1 \documentclass[a4paper,twocolumn]{article} 2 3 \usepackage{abstract} 4 \usepackage{xspace} 5 \usepackage{amssymb} 6 \usepackage{latexsym} 7 \usepackage{tabularx} 8 \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} 9 \usepackage{calc} 10 \usepackage{listings} 11 \usepackage{color} 12 \usepackage{url} 13 14 \title{Device trees everywhere} 15 16 \author{David Gibson \texttt{<{dwg}{@}{au1.ibm.com}>}\\ 17 Benjamin Herrenschmidt \texttt{<{benh}{@}{kernel.crashing.org}>}\\ 18 \emph{OzLabs, IBM Linux Technology Center}} 19 20 \newcommand{\R}{\textsuperscript{\textregistered}\xspace} 21 \newcommand{\tm}{\textsuperscript{\texttrademark}\xspace} 22 \newcommand{\tge}{$\geqslant$} 23 %\newcommand{\ditto}{\textquotedbl\xspace} 24 25 \newcommand{\fixme}[1]{$\bigstar$\emph{\textbf{\large #1}}$\bigstar$\xspace} 26 27 \newcommand{\ppc}{\mbox{PowerPC}\xspace} 28 \newcommand{\of}{Open Firmware\xspace} 29 \newcommand{\benh}{Ben Herrenschmidt\xspace} 30 \newcommand{\kexec}{\texttt{kexec()}\xspace} 31 \newcommand{\dtbeginnode}{\texttt{OF\_DT\_BEGIN\_NODE\xspace}} 32 \newcommand{\dtendnode}{\texttt{OF\_DT\_END\_NODE\xspace}} 33 \newcommand{\dtprop}{\texttt{OF\_DT\_PROP\xspace}} 34 \newcommand{\dtend}{\texttt{OF\_DT\_END\xspace}} 35 \newcommand{\dtc}{\texttt{dtc}\xspace} 36 \newcommand{\phandle}{\texttt{linux,phandle}\xspace} 37 \begin{document} 38 39 \maketitle 40 41 \begin{abstract} 42 We present a method for booting a \ppc{}\R Linux\R kernel on an 43 embedded machine. To do this, we supply the kernel with a compact 44 flattened-tree representation of the system's hardware based on the 45 device tree supplied by Open Firmware on IBM\R servers and Apple\R 46 Power Macintosh\R machines. 47 48 The ``blob'' representing the device tree can be created using \dtc 49 --- the Device Tree Compiler --- that turns a simple text 50 representation of the tree into the compact representation used by 51 the kernel. The compiler can produce either a binary ``blob'' or an 52 assembler file ready to be built into a firmware or bootwrapper 53 image. 54 55 This flattened-tree approach is now the only supported method of 56 booting a \texttt{ppc64} kernel without Open Firmware, and we plan 57 to make it the only supported method for all \texttt{powerpc} 58 kernels in the future. 59 \end{abstract} 60 61 \section{Introduction} 62 63 \subsection{OF and the device tree} 64 65 Historically, ``everyday'' \ppc machines have booted with the help of 66 \of (OF), a firmware environment defined by IEEE1275 \cite{IEEE1275}. 67 Among other boot-time services, OF maintains a device tree that 68 describes all of the system's hardware devices and how they're 69 connected. During boot, before taking control of memory management, 70 the Linux kernel uses OF calls to scan the device tree and transfer it 71 to an internal representation that is used at run time to look up 72 various device information. 73 74 The device tree consists of nodes representing devices or 75 buses\footnote{Well, mostly. There are a few special exceptions.}. 76 Each node contains \emph{properties}, name--value pairs that give 77 information about the device. The values are arbitrary byte strings, 78 and for some properties, they contain tables or other structured 79 information. 80 81 \subsection{The bad old days} 82 83 Embedded systems, by contrast, usually have a minimal firmware that 84 might supply a few vital system parameters (size of RAM and the like), 85 but nothing as detailed or complete as the OF device tree. This has 86 meant that the various 32-bit \ppc embedded ports have required a 87 variety of hacks spread across the kernel to deal with the lack of 88 device tree. These vary from specialised boot wrappers to parse 89 parameters (which are at least reasonably localised) to 90 CONFIG-dependent hacks in drivers to override normal probe logic with 91 hardcoded addresses for a particular board. As well as being ugly of 92 itself, such CONFIG-dependent hacks make it hard to build a single 93 kernel image that supports multiple embedded machines. 