Architecture Porting Guide

An architecture port is needed to enable Zephyr to run on an ISA or an ABI that is not currently supported.

The following are examples of ISAs and ABIs that Zephyr supports:

• x86_32 ISA with System V ABI

• ARMv7-M ISA with Thumb2 instruction set and ARM Embedded ABI (aeabi)

• ARCv2 ISA

For information on Kconfig configuration, see Setting Kconfig configuration values. Architectures use a Kconfig configuration scheme similar to boards.

An architecture port can be divided in several parts; most are required and some are optional:

• The early boot sequence: each architecture has different steps it must take when the CPU comes out of reset (required).

• Interrupt and exception handling: each architecture handles asynchronous and unrequested events in a specific manner (required).

• Thread context switching: the Zephyr context switch is dependent on the ABI and each ISA has a different set of registers to save (required).

• Thread creation and termination: A thread’s initial stack frame is ABI and architecture-dependent, and thread abortion possibly as well (required).

• Device drivers: most often, the system clock timer and the interrupt controller are tied to the architecture (some required, some optional).

• Utility libraries: some common kernel APIs rely on a architecture-specific implementation for performance reasons (required).

• CPU idling/power management: most architectures implement instructions for putting the CPU to sleep (partly optional, most likely very desired).

• Fault management: for implementing architecture-specific debug help and handling of fatal error in threads (partly optional).

• Linker scripts and toolchains: architecture-specific details will most likely be needed in the build system and when linking the image (required).

Early Boot Sequence

The goal of the early boot sequence is to take the system from the state it is after reset to a state where is can run C code and thus the common kernel initialization sequence. Most of the time, very few steps are needed, while some architectures require a bit more work to be performed.

Common steps for all architectures:

• Setup an initial stack.

• If running an XIP kernel, copy initialized data

• from ROM to RAM.

• If not using an ELF loader, zero the BSS section.

• Jump to _Cstart(), the early kernel initialization

  • _Cstart() is responsible for context switching out of the fake context running at startup into the main thread.

Some examples of architecture-specific steps that have to be taken:

• If given control in real mode on x86_32, switch to 32-bit protected mode.

• Setup the segment registers on x86_32 to handle boot loaders that leave them in an unknown or broken state.

• Initialize a board-specific watchdog on Cortex-M3/4.

• Switch stacks from MSP to PSP on Cortex-M.

• Use a different approach than calling into _Swap() on Cortex-M to prevent race conditions.

• Setup FIRQ and regular IRQ handling on ARCv2.

Interrupt and Exception Handling

Each architecture defines interrupt and exception handling differently.

When a device wants to signal the processor that there is some work to be done on its behalf, it raises an interrupt. When a thread does an operation that is not handled by the serial flow of the software itself, it raises an exception. Both, interrupts and exceptions, pass control to a handler. The handler is known as an ISR in the case of interrupts. The handler performs the work required by the exception or the interrupt. For interrupts, that work is device-specific. For exceptions, it depends on the exception, but most often the core kernel itself is responsible for providing the handler.

The kernel has to perform some work in addition to the work the handler itself performs. For example:

• Prior to handing control to the handler:

  • Save the currently executing context.

  • Possibly getting out of power saving mode, which includes waking up devices.

  • Updating the kernel uptime if getting out of tickless idle mode.

• After getting control back from the handler:

  • Decide whether to perform a context switch.

  • When performing a context switch, restore the context being context switched in.

This work is conceptually the same across architectures, but the details are completely different:

• The registers to save and restore.

• The processor instructions to perform the work.

• The numbering of the exceptions.

• etc.

It thus needs an architecture-specific implementation, called the interrupt/exception stub.

Another issue is that the kernel defines the signature of ISRs as:

void (*isr)(void *parameter)

Architectures do not have a consistent or native way of handling parameters to an ISR. As such there are two commonly used methods for handling the parameter.

• Using some architecture defined mechanism, the parameter value is forced in the stub. This is commonly found in X86-based architectures.

• The parameters to the ISR are inserted and tracked via a separate table requiring the architecture to discover at runtime which interrupt is executing. A common interrupt handler demuxer is installed for all entries of the real interrupt vector table, which then fetches the device’s ISR and parameter from the separate table. This approach is commonly used in the ARC and ARM architectures via the CONFIG_GEN_ISR_TABLES implementation. You can find examples of the stubs by looking at _interrupt_enter() in x86, _IntExit() in ARM, _isr_wrapper() in ARM, or the full implementation description for ARC in arch/arc/core/isr_wrapper.S.

Each architecture also has to implement primitives for interrupt control:

• locking interrupts: irq_lock(), irq_unlock().

• registering interrupts: IRQ_CONNECT().

• programming the priority if possible irq_priority_set().

• enabling/disabling interrupts: irq_enable(), irq_disable().

Note

IRQ_CONNECT is a macro that uses assembler and/or linker script tricks to connect interrupts at build time, saving boot time and text size.

The vector table should contain a handler for each interrupt and exception that can possibly occur. The handler can be as simple as a spinning loop. However, we strongly suggest that handlers at least print some debug information. The information helps figuring out what went wrong when hitting an exception that is a fault, like divide-by-zero or invalid memory access, or an interrupt that is not expected (spurious interrupt). See the ARM implementation in arch/arm/core/aarch32/cortex_m/fault.c for an example.

Thread Context Switching

Multi-threading is the basic purpose to have a kernel at all. Zephyr supports two types of threads: preemptible and cooperative.

Two crucial concepts when writing an architecture port are the following:

• Cooperative threads run at a higher priority than preemptible ones, and always preempt them.

• After handling an interrupt, if a cooperative thread was interrupted, the kernel always goes back to running that thread, since it is not preemptible.

A context switch can happen in several circumstances:

• When a thread executes a blocking operation, such as taking a semaphore that is currently unavailable.

• When a preemptible thread unblocks a thread of higher priority by releasing the object on which it was blocked.

• When an interrupt unblocks a thread of higher priority than the one currently executing, if the currently executing thread is preemptible.

• When a thread runs to completion.

• When a thread causes a fatal exception and is removed from the running threads. For example, referencing invalid memory,

Therefore, the context switching must thus be able to handle all these cases.

The kernel keeps the next thread to run in a “cache”, and thus the context switching code only has to fetch from that cache to select which thread to run.

There are two types of context switches: cooperative and preemptive.

• A cooperative context switch happens when a thread willfully gives the control to another thread. There are two cases where this happens

  • When a thread explicitly yields.

  • When a thread tries to take an object that is currently unavailable and is willing to wait until the object becomes available.

• A preemptive context switch happens either because an ISR or a thread causes an operation that schedules a thread of higher priority than the one currently running, if the currently running thread is preemptible. An example of such an operation is releasing an object on which the thread of higher priority was waiting.

Note

Control is never taken from cooperative thread when one of them is the running thread.

A cooperative context switch is always done by having a thread call the _Swap() kernel internal symbol. When _Swap is called, the kernel logic knows that a context switch has to happen: _Swap does not check to see if a context switch must happen. Rather, _Swap decides what thread to context switch in. _Swap is called by the kernel logic when an object being operated on is unavailable, and some thread yielding/sleeping primitives.

Note

On x86 and Nios2, _Swap is generic enough and the architecture flexible enough that _Swap can be called when exiting an interrupt to provoke the context switch. This should not be taken as a rule, since neither the ARM Cortex-M or ARCv2 port do this.

Since _Swap is cooperative, the caller-saved registers from the ABI are already on the stack. There is no need to save them in the k_thread structure.

A context switch can also be performed preemptively. This happens upon exiting an ISR, in the kernel interrupt exit stub:

• _interrupt_enter on x86 after the handler is called.

• _IntExit on ARM.

• _firq_exit and _rirq_exit on ARCv2.

In this case, the context switch must only be invoked when the interrupted thread was preemptible, not when it was a cooperative one, and only when the current interrupt is not nested.

The kernel also has the concept of “locking the scheduler”. This is a concept similar to locking the interrupts, but lighter-weight since interrupts can still occur. If a thread has locked the scheduler, is it temporarily non-preemptible.

So, the decision logic to invoke the context switch when exiting an interrupt is simple:

• If the interrupted thread is not preemptible, do not invoke it.

• Else, fetch the cached thread from the ready queue, and:

  • If the cached thread is not the current thread, invoke the context switch.

