Kernel booting process. Part 3.

Video mode initialization and transition to protected mode

This is the third part of the Kernel booting process series. In the previous part, we stopped right before the call of the set_video routine from the main.c. In this part, we will see:

• video mode initialization in the kernel setup code,
• preparation before switching into the protected mode,
• transition to protected mode

NOTE If you don't know anything about protected mode, you can find some information about it in the previous part. Also there are a couple of links which can help you.

As I wrote above, we will start from the set_video function which defined in the arch/x86/boot/video.c source code file. We can see that it starts by first getting the video mode from the boot_params.hdr structure:

u16 mode = boot_params.hdr.vid_mode;

which we filled in the copy_boot_params function (you can read about it in the previous post). vid_mode is an obligatory field which is filled by the bootloader. You can find information about it in the kernel boot protocol:

Offset    Proto    Name        Meaning
/Size
01FA/2    ALL        vid_mode    Video mode control

As we can read from the linux kernel boot protocol:

vga=<mode>
    <mode> here is either an integer (in C notation, either
    decimal, octal, or hexadecimal) or one of the strings
    "normal" (meaning 0xFFFF), "ext" (meaning 0xFFFE) or "ask"
    (meaning 0xFFFD).  This value should be entered into the
    vid_mode field, as it is used by the kernel before the command
    line is parsed.

So we can add vga option to the grub or another bootloader configuration file and it will pass this option to the kernel command line. This option can have different values as we can mentioned in the description, for example it can be an integer number 0xFFFD or ask. If you pass ask t vga, you will see a menu like this:

which will ask to select a video mode. We will look at it's implementation, but before diving into the implementation we have to look at some other things.

Kernel data types

Earlier we saw definitions of different data types like u16 etc. in the kernel setup code. Let's look on a couple of data types provided by the kernel:

If you read source code of the kernel, you'll see these very often and so it will be good to remember them.

Heap API

After we have vid_mode from the boot_params.hdr in the set_video function we can see call to RESET_HEAP function. RESET_HEAP is a macro which defined in the boot.h. It is defined as:

#define RESET_HEAP() ((void *)( HEAP = _end ))

If you have read the second part, you will remember that we initialized the heap with the init_heap function. We have a couple of utility functions for heap which are defined in boot.h. They are:

#define RESET_HEAP()

As we saw just above it resets the heap by setting the HEAP variable equal to _end, where _end is just extern char _end[];

Next is GET_HEAP macro:

#define GET_HEAP(type, n) \
    ((type *)__get_heap(sizeof(type),__alignof__(type),(n)))

for heap allocation. It calls internal function __get_heap with 3 parameters:

• size of a type in bytes, which need be allocated
• __alignof__(type) shows how type of variable is aligned
• n tells how many bytes to allocate

Implementation of __get_heap is:

static inline char *__get_heap(size_t s, size_t a, size_t n)
{
    char *tmp;

    HEAP = (char *)(((size_t)HEAP+(a-1)) & ~(a-1));
    tmp = HEAP;
    HEAP += s*n;
    return tmp;
}

and further we will see its usage, something like:

saved.data = GET_HEAP(u16, saved.x * saved.y);

Let's try to understand how __get_heap works. We can see here that HEAP (which is equal to _end after RESET_HEAP()) is the address of aligned memory according to a parameter. After it we save memory address from HEAP to the tmp variable, move HEAP to the end of allocated block and return tmp which is start address of allocated memory.

And the last function is:

static inline bool heap_free(size_t n)
{
    return (int)(heap_end - HEAP) >= (int)n;
}

which subtracts value of the HEAP from the heap_end (we calculated it in the previous part) and returns 1 if there is enough memory for n.

That's all. Now we have simple API for heap and can setup video mode.

Setup video mode

Now we can move directly to video mode initialization. We stopped at the RESET_HEAP() call in the set_video function. Next is the call to store_mode_params which stores video mode parameters in the boot_params.screen_info structure which is defined in the include/uapi/linux/screen_info.h.

If we will look at store_mode_params function, we can see that it starts with the call to store_cursor_position function. As you can understand from the function name, it gets information about cursor and stores it.