94 95 Until relatively recently, the only 64-bit \ppc machines without OF 96 were legacy (pre-POWER5\R) iSeries\R machines. iSeries machines often 97 only have virtual IO devices, which makes it quite simple to work 98 around the lack of a device tree. Even so, the lack means the iSeries 99 boot sequence must be quite different from the pSeries or Macintosh, 100 which is not ideal. 101 102 The device tree also presents a problem for implementing \kexec. When 103 the kernel boots, it takes over full control of the system from OF, 104 even re-using OF's memory. So, when \kexec comes to boot another 105 kernel, OF is no longer around for the second kernel to query. 106 107 \section{The Flattened Tree} 108 109 In May 2005 \benh implemented a new approach to handling the device 110 tree that addresses all these problems. When booting on OF systems, 111 the first thing the kernel runs is a small piece of code in 112 \texttt{prom\_init.c}, which executes in the context of OF. This code 113 walks the device tree using OF calls, and transcribes it into a 114 compact, flattened format. The resulting device tree ``blob'' is then 115 passed to the kernel proper, which eventually unflattens the tree into 116 its runtime form. This blob is the only data communicated between the 117 \texttt{prom\_init.c} bootstrap and the rest of the kernel. 118 119 When OF isn't available, either because the machine doesn't have it at 120 all or because \kexec has been used, the kernel instead starts 121 directly from the entry point taking a flattened device tree. The 122 device tree blob must be passed in from outside, rather than generated 123 by part of the kernel from OF. For \kexec, the userland 124 \texttt{kexec} tools build the blob from the runtime device tree 125 before invoking the new kernel. For embedded systems the blob can 126 come either from the embedded bootloader, or from a specialised 127 version of the \texttt{zImage} wrapper for the system in question. 128 129 \subsection{Properties of the flattened tree} 130 131 The flattened tree format should be easy to handle, both for the 132 kernel that parses it and the bootloader that generates it. In 133 particular, the following properties are desirable: 134 135 \begin{itemize} 136 \item \emph{relocatable}: the bootloader or kernel should be able to 137 move the blob around as a whole, without needing to parse or adjust 138 its internals. In practice that means we must not use pointers 139 within the blob. 140 \item \emph{insert and delete}: sometimes the bootloader might want to 141 make tweaks to the flattened tree, such as deleting or inserting a 142 node (or whole subtree). It should be possible to do this without 143 having to effectively regenerate the whole flattened tree. In 144 practice this means limiting the use of internal offsets in the blob 145 that need recalculation if a section is inserted or removed with 146 \texttt{memmove()}. 147 \item \emph{compact}: embedded systems are frequently short of 148 resources, particularly RAM and flash memory space. Thus, the tree 149 representation should be kept as small as conveniently possible. 150 \end{itemize} 151 152 \subsection{Format of the device tree blob} 153 \label{sec:format} 154 155 \begin{figure}[htb!] 156 \centering 157 \footnotesize 158 \begin{tabular}{r|c|l} 159 \multicolumn{1}{r}{\textbf{Offset}}& \multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{Contents}} \\\cline{2-2} 160 \texttt{0x00} & \texttt{0xd00dfeed} & magic number \\\cline{2-2} 161 \texttt{0x04} & \emph{totalsize} \\\cline{2-2} 162 \texttt{0x08} & \emph{off\_struct} & \\\cline{2-2} 163 \texttt{0x0C} & \emph{off\_strs} & \\\cline{2-2} 164 \texttt{0x10} & \emph{off\_rsvmap} & \\\cline{2-2} 165 \texttt{0x14} & \emph{version} \\\cline{2-2} 166 \texttt{0x18} & \emph{last\_comp\_ver} & \\\cline{2-2} 167 \texttt{0x1C} & \emph{boot\_cpu\_id} & \tge v2 only\\\cline{2-2} 168 \texttt{0x20} & \emph{size\_strs} & \tge v3 only\\\cline{2-2} 169 \multicolumn{1}{r}{\vdots} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\vdots} & \\\cline{2-2} 170 \emph{off\_rsvmap} & \emph{address0} & memory reserve \\ 171 + \texttt{0x04} & ...& table \\\cline{2-2} 172 + \texttt{0x08} & \emph{len0} & \\ 173 + \texttt{0x0C} & ...