blob: 0ff30ef6fd9f3b7098940a315f42a428274c7322 [file] [log] [blame]
Tom Rini83d290c2018-05-06 17:58:06 -04001# SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -07002# Copyright (c) 2016 Google, Inc
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -07003
4Introduction
5------------
6
7Firmware often consists of several components which must be packaged together.
8For example, we may have SPL, U-Boot, a device tree and an environment area
9grouped together and placed in MMC flash. When the system starts, it must be
10able to find these pieces.
11
12So far U-Boot has not provided a way to handle creating such images in a
13general way. Each SoC does what it needs to build an image, often packing or
14concatenating images in the U-Boot build system.
15
16Binman aims to provide a mechanism for building images, from simple
17SPL + U-Boot combinations, to more complex arrangements with many parts.
18
19
20What it does
21------------
22
23Binman reads your board's device tree and finds a node which describes the
24required image layout. It uses this to work out what to place where. The
25output file normally contains the device tree, so it is in principle possible
26to read an image and extract its constituent parts.
27
28
29Features
30--------
31
32So far binman is pretty simple. It supports binary blobs, such as 'u-boot',
33'spl' and 'fdt'. It supports empty entries (such as setting to 0xff). It can
34place entries at a fixed location in the image, or fit them together with
35suitable padding and alignment. It provides a way to process binaries before
36they are included, by adding a Python plug-in. The device tree is available
37to U-Boot at run-time so that the images can be interpreted.
38
39Binman does not yet update the device tree with the final location of
40everything when it is done. A simple C structure could be generated for
41constrained environments like SPL (using dtoc) but this is also not
42implemented.
43
44Binman can also support incorporating filesystems in the image if required.
45For example x86 platforms may use CBFS in some cases.
46
47Binman is intended for use with U-Boot but is designed to be general enough
48to be useful in other image-packaging situations.
49
50
51Motivation
52----------
53
54Packaging of firmware is quite a different task from building the various
55parts. In many cases the various binaries which go into the image come from
56separate build systems. For example, ARM Trusted Firmware is used on ARMv8
57devices but is not built in the U-Boot tree. If a Linux kernel is included
58in the firmware image, it is built elsewhere.
59
60It is of course possible to add more and more build rules to the U-Boot
61build system to cover these cases. It can shell out to other Makefiles and
62build scripts. But it seems better to create a clear divide between building
63software and packaging it.
64
65At present this is handled by manual instructions, different for each board,
66on how to create images that will boot. By turning these instructions into a
67standard format, we can support making valid images for any board without
68manual effort, lots of READMEs, etc.
69
70Benefits:
71- Each binary can have its own build system and tool chain without creating
72any dependencies between them
73- Avoids the need for a single-shot build: individual parts can be updated
74and brought in as needed
75- Provides for a standard image description available in the build and at
76run-time
77- SoC-specific image-signing tools can be accomodated
78- Avoids cluttering the U-Boot build system with image-building code
79- The image description is automatically available at run-time in U-Boot,
80SPL. It can be made available to other software also
81- The image description is easily readable (it's a text file in device-tree
82format) and permits flexible packing of binaries
83
84
85Terminology
86-----------
87
88Binman uses the following terms:
89
90- image - an output file containing a firmware image
91- binary - an input binary that goes into the image
92
93
94Relationship to FIT
95-------------------
96
97FIT is U-Boot's official image format. It supports multiple binaries with
98load / execution addresses, compression. It also supports verification
99through hashing and RSA signatures.
100
101FIT was originally designed to support booting a Linux kernel (with an
102optional ramdisk) and device tree chosen from various options in the FIT.
103Now that U-Boot supports configuration via device tree, it is possible to
104load U-Boot from a FIT, with the device tree chosen by SPL.
105
106Binman considers FIT to be one of the binaries it can place in the image.
107
108Where possible it is best to put as much as possible in the FIT, with binman
109used to deal with cases not covered by FIT. Examples include initial
110execution (since FIT itself does not have an executable header) and dealing
111with device boundaries, such as the read-only/read-write separation in SPI
112flash.
113
114For U-Boot, binman should not be used to create ad-hoc images in place of
115FIT.