First of all store_cursor_position initializes two variables which has type - biosregs, with AH = 0x3 and calls 0x10 BIOS interruption. After interruption successfully executed, it returns row and column in the DL and DH registers. Row and column will be stored in the orig_x and orig_y fields from the the boot_params.screen_info structure.

After store_cursor_position executed, store_video_mode function will be called. It just gets current video mode and stores it in the boot_params.screen_info.orig_video_mode.

After this, it checks current video mode and sets the video_segment. After the BIOS transfers control to the boot sector, the following addresses are for video memory:

0xB000:0x0000     32 Kb     Monochrome Text Video Memory
0xB800:0x0000     32 Kb     Color Text Video Memory

So we set the video_segment variable to 0xB000 if current video mode is MDA, HGC, VGA in monochrome mode or 0xB800 in color mode. After setup of the address of the video segment font size needs to be stored in the boot_params.screen_info.orig_video_points with:

set_fs(0);
font_size = rdfs16(0x485);
boot_params.screen_info.orig_video_points = font_size;

First of all we put 0 to the FS register with set_fs function. We already saw functions like set_fs in the previous part. They are all defined in the boot.h. Next we read value which is located at address 0x485 (this memory location is used to get the font size) and save font size in the boot_params.screen_info.orig_video_points.

 x = rdfs16(0x44a);
 y = (adapter == ADAPTER_CGA) ? 25 : rdfs8(0x484)+1;

Next we get amount of columns by 0x44a and rows by address 0x484 and store them in the boot_params.screen_info.orig_video_cols and boot_params.screen_info.orig_video_lines. After this, execution of the store_mode_params is finished.

Next we can see save_screen function which just saves screen content to the heap. This function collects all data which we got in the previous functions like rows and columns amount etc. and stores it in the saved_screen structure, which is defined as:

static struct saved_screen {
    int x, y;
    int curx, cury;
    u16 *data;
} saved;

It then checks whether the heap has free space for it with:

if (!heap_free(saved.x*saved.y*sizeof(u16)+512))
        return;

and allocates space in the heap if it is enough and stores saved_screen in it.

The next call is probe_cards(0) from the arch/x86/boot/video-mode.c. It goes over all video_cards and collects number of modes provided by the cards. Here is the interesting moment, we can see the loop:

for (card = video_cards; card < video_cards_end; card++) {
  /* collecting number of modes here */
}

but video_cards not declared anywhere. Answer is simple: Every video mode presented in the x86 kernel setup code has definition like this:

static __videocard video_vga = {
    .card_name    = "VGA",
    .probe        = vga_probe,
    .set_mode    = vga_set_mode,
};

where __videocard is a macro:

#define __videocard struct card_info __attribute__((used,section(".videocards")))

which means that card_info structure:

struct card_info {
    const char *card_name;
    int (*set_mode)(struct mode_info *mode);
    int (*probe)(void);
    struct mode_info *modes;
    int nmodes;
    int unsafe;
    u16 xmode_first;
    u16 xmode_n;
};

is in the .videocards segment. Let's look in the arch/x86/boot/setup.ld linker file, we can see there:

    .videocards    : {
        video_cards = .;
        *(.videocards)
        video_cards_end = .;
    }

It means that video_cards is just memory address and all card_info structures are placed in this segment. It means that all card_info structures are placed between video_cards and video_cards_end, so we can use it in a loop to go over all of it. After probe_cards executed we have all structures like static __videocard video_vga with filled nmodes (number of video modes).

After probe_cards execution is finished, we move to the main loop in the set_video function. There is infinite loop which tries to setup video mode with the set_mode function or prints a menu if we passed vid_mode=ask to the kernel command line or video mode is undefined.

The set_mode function is defined in the video-mode.c and gets only one parameter, mode which is the number of video mode (we got it or from the menu or in the start of the setup_video, from kernel setup header).