& \\\cline{2-2} 174 \vdots & \multicolumn{1}{c|}{\vdots} & \\\cline{2-2} 175 & \texttt{0x00000000}- & end marker\\ 176 & \texttt{00000000} & \\\cline{2-2} 177 & \texttt{0x00000000}- & \\ 178 & \texttt{00000000} & \\\cline{2-2} 179 \multicolumn{1}{r}{\vdots} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\vdots} & \\\cline{2-2} 180 \emph{off\_strs} & \texttt{'n' 'a' 'm' 'e'} & strings block \\ 181 + \texttt{0x04} & \texttt{~0~ 'm' 'o' 'd'} & \\ 182 + \texttt{0x08} & \texttt{'e' 'l' ~0~ \makebox[\widthof{~~~}]{\textrm{...}}} & \\ 183 \vdots & \multicolumn{1}{c|}{\vdots} & \\\cline{2-2} 184 \multicolumn{1}{r}{+ \emph{size\_strs}} \\ 185 \multicolumn{1}{r}{\vdots} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\vdots} & \\\cline{2-2} 186 \emph{off\_struct} & \dtbeginnode & structure block \\\cline{2-2} 187 + \texttt{0x04} & \texttt{'/' ~0~ ~0~ ~0~} & root node\\\cline{2-2} 188 + \texttt{0x08} & \dtprop & \\\cline{2-2} 189 + \texttt{0x0C} & \texttt{0x00000005} & ``\texttt{model}''\\\cline{2-2} 190 + \texttt{0x10} & \texttt{0x00000008} & \\\cline{2-2} 191 + \texttt{0x14} & \texttt{'M' 'y' 'B' 'o'} & \\ 192 + \texttt{0x18} & \texttt{'a' 'r' 'd' ~0~} & \\\cline{2-2} 193 \vdots & \multicolumn{1}{c|}{\vdots} & \\\cline{2-2} 194 & \texttt{\dtendnode} \\\cline{2-2} 195 & \texttt{\dtend} \\\cline{2-2} 196 \multicolumn{1}{r}{\vdots} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\vdots} & \\\cline{2-2} 197 \multicolumn{1}{r}{\emph{totalsize}} \\ 198 \end{tabular} 199 \caption{Device tree blob layout} 200 \label{fig:blob-layout} 201 \end{figure} 202 203 The format for the blob we devised, was first described on the 204 \texttt{linuxppc64-dev} mailing list in \cite{noof1}. The format has 205 since evolved through various revisions, and the current version is 206 included as part of the \dtc (see \S\ref{sec:dtc}) git tree, 207 \cite{dtcgit}. 208 209 Figure \ref{fig:blob-layout} shows the layout of the blob of data 210 containing the device tree. It has three sections of variable size: 211 the \emph{memory reserve table}, the \emph{structure block} and the 212 \emph{strings block}. A small header gives the blob's size and 213 version and the locations of the three sections, plus a handful of 214 vital parameters used during early boot. 215 216 The memory reserve map section gives a list of regions of memory that 217 the kernel must not use\footnote{Usually such ranges contain some data 218 structure initialised by the firmware that must be preserved by the 219 kernel.}. The list is represented as a simple array of (address, 220 size) pairs of 64 bit values, terminated by a zero size entry. The 221 strings block is similarly simple, consisting of a number of 222 null-terminated strings appended together, which are referenced from 223 the structure block as described below. 224 225 The structure block contains the device tree proper. Each node is 226 introduced with a 32-bit \dtbeginnode tag, followed by the node's name 227 as a null-terminated string, padded to a 32-bit boundary. Then 228 follows all of the properties of the node, each introduced with a 229 \dtprop tag, then all of the node's subnodes, each introduced with 230 their own \dtbeginnode tag. The node ends with an \dtendnode tag, and 231 after the \dtendnode for the root node is an \dtend tag, indicating 232 the end of the whole tree\footnote{This is redundant, but included for 233 ease of parsing.}. The structure block starts with the \dtbeginnode 234 introducing the description of the root node (named \texttt{/}). 235 236 Each property, after the \dtprop, has a 32-bit value giving an offset 237 from the beginning of the strings block at which the property name is 238 stored. Because it's common for many nodes to have properties with 239 the same name, this approach can substantially reduce the total size 240 of the blob. The name offset is followed by the length of the 241 property value (as a 32-bit value) and then the data itself padded to 242 a 32-bit boundary. 243 244 \subsection{Contents of the tree} 245 \label{sec:treecontents} 246 247 Having seen how to represent the device tree structure as a flattened 248 blob, what actually goes into the tree? The short answer is ``the 249 same as an OF tree''. On OF systems, the flattened tree is 250 transcribed directly from the OF device tree, so for simplicity we 251 also use OF conventions for the tree on other systems. 