116
117
118Relationship to mkimage
119-----------------------
120
121The mkimage tool provides a means to create a FIT. Traditionally it has
122needed an image description file: a device tree, like binman, but in a
123different format. More recently it has started to support a '-f auto' mode
124which can generate that automatically.
125
126More relevant to binman, mkimage also permits creation of many SoC-specific
127image types. These can be listed by running 'mkimage -T list'. Examples
128include 'rksd', the Rockchip SD/MMC boot format. The mkimage tool is often
129called from the U-Boot build system for this reason.
130
131Binman considers the output files created by mkimage to be binary blobs
132which it can place in an image. Binman does not replace the mkimage tool or
Michael Heimpold383d2562018-08-22 22:01:24 +0200133this purpose. It would be possible in some situations to create a new entry
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700134type for the images in mkimage, but this would not add functionality. It
Michael Heimpold383d2562018-08-22 22:01:24 +0200135seems better to use the mkimage tool to generate binaries and avoid blurring
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700136the boundaries between building input files (mkimage) and packaging then
137into a final image (binman).
138
139
140Example use of binman in U-Boot
141-------------------------------
142
143Binman aims to replace some of the ad-hoc image creation in the U-Boot
144build system.
145
146Consider sunxi. It has the following steps:
147
1481. It uses a custom mksunxiboot tool to build an SPL image called
149sunxi-spl.bin. This should probably move into mkimage.
150
1512. It uses mkimage to package U-Boot into a legacy image file (so that it can
152hold the load and execution address) called u-boot.img.
153
1543. It builds a final output image called u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin which
155consists of sunxi-spl.bin, some padding and u-boot.img.
156
157Binman is intended to replace the last step. The U-Boot build system builds
158u-boot.bin and sunxi-spl.bin. Binman can then take over creation of
159sunxi-spl.bin (by calling mksunxiboot, or hopefully one day mkimage). In any
160case, it would then create the image from the component parts.
161
162This simplifies the U-Boot Makefile somewhat, since various pieces of logic
163can be replaced by a call to binman.
164
165
166Example use of binman for x86
167-----------------------------
168
169In most cases x86 images have a lot of binary blobs, 'black-box' code
170provided by Intel which must be run for the platform to work. Typically
171these blobs are not relocatable and must be placed at fixed areas in the
Michael Heimpold383d2562018-08-22 22:01:24 +0200172firmware image.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700173
174Currently this is handled by ifdtool, which places microcode, FSP, MRC, VGA
175BIOS, reference code and Intel ME binaries into a u-boot.rom file.
176
177Binman is intended to replace all of this, with ifdtool left to handle only
178the configuration of the Intel-format descriptor.
179
180
181Running binman
182--------------
183
Simon Glassd8d40742019-07-08 13:18:35 -0600184First install prerequisites, e.g.
185
186 sudo apt-get install python-pyelftools python3-pyelftools
187
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700188Type:
189
190 binman -b <board_name>
191
192to build an image for a board. The board name is the same name used when
193configuring U-Boot (e.g. for sandbox_defconfig the board name is 'sandbox').
194Binman assumes that the input files for the build are in ../b/<board_name>.
195
196Or you can specify this explicitly:
197
198 binman -I <build_path>
199
200where <build_path> is the build directory containing the output of the U-Boot
201build.
202
203(Future work will make this more configurable)
204
205In either case, binman picks up the device tree file (u-boot.dtb) and looks
206for its instructions in the 'binman' node.
207
208Binman has a few other options which you can see by running 'binman -h'.
209
210
Simon Glass9c0a8b12017-11-12 21:52:06 -0700211Enabling binman for a board
212---------------------------
213
214At present binman is invoked from a rule in the main Makefile. Typically you
215will have a rule like:
216
217ifneq ($(CONFIG_ARCH_<something>),)
218u-boot-<your_suffix>.bin: <input_file_1> <input_file_2> checkbinman FORCE
219 $(call if_changed,binman)
220endif
221
222This assumes that u-boot-<your_suffix>.bin is a target, and is the final file
223that you need to produce. You can make it a target by adding it to ALL-y
224either in the main Makefile or in a config.mk file in your arch subdirectory.
