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February 17, 2020

Bex' Blog

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Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

FIO | Bex's Site

February 6, 2020

FIO

Microsoft Windows binaries for fio

This site contains Windows binaries for fio, supporting Vista, Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016 and 2019.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

July 4, 2021

FIO

Allocating Memory Above 2GB

Some UEFI implementations, notably those based on IP from AMI, have a limitation on the amount of memory available for allocation via the gBS->AllocatePool and gBS->AllocatePages(AllocateAnyAddress, ...) APIs. Specifically they won't allow allocation of any memory above about 2GB, regardless of allocation size. Furthermore, some implementations (such as on the ASUS Z170) appear to have a catastrophic failure whereby if a module causes the system to run out of memory under 2GB the system subsequently becomes unbootable and must be recovered using the ASUS Flashback feature, or RMA'd. On other AMI-based systems, the system just locks up and can be successfully rebooted (ASUS Z97), while some others fail the request and return NULL.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

July 4, 2021

Developing EDK2 code using FreeBSD

The EDK2 doesn't work out-of-the-box with FreeBSD, but needs some extra packages and setup.

Packages to install are:

shells/bash
devel/binutils
lang/gcc5, or newer
devel/nasm
devel/acpica-tools
devel/git
devel/gmake
lang/python27
databases/py27-sqlite3

Create the following symlinks in BaseTools/Bin/FreeBSD-amd64:

python -> /usr/local/bin/python2.7
make -> /usr/local/bin/gmake
ld -> /usr/local/bin/ld
objcopy -> /usr/local/bin/objcopy
gcc -> /usr/local/bin/gcc5
g++ -> /usr/local/bin/g++5
gcc-ar -> /usr/local/bin/gcc-ar5
gcc-nm -> /usr/local/bin/gcc-nm5
gcc-ranlib -> /usr/local/bin/gcc-ranlib5

After that, you should be able to use the EDK2 as you would on a Linux system as long as you use bash - for example:

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Debugging TF-A and UEFI/EDK2 Using Eclipse

Get Eclipse

Go to https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/ and scroll down to "Eclipse IDE for Embedded C/C++ Developers".

Select the appropriate operating system and architecture.

Once downloaded, untar the file. You can then run Eclipse with "./eclipse/eclipse".

Building TF-A and EDK2 for the SBSA-REF platform

export CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-none-linux-gnu-
cd ~/src/trusted-firwmare-a

Edit plat/qemu/common/qemu_bl31_setup.c, and add to bl31_plat_arch_setup:

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

July 4, 2021

Debugging with gdb

Adapted from a post to edk2-devel by Laszlo Ersek.

Clone Andrei Warkentin's repo https://github.com/andreiw/andreiw-wip.git
```
git clone https://github.com/andreiw/andreiw-wip.git
cd andreiw-wip
```
From the root of your clone copy the subdirectory "uefi/DebugPkg" to your edk2 workspace:
```
cp -av uefi/DebugPkg $WORKSPACE
```

Apply the following patch to OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc:

-----------------
diff --git a/OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc b/OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc
index 97fdedb..794521b 100644
--- a/OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc
+++ b/OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc
@@ -592,3 +592,4 @@
 !endif

   OvmfPkg/PlatformDxe/Platform.inf
+  DebugPkg/GdbSyms/GdbSyms.inf
-----------------

Note that we don't modify the FDF file.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

July 4, 2021

Learning UEFI Development

Read the UEFI Driver Writer's Guide: https://github.com/tianocore-docs/Docs/blob/master/Driver_Developer/UEFI_Driver_Writer_Guide_V1.0.1_120308.pdf (579 pages).
The Module Writer's Guide is possibly also useful to read: https://code.bluestop.org/edk2/docs/specs/EDK2_Module_Writers_Guide_0.7.pdf (94 pages).
Get familiar with the spec - download from http://www.uefi.org/specifications . I'd recommend reading both the oldest one you want to support, along with the newest one to see which newer features are available. For example if you want to support anything 2.1 and newer, start with http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/UEFI_Spec_2_1.pdf (1682 pages) and then read the 2.6 spec from http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/UEFI%20Spec%202_6.pdf (2706 pages). In particular, note that not all UEFI functions can be called in all places in a driver: similar to Windows IRQ Levels, UEFI has TPL - or Task Priority Levels - that restrict classes of functions available.
Become familiar with the TianoCore EDK2 API. Various versions of API documents ordered by the UDK release are available from https://code.bluestop.org/edk2/docs (e.g. https://code.bluestop.org/edk2/docs/UDK2014.SP1/).
You may want to learn a bit about how the edk2 build system works, too. There's a copy of the various documents at https://code.bluestop.org/edk2/docs/specs/ . The main files a UEFI driver uses to build are DSC, DEC and INF (which are unrelated to Microsoft INF files) files.
If you're going to be writing any sort of HII (Human Interface Infrastructure) code, you'll want to read the VFR and UNI (Unicode strings file) specs.