252 253 In many cases a flat tree can be simpler than a typical OF provided 254 device tree. The flattened tree need only provide those nodes and 255 properties that the kernel actually requires; the flattened tree 256 generally need not include devices that the kernel can probe itself. 257 For example, an OF device tree would normally include nodes for each 258 PCI device on the system. A flattened tree need only include nodes 259 for the PCI host bridges; the kernel will scan the buses thus 260 described to find the subsidiary devices. The device tree can include 261 nodes for devices where the kernel needs extra information, though: 262 for example, for ISA devices on a subsidiary PCI/ISA bridge, or for 263 devices with unusual interrupt routing. 264 265 Where they exist, we follow the IEEE1275 bindings that specify how to 266 describe various buses in the device tree (for example, 267 \cite{IEEE1275-pci} describe how to represent PCI devices). The 268 standard has not been updated for a long time, however, and lacks 269 bindings for many modern buses and devices. In particular, embedded 270 specific devices such as the various System-on-Chip buses are not 271 covered. We intend to create new bindings for such buses, in keeping 272 with the general conventions of IEEE1275 (a simple such binding for a 273 System-on-Chip bus was included in \cite{noof5} a revision of 274 \cite{noof1}). 275 276 One complication arises for representing ``phandles'' in the flattened 277 tree. In OF, each node in the tree has an associated phandle, a 278 32-bit integer that uniquely identifies the node\footnote{In practice 279 usually implemented as a pointer or offset within OF memory.}. This 280 handle is used by the various OF calls to query and traverse the tree. 281 Sometimes phandles are also used within the tree to refer to other 282 nodes in the tree. For example, devices that produce interrupts 283 generally have an \texttt{interrupt-parent} property giving the 284 phandle of the interrupt controller that handles interrupts from this 285 device. Parsing these and other interrupt related properties allows 286 the kernel to build a complete representation of the system's 287 interrupt tree, which can be quite different from the tree of bus 288 connections. 289 290 In the flattened tree, a node's phandle is represented by a special 291 \phandle property. When the kernel generates a flattened tree from 292 OF, it adds a \phandle property to each node, containing the phandle 293 retrieved from OF. When the tree is generated without OF, however, 294 only nodes that are actually referred to by phandle need to have this 295 property. 296 297 Another complication arises because nodes in an OF tree have two 298 names. First they have the ``unit name'', which is how the node is 299 referred to in an OF path. The unit name generally consists of a 300 device type followed by an \texttt{@} followed by a \emph{unit 301 address}. For example \texttt{/memory@0} is the full path of a memory 302 node at address 0, \texttt{/ht@0,f2000000/pci@1} is the path of a PCI 303 bus node, which is under a HyperTransport\tm bus node. The form of 304 the unit address is bus dependent, but is generally derived from the 305 node's \texttt{reg} property. In addition, nodes have a property, 306 \texttt{name}, whose value is usually equal to the first path of the 307 unit name. For example, the nodes in the previous example would have 308 \texttt{name} properties equal to \texttt{memory} and \texttt{pci}, 309 respectively. To save space in the blob, the current version of the 310 flattened tree format only requires the unit names to be present. 