set_mode function checks the mode and calls raw_set_mode function. The raw_set_mode calls set_mode function for selected card i.e. card->set_mode(struct mode_info*). We can get access to this function from the card_info structure, every video mode defines this structure with values filled depending upon the video mode (for example for vga it is video_vga.set_mode function, see above example of card_info structure for vga). video_vga.set_mode is vga_set_mode, which checks the vga mode and calls the respective function:

static int vga_set_mode(struct mode_info *mode)
{
    vga_set_basic_mode();

    force_x = mode->x;
    force_y = mode->y;

    switch (mode->mode) {
    case VIDEO_80x25:
        break;
    case VIDEO_8POINT:
        vga_set_8font();
        break;
    case VIDEO_80x43:
        vga_set_80x43();
        break;
    case VIDEO_80x28:
        vga_set_14font();
        break;
    case VIDEO_80x30:
        vga_set_80x30();
        break;
    case VIDEO_80x34:
        vga_set_80x34();
        break;
    case VIDEO_80x60:
        vga_set_80x60();
        break;
    }
    return 0;
}

Every function which setups video mode, just calls 0x10 BIOS interrupt with certain value in the AH register.

After we have set video mode, we pass it to the boot_params.hdr.vid_mode.

Next vesa_store_edid is called. This function simply stores the EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) information for kernel use. After this store_mode_params is called again. Lastly, if do_restore is set, screen is restored to an earlier state.

After this we have set video mode and now we can switch to the protected mode.

Last preparation before transition into protected mode

We can see the last function call - go_to_protected_mode in the main.c. As the comment says: Do the last things and invoke protected mode, so let's see these last things and switch into the protected mode.

go_to_protected_mode defined in the arch/x86/boot/pm.c. It contains some functions which make last preparations before we can jump into protected mode, so let's look on it and try to understand what they do and how it works.

First is the call to realmode_switch_hook function in the go_to_protected_mode. This function invokes real mode switch hook if it is present and disables NMI. Hooks are used if bootloader runs in a hostile environment. You can read more about hooks in the boot protocol (see ADVANCED BOOT LOADER HOOKS).

readlmode_swtich hook presents pointer to the 16-bit real mode far subroutine which disables non-maskable interrupts. After realmode_switch hook (it isn't present for me) is checked, disabling of Non-Maskable Interrupts(NMI) occurs:

asm volatile("cli");
outb(0x80, 0x70);    /* Disable NMI */
io_delay();

At first there is inline assembly instruction with cli instruction which clears the interrupt flag (IF). After this, external interrupts are disabled. Next line disables NMI (non-maskable interrupt).

Interrupt is a signal to the CPU which is emitted by hardware or software. After getting signal, CPU suspends current instructions sequence, saves its state and transfers control to the interrupt handler. After interrupt handler has finished it's work, it transfers control to the interrupted instruction. Non-maskable interrupts (NMI) are interrupts which are always processed, independently of permission. It cannot be ignored and is typically used to signal for non-recoverable hardware errors. We will not dive into details of interrupts now, but will discuss it in the next posts.

Let's get back to the code. We can see that second line is writing 0x80 (disabled bit) byte to the 0x70 (CMOS Address register). After that call to the io_delay function occurs. io_delay causes a small delay and looks like:

static inline void io_delay(void)
{
    const u16 DELAY_PORT = 0x80;
    asm volatile("outb %%al,%0" : : "dN" (DELAY_PORT));
}

Outputting any byte to the port 0x80 should delay exactly 1 microsecond. So we can write any value (value from AL register in our case) to the 0x80 port. After this delay realmode_switch_hook function has finished execution and we can move to the next function.

The next function is enable_a20, which enables A20 line. This function is defined in the arch/x86/boot/a20.c and it tries to enable A20 gate with different methods. The first is a20_test_short function which checks is A20 already enabled or not with a20_test function:

static int a20_test(int loops)
{
    int ok = 0;
    int saved, ctr;

    set_fs(0x0000);
    set_gs(0xffff);

    saved = ctr = rdfs32(A20_TEST_ADDR);

    while (loops--) {
        wrfs32(++ctr, A20_TEST_ADDR);
        io_delay();    /* Serialize and make delay constant */
        ok = rdgs32(A20_TEST_ADDR+0x10) ^ ctr;
        if (ok)
            break;
    }

    wrfs32(saved, A20_TEST_ADDR);
    return ok;
}

First of all we put 0x0000 to the FS register and 0xffff to the GS register. Next we read value by address A20_TEST_ADDR (it is 0x200) and put this value into saved variable and ctr.