  • Else, do not invoke it.

This is simple, but crucial: if this is not implemented correctly, the kernel will not function as intended and will experience bizarre crashes, mostly due to stack corruption.

Note

If running a coop-only system, i.e. if CONFIG_NUM_PREEMPT_PRIORITIES is 0, no preemptive context switch ever happens. The interrupt code can be optimized to not take any scheduling decision when this is the case.

Thread Creation and Termination

To start a new thread, a stack frame must be constructed so that the context switch can pop it the same way it would pop one from a thread that had been context switched out. This is to be implemented in an architecture-specific _new_thread internal routine.

The thread entry point is also not to be called directly, i.e. it should not be set as the PC for the new thread. Rather it must be wrapped in _thread_entry. This means that the PC in the stack frame shall be set to _thread_entry, and the thread entry point shall be passed as the first parameter to _thread_entry. The specifics of this depend on the ABI.

The need for an architecture-specific thread termination implementation depends on the architecture. There is a generic implementation, but it might not work for a given architecture.

One reason that has been encountered for having an architecture-specific implementation of thread termination is that aborting a thread might be different if aborting because of a graceful exit or because of an exception. This is the case for ARM Cortex-M, where the CPU has to be taken out of handler mode if the thread triggered a fatal exception, but not if the thread gracefully exits its entry point function.

This means implementing an architecture-specific version of k_thread_abort(), and setting the Kconfig option CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_THREAD_ABORT as needed for the architecture (e.g. see arch/arm/core/aarch32/cortex_m/Kconfig).

Thread Local Storage

To enable thread local storage on a new architecture:

1. Implement arch_tls_stack_setup() to setup the TLS storage area in stack. Refer to the toolchain documentation on how the storage area needs to be structured. Some helper functions can be used:

   • Function z_tls_data_size() returns the size needed for thread local variables (excluding any extra data required by toolchain and architecture).

   • Function z_tls_copy() prepares the TLS storage area for thread local variables. This only copies the variable themselves and does not do architecture and/or toolchain specific data.

2. In the context switching, grab the tls field inside the new thread’s struct k_thread and put it into an appropriate register (or some other variable) for access to the TLS storage area. Refer to toolchain and architecture documentation on which registers to use.

3. In kconfig, add select CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_THREAD_LOCAL_STORAGE to kconfig related to the new architecture.

4. Run the tests/kernel/threads/tls to make sure the new code works.

Device Drivers

The kernel requires very few hardware devices to function. In theory, the only required device is the interrupt controller, since the kernel can run without a system clock. In practice, to get access to most, if not all, of the sanity check test suite, a system clock is needed as well. Since these two are usually tied to the architecture, they are part of the architecture port.

Interrupt Controllers

There can be significant differences between the interrupt controllers and the interrupt concepts across architectures.

For example, x86 has the concept of an IDT and different interrupt controllers. The position of an interrupt in the IDT determines its priority.

On the other hand, the ARM Cortex-M has the NVIC as part of the architecture definition. There is no need for an IDT-like table that is separate from the NVIC vector table. The position in the table has nothing to do with priority of an IRQ: priorities are programmable per-entry.

The ARCv2 has its interrupt unit as part of the architecture definition, which is somewhat similar to the NVIC. However, where ARC defines interrupts as having a one-to-one mapping between exception and interrupt numbers (i.e. exception 1 is IRQ1, and device IRQs start at 16), ARM has IRQ0 being equivalent to exception 16 (and weirdly enough, exception 1 can be seen as IRQ-15).

All these differences mean that very little, if anything, can be shared between architectures with regards to interrupt controllers.

System Clock

x86 has APIC timers and the HPET as part of its architecture definition. ARM Cortex-M has the SYSTICK exception. Finally, ARCv2 has the timer0/1 device.

Kernel timeouts are handled in the context of the system clock timer driver’s interrupt handler.

Console Over Serial Line

There is one other device that is almost a requirement for an architecture port, since it is so useful for debugging. It is a simple polling, output-only, serial port driver on which to send the console (printk, printf) output.

It is not required, and a RAM console (CONFIG_RAM_CONSOLE) can be used to send all output to a circular buffer that can be read by a debugger instead.

Utility Libraries

The kernel depends on a few functions that can be implemented with very few instructions or in a lock-less manner in modern processors. Those are thus expected to be implemented as part of an architecture port.

• Atomic operators.

  • If instructions do exist for a given architecture, the implementation is configured using the CONFIG_ATOMIC_OPERATIONS_ARCH Kconfig option.

  • If instructions do not exist for a given architecture, a generic version that wraps irq_lock() or irq_unlock() around non-atomic operations exists. It is configured using the CONFIG_ATOMIC_OPERATIONS_C Kconfig option.

• Find-least-significant-bit-set and find-most-significant-bit-set.

  • If instructions do not exist for a given architecture, it is always possible to implement these functions as generic C functions.

It is possible to use compiler built-ins to implement these, but be careful they use the required compiler barriers.

CPU Idling/Power Management

The kernel provides support for CPU power management with two functions: arch_cpu_idle() and arch_cpu_atomic_idle().

arch_cpu_idle() can be as simple as calling the power saving instruction for the architecture with interrupts unlocked, for example hlt on x86, wfi or wfe on ARM, sleep on ARC. This function can be called in a loop within a context that does not care if it get interrupted or not by an interrupt before going to sleep. There are basically two scenarios when it is correct to use this function:

• In a single-threaded system, in the only thread when the thread is not used for doing real work after initialization, i.e. it is sitting in a loop doing nothing for the duration of the application.

• In the idle thread.

arch_cpu_atomic_idle(), on the other hand, must be able to atomically re-enable interrupts and invoke the power saving instruction. It can thus be used in real application code, again in single-threaded systems.

Normally, idling the CPU should be left to the idle thread, but in some very special scenarios, these APIs can be used by applications.

Both functions must exist for a given architecture. However, the implementation can be simply the following steps, if desired:

1. unlock interrupts

2. NOP

However, a real implementation is strongly recommended.

Fault Management

In the event of an unhandled CPU exception, the architecture code must call into z_fatal_error(). This function dumps out architecture-agnostic information and makes a policy decision on what to do next by invoking k_sys_fatal_error(). This function can be overridden to implement application-specific policies that could include locking interrupts and spinning forever (the default implementation) or even powering off the system (if supported).

Toolchain and Linking

Toolchain support has to be added to the build system.

Some architecture-specific definitions are needed in include/toolchain/gcc.h. See what exists in that file for currently supported architectures.

Each architecture also needs its own linker script, even if most sections can be derived from the linker scripts of other architectures. Some sections might be specific to the new architecture, for example the SCB section on ARM and the IDT section on x86.

Memory Management

If the target platform enables paging and requires drivers to memory-map their I/O regions, CONFIG_MMU needs to be enabled and the arch_mem_map() API implemented.

Stack Objects

The presence of memory protection hardware affects how stack objects are created. All architecture ports must specify the required alignment of the stack pointer, which is some combination of CPU and ABI requirements. This is defined in architecture headers with ARCH_STACK_PTR_ALIGN and is typically something small like 4, 8, or 16 bytes.

Two types of thread stacks exist:

• “kernel” stacks defined with K_KERNEL_STACK_DEFINE() and related APIs, which can host kernel threads running in supervisor mode or used as the stack for interrupt/exception handling. These have significantly relaxed alignment requirements and use less reserved data. No memory is reserved for prvilege elevation stacks.

• “thread” stacks which typically use more memory, but are capable of hosting thread running in user mode, as well as any use-cases for kernel stacks.

If CONFIG_USERSPACE is not enabled, “thread” and “kernel” stacks are equivalent.

Additional macros may be defined in the architecture layer to specify the alignment of the base of stack objects, any reserved data inside the stack object not used for the thread’s stack buffer, and how to round up stack sizes to support user mode threads. In the absence of definitions some defaults are assumed:

• ARCH_KERNEL_STACK_RESERVED: default no reserved space

• ARCH_THREAD_STACK_RESERVED: default no reserved space

• ARCH_KERNEL_STACK_OBJ_ALIGN: default align to ARCH_STACK_PTR_ALIGN

• ARCH_THREAD_STACK_OBJ_ALIGN: default align to ARCH_STACK_PTR_ALIGN

• ARCH_THREAD_STACK_SIZE_ALIGN: default round up to ARCH_STACK_PTR_ALIGN

All stack creation macros are defined in terms of these.

