Re: [RFC 1/1] mkimage: revert "Align efi sections on 4k boundary"

[Heinrich Schuchardt]

On 4/19/19 12:02 AM, Julien ROBIN wrote:
> Hi, I don't know if others folks are easily able to test and reproduce
> the issue and test suggested patch, so I did some builds, and tests
> based on the EFI file produced by grub-mkstandalone using -O arm-efi :
> it's a trivial way to test what code version is working or not with
> qemu-system-arm for example.
>
> Unfortunately, with or without applying the RFC suggested reverting
> patch, and even with the Grub 2.02 version, using qemu-system-arm and an
> efi firmware for it, *I can't get any efi version of grub working fine
> on qemu and arm (32 bits) :*
> https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2019/16/4/1555617325-screenshot-from-2019-04-18-21-51-22.png
>
> I did the comparison by building for
>
>   * --target=arm-linux-gnueabihf, grub-mkstandalone using -O arm-efi
>     (naming the resulting file bootarm.efi)
>     and
>   * --target=aarch64-linux-gnu, grub-mkstandalone using -O arm64-efi
>     (naming the resulting file bootaa64.efi). I also did make sure that
>     I wasn't mixing wrong files during the process.
>
> I placed more details here  : https://sorel.pixconfig.fr/GRUB/ (commands
> for having everything build and started, qemu EFI firmwares, resulting
> files with current grub and 2.02 of 32 and 64 bits) for those who
> quickly want to do their own tests.
>
> Heinrich, did you succeeded to get an arm-efi version of grub booting on
> some qemu-system-arm machine ? Are you using another qemu arm efi
> firmware ? I'm using this one : https://efi.akeo.ie/QEMU_EFI/

The firmware I am using is U-Boot which is available as

git clone git://git.denx.de/u-boot-efi.git
cd u-boot
make qemu_arm_defconfig
make

To use it with QEMU:

qemu-system-arm -bios u-boot.bin -machine virt -cpu cortex-a15 ...

> Also, debian-9.8.0-armhf-netinst.iso and even
> debian-10-2019-04-18-JR-armhf-NETINST-1.iso (created using easy-build
> and a local updated mirror), does not seem to contain any EFI boot
> loader (Debian for armhf isn't using efi) so I wasn't able to confront
> any debian armhf efi thing.
You will need a FAT formatted partition mounted at /boot/efi

sudo -s
apt-get install qemu-arm-efi
grub-install --target=arm-efi
update grub

To boot with GRUB you can use these commands on the U-Boot console:

load mmc 0:2 ${fdt_addr_r} dtb
load mmc 0:1 ${kernel_addr_r} EFI/debian/grubarm.efi
bootefi ${kernel_addr_r} ${fdt_addr_r}

If you want to build the Debian packages yourself on your 32bit ARM system:

wget
http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/grub2/grub2_2.02+dfsg1.orig.tar.xz
wget
http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/grub2/grub2_2.02+dfsg1-16.debian.tar.xz
tar -xJf grub2_2.02+dfsg1.orig.tar.xz
tar -xJf grub2_2.02+dfsg1-16.debian.tar.xz
cp -R debian grub-2.02+dfsg1/
cd grub-2.02+dfsg1/
sudo apt-get install \
debhelper patchutils python flex bison po-debconf help2man texinfo \
gcc-8 xfonts-unifont libfreetype6-dev gettext libdevmapper-dev \
libsdl1.2-dev xorriso cpio parted libfuse-dev ttf-dejavu-core \
liblzma-dev wamerican pkg-config bash-completion
dpgk-buildpackage
cd ..
ls *.deb

You can install the built packages with
sudo dpkg -i \
grub2-common_2.02+dfsg1-16_armhf.deb \
grub-common_2.02+dfsg1-16_armhf.deb \
grub-efi-arm_2.02+dfsg1-16_armhf.deb \
grub-efi-arm-bin_2.02+dfsg1-16_armhf.deb

Best regards

Heinrich

> Finally, I can confirm the qemu efi arm firmware is working at least
> enough for having this efi file running :
> https://github.com/pbatard/uefi-simple but it's probably because the
> qemu efi arm firmware comes from here ;) so it's not very surprising if
> it work with it.
>
> If I can help with my time for testing things, feel free to ask me!
> Best regards,
> Julien ROBIN
>
>
> On 4/18/19 5:14 PM, Heinrich Schuchardt wrote:
> > On 4/18/19 12:41 PM, Daniel Kiper wrote:
> > > On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 07:50:09AM +0200, Heinrich Schuchardt wrote:
> > > > Since this commit a51f953f4ee8 ("mkimage: Align efi sections on 4k
> > > > boundary") grubarm.efi crashes. Let's revert it.
> > >
> > > Everywhere or on a specific machines?
> >
> > I observed the issue on a TinkerBoard (Rockchip RK3288 CPU) and on
> > qemu-arm-system -machine virt with the current Debian Buster GRUB.
> >
> > Best regards
> >
> > Heinrich
> >
> > > Daniel