path: root/documentation/rmc/README

Runtime Machine Configuration (RMC)
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Table of Contents

Introduction
Usage
Enable RMC Feature
Examples
Troubleshooting
When you (don't) need RMC feature


Introduction:
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RMC Project - a light-weight project provide developers a mechanism to keep
their software implementation board-type agnostic, yet still able to customize
software behavior according to the type of a running board at runtime. Recipes
and bbclasses are available for other components to reuse to construct their own
RMC database.

RMC Feature - An end-to-end solution based on RMC project to have a generic
image capable to apply board-type-specific quirks and configurations for a board
at runtime. It consists of a modified bootloader (systemd-boot), an updated EFI
installer, recipes, bbclass and RMC project.

RMC feature supports special customizations cannot be covered by conventional
auto-detection features based on probing a hardware module because they happen
at a board or a product level. For example:
 - tty console for kernel log output in kernel cmdline
 - default audio route configuration
 - network configuration
 - UI layout
 - requirement to software driven by a mechanical design
 - or static configuration bits for a physical bus that doesn't support to
   identify devices or their presence at runtime

An image with the feature has ability to configure supported boards with data
associated only to a type of board to get full functionality of the target at
runtime, yet still with a single image.

Effect after installation is identical to what a conventional image specially
customized for a type of board (depending on the way to deploy image).

Main functions of RMC Feature:

Show board-specific boot entries in boot menu and boot system with configuration
(boot title, boot options, etc) in a selected boot entry.

Support a "global" kernel boot command line fragment which is effective for all
boot entries.

Deploy file blobs and create directories specific to the type of running board.

Beside from this document, you can also find several built-in examples in
common/recipes-bsp/rmc/boards/. Refer to "Examples" section.

You can also add new board types in your layer via a simple variable.



Usage
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Developers are suggested to organize all board-specific files in their own layer
following this example, so that RMC recipes can pick up them correctly in build.

- my_top_dir/                    Top directory of your board (Note 0)
  |- rmc-db.bbappend         bbappend file to rmc-db recipe at a lower level
  |- rmc/
      |- target_board_1/         subdirectory of a board.
      |   |- board1.fp           fingerprint file must be provided (NOTE 1)
      |   |- BOOTENTRY.CONFIG    optional config file for boot entries. (NOTE 2)
      |   |- INSTALLER.CONFIG    optional config file for installer. (NOTE 3)
      |   |- POSTINSTALL.sh      optional script hook for installer (NOTE 4)
      |   |- board_file_1        A file blob specific to the type of board
      |   |- board_file_2        An another file specific to the type of board
      |   |- ...more files
      |- target_board_2/         subdirectory of another board.
          |- board_2_v2.fp       fingerprint file for board 2.
          |- BOOTENTRY.CONFIG
          |- INSTALLER.CONFIG
          |- board_file_1
          |- ...more files

Note 0:
To add your boards into RMC feature, simply put this line in your
rmc-db.bbappend:

RMC_BOARD_DATA_DIRS_append := " ${THISDIR}/my_top_dir"

RMC db recipe takes all top directories specified in RMC_BOARD_DATA_DIRS to
construct and deploy a central RMC database inside image. The bbclass of the
bare RMC project also provide function for other components to construct their
own RMC database file. Please refer to rmc-db.bbclass for more information.

Subdirectory is not supported in a board's directory.

Note 1:
Fingerprint files must be provided and with ".fp" at the end of their names.
Fingerprint can be obtained by running RMC tool on your board. An easy way is to
live-boot USB stick flashed with any image enabled this feature on your board,
then run this command:

# rmc -F -o my_board.fp

Or you will need to build RMC tool for the architecture of your board, 32 or
64 bit x86, from RMC project.

You can run RMC tool without any argument to get usage and examples.

DO NOT NAME ANY FILE ENDING WITH '.fp' IF IT IS NOT A RMC FINGERPRINT FILE.

If you do need a .fp file deployed onto target, please rename it in source and
specify the real name of file on target in INSTALLER.CONFIG.

Note 2:
At runtime, RMC bootloader tries to fetch this file specific to the board at run
time, then tries to fetch each boot entry file specified in BOOTENTRY.CONFIG and
show them in boot menu options. The format of this file is very simple. Each
line is the name of a boot entry file:

boot.conf
Install.conf
myrmcboot.conf

Name of a boot entry file is defined by developer so it can be anything. But the
name of config file is what RMC bootloader looks up in RMC database, so it must
be named BOOTENTRY.CONFIG.

Bootloader skips loading entry conf files from disk once any entry is loaded
from RMC database.