Stack objects all have the following layout, with some regions potentially zero-sized depending on configuration. There are always two main parts: reserved memory at the beginning, and then the stack buffer itself. The bounds of some areas can only be determined at runtime in the context of its associated thread object. Other areas are entirely computable at build time.

Some architectures may need to carve-out reserved memory at runtime from the stack buffer, instead of unconditionally reserving it at build time, or to supplement an existing reserved area (as is the case with the ARM FPU). Such carve-outs will always be tracked in thread.stack_info.start. The region specified by thread.stack_info.start and thread.stack_info.size is always fully accessible by a user mode thread. thread.stack_info.delta denotes an offset which can be used to compute the initial stack pointer from the very end of the stack object, taking into account storage for TLS and ASLR random offsets.

+---------------------+ <- thread.stack_obj
| Reserved Memory     | } K_(THREAD|KERNEL)_STACK_RESERVED
+---------------------+
| Carved-out memory   |
|.....................| <- thread.stack_info.start
| Unused stack buffer |
|                     |
|.....................| <- thread's current stack pointer
| Used stack buffer   |
|                     |
|.....................| <- Initial stack pointer. Computable
| ASLR Random offset  |      with thread.stack_info.delta
+---------------------| <- thread.userspace_local_data
| Thread-local data   |
+---------------------+ <- thread.stack_info.start +
                             thread.stack_info.size

At present, Zephyr does not support stacks that grow upward.

No Memory Protection

If no memory protection is in use, then the defaults are sufficient.

HW-based stack overflow detection

This option uses hardware features to generate a fatal error if a thread in supervisor mode overflows its stack. This is useful for debugging, although for a couple reasons, you can’t reliably make any assertions about the state of the system after this happens:

• The kernel could have been inside a critical section when the overflow occurs, leaving important global data structures in a corrupted state.

• For systems that implement stack protection using a guard memory region, it’s possible to overshoot the guard and corrupt adjacent data structures before the hardware detects this situation.

To enable the CONFIG_HW_STACK_PROTECTION feature, the system must provide some kind of hardware-based stack overflow protection, and enable the CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_STACK_PROTECTION option.

Two forms of HW-based stack overflow detection are supported: dedicated CPU features for this purpose, or special read-only guard regions immediately preceding stack buffers.

CONFIG_HW_STACK_PROTECTION only catches stack overflows for supervisor threads. This is not required to catch stack overflow from user threads; CONFIG_USERSPACE is orthogonal.

This feature only detects supervisor mode stack overflows, including stack overflows when handling system calls. It doesn’t guarantee that the kernel has not been corrupted. Any stack overflow in supervisor mode should be treated as a fatal error, with no assertions about the integrity of the overall system possible.

Stack overflows in user mode are recoverable (from the kernel’s perspective) and require no special configuration; CONFIG_HW_STACK_PROTECTION only applies to catching overflows when the CPU is in sueprvisor mode.

CPU-based stack overflow detection

If we are detecting stack overflows in supervisor mode via special CPU registers (like ARM’s SPLIM), then the defaults are sufficient.

Guard-based stack overflow detection

We are detecting supervisor mode stack overflows via special memory protection region located immediately before the stack buffer that generates an exception on write. Reserved memory will be used for the guard region.

ARCH_KERNEL_STACK_RESERVED should be defined to the minimum size of a memory protection region. On most ARM CPUs this is 32 bytes. ARCH_KERNEL_STACK_OBJ_ALIGN should also be set to the required alignment for this region.

MMU-based systems should not reserve RAM for the guard region and instead simply leave an non-present virtual page below every stack when it is mapped into the address space. The stack object will still need to be properly aligned and sized to page granularity.

+-----------------------------+ <- thread.stack_obj
| Guard reserved memory       | } K_KERNEL_STACK_RESERVED
+-----------------------------+
| Guard carve-out             |
|.............................| <- thread.stack_info.start
| Stack buffer                |
.                             .

Guard carve-outs for kernel stacks are uncommon and should be avoided if possible. They tend to be needed for two situations:

• The same stack may be re-purposed to host a user thread, in which case the guard is unnecessary and shouldn’t be unconditionally reserved. This is the case when privilege elevation stacks are not inside the stack object.

• The required guard size is variable and depends on context. For example, some ARM CPUs have lazy floating point stacking during exceptions and may decrement the stack pointer by a large value without writing anything, completely overshooting a minimally-sized guard and corrupting adjacent memory. Rather than unconditionally reserving a larger guard, the extra memory is carved out if the thread uses floating point.

User mode enabled

Enabling user mode activates two new requirements:

• A separate fixed-sized privilege mode stack, specified by CONFIG_PRIVILEGED_STACK_SIZE, must be allocated that the user thread cannot access. It is used as the stack by the kernel when handling system calls. If stack guards are implemented, a stack guard region must be able to be placed before it, with support for carve-outs if necessary.

• The memory protection hardware must be able to program a region that exactly covers the thread’s stack buffer, tracked in thread.stack_info. This implies that ARCH_THREAD_STACK_SIZE_ADJUST() will need to round up the requested stack size so that a region may cover it, and that ARCH_THREAD_STACK_OBJ_ALIGN() is also specified per the granularity of the memory protection hardware.

This becomes more complicated if the memory protection hardware requires that all memory regions be sized to a power of two, and aligned to their own size. This is common on older MPUs and is known with CONFIG_MPU_REQUIRES_POWER_OF_TWO_ALIGNMENT.

thread.stack_info always tracks the user-accessible part of the stack object, it must always be correct to program a memory protection region with user access using the range stored within.

Non power-of-two memory region requirements

On systems without power-of-two region requirements, the reserved memory area for threads stacks defined by K_THREAD_STACK_RESERVED may be used to contain the privilege mode stack. The layout could be something like:

+------------------------------+ <- thread.stack_obj
| Other platform data          |
+------------------------------+
| Guard region (if enabled)    |
+------------------------------+
| Guard carve-out (if needed)  |
|..............................|
| Privilege elevation stack    |
+------------------------------| <- thread.stack_obj +
| Stack buffer                 |      K_THREAD_STACK_RESERVED =
.                              .      thread.stack_info.start

The guard region, and any carve-out (if needed) would be configured as a read-only region when the thread is created.

• If the thread is a supervisor thread, the privilege elevation region is just extra stack memory. An overflow will eventually crash into the guard region.

• If the thread is running in user mode, a memory protection region will be configured to allow user threads access to the stack buffer, but nothing before or after it. An overflow in user mode will crash into the privilege elevation stack, which the user thread has no access to. An overflow when handling a system call will crash into the guard region.

On an MMU system there should be no physical guards; the privilege mode stack will be mapped into kernel memory, and the stack buffer in the user part of memory, each with non-present virtual guard pages below them to catch runtime stack overflows.

Other platform data may be stored before the guard region, but this is highly discouraged if such data could be stored in thread.arch somewhere.

ARCH_THREAD_STACK_RESERVED will need to be defined to capture the size of the reserved region containing platform data, privilege elevation stacks, and guards. It must be appropriately sized such that an MPU region to grant user mode access to the stack buffer can be placed immediately after it.

Power-of-two memory region requirements

Thread stack objects must be sized and aligned to the same power of two, without any reserved memory to allow efficient packing in memory. Thus, any guards in the thread stack must be completely carved out, and the privilege elevation stack must be allocated elsewhere.

ARCH_THREAD_STACK_SIZE_ADJUST() and ARCH_THREAD_STACK_OBJ_ALIGN() should both be defined to Z_POW2_CEIL(). K_THREAD_STACK_RESERVED must be 0.

For the privilege stacks, the CONFIG_GEN_PRIV_STACKS must be, enabled. For every thread stack found in the system, a corresponding fixed- size kernel stack used for handling system calls is generated. The address of the privilege stacks can be looked up quickly at runtime based on the thread stack address using z_priv_stack_find(). These stacks are laid out the same way as other kernel-only stacks.

+-----------------------------+ <- z_priv_stack_find(thread.stack_obj)
| Reserved memory             | } K_KERNEL_STACK_RESERVED
+-----------------------------+
| Guard carve-out (if needed) |
|.............................|
| Privilege elevation stack   |
|                             |
+-----------------------------+ <- z_priv_stack_find(thread.stack_obj) +
                                     K_KERNEL_STACK_RESERVED +
                                     CONFIG_PRIVILEGED_STACK_SIZE

+-----------------------------+ <- thread.stack_obj
| MPU guard carve-out         |
| (supervisor mode only)      |
|.............................| <- thread.stack_info.start
| Stack buffer                |
.                             .

The guard carve-out in the thread stack object is only used if the thread is running in supervisor mode. If the thread drops to user mode, there is no guard and the entire object is used as the stack buffer, with full access to the associated user mode thread and thread.stack_info updated appropriately.

User Mode Threads

To support user mode threads, several kernel-to-arch APIs need to be implemented, and the system must enable the CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_USERSPACE option. Please see the documentation for each of these functions for more details:

• arch_buffer_validate() to test whether the current thread has access permissions to a particular memory region

• arch_user_mode_enter() which will irreversibly drop a supervisor thread to user mode privileges. The stack must be wiped.

• arch_syscall_oops() which generates a kernel oops when system call parameters can’t be validated, in such a way that the oops appears to be generated from where the system call was invoked in the user thread

• arch_syscall_invoke0() through arch_syscall_invoke6() invoke a system call with the appropriate number of arguments which must all be passed in during the privilege elevation via registers.

• arch_is_user_context() return nonzero if the CPU is currently running in user mode

• arch_mem_domain_max_partitions_get() which indicates the max number of regions for a memory domain. MMU systems have an unlimited amount, MPU systems have constraints on this.

Some architectures may need to update software memory management structures or modify hardware registers on another CPU when memory domain APIs are invoked. If so, CONFIG_ARCH_MEM_DOMAIN_SYNCHRONOUS_API must be selected by the architecture and some additional APIs must be implemented. This is common on MMU systems and uncommon on MPU systems:

• arch_mem_domain_thread_add()

• arch_mem_domain_thread_remove()

• arch_mem_domain_partition_add()

• arch_mem_domain_partition_remove()

Please see the doxygen documentation of these APIs for details.

In addition to implementing these APIs, there are some other tasks as well:

• _new_thread() needs to spawn threads with K_USER in user mode

• On context switch, the outgoing thread’s stack memory should be marked inaccessible to user mode by making the appropriate configuration changes in the memory management hardware.. The incoming thread’s stack memory should likewise be marked as accessible. This ensures that threads can’t mess with other thread stacks.

• On context switch, the system needs to switch between memory domains for the incoming and outgoing threads.

• Thread stack areas must include a kernel stack region. This should be inaccessible to user threads at all times. This stack will be used when system calls are made. This should be fixed size for all threads, and must be large enough to handle any system call.

• A software interrupt or some kind of privilege elevation mechanism needs to be established. This is closely tied to how the _arch_syscall_invoke macros are implemented. On system call, the appropriate handler function needs to be looked up in _k_syscall_table. Bad system call IDs should jump to the K_SYSCALL_BAD handler. Upon completion of the system call, care must be taken not to leak any register state back to user mode.

GDB Stub

To enable GDB stub for remote debugging on a new architecture:

1. Create a new gdbstub.h header file under appropriate architecture include directory (include/arch/<arch>/gdbstub.h).

   • Create a new struct struct gdb_ctx as the GDB context.

     • Must define a member named exception of type unsigned int to store the GDB exception reason. This value needs to be set before entering z_gdb_main_loop().

     • Architecture can define as many members as needed for GDB stub to function.

     • Pointer to this struct needs to be passed to z_gdb_main_loop(), where this pointer will be passed to other GDB stub functions.

2. Functions for entering and exiting GDB stub main loop.

   • If the architecture relies on interrupts to service breakpoints, interrupt service routines (ISR) need to be implemented, which will serve as the entry point to GDB stub main loop.

   • These functions need to save and restore context so code execution can continue as if no breakpoints have been encountered.

   • These functions need to call z_gdb_main_loop() after saving execution context to go into the GDB stub main loop to receive commands from GDB.

   • Before calling z_gdb_main_loop(), gdb_ctx.exception must be set to specify the exception reason.

3. Implementat necessary functions to support GDB stub functionality:

   • arch_gdb_init()

     • This needs to initialize necessary bits to support GDB stub functionality, for example, setting up the GDB context and connecting debug interrupts.

     • This must stop code execution via architecture specific method (e.g. raising debug interrupts). This allows GDB to connect during boot.

   • arch_gdb_continue()

     • This function is called when GDB sends a c or continue command to continue code execution.

   • arch_gdb_step()

     • This function is called when GDB sends a si or stepi command to execute one machine instruction, before returning to GDB prompt.

   • Hardware register read/write functions:

     • Since the GDB stub is running on the target, manipulation of hardware registers need to cached to avoid affecting the execution of GDB stub. Think of it as context switching, where the execution context is changed to the GDB stub. So that the register values of the running thread before context switch need to be stored. Manipulation of register values must only be done to this cached copy. The updated values will then be written to hardware registers before switching back to the previous running thread.

     • arch_gdb_reg_readall()

       • This collects all hardware register values that would appear in a g/G packets which will be sent back to GDB. The format of the G-packet is architecture specific. Consult GDB on what is expected.

       • Note that, for most architectures, a valid G-packet must be returned and sent to GDB. If a packet without incorrect length is sent to GDB, GDB will abort the debugging session.

     • arch_gdb_reg_writeall()

       • This takes a G-packet sent by GDB and populates the hardware registers with values from the G-packet.

     • arch_gdb_reg_readone()

       • This reads the value of one hardware register and sends the result to GDB.

     • arch_gdb_reg_writeone()

       • This writes the value of one hardware register received from GDB.

   • Breakpoints:

     • arch_gdb_add_breakpoint() and arch_gdb_remove_breakpoint()

     • GDB may decide to use software breakpoints which modifies the memory at the breakpoint locations to replace the instruction with software breakpoint or trap instructions. GDB will then restore the memory content once execution reaches the breakpoints. GDB supports this by default and there is usually no need to handle software breakpoints in the architecture code (where breakpoint type is 0).

     • Hardware breakpoints (type 1) are required if the code is in ROM or flash that cannot be modified at runtime. Consult the architecture datasheet on how to enable hardware breakpoints.

     • If hardware breakpoints are not supported by the architecture, there is no need to implement these in architecture code. GDB will then rely on software breakpoints.

4. For architecture where certain memory regions are not accessible, an array named gdb_mem_region_array of type gdb_mem_region needs to be defined to specify regions that are accessible. For each array item:

   • gdb_mem_region.start specifies the start of a memory region.

   • gdb_mem_region.end specifies the end of a memory region.

   • gdb_mem_region.attribites specifies the permission of a memory region.

     • GDB_MEM_REGION_RO: region is read-only.

     • GDB_MEM_REGION_RW: region is read-write.

   • gdb_mem_region.alignment specifies read/write alignment of a memory region. Use 0 if there is no alignment requirement and read/write can be done byte-by-byte.

API Reference

Timing

group arch-timing

Unnamed Group

void arch_timing_init(void)

Initialize the timing subsystem.

Perform the necessary steps to initialize the timing subsystem.

See also

timing_init()

void arch_timing_start(void)

Signal the start of the timing information gathering.

Signal to the timing subsystem that timing information will be gathered from this point forward.

See also

timing_start()

void arch_timing_stop(void)

Signal the end of the timing information gathering.

Signal to the timing subsystem that timing information is no longer being gathered from this point forward.

See also

timing_stop()

timing_t arch_timing_counter_get(void)

Return timing counter.

See also

timing_counter_get()

Returns

Timing counter.

uint64_t arch_timing_cycles_get(volatile timing_t *const start, volatile timing_t *const end)

Get number of cycles between start and end.

For some architectures or SoCs, the raw numbers from counter need to be scaled to obtain actual number of cycles.

See also

timing_cycles_get()

Parameters

• start – Pointer to counter at start of a measured execution.

• end – Pointer to counter at stop of a measured execution.

Returns

Number of cycles between start and end.

uint64_t arch_timing_freq_get(void)

Get frequency of counter used (in Hz).

See also

timing_freq_get()

Returns

Frequency of counter used for timing in Hz.

uint64_t arch_timing_cycles_to_ns(uint64_t cycles)

Convert number of cycles into nanoseconds.

See also

timing_cycles_to_ns()

Parameters

• cycles – Number of cycles

Returns

Converted time value

uint64_t arch_timing_cycles_to_ns_avg(uint64_t cycles, uint32_t count)

Convert number of cycles into nanoseconds with averaging.

See also

timing_cycles_to_ns_avg()

Parameters

• cycles – Number of cycles

• count – Times of accumulated cycles to average over

Returns

Converted time value

uint32_t arch_timing_freq_get_mhz(void)

Get frequency of counter used (in MHz).

See also

timing_freq_get_mhz()

Returns

Frequency of counter used for timing in MHz.

Functions

static inline uint32_t arch_k_cycle_get_32(void)

Obtain the current cycle count, in units that are hardware-specific

See also

k_cycle_get_32()

static inline uint64_t arch_k_cycle_get_64(void)

Obtain the current cycle count, in units that are hardware-specific

See also

k_cycle_get_64()

void arch_busy_wait(uint32_t usec_to_wait)

Architecture-specific implementation of busy-waiting

Parameters

• usec_to_wait – Wait period, in microseconds

Threads

group arch-threads

Functions

void arch_new_thread(struct k_thread *thread, k_thread_stack_t *stack, char *stack_ptr, k_thread_entry_t entry, void *p1, void *p2, void *p3)

Handle arch-specific logic for setting up new threads

The stack and arch-specific thread state variables must be set up such that a later attempt to switch to this thread will succeed and we will enter z_thread_entry with the requested thread and arguments as its parameters.

At some point in this function’s implementation, z_setup_new_thread() must be called with the true bounds of the available stack buffer within the thread’s stack object.

The provided stack pointer is guaranteed to be properly aligned with respect to the CPU and ABI requirements. There may be space reserved between the stack pointer and the bounds of the stack buffer for initial stack pointer randomization and thread-local storage.

Fields in thread->base will be initialized when this is called.

Parameters

• thread – Pointer to uninitialized struct k_thread

• stack – Pointer to the stack object

• stack_ptr – Aligned initial stack pointer

• entry – Thread entry function

• p1 – 1st entry point parameter

• p2 – 2nd entry point parameter

• p3 – 3rd entry point parameter

static inline void arch_switch(void *switch_to, void **switched_from)

Cooperative context switch primitive

The action of arch_switch() should be to switch to a new context passed in the first argument, and save a pointer to the current context into the address passed in the second argument.

The actual type and interpretation of the switch handle is specified by the architecture. It is the same data structure stored in the “switch_handle” field of a newly-created thread in arch_new_thread(), and passed to the kernel as the “interrupted” argument to z_get_next_switch_handle().

Note that on SMP systems, the kernel uses the store through the second pointer as a synchronization point to detect when a thread context is completely saved (so another CPU can know when it is safe to switch). This store must be done AFTER all relevant state is saved, and must include whatever memory barriers or cache management code is required to be sure another CPU will see the result correctly.

The simplest implementation of arch_switch() is generally to push state onto the thread stack and use the resulting stack pointer as the switch handle. Some architectures may instead decide to use a pointer into the thread struct as the “switch handle” type. These can legally assume that the second argument to arch_switch() is the address of the switch_handle field of struct thread_base and can use an offset on this value to find other parts of the thread struct. For example a (C pseudocode) implementation of arch_switch() might look like:

void arch_switch(void *switch_to, void **switched_from) { struct k_thread *new = switch_to; struct k_thread *old = CONTAINER_OF(switched_from, struct k_thread, switch_handle);

// save old context… *switched_from = old; // restore new context… }

Note that the kernel manages the switch_handle field for synchronization as described above. So it is not legal for architecture code to assume that it has any particular value at any other time. In particular it is not legal to read the field from the address passed in the second argument.

Parameters

• switch_to – Incoming thread’s switch handle

• switched_from – Pointer to outgoing thread’s switch handle storage location, which must be updated.

void arch_switch_to_main_thread(struct k_thread *main_thread, char *stack_ptr, k_thread_entry_t _main)

Custom logic for entering main thread context at early boot

Used by architectures where the typical trick of setting up a dummy thread in early boot context to “switch out” of isn’t workable.

Parameters

• main_thread – main thread object

• stack_ptr – Initial stack pointer

• _main – Entry point for application main function.

int arch_float_disable(struct k_thread *thread)

Disable floating point context preservation.

The function is used to disable the preservation of floating point context information for a particular thread.

Note

For ARM architecture, disabling floating point preservation may only be requested for the current thread and cannot be requested in ISRs.

Return values

• 0 – On success.

• -EINVAL – If the floating point disabling could not be performed.

• -ENOTSUP – If the operation is not supported

int arch_float_enable(struct k_thread *thread, unsigned int options)

Enable floating point context preservation.

The function is used to enable the preservation of floating point context information for a particular thread. This API depends on each architecture implimentation. If the architecture does not support enabling, this API will always be failed.

The options parameter indicates which floating point register sets will be used by the specified thread. Currently it is used by x86 only.

Parameters

• thread – ID of thread.

• options – architecture dependent options

Return values

• 0 – On success.

• -EINVAL – If the floating point enabling could not be performed.

• -ENOTSUP – If the operation is not supported

group arch-tls

Functions

size_t arch_tls_stack_setup(struct k_thread *new_thread, char *stack_ptr)

Setup Architecture-specific TLS area in stack.

This sets up the stack area for thread local storage. The structure inside in area is architecture specific.

Parameters

• new_thread – New thread object

• stack_ptr – Stack pointer

Returns

Number of bytes taken by the TLS area

Power Management

group arch-pm

Functions

void arch_cpu_idle(void)

Power save idle routine.

This function will be called by the kernel idle loop or possibly within an implementation of z_pm_save_idle in the kernel when the ‘_pm_save_flag’ variable is non-zero.

Architectures that do not implement power management instructions may immediately return, otherwise a power-saving instruction should be issued to wait for an interrupt.

See also

k_cpu_idle()

Note

The function is expected to return after the interrupt that has caused the CPU to exit power-saving mode has been serviced, although this is not a firm requirement.

void arch_cpu_atomic_idle(unsigned int key)

Atomically re-enable interrupts and enter low power mode.

The requirements for arch_cpu_atomic_idle() are as follows:

1. Enabling interrupts and entering a low-power mode needs to be atomic, i.e. there should be no period of time where interrupts are enabled before the processor enters a low-power mode. See the comments in k_lifo_get(), for example, of the race condition that occurs if this requirement is not met.

2. After waking up from the low-power mode, the interrupt lockout state must be restored as indicated in the ‘key’ input parameter.

See also

k_cpu_atomic_idle()

Parameters

• key – Lockout key returned by previous invocation of arch_irq_lock()

FUNC_NORETURN void arch_system_halt(unsigned int reason)

Halt the system, optionally propagating a reason code

Symmetric Multi-Processing

group arch-smp

Typedefs

typedef FUNC_NORETURN void (*arch_cpustart_t)(void *data)

Per-cpu entry function

Param data

context parameter, implementation specific

Functions

void arch_start_cpu(int cpu_num, k_thread_stack_t *stack, int sz, arch_cpustart_t fn, void *arg)

Start a numbered CPU on a MP-capable system.

This starts and initializes a specific CPU. The main thread on startup is running on CPU zero, other processors are numbered sequentially. On return from this function, the CPU is known to have begun operating and will enter the provided function. Its interrupts will be initialized but disabled such that irq_unlock() with the provided key will work to enable them.

Normally, in SMP mode this function will be called by the kernel initialization and should not be used as a user API. But it is defined here for special-purpose apps which want Zephyr running on one core and to use others for design-specific processing.

Parameters

• cpu_num – Integer number of the CPU

• stack – Stack memory for the CPU

• sz – Stack buffer size, in bytes

• fn – Function to begin running on the CPU.

• arg – Untyped argument to be passed to “fn”

bool arch_cpu_active(int cpu_num)

Return CPU power status.

Parameters

• cpu_num – Integer number of the CPU

static inline struct _cpu *arch_curr_cpu(void)

Return the CPU struct for the currently executing CPU

void arch_sched_ipi(void)

Broadcast an interrupt to all CPUs

This will invoke z_sched_ipi() on other CPUs in the system.

Interrupts

group arch-irq

Functions

static inline unsigned int arch_irq_lock(void)

Lock interrupts on the current CPU

See also

irq_lock()

static inline void arch_irq_unlock(unsigned int key)

Unlock interrupts on the current CPU

See also

irq_unlock()

static inline bool arch_irq_unlocked(unsigned int key)

Test if calling arch_irq_unlock() with this key would unlock irqs

Parameters

• key – value returned by arch_irq_lock()

Returns

true if interrupts were unlocked prior to the arch_irq_lock() call that produced the key argument.

void arch_irq_disable(unsigned int irq)

Disable the specified interrupt line

See also

irq_disable()

Note

: The behavior of interrupts that arrive after this call returns and before the corresponding call to arch_irq_enable() is undefined. The hardware is not required to latch and deliver such an interrupt, though on some architectures that may work. Other architectures will simply lose such an interrupt and never deliver it. Many drivers and subsystems are not tolerant of such dropped interrupts and it is the job of the application layer to ensure that behavior remains correct.

void arch_irq_enable(unsigned int irq)

Enable the specified interrupt line

See also

irq_enable()

int arch_irq_is_enabled(unsigned int irq)

Test if an interrupt line is enabled

See also

irq_is_enabled()

int arch_irq_connect_dynamic(unsigned int irq, unsigned int priority, void (*routine)(const void *parameter), const void *parameter, uint32_t flags)

Arch-specific hook to install a dynamic interrupt.

Parameters

• irq – IRQ line number

• priority – Interrupt priority

• routine – Interrupt service routine

• parameter – ISR parameter

• flags – Arch-specific IRQ configuration flag

Returns

The vector assigned to this interrupt

unsigned int arch_irq_allocate(void)

Arch-specific hook for allocating IRQs.

Note: disable/enable IRQ relevantly inside the implementation of such function to avoid concurrency issues. Also, an allocated IRQ is assumed to be used thus a following

See also

arch_irq_is_used() should return true.

Returns

The newly allocated IRQ or UINT_MAX on error.

void arch_irq_set_used(unsigned int irq)

Arch-specific hook for declaring an IRQ being used.

Note: disable/enable IRQ relevantly inside the implementation of such function to avoid concurrency issues.

Parameters

• irq – the IRQ to declare being used

bool arch_irq_is_used(unsigned int irq)

Arch-specific hook for checking if an IRQ is being used already.

Parameters

• irq – the IRQ to check

Returns

true if being, false otherwise

static inline bool arch_is_in_isr(void)

Test if the current context is in interrupt context

XXX: This is inconsistently handled among arches wrt exception context See: #17656

Returns

true if we are in interrupt context

Userspace

group arch-userspace

Functions

static inline uintptr_t arch_syscall_invoke0(uintptr_t call_id)

Invoke a system call with 0 arguments.

No general-purpose register state other than return value may be preserved when transitioning from supervisor mode back down to user mode for security reasons.

It is required that all arguments be stored in registers when elevating privileges from user to supervisor mode.

Processing of the syscall takes place on a separate kernel stack. Interrupts should be enabled when invoking the system call marshallers from the dispatch table. Thread preemption may occur when handling system calls.

Call ids are untrusted and must be bounds-checked, as the value is used to index the system call dispatch table, containing function pointers to the specific system call code.

Parameters

• call_id – System call ID

Returns

Return value of the system call. Void system calls return 0 here.

static inline uintptr_t arch_syscall_invoke1(uintptr_t arg1, uintptr_t call_id)

Invoke a system call with 1 argument.

See also

arch_syscall_invoke0()

Parameters

• arg1 – First argument to the system call.

• call_id – System call ID, will be bounds-checked and used to reference kernel-side dispatch table

Returns

Return value of the system call. Void system calls return 0 here.

static inline uintptr_t arch_syscall_invoke2(uintptr_t arg1, uintptr_t arg2, uintptr_t call_id)

Invoke a system call with 2 arguments.

See also

arch_syscall_invoke0()

Parameters

• arg1 – First argument to the system call.

• arg2 – Second argument to the system call.

• call_id – System call ID, will be bounds-checked and used to reference kernel-side dispatch table

Returns

Return value of the system call. Void system calls return 0 here.

static inline uintptr_t arch_syscall_invoke3(uintptr_t arg1, uintptr_t arg2, uintptr_t arg3, uintptr_t call_id)

Invoke a system call with 3 arguments.

See also

arch_syscall_invoke0()

Parameters

• arg1 – First argument to the system call.

• arg2 – Second argument to the system call.

• arg3 – Third argument to the system call.

• call_id – System call ID, will be bounds-checked and used to reference kernel-side dispatch table

Returns

Return value of the system call. Void system calls return 0 here.

static inline uintptr_t arch_syscall_invoke4(uintptr_t arg1, uintptr_t arg2, uintptr_t arg3, uintptr_t arg4, uintptr_t call_id)

Invoke a system call with 4 arguments.

See also

arch_syscall_invoke0()

Parameters

• arg1 – First argument to the system call.

• arg2 – Second argument to the system call.

• arg3 – Third argument to the system call.

• arg4 – Fourth argument to the system call.

• call_id – System call ID, will be bounds-checked and used to reference kernel-side dispatch table

Returns

Return value of the system call. Void system calls return 0 here.

static inline uintptr_t arch_syscall_invoke5(uintptr_t arg1, uintptr_t arg2, uintptr_t arg3, uintptr_t arg4, uintptr_t arg5, uintptr_t call_id)

Invoke a system call with 5 arguments.

See also

arch_syscall_invoke0()

Parameters

• arg1 – First argument to the system call.

• arg2 – Second argument to the system call.

• arg3 – Third argument to the system call.

• arg4 – Fourth argument to the system call.

• arg5 – Fifth argument to the system call.

• call_id – System call ID, will be bounds-checked and used to reference kernel-side dispatch table

Returns

Return value of the system call. Void system calls return 0 here.

static inline uintptr_t arch_syscall_invoke6(uintptr_t arg1, uintptr_t arg2, uintptr_t arg3, uintptr_t arg4, uintptr_t arg5, uintptr_t arg6, uintptr_t call_id)

Invoke a system call with 6 arguments.

See also

arch_syscall_invoke0()

Parameters

• arg1 – First argument to the system call.

• arg2 – Second argument to the system call.

• arg3 – Third argument to the system call.

• arg4 – Fourth argument to the system call.

• arg5 – Fifth argument to the system call.

• arg6 – Sixth argument to the system call.

• call_id – System call ID, will be bounds-checked and used to reference kernel-side dispatch table

Returns

Return value of the system call. Void system calls return 0 here.

static inline bool arch_is_user_context(void)

Indicate whether we are currently running in user mode

Returns

true if the CPU is currently running with user permissions

int arch_mem_domain_max_partitions_get(void)

Get the maximum number of partitions for a memory domain.

Returns

Max number of partitions, or -1 if there is no limit

int arch_buffer_validate(void *addr, size_t size, int write)

Check memory region permissions.

Given a memory region, return whether the current memory management hardware configuration would allow a user thread to read/write that region. Used by system calls to validate buffers coming in from userspace.

Notes: The function is guaranteed to never return validation success, if the entire buffer area is not user accessible.

The function is guaranteed to correctly validate the permissions of the supplied buffer, if the user access permissions of the entire buffer are enforced by a single, enabled memory management region.

In some architectures the validation will always return failure if the supplied memory buffer spans multiple enabled memory management regions (even if all such regions permit user access).

Warning

0 size buffer has undefined behavior.

Parameters

• addr – start address of the buffer

• size – the size of the buffer

• write – If nonzero, additionally check if the area is writable. Otherwise, just check if the memory can be read.

Returns

nonzero if the permissions don’t match.

size_t arch_virt_region_align(uintptr_t phys, size_t size)

Get the optimal virtual region alignment to optimize the MMU table layout

Some MMU HW requires some region to be aligned to some of the intermediate block alignment in order to reduce table usage. This call returns the optimal virtual address alignment in order to permit such optimization in the following MMU mapping call.

Parameters

• phys – [in] Physical address of region to be mapped, aligned to MMU_PAGE_SIZE

• size – [in] Size of region to be mapped, aligned to MMU_PAGE_SIZE

Return values

alignment – to apply on the virtual address of this region

FUNC_NORETURN void arch_user_mode_enter(k_thread_entry_t user_entry, void *p1, void *p2, void *p3)

Perform a one-way transition from supervisor to kernel mode.

Implementations of this function must do the following:

• Reset the thread’s stack pointer to a suitable initial value. We do not need any prior context since this is a one-way operation.

• Set up any kernel stack region for the CPU to use during privilege elevation

• Put the CPU in whatever its equivalent of user mode is

• Transfer execution to arch_new_thread() passing along all the supplied arguments, in user mode.

Parameters

• user_entry – Entry point to start executing as a user thread

• p1 – 1st parameter to user thread

• p2 – 2nd parameter to user thread

• p3 – 3rd parameter to user thread

FUNC_NORETURN void arch_syscall_oops(void *ssf)

Induce a kernel oops that appears to come from a specific location.

Normally, k_oops() generates an exception that appears to come from the call site of the k_oops() itself.

However, when validating arguments to a system call, if there are problems we want the oops to appear to come from where the system call was invoked and not inside the validation function.

Parameters

• ssf – System call stack frame pointer. This gets passed as an argument to _k_syscall_handler_t functions and its contents are completely architecture specific.

size_t arch_user_string_nlen(const char *s, size_t maxsize, int *err)

Safely take the length of a potentially bad string.

This must not fault, instead the err parameter must have -1 written to it. This function otherwise should work exactly like libc strnlen(). On success *err should be set to 0.

Parameters

• s – String to measure

• maxsize – Max length of the string

• err – Error value to write

Returns

Length of the string, not counting NULL byte, up to maxsize

static inline bool arch_mem_coherent(void *ptr)

Detect memory coherence type.

Required when ARCH_HAS_COHERENCE is true. This function returns true if the byte pointed to lies within an architecture-defined “coherence region” (typically implemented with uncached memory) and can safely be used in multiprocessor code without explicit flush or invalidate operations.

Note

The result is for only the single byte at the specified address, this API is not required to check region boundaries or to expect aligned pointers. The expectation is that the code above will have queried the appropriate address(es).

static inline void arch_cohere_stacks(struct k_thread *old_thread, void *old_switch_handle, struct k_thread *new_thread)

Ensure cache coherence prior to context switch.

Required when ARCH_HAS_COHERENCE is true. On cache-incoherent multiprocessor architectures, thread stacks are cached by default for performance reasons. They must therefore be flushed appropriately on context switch. The rules are:

1. The region containing live data in the old stack (generally the bytes between the current stack pointer and the top of the stack memory) must be flushed to underlying storage so a new CPU that runs the same thread sees the correct data. This must happen before the assignment of the switch_handle field in the thread struct which signals the completion of context switch.

2. Any data areas to be read from the new stack (generally the same as the live region when it was saved) should be invalidated (and NOT flushed!) in the data cache. This is because another CPU may have run or re-initialized the thread since this CPU suspended it, and any data present in cache will be stale.

• old_thread The old thread to be flushed before being allowed to run on other CPUs.

• old_switch_handle The switch handle to be stored into old_thread (it will not be valid until the cache is flushed so is not present yet). This will be NULL if inside z_swap() (because the arch_switch() has not saved it yet).

• new_thread The new thread to be invalidated before it runs locally.

Note

The kernel will call this function during interrupt exit when a new thread has been chosen to run, and also immediately before entering arch_switch() to effect a code-driven context switch. In the latter case, it is very likely that more data will be written to the old_thread stack region after this function returns but before the completion of the switch. Simply flushing naively here is not sufficient on many architectures and coordination with the arch_switch() implementation is likely required.

Memory Management

group arch-mmu

Defines

ARCH_DATA_PAGE_ACCESSED

Bit indicating the data page was accessed since the value was last cleared.

Used by marking eviction algorithms. Safe to set this if uncertain.

This bit is undefined if ARCH_DATA_PAGE_LOADED is not set.

ARCH_DATA_PAGE_DIRTY

Bit indicating the data page, if evicted, will need to be paged out.

Set if the data page was modified since it was last paged out, or if it has never been paged out before. Safe to set this if uncertain.

This bit is undefined if ARCH_DATA_PAGE_LOADED is not set.

ARCH_DATA_PAGE_LOADED

Bit indicating that the data page is loaded into a physical page frame.

If un-set, the data page is paged out or not mapped.

ARCH_DATA_PAGE_NOT_MAPPED

If ARCH_DATA_PAGE_LOADED is un-set, this will indicate that the page is not mapped at all. This bit is undefined if ARCH_DATA_PAGE_LOADED is set.

Enums

enum arch_page_location

Values:

enumerator ARCH_PAGE_LOCATION_PAGED_OUT

enumerator ARCH_PAGE_LOCATION_PAGED_IN

enumerator ARCH_PAGE_LOCATION_BAD

Functions

void arch_mem_map(void *virt, uintptr_t phys, size_t size, uint32_t flags)

Map physical memory into the virtual address space

This is a low-level interface to mapping pages into the address space. Behavior when providing unaligned addresses/sizes is undefined, these are assumed to be aligned to CONFIG_MMU_PAGE_SIZE.

The core kernel handles all management of the virtual address space; by the time we invoke this function, we know exactly where this mapping will be established. If the page tables already had mappings installed for the virtual memory region, these will be overwritten.

If the target architecture supports multiple page sizes, currently only the smallest page size will be used.

The memory range itself is never accessed by this operation.

This API must be safe to call in ISRs or exception handlers. Calls to this API are assumed to be serialized, and indeed all usage will originate from kernel/mm.c which handles virtual memory management.

Architectures are expected to pre-allocate page tables for the entire address space, as defined by CONFIG_KERNEL_VM_BASE and CONFIG_KERNEL_VM_SIZE. This operation should never require any kind of allocation for paging structures.

Validation of arguments should be done via assertions.

This API is part of infrastructure still under development and may change.

Parameters

• virt – Page-aligned Destination virtual address to map

• phys – Page-aligned Source physical address to map

• size – Page-aligned size of the mapped memory region in bytes

• flags – Caching, access and control flags, see K_MAP_* macros

void arch_mem_unmap(void *addr, size_t size)

Remove mappings for a provided virtual address range

This is a low-level interface for un-mapping pages from the address space. When this completes, the relevant page table entries will be updated as if no mapping was ever made for that memory range. No previous context needs to be preserved. This function must update mappings in all active page tables.

Behavior when providing unaligned addresses/sizes is undefined, these are assumed to be aligned to CONFIG_MMU_PAGE_SIZE.

Behavior when providing an address range that is not already mapped is undefined.

This function should never require memory allocations for paging structures, and it is not necessary to free any paging structures. Empty page tables due to all contained entries being un-mapped may remain in place.

Implementations must invalidate TLBs as necessary.

This API is part of infrastructure still under development and may change.

Parameters

• addr – Page-aligned base virtual address to un-map

• size – Page-aligned region size

int arch_page_phys_get(void *virt, uintptr_t *phys)

Get the mapped physical memory address from virtual address.

The function only needs to query the current set of page tables as the information it reports must be common to all of them if multiple page tables are in use. If multiple page tables are active it is unnecessary to iterate over all of them.

Unless otherwise specified, virtual pages have the same mappings across all page tables. Calling this function on data pages that are exceptions to this rule (such as the scratch page) is undefined behavior. Just check the currently installed page tables and return the information in that.

Parameters

• virt – Page-aligned virtual address

• phys – [out] Mapped physical address (can be NULL if only checking if virtual address is mapped)

Return values

• 0 – if mapping is found and valid

• -EFAULT – if virtual address is not mapped

void arch_reserved_pages_update(void)

Update page frame database with reserved pages

Some page frames within system RAM may not be available for use. A good example of this is reserved regions in the first megabyte on PC-like systems.

Implementations of this function should mark all relavent entries in z_page_frames with K_PAGE_FRAME_RESERVED. This function is called at early system initialization with mm_lock held.

void arch_mem_page_out(void *addr, uintptr_t location)

Update all page tables for a paged-out data page

This function:

• Sets the data page virtual address to trigger a fault if accessed that can be distinguished from access violations or un-mapped pages.

• Saves the provided location value so that it can retrieved for that data page in the page fault handler.

• The location value semantics are undefined here but the value will be always be page-aligned. It could be 0.

If multiple page tables are in use, this must update all page tables. This function is called with interrupts locked.

Calling this function on data pages which are already paged out is undefined behavior.

This API is part of infrastructure still under development and may change.

void arch_mem_page_in(void *addr, uintptr_t phys)

Update all page tables for a paged-in data page

This function:

• Maps the specified virtual data page address to the provided physical page frame address, such that future memory accesses will function as expected. Access and caching attributes are undisturbed.

• Clears any accounting for “accessed” and “dirty” states.

If multiple page tables are in use, this must update all page tables. This function is called with interrupts locked.

Calling this function on data pages which are already paged in is undefined behavior.

This API is part of infrastructure still under development and may change.

void arch_mem_scratch(uintptr_t phys)

Update current page tables for a temporary mapping

Map a physical page frame address to a special virtual address Z_SCRATCH_PAGE, with read/write access to supervisor mode, such that when this function returns, the calling context can read/write the page frame’s contents from the Z_SCRATCH_PAGE address.

This mapping only needs to be done on the current set of page tables, as it is only used for a short period of time exclusively by the caller. This function is called with interrupts locked.

This API is part of infrastructure still under development and may change.

enum arch_page_location arch_page_location_get(void *addr, uintptr_t *location)

Fetch location information about a page at a particular address

The function only needs to query the current set of page tables as the information it reports must be common to all of them if multiple page tables are in use. If multiple page tables are active it is unnecessary to iterate over all of them. This may allow certain types of optimizations (such as reverse page table mapping on x86).

This function is called with interrupts locked, so that the reported information can’t become stale while decisions are being made based on it.

Unless otherwise specified, virtual data pages have the same mappings across all page tables. Calling this function on data pages that are exceptions to this rule (such as the scratch page) is undefined behavior. Just check the currently installed page tables and return the information in that.

Parameters

• addr – Virtual data page address that took the page fault

• location – [out] In the case of ARCH_PAGE_FAULT_PAGED_OUT, the backing store location value used to retrieve the data page. In the case of ARCH_PAGE_FAULT_PAGED_IN, the physical address the page is mapped to.

Return values

• ARCH_PAGE_FAULT_PAGED_OUT – The page was evicted to the backing store.

• ARCH_PAGE_FAULT_PAGED_IN – The data page is resident in memory.

• ARCH_PAGE_FAULT_BAD – The page is un-mapped or otherwise has had invalid access

uintptr_t arch_page_info_get(void *addr, uintptr_t *location, bool clear_accessed)

Retrieve page characteristics from the page table(s)

The architecture is responsible for maintaining “accessed” and “dirty” states of data pages to support marking eviction algorithms. This can either be directly supported by hardware or emulated by modifying protection policy to generate faults on reads or writes. In all cases the architecture must maintain this information in some way.

For the provided virtual address, report the logical OR of the accessed and dirty states for the relevant entries in all active page tables in the system if the page is mapped and not paged out.

If clear_accessed is true, the ARCH_DATA_PAGE_ACCESSED flag will be reset. This function will report its prior state. If multiple page tables are in use, this function clears accessed state in all of them.

This function is called with interrupts locked, so that the reported information can’t become stale while decisions are being made based on it.

The return value may have other bits set which the caller must ignore.

Clearing accessed state for data pages that are not ARCH_DATA_PAGE_LOADED is undefined behavior.

ARCH_DATA_PAGE_DIRTY and ARCH_DATA_PAGE_ACCESSED bits in the return value are only significant if ARCH_DATA_PAGE_LOADED is set, otherwise ignore them.

ARCH_DATA_PAGE_NOT_MAPPED bit in the return value is only significant if ARCH_DATA_PAGE_LOADED is un-set, otherwise ignore it.

Unless otherwise specified, virtual data pages have the same mappings across all page tables. Calling this function on data pages that are exceptions to this rule (such as the scratch page) is undefined behavior.

This API is part of infrastructure still under development and may change.

Parameters

• addr – Virtual address to look up in page tables

• location – [out] If non-NULL, updated with either physical page frame address or backing store location depending on ARCH_DATA_PAGE_LOADED state. This is not touched if ARCH_DATA_PAGE_NOT_MAPPED.

• clear_accessed – Whether to clear ARCH_DATA_PAGE_ACCESSED state

Return values

Value – with ARCH_DATA_PAGE_* bits set reflecting the data page configuration

Miscellaneous Architecture APIs

group arch-misc

Functions

int arch_printk_char_out(int c)

Early boot console output hook

Definition of this function is optional. If implemented, any invocation of printk() (or logging calls with CONFIG_LOG_MODE_MINIMAL which are backed by printk) will default to sending characters to this function. It is useful for early boot debugging before main serial or console drivers come up.

This can be overridden at runtime with __printk_hook_install().

The default __weak implementation of this does nothing.

Parameters

• c – Character to print

Returns

The character printed

static inline void arch_kernel_init(void)

Architecture-specific kernel initialization hook

This function is invoked near the top of _Cstart, for additional architecture-specific setup before the rest of the kernel is brought up.

TODO: Deprecate, most arches are using a prep_c() function to do the same thing in a simpler way

static inline void arch_nop(void)

Do nothing and return. Yawn.

GDB Stub APIs

group arch-gdbstub

Functions

void arch_gdb_init(void)

Architecture layer debug start.

This function is called by gdb_init()

void arch_gdb_continue(void)

Continue running program.

Continue software execution.

void arch_gdb_step(void)

Continue with one step.

Continue software execution until reaches the next statement.

size_t arch_gdb_reg_readall(struct gdb_ctx *ctx, uint8_t *buf, size_t buflen)

Read all registers, and outputs as hexadecimal string.

This reads all CPU registers and outputs as hexadecimal string. The output string must be parsable by GDB.

Parameters

• ctx – GDB context

• buf – Buffer to output hexadecimal string.

• buflen – Length of buffer.

Returns

Length of hexadecimal string written. Return 0 if error or not supported.

size_t arch_gdb_reg_writeall(struct gdb_ctx *ctx, uint8_t *hex, size_t hexlen)

Take a hexadecimal string and update all registers.

This takes in a hexadecimal string as presented from GDB, and updates all CPU registers with new values.

Parameters

• ctx – GDB context

• hex – Input hexadecimal string.

• hexlen – Length of hexadecimal string.

Returns

Length of hexadecimal string parsed. Return 0 if error or not supported.

size_t arch_gdb_reg_readone(struct gdb_ctx *ctx, uint8_t *buf, size_t buflen, uint32_t regno)

Read one register, and outputs as hexadecimal string.

This reads one CPU register and outputs as hexadecimal string. The output string must be parsable by GDB.

Parameters

• ctx – GDB context

• buf – Buffer to output hexadecimal string.

• buflen – Length of buffer.

• regno – Register number

Returns

Length of hexadecimal string written. Return 0 if error or not supported.

size_t arch_gdb_reg_writeone(struct gdb_ctx *ctx, uint8_t *hex, size_t hexlen, uint32_t regno)

Take a hexadecimal string and update one register.

This takes in a hexadecimal string as presented from GDB, and updates one CPU registers with new value.

Parameters

• ctx – GDB context

• hex – Input hexadecimal string.

• hexlen – Length of hexadecimal string.

• regno – Register number

Returns

Length of hexadecimal string parsed. Return 0 if error or not supported.

int arch_gdb_add_breakpoint(struct gdb_ctx *ctx, uint8_t type, uintptr_t addr, uint32_t kind)

Add breakpoint or watchpoint.

Parameters

• ctx – GDB context

• type – Breakpoint or watchpoint type

• addr – Address of breakpoint or watchpoint

• kind – Size of breakpoint/watchpoint in bytes

Return values

• 0 – Operation successful

• -1 – Error encountered

• -2 – Not supported

int arch_gdb_remove_breakpoint(struct gdb_ctx *ctx, uint8_t type, uintptr_t addr, uint32_t kind)

Remove breakpoint or watchpoint.

Parameters

• ctx – GDB context

• type – Breakpoint or watchpoint type

• addr – Address of breakpoint or watchpoint

• kind – Size of breakpoint/watchpoint in bytes

Return values

• 0 – Operation successful

• -1 – Error encountered

• -2 – Not supported