225
226Once binman is executed it will pick up its instructions from a device-tree
227file, typically <soc>-u-boot.dtsi, where <soc> is your CONFIG_SYS_SOC value.
228You can use other, more specific CONFIG options - see 'Automatic .dtsi
229inclusion' below.
230
231
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700232Image description format
233------------------------
234
235The binman node is called 'binman'. An example image description is shown
236below:
237
238 binman {
239 filename = "u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin";
240 pad-byte = <0xff>;
241 blob {
242 filename = "spl/sunxi-spl.bin";
243 };
244 u-boot {
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600245 offset = <CONFIG_SPL_PAD_TO>;
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700246 };
247 };
248
249
250This requests binman to create an image file called u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin
251consisting of a specially formatted SPL (spl/sunxi-spl.bin, built by the
252normal U-Boot Makefile), some 0xff padding, and a U-Boot legacy image. The
253padding comes from the fact that the second binary is placed at
254CONFIG_SPL_PAD_TO. If that line were omitted then the U-Boot binary would
255immediately follow the SPL binary.
256
257The binman node describes an image. The sub-nodes describe entries in the
258image. Each entry represents a region within the overall image. The name of
259the entry (blob, u-boot) tells binman what to put there. For 'blob' we must
260provide a filename. For 'u-boot', binman knows that this means 'u-boot.bin'.
261
262Entries are normally placed into the image sequentially, one after the other.
263The image size is the total size of all entries. As you can see, you can
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600264specify the start offset of an entry using the 'offset' property.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700265
266Note that due to a device tree requirement, all entries must have a unique
267name. If you want to put the same binary in the image multiple times, you can
268use any unique name, with the 'type' property providing the type.
269
270The attributes supported for entries are described below.
271
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600272offset:
273 This sets the offset of an entry within the image or section containing
274 it. The first byte of the image is normally at offset 0. If 'offset' is
275 not provided, binman sets it to the end of the previous region, or the
276 start of the image's entry area (normally 0) if there is no previous
277 region.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700278
279align:
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600280 This sets the alignment of the entry. The entry offset is adjusted
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700281 so that the entry starts on an aligned boundary within the image. For
282 example 'align = <16>' means that the entry will start on a 16-byte
283 boundary. Alignment shold be a power of 2. If 'align' is not
284 provided, no alignment is performed.
285
286size:
287 This sets the size of the entry. The contents will be padded out to
288 this size. If this is not provided, it will be set to the size of the
289 contents.
290
291pad-before:
292 Padding before the contents of the entry. Normally this is 0, meaning
293 that the contents start at the beginning of the entry. This can be
294 offset the entry contents a little. Defaults to 0.
295
296pad-after:
297 Padding after the contents of the entry. Normally this is 0, meaning
298 that the entry ends at the last byte of content (unless adjusted by
299 other properties). This allows room to be created in the image for
300 this entry to expand later. Defaults to 0.
301
302align-size:
303 This sets the alignment of the entry size. For example, to ensure
304 that the size of an entry is a multiple of 64 bytes, set this to 64.
305 If 'align-size' is not provided, no alignment is performed.
306
307align-end:
308 This sets the alignment of the end of an entry. Some entries require
309 that they end on an alignment boundary, regardless of where they
Simon Glass844e5b22018-06-01 09:38:22 -0600310 start. This does not move the start of the entry, so the contents of
311 the entry will still start at the beginning. But there may be padding
312 at the end. If 'align-end' is not provided, no alignment is performed.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700313
314filename:
315 For 'blob' types this provides the filename containing the binary to
316 put into the entry. If binman knows about the entry type (like
317 u-boot-bin), then there is no need to specify this.
318
319type:
320 Sets the type of an entry. This defaults to the entry name, but it is
321 possible to use any name, and then add (for example) 'type = "u-boot"'
322 to specify the type.
323
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600324offset-unset:
325 Indicates that the offset of this entry should not be set by placing
Simon Glass258fb0e2018-06-01 09:38:17 -0600326 it immediately after the entry before. Instead, is set by another
327 entry which knows where this entry should go. When this boolean
328 property is present, binman will give an error if another entry does
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600329 not set the offset (with the GetOffsets() method).