311 When the kernel unflattens the tree, it automatically generates a 312 \texttt{name} property from the node's path name. 313 314 \section{The Device Tree Compiler} 315 \label{sec:dtc} 316 317 \begin{figure}[htb!] 318 \centering 319 \begin{lstlisting}[frame=single,basicstyle=\footnotesize\ttfamily, 320 tabsize=3,numbers=left,xleftmargin=2em] 321 /memreserve/ 0x20000000-0x21FFFFFF; 322 323 / { 324 model = "MyBoard"; 325 compatible = "MyBoardFamily"; 326 #address-cells = <2>; 327 #size-cells = <2>; 328 329 cpus { 330 #address-cells = <1>; 331 #size-cells = <0>; 332 PowerPC,970@0 { 333 device_type = "cpu"; 334 reg = <0>; 335 clock-frequency = <5f5e1000>; 336 timebase-frequency = <1FCA055>; 337 linux,boot-cpu; 338 i-cache-size = <10000>; 339 d-cache-size = <8000>; 340 }; 341 }; 342 343 memory@0 { 344 device_type = "memory"; 345 memreg: reg = <00000000 00000000 346 00000000 20000000>; 347 }; 348 349 mpic@0x3fffdd08400 { 350 /* Interrupt controller */ 351 /* ... */ 352 }; 353 354 pci@40000000000000 { 355 /* PCI host bridge */ 356 /* ... */ 357 }; 358 359 chosen { 360 bootargs = "root=/dev/sda2"; 361 linux,platform = <00000600>; 362 interrupt-controller = 363 < &/mpic@0x3fffdd08400 >; 364 }; 365 }; 366 \end{lstlisting} 367 \caption{Example \dtc source} 368 \label{fig:dts} 369 \end{figure} 370 371 As we've seen, the flattened device tree format provides a convenient 372 way of communicating device tree information to the kernel. It's 373 simple for the kernel to parse, and simple for bootloaders to 374 manipulate. On OF systems, it's easy to generate the flattened tree 375 by walking the OF maintained tree. However, for embedded systems, the 376 flattened tree must be generated from scratch. 377 378 Embedded bootloaders are generally built for a particular board. So, 379 it's usually possible to build the device tree blob at compile time 380 and include it in the bootloader image. For minor revisions of the 381 board, the bootloader can contain code to make the necessary tweaks to 382 the tree before passing it to the booted kernel. 383 384 The device trees for embedded boards are usually quite simple, and 385 it's possible to hand construct the necessary blob by hand, but doing 386 so is tedious. The ``device tree compiler'', \dtc{}\footnote{\dtc can 387 be obtained from \cite{dtcgit}.}, is designed to make creating device 388 tree blobs easier by converting a text representation of the tree 389 into the necessary blob. 390 391 \subsection{Input and output formats} 392 393 As well as the normal mode of compiling a device tree blob from text 394 source, \dtc can convert a device tree between a number of 395 representations. It can take its input in one of three different 396 formats: 397 \begin{itemize} 398 \item source, the normal case. The device tree is described in a text 399 form, described in \S\ref{sec:dts}. 400 \item blob (\texttt{dtb}), the flattened tree format described in 401 \S\ref{sec:format}. This mode is useful for checking a pre-existing 402 device tree blob. 403 \item filesystem (\texttt{fs}), input is a directory tree in the 404 layout of \texttt{/proc/device-tree} (roughly, a directory for each 405 node in the device tree, a file for each property). This is useful 406 for building a blob for the device tree in use by the currently 407 running kernel. 408 \end{itemize} 409 410 In addition, \dtc can output the tree in one of three different 411 formats: 412 \begin{itemize} 413 \item blob (\texttt{dtb}), as in \S\ref{sec:format}. The most 414 straightforward use of \dtc is to compile from ``source'' to 415 ``blob'' format. 416 \item source (\texttt{dts}), as in \S\ref{sec:dts}. If used with blob 417 input, this allows \dtc to act as a ``decompiler''. 418 \item assembler source (\texttt{asm}). \dtc can produce an assembler 419 file, which will assemble into a \texttt{.o} file containing the 420 device tree blob, with symbols giving the beginning of the blob and 421 its various subsections. This can then be linked directly into a 422 bootloader or firmware image. 423 \end{itemize} 424 425 For maximum applicability, \dtc can both read and write any of the 426 existing revisions of the blob format. When reading, \dtc takes the 427 version from the blob header, and when writing it takes a command line 428 option specifying the desired version. It automatically makes any 429 necessary adjustments to the tree that are necessary for the specified 430 version. For example, formats before 0x10 require each node to have 431 an explicit \texttt{name} property. When \dtc creates such a blob, it 432 will automatically generate \texttt{name} properties from the unit 433 names. 