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Several people have expressed interested in a port of GNU/Hurd for the ARM
architecture.
# IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2012-07-28
<mcsim> Has anyone heard about porting hurd and gnu/mach to arm
architecture?
<braunr> mcsim: i think so
<braunr> mcsim: why are you asking ?
<mcsim> I found an article where author stated that he has ported hurd to
arm, but I have never met this information before.
<mcsim> He wrote ethernet driver and managed to use ping command
<mcsim> author's name is Sartakov Vasily
<braunr> well that's possible, a long time ago
<braunr> and it was probably not complete enough to be merged upstream
<braunr> like many other attempts at many other things
<mcsim> Not so long. Article is dated by June 2011.
<braunr> do you have a link ?
<mcsim> Yes, but it is in Russian.
<braunr> oh
<braunr> well i don't remember him sharing that with us
<antrik> mcsim: he did some work on porting Mach, but AIUI never got it
nearly finished
<antrik> nowadays he does L4 stuff
<antrik> was also at FOSDEM
## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2012-10-09
<mcsim> bootinfdsds: There was an unfinished port to arm, if you're
interested.
<tschwinge> mcsim: Has that ever been published?
<mcsim> tschwinge: I don't think so. But I have an email of that person and
I think that this could be discussed with him.
## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2012-10-10
<tschwinge> mcsim: If you have a contact to the ARM porter, could you
please ask him to post what he has?
<antrik> tschwinge: we all have the "contact" -- let me remind you that he
posted his questions to the list...
## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2012-10-17
<mcsim> tschwinge: Hello. The person who I wrote regarding arm port of
gnumach still hasn't answered. And I don't think that he is going to
answer.
# IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2012-11-15
<matty3269> Well, I have a big interest in the ARM architecture, I worked
at ARM for a bit too, and I've written my own little OS that runs on
qemu. Is there an interest in getting hurd running on ARM?
<braunr> matty3269: not really currently
<braunr> but if that's what you want to do, sure
<tschwinge> matty3269: Well, interest -- sure!, but we don't really have
people savvy in low-level kernel implementation on ARM. I do know some
bits about it, but more about the instruction set than about its memory
architecture, for example.
<tschwinge> matty3269: But if you're feeling adventurous, by all means work
on it, and we'll try to help as we can.
<tschwinge> matty3269: There has been one previous attempt for an ARM port,
but that person never published his code, and apparently moved to a
different project.
<tschwinge> matty3269: I can help with toolchains (GCC, etc.) things for
ARM, if there's need.
<matty3269> tschwinge: That sounds great, thanks! Where would you recommend
I start (at the moment I've got Mach checked out and am trying to get it
compiled for i386)
<matty3269> I'm guessing that the Mach micro-kernel is all that would need
to be ported or are there arch-dependant bits of code in the server
processes?
<tschwinge> matty3269:
http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/faq/system_port.html has some
information. Mach is the biggest part, yes. Then some bits in glibc and
libpthread, and even less in the Hurd libraries and servers.
<tschwinge> matty3269: Basically, you'd need equivalents for the i386 (and
similar) directories, yep.
<tschwinge> Though, you may be able to avoid some cruft in there.
<tschwinge> Does building for x86 have any issues?
<tschwinge> matty3269: How is generally your understanding of the Hurd on
Mach system architecture, and on microkernel-based systems generally, and
on Mach in particular?
<matty3269> tschwinge: yes, it seems to be progressing... I've got mig
installed and it's just compiling now
<matty3269> hmm, not too great if I'm honest, I've done mostly monolithic
kernel development so having such low-level processes, such as
scheduling, done in user-space seems a little strinage
<tschwinge> Ah, yes, MIG will need a little bit of porting, too. I can
help with that, but that's not a priority -- first you have to get Mach
to boot at all; MIG will only be needed once you need to deal with RPCs,
so user-land/kernel interaction, basically. Before, you can hack around
it.
<matty3269> tschwinge: I have been running a GNU/Hurd system for a while
now though
<tschwinge> I'm happy to tell you that the schedules is still in the
kernel. ;-)
<tschwinge> OK, good, so you know about the basic ideas.
<braunr> matty3269: there has to be machine specific stuff in user space
<braunr> for initial thread contexts for example
<matty3269> tschwinge: Ok, just got gnumach built
<braunr> but there isn't much and you can easily base your work from the
x86 implementation
<tschwinge> Yes. Mach itself is the more difficult one.
<matty3269> braunr: Yeah, looking around at things, it doesn't seem that
there will be too much work involoved in the user-space stuff
<tschwinge> braunr: Do you know off-hand whether there are some old Mach
research papers describing architecture ports?
<tschwinge> I know there are some describing the memory system (obviously),
and I/O system -- which may help matty3269 to understand the general
design/structure.
<tschwinge> We might want to identify some documents, and make a list.
<braunr> all mach related documentation i have is available here:
ftp://ftp.sceen.net/mach/
<braunr> (also through http://)
<tschwinge> matty3269: Oh, definitely I'd suggest the Mach 3 Kernel
Principles book. That gives a good description of the Mach architecture.
<matty3269> Great, that's my weekends reading then!
<braunr> you don't need all that for a port
<matty3269> Is it possible to run the gnumach binary standalone with qemu?
<braunr> you won't go far with it
<braunr> you really need at least one program
<braunr> but sure, for a port development, it can easily be done
<braunr> i'd suggest writing a basic static application for your tests once
you reach an advanced state
<braunr> the critical parts of a port are memory and interrupts
<braunr> and memory can be particularly difficult to implement correctly
<tschwinge> matty3269: I once used QEMU's
virtual-FAT-filesystem-from-a-directory-on-the-host, and configured GRUB
to boot from that one, so it was easy to quickly reboot for kernel
development.