Simon Glass258fb0e2018-06-01 09:38:17 -0600330
Simon Glassdbf6be92018-08-01 15:22:42 -0600331image-pos:
332 This cannot be set on entry (or at least it is ignored if it is), but
333 with the -u option, binman will set it to the absolute image position
334 for each entry. This makes it easy to find out exactly where the entry
335 ended up in the image, regardless of parent sections, etc.
336
Simon Glassba64a0b2018-09-14 04:57:29 -0600337expand-size:
338 Expand the size of this entry to fit available space. This space is only
339 limited by the size of the image/section and the position of the next
340 entry.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700341
Simon Glass9c888cc2018-09-14 04:57:30 -0600342The attributes supported for images and sections are described below. Several
343are similar to those for entries.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700344
345size:
346 Sets the image size in bytes, for example 'size = <0x100000>' for a
347 1MB image.
348
Simon Glass9481c802019-04-25 21:58:39 -0600349offset:
350 This is similar to 'offset' in entries, setting the offset of a section
351 within the image or section containing it. The first byte of the section
352 is normally at offset 0. If 'offset' is not provided, binman sets it to
353 the end of the previous region, or the start of the image's entry area
354 (normally 0) if there is no previous region.
355
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700356align-size:
357 This sets the alignment of the image size. For example, to ensure
358 that the image ends on a 512-byte boundary, use 'align-size = <512>'.
359 If 'align-size' is not provided, no alignment is performed.
360
361pad-before:
362 This sets the padding before the image entries. The first entry will
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600363 be positioned after the padding. This defaults to 0.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700364
365pad-after:
366 This sets the padding after the image entries. The padding will be
367 placed after the last entry. This defaults to 0.
368
369pad-byte:
370 This specifies the pad byte to use when padding in the image. It
371 defaults to 0. To use 0xff, you would add 'pad-byte = <0xff>'.
372
373filename:
374 This specifies the image filename. It defaults to 'image.bin'.
375
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600376sort-by-offset:
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700377 This causes binman to reorder the entries as needed to make sure they
378 are in increasing positional order. This can be used when your entry
379 order may not match the positional order. A common situation is where
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600380 the 'offset' properties are set by CONFIG options, so their ordering is
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700381 not known a priori.
382
383 This is a boolean property so needs no value. To enable it, add a
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600384 line 'sort-by-offset;' to your description.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700385
386multiple-images:
387 Normally only a single image is generated. To create more than one
388 image, put this property in the binman node. For example, this will
389 create image1.bin containing u-boot.bin, and image2.bin containing
390 both spl/u-boot-spl.bin and u-boot.bin:
391
392 binman {
393 multiple-images;
394 image1 {
395 u-boot {
396 };
397 };
398
399 image2 {
400 spl {
401 };
402 u-boot {
403 };
404 };
405 };
406
407end-at-4gb:
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600408 For x86 machines the ROM offsets start just before 4GB and extend
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700409 up so that the image finished at the 4GB boundary. This boolean
410 option can be enabled to support this. The image size must be
411 provided so that binman knows when the image should start. For an
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600412 8MB ROM, the offset of the first entry would be 0xfff80000 with
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700413 this option, instead of 0 without this option.
414
Jagdish Gediya94b57db2018-09-03 21:35:07 +0530415skip-at-start:
416 This property specifies the entry offset of the first entry.
417
418 For PowerPC mpc85xx based CPU, CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE is the entry
419 offset of the first entry. It can be 0xeff40000 or 0xfff40000 for
420 nor flash boot, 0x201000 for sd boot etc.
421
422 'end-at-4gb' property is not applicable where CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE +
423 Image size != 4gb.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700424
425Examples of the above options can be found in the tests. See the
426tools/binman/test directory.
427
Simon Glassdd57c132018-06-01 09:38:11 -0600428It is possible to have the same binary appear multiple times in the image,
429either by using a unit number suffix (u-boot@0, u-boot@1) or by using a
430different name for each and specifying the type with the 'type' attribute.
431
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700432
Michael Heimpold383d2562018-08-22 22:01:24 +0200433Sections and hierachical images
Simon Glass18546952018-06-01 09:38:16 -0600434-------------------------------
435
436Sometimes it is convenient to split an image into several pieces, each of which
437contains its own set of binaries. An example is a flash device where part of
438the image is read-only and part is read-write. We can set up sections for each
439of these, and place binaries in them independently. The image is still produced
440as a single output file.
