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Diffstat (limited to 'doc/board/xen')
-rw-r--r-- | doc/board/xen/index.rst | 9 | ||||
-rw-r--r-- | doc/board/xen/xenguest_arm64.rst | 81 |
2 files changed, 90 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/board/xen/index.rst b/doc/board/xen/index.rst new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..e58fe9e3512 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/board/xen/index.rst @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+ + +XenGuestARM64 +============= + +.. toctree:: + :maxdepth: 2 + + xenguest_arm64 diff --git a/doc/board/xen/xenguest_arm64.rst b/doc/board/xen/xenguest_arm64.rst new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..1327f88f990 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/board/xen/xenguest_arm64.rst @@ -0,0 +1,81 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+ + +Xen guest ARM64 board +===================== + +This board specification +------------------------ + +This board is to be run as a virtual Xen [1] guest with U-boot as its primary +bootloader. Xen is a type 1 hypervisor that allows multiple operating systems +to run simultaneously on a single physical server. Xen is capable of running +virtual machines in both full virtualization and para-virtualization (PV) +modes. Xen runs virtual machines, which are called “domains”. + +Paravirtualized drivers are a special type of device drivers that are used in +a guest system in the Xen domain and perform I/O operations using a special +interface provided by the virtualization system and the host system. + +Xen support for U-boot is implemented by introducing a new Xen guest ARM64 +board and porting essential drivers from MiniOS [3] as well as some of the work +previously done by NXP [4]: + +- PV block device frontend driver with XenStore based device enumeration and + UCLASS_PVBLOCK class; +- PV serial console device frontend driver; +- Xen hypervisor support with minimal set of the essential headers adapted from + the Linux kernel; +- Xen grant table support; +- Xen event channel support in polling mode; +- XenBus support; +- dynamic RAM size as defined in the device tree instead of the statically + defined values; +- position-independent pre-relocation code is used as we cannot statically + define any start addresses at compile time which is up to Xen to choose at + run-time; +- new defconfig introduced: xenguest_arm64_defconfig. + + +Board limitations +----------------- + +1. U-boot runs without MMU enabled at the early stages. + According to Xen on ARM ABI (xen/include/public/arch-arm.h): all memory + which is shared with other entities in the system (including the hypervisor + and other guests) must reside in memory which is mapped as Normal Inner + Write-Back Outer Write-Back Inner-Shareable. + Thus, page attributes must be equally set for all the entities working with + that page. + Before MMU is set up the data cache is turned off and pages are seen by the + vCPU and Xen in different ways - cacheable by Xen and non-cacheable by vCPU. + So it means that manual data cache maintenance is required at the early + stages. + +2. No serial console until MMU is up. + Because data cache maintenance is required until the MMU setup the + early/debug serial console is not implemented. Therefore, we do not have + usual prints like U-boot’s banner etc. until the serial driver is + initialized. + +3. Single RAM bank supported. + If a Xen guest is given much memory it is possible that Xen allocates two + memory banks for it. The first one is allocated under 4GB address space and + in some cases may represent the whole guest’s memory. It is assumed that + U-boot most likely won’t require high memory bank for its work andlaunching + OS, so it is enough to take the first one. + + +Board default configuration +--------------------------- + +One can select the configuration as follows: + + - make xenguest_arm64_defconfig + +[1] - https://xenproject.org/ + +[2] - https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Paravirtualization_(PV) + +[3] - https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Mini-OS + +[4] - https://source.codeaurora.org/external/imx/uboot-imx/tree/?h=imx_v2018.03_4.14.98_2.0.0_ga |