Next we write updated ctr value into fs:gs with wrfs32 function, then delay for 1ms, and then read the value into the GS register by address A20_TEST_ADDR+0x10, if it's not zero we already have enabled A20 line. If A20 is disabled, we try to enable it with a different method which you can find in the a20.c. For example with call of 0x15 BIOS interrupt with AH=0x2041 etc.

If enabled_a20 function finished with fail, print an error message and call function die. You can remember it from the first source code file where we started - arch/x86/boot/header.S:

die:
    hlt
    jmp    die
    .size    die, .-die

After the A20 gate is successfully enabled, reset_coprocessor function is called:

outb(0, 0xf0);
outb(0, 0xf1);

This function clears the Math Coprocessor by writing 0 to 0xf0 and then resets it by writing 0 to 0xf1.

After this mask_all_interrupts function is called:

outb(0xff, 0xa1);       /* Mask all interrupts on the secondary PIC */
outb(0xfb, 0x21);       /* Mask all but cascade on the primary PIC */

This masks all interrupts on the secondary PIC (Programmable Interrupt Controller) and primary PIC except for IRQ2 on the primary PIC.

And after all of these preparations, we can see actual transition into protected mode.

Setup Interrupt Descriptor Table

Now we setup the Interrupt Descriptor table (IDT). setup_idt:

static void setup_idt(void)
{
    static const struct gdt_ptr null_idt = {0, 0};
    asm volatile("lidtl %0" : : "m" (null_idt));
}

which setups the Interrupt Descriptor Table (describes interrupt handlers and etc.). For now IDT is not installed (we will see it later), but now we just load IDT with lidtl instruction. null_idt contains address and size of IDT, but now they are just zero. null_idt is a gdt_ptr structure, it as defined as:

struct gdt_ptr {
    u16 len;
    u32 ptr;
} __attribute__((packed));

where we can see - 16-bit length(len) of IDT and 32-bit pointer to it (More details about IDT and interruptions we will see in the next posts). __attribute__((packed)) means here that size of gdt_ptr minimum as required. So size of the gdt_ptr will be 6 bytes here or 48 bits. (Next we will load pointer to the gdt_ptr to the GDTR register and you might remember from the previous post that it is 48-bits in size).

Setup Global Descriptor Table

Next is the setup of Global Descriptor Table (GDT). We can see setup_gdt function which sets up GDT (you can read about it in the Kernel booting process. Part 2.). There is definition of the boot_gdt array in this function, which contains definition of the three segments:

    static const u64 boot_gdt[] __attribute__((aligned(16))) = {
        [GDT_ENTRY_BOOT_CS] = GDT_ENTRY(0xc09b, 0, 0xfffff),
        [GDT_ENTRY_BOOT_DS] = GDT_ENTRY(0xc093, 0, 0xfffff),
        [GDT_ENTRY_BOOT_TSS] = GDT_ENTRY(0x0089, 4096, 103),
    };

For code, data and TSS (Task State Segment). We will not use task state segment for now, it was added there to make Intel VT happy as we can see in the comment line (if you're interesting you can find commit which describes it - here). Let's look on boot_gdt. First of all note that it has __attribute__((aligned(16))) attribute. It means that this structure will be aligned by 16 bytes. Let's look at a simple example:

#include <stdio.h>

struct aligned {
    int a;
}__attribute__((aligned(16)));

struct nonaligned {
    int b;
};

int main(void)
{
    struct aligned    a;
    struct nonaligned na;

    printf("Not aligned - %zu \n", sizeof(na));
    printf("Aligned - %zu \n", sizeof(a));

    return 0;
}

Technically structure which contains one int field, must be 4 bytes, but here aligned structure will be 16 bytes:

$ gcc test.c -o test && test
Not aligned - 4
Aligned - 16

GDT_ENTRY_BOOT_CS has index - 2 here, GDT_ENTRY_BOOT_DS is GDT_ENTRY_BOOT_CS + 1 and etc. It starts from 2, because first is a mandatory null descriptor (index - 0) and the second is not used (index - 1).