441
442This feature provides a way of creating hierarchical images. For example here
Simon Glass7ae5f312018-06-01 09:38:19 -0600443is an example image with two copies of U-Boot. One is read-only (ro), intended
444to be written only in the factory. Another is read-write (rw), so that it can be
Simon Glass18546952018-06-01 09:38:16 -0600445upgraded in the field. The sizes are fixed so that the ro/rw boundary is known
446and can be programmed:
447
448 binman {
449 section@0 {
450 read-only;
Simon Glassc8d48ef2018-06-01 09:38:21 -0600451 name-prefix = "ro-";
Simon Glass18546952018-06-01 09:38:16 -0600452 size = <0x100000>;
453 u-boot {
454 };
455 };
456 section@1 {
Simon Glassc8d48ef2018-06-01 09:38:21 -0600457 name-prefix = "rw-";
Simon Glass18546952018-06-01 09:38:16 -0600458 size = <0x100000>;
459 u-boot {
460 };
461 };
462 };
463
464This image could be placed into a SPI flash chip, with the protection boundary
465set at 1MB.
466
467A few special properties are provided for sections:
468
469read-only:
470 Indicates that this section is read-only. This has no impact on binman's
471 operation, but his property can be read at run time.
472
Simon Glassc8d48ef2018-06-01 09:38:21 -0600473name-prefix:
474 This string is prepended to all the names of the binaries in the
475 section. In the example above, the 'u-boot' binaries which actually be
476 renamed to 'ro-u-boot' and 'rw-u-boot'. This can be useful to
477 distinguish binaries with otherwise identical names.
478
Simon Glass18546952018-06-01 09:38:16 -0600479
Simon Glass5a5da7c2018-07-17 13:25:37 -0600480Entry Documentation
481-------------------
482
483For details on the various entry types supported by binman and how to use them,
484see README.entries. This is generated from the source code using:
485
486 binman -E >tools/binman/README.entries
487
488
Simon Glasse0e5df92018-09-14 04:57:31 -0600489Hashing Entries
490---------------
Simon Glasse0ff8552016-11-25 20:15:53 -0700491
Simon Glasse0e5df92018-09-14 04:57:31 -0600492It is possible to ask binman to hash the contents of an entry and write that
493value back to the device-tree node. For example:
Simon Glasse0ff8552016-11-25 20:15:53 -0700494
Simon Glasse0e5df92018-09-14 04:57:31 -0600495 binman {
496 u-boot {
497 hash {
498 algo = "sha256";
499 };
500 };
501 };
502
503Here, a new 'value' property will be written to the 'hash' node containing
504the hash of the 'u-boot' entry. Only SHA256 is supported at present. Whole
505sections can be hased if desired, by adding the 'hash' node to the section.
506
507The has value can be chcked at runtime by hashing the data actually read and
508comparing this has to the value in the device tree.
Simon Glasse0ff8552016-11-25 20:15:53 -0700509
510
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700511Order of image creation
512-----------------------
513
514Image creation proceeds in the following order, for each entry in the image.
515
Simon Glass078ab1a2018-07-06 10:27:41 -06005161. AddMissingProperties() - binman can add calculated values to the device
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600517tree as part of its processing, for example the offset and size of each
Simon Glass078ab1a2018-07-06 10:27:41 -0600518entry. This method adds any properties associated with this, expanding the
519device tree as needed. These properties can have placeholder values which are
520set later by SetCalculatedProperties(). By that stage the size of sections
521cannot be changed (since it would cause the images to need to be repacked),
522but the correct values can be inserted.
523
5242. ProcessFdt() - process the device tree information as required by the
Simon Glassecab8972018-07-06 10:27:40 -0600525particular entry. This may involve adding or deleting properties. If the
526processing is complete, this method should return True. If the processing
527cannot complete because it needs the ProcessFdt() method of another entry to
528run first, this method should return False, in which case it will be called
529again later.
