Bare-metal x86-64 image

This page spiecifies how to create a bare-metal ERIKA3 RTOS image for x86-64. The following image can be used for running on Qemu or with Xen/KVM hypervisor.

This tutorial explains how to setup RT_Druid environment to compile ERIKA3 RTOS application and how to create an ERIKA3 bare-metal image running a simple application.

Bare-metal compiler set-up

Download the bare-metal toolchain available at this link http://erika-enterprise.com/download/erika3_x86_64_xtools.tar.gz and extract the downloaded archive. The x-tool binary prefix will be used to set the x86_64 property named Gnu compiler prefix in the RT-Druid environment as explained in the next section. More in detail, let us suppose the bare-metal archive has been extracted in the home directory (i.e., /home/evidence). Then, the Gnu compiler prefix property assumes the following value: /home/evidence/x-tools/x86_64-unknown-elf/bin/x86_64-unknown-elf-.

RT-Druid set-up

In order to run RT-Druid on the platform, download the RT-Druid package from the download section of the ERIKA3 website. Then, extract the downloaded archive. In the following part of the tutorial, we refer to directory containing the extracted RT-Druid archive as $RTDRUID_DIR.

Launch the RT-Druid application as follows:

 $ cd $RTDRUID_DIR
 $ ./eclipse

In order to enable the bare-metal compiler tool, set the Gnu compiler prefix property. RT-Druid allows to set these variables also from within Eclipse. Just press the right mouse button on the Eclipse project and select Properties as shown in the following figure.

Figure 1: Eclipse project properties.

Then, select Generator properties, enable project specific settings (as shown in the next figure), and set the desired value for the X86_64 property named Gnu compiler prefix.

Figure 2: Generator properties.

Note that RT-Druid allows to set these variables for a single project by just pressing the right mouse button on the Eclipse project and selecting Properties).

Simple application

As ERIKA3 application we consider the simple "helloworld" application consisting of two tasks printing on the serial interface.

1. Run the RT-Druid tool $ cd $RTDRUID_DIR $ ./eclipse
2. Create a new project by clicking on New → RT-Druid v3 Oil and C/C++ Project as shown in the next Figure:
   

   Figure 3: Create a new RT-Druid project.
3. Name the new project (e.g., mytest) as shown in the next Figure:
   

   Figure 4: Naming the new RT-Druid project.
4. Check the box for using an existing template and select x86-64 → Helloworld OSEK demoas shown in the next Figure:
   

   Figure 5: Selecting the Helloworld template.
5. Eclipse will then show the new project, and RT-Druid will generate the configuration files, as shown in the next Figure:
   

   Figure 6: New Helloworld project created.
6. Modify the configuration file conf.oil by settings the following parameters:
   • The parameter PLATFORMdefines the supported platform (default value is JAILHOUSE). In order to generate the bare-metal image set the parameter as follows: PLATFORM = BARE.
   • The parameter INT_CONTROLLERdefines the supported interrupt controller and the values are APIC or X2APIC (default value is X2APIC). APIC ("Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller") is the updated Intel standard for the older PIC. It is used in multiprocessor systems and is an integral part of all recent Intel (and compatible) processors. Its variant, referred to as X2APIC, is the most recent generation of the Intel's programmable interrupt controller and has been introduced with the Nehalem microarchitecture in November 2008.
   • In case of X2APIC mode, the parameter X2APIC_MODE defines whether the X2APIC is operating in the TSC deadline mode or not. The parameter is under the INT_CONTROLLER = X2APIC parameter and the values are TSC_DEADLINE and NO_TSC_DEADLINE (default value is TSC_DEADLINE).
7. Click with the right mouse key on the project and select Build project as shown in the next Figure:
   

   Figure 7: Building the Helloworld project.

The resulting elf file, contained in $ECLIPSE_WORKSPACE/mytest/out will be used to build the ERIKA3 bare-image as explained in the following section.

Build the ERIKA3-image

The bootable ERIKA3 image is a bootable GRUB2 image, where GRUB2 for i386-pc is responsible for loading the elf image containing ERIKA3 RTOS and application.

First of all, check whether there is GRUB package installed and, in case so, check whether it is GRUB2 for i386-pc by launching the following command:

 $ dpkg --get-selections | grep grub

and checking whether the output contains the line grub-pc.

In case there is no grub-pc, you need to build to build GRUB2 from scratch as follows:

 $ git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/grub.git
 $ cd grub
 $ git checkout grub-2.02-rc2 -b grub-pc-for-erika ## Latest tested Grub version
 $ ./autogen.sh
 $ ./configure --disable-werror --prefix=$GRUBDIR
 $ make && make install 

where $GRUBDIR is the GRUB2 installation directory (as for example, $HOME/grub). Then, in order to launch a grub command (i.e., get the grub-mkrescue version), use the chosen GRUB2 installation directory as prefix, as shown below:

 $ $GRUBDIR/bin/grub-mkrescue -V 

In case there is already grub-pc, use the correspond commands from command line, as shown below:

 $ grub-mkrescue -V 

Then, create the ISO folder as follows:

 $ mkdir -p iso/boot/grub

Create the grub.cfg file in iso/boot/grub:

 set timeout=0
 set default=0
 menuentry "erika_os" {
   multiboot /boot/erika.elf
   boot
 }

Then, copy the erika.elf file into iso/boot. Launch the grub-mkrescue command to create the multi-boot image.

 $GRUBDIR/bin/grub-mkrescue -o erika3.iso iso

Note that grub-mkrescue command requires xorriso package.