec OxXFFFFFFFC resetvec Oxf A complete description of linker command scripts syntax is beyond the scope of this book The interested reader is directed to the GNU LD manual referenced at the end of this chapter Looking at Listing 7 2 we see the beginning of the definition for the output section of the binary ELF image It directs the linker to place the section of code called resetvec at a fixed address in the output image starting at location OxFFFF_FFFC Furthermore it specifies that the rest of this section shall
569. xperienced embedded developers struggle at first with the concepts of device drivers in a virtual memory operating system This is because many popular legacy real time operating systems do not have a similar architecture The introduction of virtual memory and kernel space versus user space frequently introduces complexity that is not familiar to experienced embedded developers One of the fundamental purposes of a device driver is to isolate the user s programs from ready access to critical kernel data structures and hardware devices Furthermore a well written device driver hides the complexity and variability of the hardware device from the user For example a program that wants to write data to the hard disk need not care if the disk drive uses 512 byte or 1024 byte sectors The user simply opens a file and issues a write command The device driver handles the details and isolates the user from the complexities and perils of hardware device programming The device driver provides a consistent user interface to a large variety of hardware devices It provides the basis for the familiar UNIX Linux convention that everything must be represented as a file 8 1 1 Loadable Modules Unlike some other operating systems Linux has the capability to add and remove kernel components at runtime Linux is structured as a monolithic kernel with a well defined interface for adding and removing device driver modules dynamically after boot time This f
570. y schedule cpu_idleQ The start_kernelQ function calls rest_initQ reproduced in Listing 5 9 The kernel s init process is spawned by the call to kernel_thread init goes on to complete the rest of the system initialization while the thread of execution started by start_kernelQ loops forever in the call to cpu_idle The reason for this structure is interesting You might have noticed that start_kernel a relatively large function was marked with the __init macro This means that the memory it occupies will be reclaimed during the final stages of kernel initialization It is necessary to exit this function and the address space that it occupies before reclaiming its memory The answer to this was for start_kernel to call rest_initQ shown in Listing 5 9 a much smaller piece of memory that becomes the idle process 5 5 1 Initialization via initcalls When initQ is spawned it eventually calls do_initcalls which is the function responsible for calling all the initialization functions registered with the initcall family of macros The code is reproduced in Listing 5 10 in simplified form Listing 5 10 Initialization via initcalls static void __init do_initcalls void initcall_t call for call amp __initcall_start call lt amp __initcall_end call if initcall_debug printk KERN_DEBUG Calling initcall Ox p cal1 print_symbol sQ un
571. y at the directory structure exported by sysfs Listing 9 17 shows the top level sys directory on our Coyote board Listing 9 17 Top Level sys Directory Contents dir sys total 0 drwxr xr x 21 root root O Jan 1 00 00 block drwxr xr x 6 root root O Jan 1 00 00 bus drwxr xr x 10 root root O Jan 1 00 00 class drwxr xr x 5 root root O Jan 1 00 00 devices drwxr xr x 2 root root O Jan 1 00 00 firmware drwxr xr x 2 root root O Jan 1 00 00 kernel drwxr xr x 5 root root O Jan 1 00 00 module drwxr xr x 2 root root O Jan 1 00 00 power As you can see sysfs provides a subdirectory for each major class of system device including the system buses For example under the block subdirectory each block device is represented by a subdirectory entry The same holds true for the other directories at the top level Most of the information stored by sysfs is in a format more suitable for machines than humans to read For example to discover the devices on the PCI bus one could look directly at the sys bus pci subdirectory On our Coyote board which has a single PCI device attached an Ethernet card the directory looks like this 1s sys bus pci devices 0000 00 0f 0 gt devices pci0000 00 0000 00 0f 0 This entry is actually a symbolic link pointing to another node in the sysfs directory tree We have formatted the output of ls here to illustrate this while still fitting in a single line The name of