530
Simon Glass078ab1a2018-07-06 10:27:41 -06005313. GetEntryContents() - the contents of each entry are obtained, normally by
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700532reading from a file. This calls the Entry.ObtainContents() to read the
533contents. The default version of Entry.ObtainContents() calls
534Entry.GetDefaultFilename() and then reads that file. So a common mechanism
535to select a file to read is to override that function in the subclass. The
536functions must return True when they have read the contents. Binman will
537retry calling the functions a few times if False is returned, allowing
538dependencies between the contents of different entries.
539
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -06005404. GetEntryOffsets() - calls Entry.GetOffsets() for each entry. This can
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700541return a dict containing entries that need updating. The key should be the
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600542entry name and the value is a tuple (offset, size). This allows an entry to
543provide the offset and size for other entries. The default implementation
544of GetEntryOffsets() returns {}.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700545
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -06005465. PackEntries() - calls Entry.Pack() which figures out the offset and
547size of an entry. The 'current' image offset is passed in, and the function
548returns the offset immediately after the entry being packed. The default
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700549implementation of Pack() is usually sufficient.
550
Simon Glass078ab1a2018-07-06 10:27:41 -06005516. CheckSize() - checks that the contents of all the entries fits within
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700552the image size. If the image does not have a defined size, the size is set
553large enough to hold all the entries.
554
Simon Glass078ab1a2018-07-06 10:27:41 -06005557. CheckEntries() - checks that the entries do not overlap, nor extend
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700556outside the image.
557
Simon Glass078ab1a2018-07-06 10:27:41 -06005588. SetCalculatedProperties() - update any calculated properties in the device
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600559tree. This sets the correct 'offset' and 'size' vaues, for example.
Simon Glass078ab1a2018-07-06 10:27:41 -0600560
5619. ProcessEntryContents() - this calls Entry.ProcessContents() on each entry.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700562The default implementatoin does nothing. This can be overriden to adjust the
563contents of an entry in some way. For example, it would be possible to create
564an entry containing a hash of the contents of some other entries. At this
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600565stage the offset and size of entries should not be adjusted.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700566
Simon Glass078ab1a2018-07-06 10:27:41 -060056710. WriteSymbols() - write the value of symbols into the U-Boot SPL binary.
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600568See 'Access to binman entry offsets at run time' below for a description of
Simon Glass0a4357c2018-07-06 10:27:39 -0600569what happens in this stage.
Simon Glass39c15022017-11-13 18:55:05 -0700570
Simon Glass078ab1a2018-07-06 10:27:41 -060057111. BuildImage() - builds the image and writes it to a file. This is the final
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700572step.
573
574
Simon Glass6d427c62016-11-25 20:15:59 -0700575Automatic .dtsi inclusion
576-------------------------
577
578It is sometimes inconvenient to add a 'binman' node to the .dts file for each
579board. This can be done by using #include to bring in a common file. Another
580approach supported by the U-Boot build system is to automatically include
581a common header. You can then put the binman node (and anything else that is
582specific to U-Boot, such as u-boot,dm-pre-reloc properies) in that header
583file.
584
585Binman will search for the following files in arch/<arch>/dts:
586
587 <dts>-u-boot.dtsi where <dts> is the base name of the .dts file
588 <CONFIG_SYS_SOC>-u-boot.dtsi
589 <CONFIG_SYS_CPU>-u-boot.dtsi
590 <CONFIG_SYS_VENDOR>-u-boot.dtsi
591 u-boot.dtsi
592
593U-Boot will only use the first one that it finds. If you need to include a
594more general file you can do that from the more specific file using #include.
595If you are having trouble figuring out what is going on, you can uncomment
596the 'warning' line in scripts/Makefile.lib to see what it has found:
597
598 # Uncomment for debugging
Simon Glass511fd0b2017-11-12 21:52:05 -0700599 # This shows all the files that were considered and the one that we chose.
600 # u_boot_dtsi_options_debug = $(u_boot_dtsi_options_raw)
Simon Glass6d427c62016-11-25 20:15:59 -0700601
602
Simon Glassdbf6be92018-08-01 15:22:42 -0600603Access to binman entry offsets at run time (symbols)
604----------------------------------------------------
Simon Glass39c15022017-11-13 18:55:05 -0700605
606Binman assembles images and determines where each entry is placed in the image.
