FreeBSD/arm for Gateworks Avila board

This procedure has been tested on a FreeBSD HEAD system.

make TARGET=arm TARGET_CPUTYPE=xscale TARGET_BIG_ENDIAN=true buildworld 

ROOT=/data/freebsd/roots/gateworks
make TARGET=arm TARGET_CPUTYPE=xscale TARGET_BIG_ENDIAN=true \
DESTDIR=$ROOT installworld
mergemaster -m $SRC/etc -D $ROOT -i -A arm 

Note: mergemaster will fail if used to install HEAD on a RELENG_6 system unless /usr/share/mk on the host system has been updated w/ changes to the build infrastructure.

Consult diskless(8).

• Load the npe(4) microcode file IxNpeMicrocode.dat from http://www.intel.com/design/network/products/npfamily/ixp400_current.htm and put it into /sys/arm/xscale/ixp425/

Is this still the case?

make TARGET=arm KERNCONF=AVILA buildkernel
make TARGET=arm KERNCONF=AVILA DESTDIR=$ROOT installkernel  

Note: the AVILA kernel is configured with the root filesystem mounted via NFS over the npe0 wired interface. You should now have an NFS-mountable root filesystem with a kernel. The final step is to setup network diskless booting from the board. It is assumed you have a DHCP server operating on your network and the server is configured to supply the necessary information in the DHCP lease. If you run the ISC DHCP server the following configuration information is an example of how to do this:

option root-opts code 130 = string; # NFS / mount options
host avila1 {
    hardware ethernet 00:d0:12:02:47:68;
    fixed-address 10.0.0.221;
    next-server 10.0.0.251;
    filename  "kernel-avila.nfs";
    option root-path "10.0.0.251:/data/freebsd/roots/gateworks";
    option root-opts "nolockd";
} 

Note: the root-opts item specifies the root filesystem should be mounted with the nolocked option; this just short-circuits file locking requests so you don't get complaints from programs that use the pidfile(3) routine (e.g. devd).

Place the kernel in the TFTP area for booting from the prom monitor. If your TFTP server returns file from /tftpboot (default) then do something like:

cp $ROOT/boot/kernel/kernel /tftpboot/kernel-avila.nfs 

Boot the kernel from redboot:

RedBoot> ip -h 10.0.0.251 -l 10.0.0.1
IP: 10.0.0.1/255.255.255.0 Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Default server: 10.0.0.251
RedBoot> load -b 0x200000 kernel-avila.nfs
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Address offset = 0x40000000
Entry point: 0x00200100, address range: 0x00200000-0x004db2d4
RedBoot> go 

To record the above redboot script so that it's used every time the board is reset run the fconfig command at the redboot prompt and answer the questions. Past this you can setup a FreeBSD installation on compact flash and store a kernel in flash using redboot. Then on boot load the kernel from flash and if that kernel is configured with root on ad0 you can run entirely from local storage. Note that the redboot that comes in the Avila board does not understand how to load a file from UFS so it is not yet possible to boot a kernel directly from compact flash (when formatted with UFS).

On Avila:

• Insert CF into the board.
• Boot from NFS
• fdisk ad0
• disklabel ad0s1 (remember that xscale-arm kernel is big-endian)
• mount /dev/ad0s1a /mnt
• cd /; find -x . | cpio -pdamuv /mnt

On the NFS Host:

• Adapt /sys/arm/conf/AVILA, comment out options NFS_ROOT, BOOTP*
• add option ROOTDEVNAME=\“ufs:ad0s1\”
• make kernel like above.
• install kernel into tftpd area as kernel.ad0

On Avila:

• reboot
• CTRL-C before kernel loading (you need to config your cua*0 as 3wire via /etc/rc.d/serial to let CTRL-C work)
• load -b 0x200000 kernel.ad0
• fis create kernel.ad0 (no need to overwrite the linux-stuff)
• fconfig (to adapt the new kernel)