434 435 \subsection{Source format} 436 \label{sec:dts} 437 438 The ``source'' format for \dtc is a text description of the device 439 tree in a vaguely C-like form. Figure \ref{fig:dts} shows an 440 example. The file starts with \texttt{/memreserve/} directives, which 441 gives address ranges to add to the output blob's memory reserve table, 442 then the device tree proper is described. 443 444 Nodes of the tree are introduced with the node name, followed by a 445 \texttt{\{} ... \texttt{\};} block containing the node's properties 446 and subnodes. Properties are given as just {\emph{name} \texttt{=} 447 \emph{value}\texttt{;}}. The property values can be given in any 448 of three forms: 449 \begin{itemize} 450 \item \emph{string} (for example, \texttt{"MyBoard"}). The property 451 value is the given string, including terminating NULL. C-style 452 escapes (\verb+\t+, \verb+\n+, \verb+\0+ and so forth) are allowed. 453 \item \emph{cells} (for example, \texttt{<0 8000 f0000000>}). The 454 property value is made up of a list of 32-bit ``cells'', each given 455 as a hex value. 456 \item \emph{bytestring} (for example, \texttt{[1234abcdef]}). The 457 property value is given as a hex bytestring. 458 \end{itemize} 459 460 Cell properties can also contain \emph{references}. Instead of a hex 461 number, the source can give an ampersand (\texttt{\&}) followed by the 462 full path to some node in the tree. For example, in Figure 463 \ref{fig:dts}, the \texttt{/chosen} node has an 464 \texttt{interrupt-controller} property referring to the interrupt 465 controller described by the node \texttt{/mpic@0x3fffdd08400}. In the 466 output tree, the value of the referenced node's phandle is included in 467 the property. If that node doesn't have an explicit phandle property, 468 \dtc will automatically create a unique phandle for it. This approach 469 makes it easy to create interrupt trees without having to explicitly 470 assign and remember phandles for the various interrupt controller 471 nodes. 472 473 The \dtc source can also include ``labels'', which are placed on a 474 particular node or property. For example, Figure \ref{fig:dts} has a 475 label ``\texttt{memreg}'' on the \texttt{reg} property of the node 476 \texttt{/memory@0}. When using assembler output, corresponding labels 477 in the output are generated, which will assemble into symbols 478 addressing the part of the blob with the node or property in question. 479 This is useful for the common case where an embedded board has an 480 essentially fixed device tree with a few variable properties, such as 481 the size of memory. The bootloader for such a board can have a device 482 tree linked in, including a symbol referring to the right place in the 483 blob to update the parameter with the correct value determined at 484 runtime. 485 486 \subsection{Tree checking} 487 488 Between reading in the device tree and writing it out in the new 489 format, \dtc performs a number of checks on the tree: 490 \begin{itemize} 491 \item \emph{syntactic structure}: \dtc checks that node and property 492 names contain only allowed characters and meet length restrictions. 493 It checks that a node does not have multiple properties or subnodes 494 with the same name. 495 \item \emph{semantic structure}: In some cases, \dtc checks that 496 properties whose contents are defined by convention have appropriate 497 values. For example, it checks that \texttt{reg} properties have a 498 length that makes sense given the address forms specified by the 499 \texttt{\#address-cells} and \texttt{\#size-cells} properties. It 500 checks that properties such as \texttt{interrupt-parent} contain a 501 valid phandle. 502 \item \emph{Linux requirements}: \dtc checks that the device tree 503 contains those nodes and properties that are required by the Linux 504 kernel to boot correctly. 