607This information may be useful to U-Boot at run time. For example, in SPL it
608is useful to be able to find the location of U-Boot so that it can be executed
609when SPL is finished.
610
611Binman allows you to declare symbols in the SPL image which are filled in
612with their correct values during the build. For example:
613
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600614 binman_sym_declare(ulong, u_boot_any, offset);
Simon Glass39c15022017-11-13 18:55:05 -0700615
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600616declares a ulong value which will be assigned to the offset of any U-Boot
Simon Glass39c15022017-11-13 18:55:05 -0700617image (u-boot.bin, u-boot.img, u-boot-nodtb.bin) that is present in the image.
618You can access this value with something like:
619
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600620 ulong u_boot_offset = binman_sym(ulong, u_boot_any, offset);
Simon Glass39c15022017-11-13 18:55:05 -0700621
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600622Thus u_boot_offset will be set to the offset of U-Boot in memory, assuming that
Simon Glass39c15022017-11-13 18:55:05 -0700623the whole image has been loaded, or is available in flash. You can then jump to
624that address to start U-Boot.
625
626At present this feature is only supported in SPL. In principle it is possible
627to fill in such symbols in U-Boot proper, as well.
628
629
Simon Glassdbf6be92018-08-01 15:22:42 -0600630Access to binman entry offsets at run time (fdt)
631------------------------------------------------
632
633Binman can update the U-Boot FDT to include the final position and size of
634each entry in the images it processes. The option to enable this is -u and it
635causes binman to make sure that the 'offset', 'image-pos' and 'size' properties
636are set correctly for every entry. Since it is not necessary to specify these in
637the image definition, binman calculates the final values and writes these to
638the device tree. These can be used by U-Boot at run-time to find the location
639of each entry.
640
641
Simon Glass83d73c22018-09-14 04:57:26 -0600642Compression
643-----------
644
645Binman support compression for 'blob' entries (those of type 'blob' and
646derivatives). To enable this for an entry, add a 'compression' property:
647
648 blob {
649 filename = "datafile";
650 compression = "lz4";
651 };
652
653The entry will then contain the compressed data, using the 'lz4' compression
654algorithm. Currently this is the only one that is supported.
655
656
657
Simon Glass3b0c3822018-06-01 09:38:20 -0600658Map files
659---------
660
661The -m option causes binman to output a .map file for each image that it
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600662generates. This shows the offset and size of each entry. For example:
Simon Glass3b0c3822018-06-01 09:38:20 -0600663
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600664 Offset Size Name
Simon Glass8122f392018-07-17 13:25:28 -0600665 00000000 00000028 main-section
666 00000000 00000010 section@0
667 00000000 00000004 u-boot
668 00000010 00000010 section@1
669 00000000 00000004 u-boot
Simon Glass3b0c3822018-06-01 09:38:20 -0600670
671This shows a hierarchical image with two sections, each with a single entry. The
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600672offsets of the sections are absolute hex byte offsets within the image. The
673offsets of the entries are relative to their respective sections. The size of
Simon Glass3b0c3822018-06-01 09:38:20 -0600674each entry is also shown, in bytes (hex). The indentation shows the entries
675nested inside their sections.
676
677
Simon Glass53af22a2018-07-17 13:25:32 -0600678Passing command-line arguments to entries
679-----------------------------------------
680
681Sometimes it is useful to pass binman the value of an entry property from the
682command line. For example some entries need access to files and it is not
683always convenient to put these filenames in the image definition (device tree).
684
685The-a option supports this:
686
687 -a<prop>=<value>
688
689where
690
691 <prop> is the property to set
692 <value> is the value to set it to
693
694Not all properties can be provided this way. Only some entries support it,
695typically for filenames.
696
697
Simon Glassc7d80352019-07-08 13:18:28 -0600698External tools
699--------------
700
701Binman can make use of external command-line tools to handle processing of
702entry contents or to generate entry contents. These tools are executed using
703the 'tools' module's Run() method. The tools generally must exist on the PATH,
704but the --toolpath option can be used to specify additional search paths to
705use. This option can be specified multiple times to add more than one path.