572. y never changed from its default value of 0xC0000000 This sets up an interesting situation in head S When the kernel is decompressed and relocated to RAM usually to location 0 all of its code and data symbols are linked at the kernel s virtual address KERNELBASE This can be seen by examining the kernel symbol map file produced during the kernel build process System map However the execution context prior to enabling the MMU is such that physical addresses are real hardware addresses This means that all the code prior to enabling the MMU and virtual memory mapping must be relocatable and access to symbols must be fixed up This involves adding an offset to the symbol s address to access it An example will make this clear Ha We introduced the Systemmap file in Chapter 4 16 3 1 Early Variable Access Let s assume that a code segment very early in the boot process needs to access the variable cmd_lineso early that we re executing in 1 1 real to physical mapping As pointed out earlier this variable is defined in head S and will end up in the data section when the kernel is linked From the Linux kernel s System map file you can find the linked addresses for cmd_line cat System map grep cmd_line c0115000 D cmd_line If we were running in real physical mode MMU disabled and accessed this variable using its symbol we would be trying to read or write to an address greater than 3GB Most smaller embedded systems don t
573. yote board which contains an Intel IXP425 processor running in big endian mode this step is crucial for proper operation If you fail to specify big endian you will get several screens full of complaints from the kernel as it tries to negotiate the superblock of a JFFS2 file system that is essentially gibberish Anyone care to guess how I remembered this important detail lel The kernel can be configured to operate with a wrong endian MTD file system at the cost of reduced performance In some configurations such as multiprocessor designs this can be a useful feature In a similar manner to the previous example we can copy this image to our Redboot RootFS Flash partition using the flashcp utility Then we can boot the Linux kernel using a JFFS2 root file system Listing 10 16 provides the details running the MTD utilities on our target hardware Listing 10 16 Copying JFFS2 to RootFS Partition root coyote cat proc mtd dev size erasesize name mtd0 00060000 00020000 RedBoot mtdl 00160000 00020000 MyKernel mtd2 00600000 00020000 RootFS mtd3 00001000 00020000 RedBoot config mtd4 00020000 00020000 FIS directory root coyote flash_erase dev mtd2 Erase Total 1 Units Performing Flash Erase of length 131072 at offset 0x0 done root coyote flashcp rootfs jffs2 dev mtd2 root coyote It is important to note that you must have the JFFS2 file system enabled in your kerne
574. you are porting to one of the many supported processors It is mature code with many successful ports running on it You need to modify the board specific code at a bare minimum for your port If you find yourself troubleshooting or modifying the early startup assembler code for a processor that has been around for a while you are most likely heading down the wrong road Listing 7 6 reproduces a portion of start S for the 4xx architecture Listing 7 6 U Boot 4xx startup code if defined CONFIG_405GP defined CONFIG_405CR defined CONFIG_405 defined CONFIG_405EP Clear and set up some registers addi r4 r0 0x0000 mtspr sgr r4 mtspr dewr r4 mtesr r4 clear Exception Syndrome Reg mttcr r4 clear Timer Control Reg mtxer r4 clear Fixed Point Exception Reg mtevpr r4 clear Exception Vector Prefix Reg addi r4 r0 0x1000 set ME bit Machine Exceptions oris r4 r4 0x0002 set CE bit Critical Exceptions mtmsr r4 change MSR addi r4 r0 0xFFFF 0x10000 set r4 to OxFFFFFFFF status in the dbsr is cleared by setting bits to 1 mtdbsr r4 clear reset the dbsr is Invalidate I and D caches Enable I cache for defined memory regions to speed things up Leave the D cache disabled for now It will be enabled left disabled later based on user selected menu options Be aware that the I cache may be disa
575. you are using an NFS root mount configuration on your target board Linux needs to configure your target s Ethernet interface before the boot process can complete We covered NFS in detail in Chapter 9 File Systems In general Linux can use two methods to initialize its Ethernet IP interface during boot e Hard code the Ethernet interface parameters either on the Linux kernel command line or in the default configuration e Configure the kernel to automatically detect the network settings at boot time For obvious reasons the latter choice is the most flexible DHCP or BOOTP is the protocol your target and server use to accomplish the automatic detection of network settings For details of the DHCP or BOOTP protocols see Section 12 4 1 at the end of this chapter A DHCP server controls the IP address assignments for IP subnets for which it has been configured and for DHCP or BOOTP clients that have been configured to participate A DHCP server listens for requests from a DHCP client such as your target board and assigns addresses and other pertinent information to the client as part of the boot process A typical DHCP exchange see Listing 12 5 can be examined by starting your DHCP server with the d debug switch and observing the output when a target machine requests configuration Listing 12 5 Typical DHCP Exchange tgt gt DHCPDISCOVER from 00 09 5b 65 ld dS via ethO svr gt DHCPOFFER on 192 168 0 9 to 00 0