505 \end{itemize} 506 507 These checks are useful to catch simple problems with the device tree, 508 rather than having to debug the results on an embedded kernel. With 509 the blob input mode, it can also be used for diagnosing problems with 510 an existing blob. 511 512 \section{Future Work} 513 514 \subsection{Board ports} 515 516 The flattened device tree has always been the only supported way to 517 boot a \texttt{ppc64} kernel on an embedded system. With the merge of 518 \texttt{ppc32} and \texttt{ppc64} code it has also become the only 519 supported way to boot any merged \texttt{powerpc} kernel, 32-bit or 520 64-bit. In fact, the old \texttt{ppc} architecture exists mainly just 521 to support the old ppc32 embedded ports that have not been migrated 522 to the flattened device tree approach. We plan to remove the 523 \texttt{ppc} architecture eventually, which will mean porting all the 524 various embedded boards to use the flattened device tree. 525 526 \subsection{\dtc features} 527 528 While it is already quite usable, there are a number of extra features 529 that \dtc could include to make creating device trees more convenient: 530 \begin{itemize} 531 \item \emph{better tree checking}: Although \dtc already performs a 532 number of checks on the device tree, they are rather haphazard. In 533 many cases \dtc will give up after detecting a minor error early and 534 won't pick up more interesting errors later on. There is a 535 \texttt{-f} parameter that forces \dtc to generate an output tree 536 even if there are errors. At present, this needs to be used more 537 often than one might hope, because \dtc is bad at deciding which 538 errors should really be fatal, and which rate mere warnings. 539 \item \emph{binary include}: Occasionally, it is useful for the device 540 tree to incorporate as a property a block of binary data for some 541 board-specific purpose. For example, many of Apple's device trees 542 incorporate bytecode drivers for certain platform devices. \dtc's 543 source format ought to allow this by letting a property's value be 544 read directly from a binary file. 545 \item \emph{macros}: it might be useful for \dtc to implement some 546 sort of macros so that a tree containing a number of similar devices 547 (for example, multiple identical ethernet controllers or PCI buses) 548 can be written more quickly. At present, this can be accomplished 549 in part by running the source file through CPP before compiling with 550 \dtc. It's not clear whether ``native'' support for macros would be 551 more useful. 552 \end{itemize} 553 554 \bibliographystyle{amsplain} 555 \bibliography{dtc-paper} 556 557 \section*{About the authors} 558 559 David Gibson has been a member of the IBM Linux Technology Center, 560 working from Canberra, Australia, since 2001. Recently he has worked 561 on Linux hugepage support and performance counter support for ppc64, 562 as well as the device tree compiler. In the past, he has worked on 563 bringup for various ppc and ppc64 embedded systems, the orinoco 564 wireless driver, ramfs, and a userspace checkpointing system 565 (\texttt{esky}). 566 567 Benjamin Herrenschmidt was a MacOS developer for about 10 years, but 568 ultimately saw the light and installed Linux on his Apple PowerPC 569 machine. After writing a bootloader, BootX, for it in 1998, he 570 started contributing to the PowerPC Linux port in various areas, 571 mostly around the support for Apple machines. He became official 572 PowerMac maintainer in 2001. In 2003, he joined the IBM Linux 573 Technology Center in Canberra, Australia, where he ported the 64 bit 574 PowerPC kernel to Apple G5 machines and the Maple embedded board, 575 among others things. He's a member of the ppc64 development ``team'' 576 and one of his current goals is to make the integration of embedded 577 platforms smoother and more maintainable than in the 32-bit PowerPC 578 kernel. 579 580 \section*{Legal Statement} 581 582 This work represents the view of the author and does not necessarily 583 represent the view of IBM. 584 585 IBM, \ppc, \ppc Architecture, POWER5, pSeries and iSeries are 586 trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines 587 Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. 588 589 Apple and Power Macintosh are a registered trademarks of Apple 590 Computer Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both. 591 592 Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. 593 594 Other company, product, and service names may be trademarks or service 595 marks of others. 596 597 \end{document} 598