706
707
Simon Glass6d427c62016-11-25 20:15:59 -0700708Code coverage
709-------------
710
711Binman is a critical tool and is designed to be very testable. Entry
712implementations target 100% test coverage. Run 'binman -T' to check this.
713
714To enable Python test coverage on Debian-type distributions (e.g. Ubuntu):
715
Simon Glass45f449b2019-07-08 13:18:26 -0600716 $ sudo apt-get install python-coverage python3-coverage python-pytest
Simon Glass6d427c62016-11-25 20:15:59 -0700717
718
Simon Glass55660d02019-05-17 22:00:52 -0600719Concurrent tests
720----------------
721
722Binman tries to run tests concurrently. This means that the tests make use of
723all available CPUs to run.
724
725 To enable this:
726
727 $ sudo apt-get install python-subunit python3-subunit
728
729Use '-P 1' to disable this. It is automatically disabled when code coverage is
730being used (-T) since they are incompatible.
731
732
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700733Advanced Features / Technical docs
734----------------------------------
735
736The behaviour of entries is defined by the Entry class. All other entries are
737a subclass of this. An important subclass is Entry_blob which takes binary
738data from a file and places it in the entry. In fact most entry types are
739subclasses of Entry_blob.
740
741Each entry type is a separate file in the tools/binman/etype directory. Each
742file contains a class called Entry_<type> where <type> is the entry type.
743New entry types can be supported by adding new files in that directory.
744These will automatically be detected by binman when needed.
745
746Entry properties are documented in entry.py. The entry subclasses are free
747to change the values of properties to support special behaviour. For example,
748when Entry_blob loads a file, it sets content_size to the size of the file.
749Entry classes can adjust other entries. For example, an entry that knows
Simon Glass3ab95982018-08-01 15:22:37 -0600750where other entries should be positioned can set up those entries' offsets
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700751so they don't need to be set in the binman decription. It can also adjust
752entry contents.
753
754Most of the time such essoteric behaviour is not needed, but it can be
755essential for complex images.
756
Simon Glass3ed0de32017-12-24 12:12:07 -0700757If you need to specify a particular device-tree compiler to use, you can define
758the DTC environment variable. This can be useful when the system dtc is too
759old.
760
Simon Glassa3c00552018-11-06 15:21:31 -0700761To enable a full backtrace and other debugging features in binman, pass
762BINMAN_DEBUG=1 to your build:
763
764 make sandbox_defconfig
765 make BINMAN_DEBUG=1
766
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700767
768History / Credits
769-----------------
770
771Binman takes a lot of inspiration from a Chrome OS tool called
772'cros_bundle_firmware', which I wrote some years ago. That tool was based on
773a reasonably simple and sound design but has expanded greatly over the
774years. In particular its handling of x86 images is convoluted.
775
Simon Glass7ae5f312018-06-01 09:38:19 -0600776Quite a few lessons have been learned which are hopefully applied here.
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700777
778
779Design notes
780------------
781
782On the face of it, a tool to create firmware images should be fairly simple:
783just find all the input binaries and place them at the right place in the
784image. The difficulty comes from the wide variety of input types (simple
785flat binaries containing code, packaged data with various headers), packing
786requirments (alignment, spacing, device boundaries) and other required
787features such as hierarchical images.
788
789The design challenge is to make it easy to create simple images, while
790allowing the more complex cases to be supported. For example, for most
791images we don't much care exactly where each binary ends up, so we should
792not have to specify that unnecessarily.
793
794New entry types should aim to provide simple usage where possible. If new
795core features are needed, they can be added in the Entry base class.
796
797
798To do
799-----
800
801Some ideas:
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700802- Use of-platdata to make the information available to code that is unable
803 to use device tree (such as a very small SPL image)
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700804- Allow easy building of images by specifying just the board name
Simon Glass16b8d6b2018-07-06 10:27:42 -0600805- Produce a full Python binding for libfdt (for upstream). This is nearing
806 completion but some work remains
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700807- Add an option to decode an image into the constituent binaries
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700808- Support building an image for a board (-b) more completely, with a
809 configurable build directory
810- Consider making binman work with buildman, although if it is used in the
811 Makefile, this will be automatic
Simon Glassbf7fd502016-11-25 20:15:51 -0700812
813--
814Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
8157/7/2016