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Pico Host Boot Loader

phbl (pronounced "foible") is the program run from the x86 reset vector that loads and invokes the phase1 host operating system package, consisting of the host kernel and phase1 cpio archive.

It is loaded from SPI flash by the PSP, and execution starts in 16-bit real mode. It is responsible for:

  • bringing the bootstrap core up into 64-bit long mode with paging enabled
  • decompressing the phase1 cpio archive into physical memory
  • locating the kernel executable ELF image inside the archive
  • loading the binary image into physical memory mapped at its linked addresses,
  • and finally invoking the kernel's ELF entry point

The ZLIB compressed phase1 archive is compiled into phbl as a binary blob of bytes.

The implementation and steps that phbl takes are described in detail in rfd284.

Building phbl

We use cargo and the xtask pattern for builds. Note that the compressed cpio archive containing the phase1 bootstrap is used as part of the build process, and so one must build that and compress it first before building phbl: the process for building a phase1 archive is beyond the scope of this document; refer to the Helios documentation for details. But note that the pinprick utility is suitable for compressing a phase1 archive so that it is compatible with phbl.

Let us assume that the compressed cpio archive is in a file called phase1.cpio.z and that the $CPIOZ environment variable points to it. Then we may build phbl with:

cargo xtask build --cpioz=$CPIOZ

This generates a "Debug" binary in the file target/x86_64-oxide-none-elf/debug/phbl.

Note: Linking phbl requires using the GNU linker. By default, Oxide's build systems install GNU ld as gld, which is configured in x86_64-oxide-none-elf.json. If your OS installation calls it something else, set the environment variable CARGO_TARGET_X86_64_OXIDE_NONE_ELF_LINKER to use yours. On most GNU systems, that will be CARGO_TARGET_X86_64_OXIDE_NONE_ELF_LINKER=ld.

Phbl development

Modifying phbl follows the typical development patterns of most Rust programs, and we have several cargo xtask targets to help with common tasks. Typically, one might use:

  • cargo xtask test to run unit tests
  • cargo xtask clippy to run the linter
  • cargo xtask clean to remove build artifacts and intermediate files.
  • cargo xtask expand to expand macros
  • cargo xtask disasm to build the phbl image and dump a disassembly listing of it

cargo check is fully supported for e.g. editor integration, and formatting should be kept consistent via cargo fmt.

Most targets will also accept either a --release or --debug argument to get either an optimized or debugging build; debug is the default. To build a release version for production, run:

cargo xtask build --cpioz=$CPIOZ --release

This will produce an optimized standalone binary named target/x86_64-oxide-none-elf/release/phbl. If one builds a debug binary, as in the previous section, it will be named, target/x86_64-oxide-none-elf/debug/phbl.

These binaries are suitable for use with the amd-host-image-builder tool. For example, to create an image suitable for writing to flash on a gimlet from a debug phbl binary, one may change to the amd-host-image-builder repository and run:

cargo run -- \
    -B amd-firmware/GN/1.0.0.1 \
    -B amd-firmware/GN/1.0.0.6 \
    -c etc/milan-gimlet-b.efs.json5 \
    -r ${PHBL_REPO_ROOT}/target/x86_64-oxide-none-elf/debug/phbl \
    -o milan-gimlet-b-phbl.img

The resulting milan-gimlet-b-phbl.img is suitable for writing into a gimlet's SPI ROM.

Changes are submitted and reviewed using the GitHub pull request model. Because phbl is load bearing, all changes must be reviewed. CI triggered by github actions ensures that tests pass.