<braunr> but the good news is that almost every bsd system still uses a
similar interface
<tschwinge> matty3269: And, you may want to become familiar with QEMU's
built-in gdbserver, and how to connect to and use that.
<braunr> so, for example, you could base your work from the netbsd/arm pmap
module
<tschwinge> matty3269: I think that's better than starting on real
hardware.
<braunr> tschwinge: you can use -kernel with a multiboot binary now
<braunr> tschwinge: and even creating iso images is so fast it's not any
slower
<tschwinge> braunr: Yeah, I thought so, but never checked this out --
recently I saw in qemu --help's output some »multiboot« thing flashing
by. :-)
<braunr> i think it only supports 32-bits executables though
<matty3269> braunr: Yeah, I just tried passing gnumach as the -kernel
parameter to qemu, but it segged qemu :S
<braunr> otherwise i'd be using it for x15
<matty3269> qemu: fatal: Trying to execute code outside RAM or ROM at
0xc0100000
<braunr> how much ram did you give qemu ?
<matty3269> I used '-m 512'
<braunr> hum, so the -kernel option doesn't correctly implement elf loading
or something like that
<braunr> anyway, i'm not sure how well building gnumach on a non-hurd
system is supported
<braunr> so you may want to simply develop inside your VM for the time
being, and reboot
<matty3269> doing an objdump of it seems fine...
<braunr> ?
<braunr> ah, the gnumach executable is a correct elf image
<braunr> that's not the point
<matty3269> Is there particular reason that mach is linked at 0xc0100000?
<matty3269> or is that where it is expected to be in VM>
<tschwinge> That's my understanding.
<braunr> kernels commmonly sti at high addresses
<braunr> that's the "standard" 3G/1G split for user/kernel space
<matty3269> I think Linux sits at a similar VA for 32-bit
<braunr> no
<matty3269> Oh, I thought it did, I know it does on ARM, the kernel is
mapped to 0xc000000
<braunr> i don't know arm, but are you sure about this number ?
<braunr> seems to lack a 0
<matty3269> Ah, yes sorry
<matty3269> so 0xC0000000
<braunr> 0xc0100000 is just 1 MiB above it
<braunr> the .text section of linux on x86 actually starts at c1000000
(above 16 MiB, certainly to preserve as much dma-able memory since modern
machines now have a lot more)
<tschwinge> Surely the GRUB multiboot loader is not that much used/tested?
<braunr> unfortunately, no
<braunr> matty3269: FYI, my kernel starts at 0xfff00000 :p
<matty3269> braunr: hmm, you could be right, I know it's arround there
someone
<matty3269> somewhere*
<matty3269> braunr: that's an interesting address :S
<matty3269> braunr: is that the PA address of the kernel or the VA inside a
process?
<braunr> the VA
<matty3269> hmm
<braunr> it can't be a PA
<braunr> such high addresses are normally device memory
<braunr> but don't worry, i have good reasons to have chosen this address
:)
<matty3269> so with gnumach, does the boot-up sequence use PIC until VM is
active and the kernel mapped to the linking address?
<braunr> no
<braunr> actually i'm not certain of the details
<braunr> but there is no PIC
<braunr> either special sections are linked at physical addresses
<braunr> or it relies on the fact that all executable code uses near jumps
<braunr> and uses offsets when accessing data
<braunr> (which is why the kernel text is at 3 GiB + 1 MiB, and not 3 GiB)
<matty3269> hmm,
<matty3269> gah, I need to learn x86
<braunr> that would certainly help
<matty3269> I've just had a look at boothdr.S; I presume that there must be
something else that is executed before this to setup VM, switch to 32-bit
more etc...?
<matty3269> mode*
<braunr> have a look at the multiboot specification
<braunr> it sets protected mode
<braunr> but not paging
<braunr> (i mean, the boot loader does, before passing control to the
kernel)
<matty3269> Ah, I see
<tschwinge> matty3269: Multiboot should be documented in the GRUB package.
<matty3269> tschwinge: yep, got that, thanks
<matty3269> hmm, I can't find any reference to CR0 in gnumach so paging
must be enabled elsewhere
<matty3269> oh wait, found it
<braunr> $ git grep -i '\<cr0\>'
<braunr> i386/i386/proc_reg.h, linux/dev/include/asm-i386/system.h
<braunr> although i suspect only the first one is relevant to us :)
<matty3269> Yeah, that seems to have the setup code for paging :)
<matty3269> I'm still confused how it could run that without paging or PIC
though
<matty3269> I think I need to watch the boot sequence with qemu
<braunr> it's a bit tricky
<braunr> but actually simple
<braunr> 00:44 < braunr> either special sections are linked at physical
addresses
<braunr> 00:44 < braunr> or it relies on the fact that all executable code
uses near jumps
<braunr> that's really all there is
<braunr> but you shouldn't worry about that i suppose, as the protocol
between the boot loader and an arm kernel will certainly not be the saem
<braunr> same*
<matty3269> indeed, ARM is tricky because memory maps are vastly differnt
on every platform
## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2012-11-21
<matty3269> Well, I have a ARM gnumach kernel compiled. It just doesn't
run! :)
<braunr> matty3269: good luck :)
# IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-01-30
<slpz> Hi, i've read there's an ongoing effort to port GNU Mach to ARM. How
is it going?
<braunr> not sure where you read that
<braunr> but i'm pretty sure it's not started if it exists
<slpz> braunr: http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/open_issues/arm_port.html
<braunr> i confirm what i said
<slpz> braunr: OK, thanks. I'm interested on it, and didn't want to
duplicate efforts.
<braunr> little addition: it may have started, but we don't know about it