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author | Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org> | 2024-04-28 09:13:47 +0000 |
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committer | Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org> | 2024-04-28 09:13:47 +0000 |
commit | 102b0d2daa97dae68d3eed54d8fe37a9cc38a892 (patch) | |
tree | bcf648efac40ca6139842707f0eba5a4496a6dd2 /docs/design/alt-boot-flows.rst | |
parent | Initial commit. (diff) | |
download | arm-trusted-firmware-upstream.tar.xz arm-trusted-firmware-upstream.zip |
Adding upstream version 2.8.0+dfsg.upstream/2.8.0+dfsgupstream
Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>
Diffstat (limited to '')
-rw-r--r-- | docs/design/alt-boot-flows.rst | 84 |
1 files changed, 84 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/docs/design/alt-boot-flows.rst b/docs/design/alt-boot-flows.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b44c061 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/design/alt-boot-flows.rst @@ -0,0 +1,84 @@ +Alternative Boot Flows +====================== + +EL3 payloads alternative boot flow +---------------------------------- + +On a pre-production system, the ability to execute arbitrary, bare-metal code at +the highest exception level is required. It allows full, direct access to the +hardware, for example to run silicon soak tests. + +Although it is possible to implement some baremetal secure firmware from +scratch, this is a complex task on some platforms, depending on the level of +configuration required to put the system in the expected state. + +Rather than booting a baremetal application, a possible compromise is to boot +``EL3 payloads`` through TF-A instead. This is implemented as an alternative +boot flow, where a modified BL2 boots an EL3 payload, instead of loading the +other BL images and passing control to BL31. It reduces the complexity of +developing EL3 baremetal code by: + +- putting the system into a known architectural state; +- taking care of platform secure world initialization; +- loading the SCP_BL2 image if required by the platform. + +When booting an EL3 payload on Arm standard platforms, the configuration of the +TrustZone controller is simplified such that only region 0 is enabled and is +configured to permit secure access only. This gives full access to the whole +DRAM to the EL3 payload. + +The system is left in the same state as when entering BL31 in the default boot +flow. In particular: + +- Running in EL3; +- Current state is AArch64; +- Little-endian data access; +- All exceptions disabled; +- MMU disabled; +- Caches disabled. + +.. _alt_boot_flows_el3_payload: + +Booting an EL3 payload +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +The EL3 payload image is a standalone image and is not part of the FIP. It is +not loaded by TF-A. Therefore, there are 2 possible scenarios: + +- The EL3 payload may reside in non-volatile memory (NVM) and execute in + place. In this case, booting it is just a matter of specifying the right + address in NVM through ``EL3_PAYLOAD_BASE`` when building TF-A. + +- The EL3 payload needs to be loaded in volatile memory (e.g. DRAM) at + run-time. + +To help in the latter scenario, the ``SPIN_ON_BL1_EXIT=1`` build option can be +used. The infinite loop that it introduces in BL1 stops execution at the right +moment for a debugger to take control of the target and load the payload (for +example, over JTAG). + +It is expected that this loading method will work in most cases, as a debugger +connection is usually available in a pre-production system. The user is free to +use any other platform-specific mechanism to load the EL3 payload, though. + + +Preloaded BL33 alternative boot flow +------------------------------------ + +Some platforms have the ability to preload BL33 into memory instead of relying +on TF-A to load it. This may simplify packaging of the normal world code and +improve performance in a development environment. When secure world cold boot +is complete, TF-A simply jumps to a BL33 base address provided at build time. + +For this option to be used, the ``PRELOADED_BL33_BASE`` build option has to be +used when compiling TF-A. For example, the following command will create a FIP +without a BL33 and prepare to jump to a BL33 image loaded at address +0x80000000: + +.. code:: shell + + make PRELOADED_BL33_BASE=0x80000000 PLAT=fvp all fip + +-------------- + +*Copyright (c) 2019, Arm Limited. All rights reserved.* |