576. your target system and keep a local unstripped copy on your development workstation containing symbolic information needed for debugging You use gdbserver on your target board to provide an interface back to your development host where you run the full blown version of GDB on your nonstripped binary 15 2 1 gdbserver Using gdbserver allows you to run GDB from a development workstation rather than on the target embedded Linux platform This configuration has obvious benefits For starters it is common that your development workstation has far more CPU power memory and hard drive storage than the embedded platform In addition it is common for the source code for your application under debug to exist on the development workstation and not on the embedded platform gdbserver is a small program that runs on the target board and allows remote debugging of a process on the board It is invoked on the target board specifying the program to be debugged as well as an IP address and port number on which it will listen for connection requests from GDB Listing 15 3 shows the startup sequence on the target board Listing 15 3 Starting gdbserver on Target Board gdbserver localhost 2001 websdemo stripped Process websdemo stripped created pid 197 Listening on port 2001 This particular example starts gdbserver configured to listen for an Ethernet TCP IP connection on port 2001 ready to debug our stripped
577. z AS arch arm boot compressed piggy o CC arch arm boot compressed misc o AS arch arm boot compressed head xscale o AS arch arm boot compressed big endian o LD arch arm boot compressed vmlinux OBJCOPY arch arm boot zImage Kernel arch arm boot zImage is ready Building modules stage 2 In the third line of Listing 5 1 the vmlinux image the kernel proper is linked Following that a number of additional object modules are processed These include head o piggy o and the architecture specific head xscale o among others The tags identify what is happening on each line For example AS indicates that the assembler is invoked GZIP indicates compression and so on In general these object modules are specific to a given architecture ARM XScale in this example and contain low level utility routines needed to boot the kernel on this particular architecture Table 5 1 details the components from Listing 5 1 ll The term piggy was originally used to describe a piggy back concept In this case the binary kernel image is piggy backed onto the bootstrap loader to produce the composite kernel image Table 5 1 ARM XScale Low Level Architecture Objects Component Function Description vmlinux Kernel proper in ELF format including symbols comments debug info if compiled with g and architecture generic components System map Text based kernel symbol table for vmlinux module Image Bin
578. zation sr a addi r4 0 pb0ap ebccfga pb0ap iG mtdcr ebccfga r4 addis r4 0 EBCO_BOAP h ebccfgd EBCO_BOAP ori r4 r4 EBCO_BOAP 1 mtdcr ebccfgd r4 addi r4 0 pb0cr ebccfga pbOcr as mtdcr ebccfga r4 addis r4 0 EBCO_BOCR h ebccfgd EBCO_BOCR ori r4 r4 EBCO_BOCR 1 mtdcr ebccfgd r4 2 Memory Bank 4 NVRAM amp BCSR initialization addi r4 0 pb4ap ebccfga pb4ap mtdcr ebccfga r4 addis r4 0 EBCO_B4AP h ebccfgd EBCO_B4AP ori r4 r4 EBCO_B4AP 1 mtdcr ebccfgd r4 addi r4 0 pb4cr ebccfga pbd4cr mtdcr ebccfga r4 addis r4 0 EBCO_B4CR h ebccfgd EBCO_B4CR ori r4 r4 EBCO_B4CR 1 mtdcr ebccfgd r4 blr return The example in Listing 7 7 was chosen because it is typical of the subtle complexities involved in low level processor initialization It is important to realize the context in which this code is running It is executing from Flash before any DRAM is available There is no stack This code is preparing to make fundamental changes to the controller that governs access to the very Flash it is executing from It is well documented for this particular processor that executing code from Flash while modifying the external bus controller to which the Flash is attached can lead to errant reads and a resulting processor crash The solution is shown in this assembly language routine Starting at the label

Embedded.Linux.Primer

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents