Kernel init

Kernel initialization

Kernel
initialization
Michael Opdenacker
Free Electrons

© Copyright 20072010, Free Electrons.
Creative Commons BYSA 3.0 license
Latest update: Dec 20, 2010,
Document sources, updates and translations:
http://freeelectrons.com/docs/kernelinit
Corrections, suggestions, contributions and translations are welcome!
1
Free Electrons. Kernel, drivers and embedded Linux development, consulting, training and support. http//freeelectrons.com

From bootloader to userspace

Bootloader
Low level hardware
initialization Kernel init process
System initialization
Fetch and copy
Linux kernel
initialization from userspace
to RAM

2

Kernel bootstrap (1)

How the kernel bootstraps itself appears in kernel building.
Example on ARM (pxa cpu) in Linux 2.6.36:

  ...
  LD      vmlinux
  SYSMAP  System.map
  SYSMAP  .tmp_System.map
  OBJCOPY arch/arm/boot/Image
  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/Image is ready
  AS      arch/arm/boot/compressed/head.o
  GZIP    arch/arm/boot/compressed/piggy.gzip
  AS      arch/arm/boot/compressed/piggy.gzip.o
  CC      arch/arm/boot/compressed/misc.o
  CC      arch/arm/boot/compressed/decompress.o
  AS      arch/arm/boot/compressed/headxscale.o
  SHIPPED arch/arm/boot/compressed/lib1funcs.S
  AS      arch/arm/boot/compressed/lib1funcs.o
  LD      arch/arm/boot/compressed/vmlinux
  OBJCOPY arch/arm/boot/zImage
  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/zImage is ready
  ...

3

Kernel bootstrap (2)
objcopy gzip as ld objcopy
piggy.gzip.S

piggy.gzip.o
Image
vmlinux piggy.gz
zImage
vmlinux
head.o
misc.o
Stripped Compressed headcpu.o
“Kernel proper”: kernel kernel
binary decompress.o
Raw kernel binary
executable (binary lib1funcs.o (in arch/<arch> Kernel image
object) boot/compressed) for bootloader
(ELF object)
Composite (binary object)
asm wrapper
Details found by compiling kernel image
around
with make V=1 (ELF object)
piggy.gzip.gz
+ bootstrap
code
4

Bootstrap code

head.o:
Architecture specific initialization code.
This is what is executed by the bootloader
headcpu.o (here headxscale.o):
CPU specific initialization code
decompress.o, misc.o:
Decompression code
lib1funcs.o:
Optimized ARM division routines (ARM only)

5

Bootstrap code tasks

Main work done by head.o:
Check the architecture, processor and machine type.
Configure the MMU, create page table entries
and enable virtual memory.
Calls the start_kernel function in init/main.c.
Same code for all architectures.
Anybody interesting in kernel startup should study this file!

6

start_kernel main actions

Calls setup_arch(&command_line)
(function defined in arch/<arch>/kernel/setup.c), copying
the command line from where the bootloader left it.
On arm, this function calls setup_processor
(in which CPU information is displayed) and setup_machine
(locating the machine in the list of supported machines).
Initializes the console as early as possible
(to get error messages)
Initializes many subsystems (see the code)
Eventually calls rest_init.

7

rest_init: starting the init process

Starting a new kernel thread which will later become the init process
static noinline void __init_refok rest_init(void)
        __releases(kernel_lock)
{
        int pid;
        rcu_scheduler_starting();
        /*
         * We need to spawn init first so that it obtains pid 1, however
         * the init task will end up wanting to create kthreads, which, if
         * we schedule it before we create kthreadd, will OOPS.
         */
        kernel_thread(kernel_init, NULL, CLONE_FS | CLONE_SIGHAND);
        numa_default_policy();
        pid = kernel_thread(kthreadd, NULL, CLONE_FS | CLONE_FILES);
        rcu_read_lock();
        kthreadd_task = find_task_by_pid_ns(pid, &init_pid_ns);
        rcu_read_unlock();
        complete(&kthreadd_done);
        /*
         * The boot idle thread must execute schedule()
         * at least once to get things moving:
         */
        init_idle_bootup_task(current);
        preempt_enable_no_resched();
        schedule();
        preempt_disable();
        /* Call into cpu_idle with preempt disabled */
        cpu_idle();
}

Source: Linux 2.6.36
8

kernel_init

kernel_init does two main things:
Call do_basic_setup
Now that kernel services are ready, start device initialization:
(Linux 2.6.36 code excerpt):
static void __init do_basic_setup(void)
{
        cpuset_init_smp();
        usermodehelper_init();
        init_tmpfs();
        driver_init();
        init_irq_proc();
        do_ctors();
        do_initcalls();
}

Call init_post
9

do_initcalls
Calls pluggable hooks registered with the macros below.
Advantage: the generic code doesn't have to know about them.

  /*
   * A "pure" initcall has no dependencies on anything else, and purely
   * initializes variables that couldn't be statically initialized.
   *
   * This only exists for builtin code, not for modules.
   */
  #define pure_initcall(fn)               __define_initcall("0",fn,1)

  #define core_initcall(fn)               __define_initcall("1",fn,1)
  #define core_initcall_sync(fn)          __define_initcall("1s",fn,1s)
  #define postcore_initcall(fn)           __define_initcall("2",fn,2)
  #define postcore_initcall_sync(fn)      __define_initcall("2s",fn,2s)
  #define arch_initcall(fn)               __define_initcall("3",fn,3)
  #define arch_initcall_sync(fn)          __define_initcall("3s",fn,3s)
  #define subsys_initcall(fn)             __define_initcall("4",fn,4)
  #define subsys_initcall_sync(fn)        __define_initcall("4s",fn,4s)
  #define fs_initcall(fn)                 __define_initcall("5",fn,5)
  #define fs_initcall_sync(fn)            __define_initcall("5s",fn,5s)
  #define rootfs_initcall(fn)             __define_initcall("rootfs",fn,rootfs)
  #define device_initcall(fn)             __define_initcall("6",fn,6)
  #define device_initcall_sync(fn)        __define_initcall("6s",fn,6s)
  #define late_initcall(fn)               __define_initcall("7",fn,7)
  #define late_initcall_sync(fn)          __define_initcall("7s",fn,7s)

Defined in include/linux/init.h
10

initcall example

From arch/arm/machpxa/lpd270.c (Linux 2.6.36)

static int __init lpd270_irq_device_init(void)
{
        int ret = ENODEV;
        if (machine_is_logicpd_pxa270()) {
                ret = sysdev_class_register(&lpd270_irq_sysclass);
                if (ret == 0)
                        ret = sysdev_register(&lpd270_irq_device);
        }
        return ret;
}

device_initcall(lpd270_irq_device_init);

11

init_post

The last step of Linux booting
First tries to open a console
Then tries to run the init process,
effectively turning the current kernel thread
into the userspace init process.

12

init_post code
static noinline int init_post(void)
        __releases(kernel_lock)
{
        /* need to finish all async __init code before freeing the memory */
        async_synchronize_full();
        free_initmem(); Source:
        mark_rodata_ro();
        system_state = SYSTEM_RUNNING;
        numa_default_policy();
init/main.c
in Linux 2.6.36
        current>signal>flags |= SIGNAL_UNKILLABLE;

        if (ramdisk_execute_command) {
                run_init_process(ramdisk_execute_command);
                printk(KERN_WARNING "Failed to execute %sn",
                                ramdisk_execute_command);
        }

        /*
         * We try each of these until one succeeds.
         *
         * The Bourne shell can be used instead of init if we are
         * trying to recover a really broken machine.
         */
        if (execute_command) {
                run_init_process(execute_command);
                printk(KERN_WARNING "Failed to execute %s.  Attempting "
                                        "defaults...n", execute_command);
        }
        run_init_process("/sbin/init");
        run_init_process("/etc/init");
        run_init_process("/bin/init");
        run_init_process("/bin/sh");

        panic("No init found.  Try passing init= option to kernel. "
              "See Linux Documentation/init.txt for guidance.");
}

13

Kernel initialization graph

System System
Bootloader
initialization operation

head.o
(bootstrap code)

cpu_idle
kernel_init
(idle loop)
start_kernel

rest_init init_post init process

14

Kernel initialization What to remember

The bootloader executes Initializes the console.
bootstrap code. Initializes kernel services
Bootstrap code initializes (memory allocation,
the processor and board, scheduling, file cache...)
and uncompresses the Creates a new kernel thread
kernel code to RAM, and (future init process) and
calls the kernel's continues in the idle loop.
start_kernel function.
Initializes devices and
Copies the command line execute initcalls.
from the bootloader.
Identifies the processor and
machine.

15

Related documents

All our technical presentations
on http://freeelectrons.com/docs

Linux kernel
Device drivers
Architecture specifics
Embedded Linux system development


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