GDT_ENTRY is a macro which takes flags, base and limit and builds GDT entry. For example let's look on the code segment entry. GDT_ENTRY takes following values:

• base - 0
• limit - 0xfffff
• flags - 0xc09b

What does it mean? Segment's base address is 0, limit (size of segment) is - 0xffff (1 MB). Let's look on flags. It is 0xc09b and it will be:

1100 0000 1001 1011

in binary. Let's try to understand what every bit means. We will go through all bits from left to right:

• 1 - (G) granularity bit
• 1 - (D) if 0 16-bit segment; 1 = 32-bit segment
• 0 - (L) executed in 64 bit mode if 1
• 0 - (AVL) available for use by system software
• 0000 - 4 bit length 19:16 bits in the descriptor
• 1 - (P) segment presence in memory
• 00 - (DPL) - privilege level, 0 is the highest privilege
• 1 - (S) code or data segment, not a system segment
• 101 - segment type execute/read/
• 1 - accessed bit

You can read more about every bit in the previous post or in the Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manuals 3A.

After this we get length of GDT with:

gdt.len = sizeof(boot_gdt)-1;

We get size of boot_gdt and subtract 1 (the last valid address in the GDT).

Next we get pointer to the GDT with:

gdt.ptr = (u32)&boot_gdt + (ds() << 4);

Here we just get address of boot_gdt and add it to address of data segment left-shifted by 4 bits (remember we're in the real mode now).

Lastly we execute lgdtl instruction to load GDT into GDTR register:

asm volatile("lgdtl %0" : : "m" (gdt));

Actual transition into protected mode

It is the end of go_to_protected_mode function. We loaded IDT, GDT, disable interruptions and now can switch CPU into protected mode. The last step we call protected_mode_jump function with two parameters:

protected_mode_jump(boot_params.hdr.code32_start, (u32)&boot_params + (ds() << 4));

which is defined in the arch/x86/boot/pmjump.S. It takes two parameters:

• address of protected mode entry point
• address of boot_params

Let's look inside protected_mode_jump. As I wrote above, you can find it in the arch/x86/boot/pmjump.S. First parameter will be in eax register and second is in edx.

First of all we put address of boot_params in the esi register and address of code segment register cs (0x1000) in the bx. After this we shift bx by 4 bits and add address of label 2 to it (we will have physical address of label 2 in the bx after it) and jump to label 1. Next we put data segment and task state segment in the cs and di registers with:

movw    $__BOOT_DS, %cx
movw    $__BOOT_TSS, %di

As you can read above GDT_ENTRY_BOOT_CS has index 2 and every GDT entry is 8 byte, so CS will be 2 * 8 = 16, __BOOT_DS is 24 etc.

Next we set PE (Protection Enable) bit in the CR0 control register:

movl    %cr0, %edx
orb    $X86_CR0_PE, %dl
movl    %edx, %cr0

and make long jump to the protected mode:

    .byte    0x66, 0xea
2:    .long    in_pm32
    .word    __BOOT_CS

where

• 0x66 is the operand-size prefix which allows to mix 16-bit and 32-bit code,
• 0xea - is the jump opcode,
• in_pm32 is the segment offset
• __BOOT_CS is the code segment.

After this we are finally in the protected mode:

.code32
.section ".text32","ax"

Let's look at the first steps in the protected mode. First of all we setup data segment with:

movl    %ecx, %ds
movl    %ecx, %es
movl    %ecx, %fs
movl    %ecx, %gs
movl    %ecx, %ss

If you read with attention, you can remember that we saved $__BOOT_DS in the cx register. Now we fill with it all segment registers besides cs (cs is already __BOOT_CS). Next we zero out all general purpose registers besides eax with:

xorl    %ecx, %ecx
xorl    %edx, %edx
xorl    %ebx, %ebx
xorl    %ebp, %ebp
xorl    %edi, %edi

And jump to the 32-bit entry point in the end:

jmpl    *%eax

Remember that eax contains address of the 32-bit entry (we passed it as first parameter into protected_mode_jump).

That's all we're in the protected mode and stop at it's entry point. What happens next, we will see in the next part.

Conclusion

It is the end of the third part about linux kernel internals. In next part we will see first steps in the protected mode and transition into the long mode.

If you have any questions or suggestions write me a comment or ping me at twitter.

Please note that English is not my first language, And I am really sorry for any inconvenience. If you find any mistakes, please send me a PR with corrections at linux-internals.

Links

• VGA
• VESA BIOS Extensions
• Data structure alignment
• Non-maskable interrupt
• A20
• GCC designated inits
• GCC type attributes
• Previous part