[coreboot] Code flow from reset vector

a a todthgie at hotmail.com
Wed Mar 26 08:34:13 CET 2008


Hello,
Viswesh S wrote:
> Hi,
> I understand the procedure in which internally how the CS register ( 
> Segment selector and base address part) make sure that we point to the 
> address 0xFFFFFFF0.
correct
> But my doubts are in this part.
> 1) We will be flashing the coreboot.rom into the BIOS flash, right ?
yes and the flash chip is mapped at 0x(1)00000000 - chipsize (0xFFFFFFFF
  - chipsize +1 in the core iirc) so a 256Kbyte (0x40000 bytes) chip 
would be at 0xFFFC0000....0xFFFFFFFF....
> 2) If we objdump coreboot.rom, dump all the sections, we dont see the 
> reset vector part and also the address 0xFFFFFFF0.This could be because 
> these sections are stripped off.Is it because of that ?
no, it will be at chipsize -0x10 (0x3FFF0 for a 256Kbyte chip)
coreboot.rom should be EXACLY as long as you flash chip is ....
so 0x10 bytes from the end of the file
> 4) If they are stripped off, then when I flash the coreboot.rom, what do 
> I flash into the address 0xFFFFFFF0, as the coreboot.rom doesnt even 
> contain the data(opcodes ) to write in that location.
no they should not be stripped...
  whats in the file @ 0x10 bytes from the end ends op @ 0xFFFFFFF0
> Am I missing anything.
> Regards,
> Viswesh
> ps:- I am trying to correlate my experience in embedded firmware exp, 
> where the files we were flashing had absolute addresses and we could 
> objdump the flash file to understand the code at each location.
a lot of embedded targets have the flash at 0x00000000 the x86 does not.
the adresses are static but have a offset of 4G-chipsize
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:40:21 +0100
> From: Peter Stuge >
> Subject: Re: [coreboot] Code flow from reset vector
> To: coreboot at coreboot.org 
> Message-ID:  >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:02:15PM -0700, Viswesh S wrote:
> > I understand the coreboot.rom is the BIOS code, which comes inside
> > the address mapped in real mode.( 0xA0000 - 0x100000).
> 
> Mh, not only.
> 
> 
> > If that is the case, then how do we write into the address
> > 0xFFFFFFF0, while we flash the BIOS.
> 
> 386 and up power up with CS set specially so that it "points" at
> physical address 0xffff0000. Similar to the flat real mode idea.
> 
> A far/long jump changes CS into plain real mode so a far jump is
> pretty common early in the boot process.
> 
> 
> //Peter
> 
> 
> 
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