Note 3:
At runtime, RMC installer tries to fetch INSTALLER.CONFIG file specific to the
board, then tries to fetch each file specified in this config file, and then
deploy the file onto target with its permissions, UID, GID and other attributes
also specified in this config file if file for the board can be retrieved from
RMC database. The format of this file is (# is for comment line)

# name:uid:gid:mode:path_on_target
# to create a directory, add a “/” at the end of path_on_target:
audio_policy:0:0:600:/etc/audio/
audio_def_policy:0:0:600:/etc/audio/audio_policy

The above example creates /etc/audio directory first, then fetch a file named
“audio_def_policy” from RMC database for the board, then copy it to /etc/audio/
with a new name “audio_policy”.

If this config file is not provided, No data in RMC database is deployed to the
target.

Some steps defined by developers could not be supported on a filesystem.
Installer simply ignores any errors in RMC deployment stage.

The name of this config file is what installer looks up first, so it must be
INSTALLER.CONFIG.

Note 4:
At the end of RMC deployment during installation, RMC installer queries a script
file POSTINSTALL.sh from RMC database file, and execute it when query is
successful on the running board. This hook provides developers almost ultimate
flexibility to retouch what have been deployed on the target. There are some
steps still can override results from this hook for boot entries and KBOOTPARAM.



Enable RMC Feature
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To Enable RMC feature in build, add the below lines in a conf file:
DISTRO_FEATURES_append = " rmc"
EFI_PROVIDER = "rmc-systemd-boot"

Note:
Image could be still bootable if you only have either of two lines, but RMC
feature won't be fully functional.



Examples
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We checked in configuration data in common/recipes-bsp/rmc/boards/ for several
boards, to help users to understand the RMC feature. These examples are also for
validation. For any example you find not working as what this section depicts,
it should be treated as a bug to be fixed.

To test this feature with examples, enable it and build an image first, then
boot the built image on supported boards. Examples are always built in when the
feature is enabled, except for the EXAMPLE 1.

EXAMPLE 1: Support a new board type:
(1) enable the feature and do a build to get a live-boot image by adding these
    lines in conf/local.conf:
    DISTRO_FEATURES_append = " rmc"
    EFI_PROVIDER = "rmc-systemd-boot"

(2) flash the image to a USB stick and boot it on your board

(3) in super user mode, run "rmc -F -o my_board.fp"

(4) create directories in your host "mkdir -p my_top_dir/my_rmc/my_board"

(5) copy my_board.fp from target to my_top_dir/my_rmc/my_board/ on host

(6) create a file my_top_dir/my_rmc/my_board/KBOOTPARAM, put some fake
    and harmless options in a single line, say, "loglevel=7"

(7) create a file my_top_dir/rmc-db.bbappend, put this single line in it:
    RMC_BOARD_DATA_DIRS_append := " ${THISDIR}/my_rmc"
    From parent directory of my_top_dir, the tree should look like:
    my_top_dir/
        my_rmc/
            my_board/
                KBOOTPARAM
                my_board.fp
        rmc-db.bbappend
    Later, you can add more board directories in my_rmc directory.

(8) modify build configuration to add my_top_dir into build, for example, put
    this line in a bblayers.conf:
    BBFILES += "/full/path/of/my_top_dir/rmc-db.bbappend"

(9) build image again then boot it on your board

(10) Once you login to shell, new options should be effective, run this command
     "cat /proc/cmdline" to verify the result.

EXAMPLE 2: Board-specific boot entry
MinnowBoard MAX and B3 version:
common/recipes-bsp/rmc/boards/minnowmax
common/recipes-bsp/rmc/boards/minnowmaxB3

We have found two identities (type of board) exist for the "same" Minnow Max
hardware, so they have to be treated as two different types of hardware. The two
examples show you a boot entry specific to a type of board. Titles shown in boot
menu have different names according to the type of running board, "Minnow Max
boot" or "Minnow Max B3 boot". in /proc/cmdline, "console=ttyS0,115200n8" shall
be there. Kernel prints logs from 6-pin FTDI serial port on Minnow Max(s). This
console setting is in board-specific entries, so you won't see it effective if
you select default "boot" entry to boot the device.

EXAMPLE	3: Board-specific boot entry, global kernel cmdline and installer
NUC Gen 6:
common/recipes-bsp/rmc/boards/nucgen6
This is a combo example with all supported configuration data for NUC Gen 6
product. It shows two boot entries in bootloader menu when you boot image on NUC
Gen 6 product, with "NUC Gen6" in entry titles. There shall no any "console=" in
/proc/cmdline when you boot with either of two "NUC Gen6"entries. We designed it
this way because there is no accessible tty port on NUC Gen 6 with housing. The
post-install hook is also provided in this example.

This example also includes a global kernel cmdline fragment KBOOTPARAM. Content
of KBOOTPARAM shall be at the end of /proc/cmdline no matter which boot entry
you selected to boot NUC Gen6.

INSTALLER.CONFIG directs installer to create a directory and deploy a file in it
when install the image on NUC Gen6.

Choose "NUC Gen6 install" boot entry to boot shall start installation. Once
the device reboots after installation, we can verify the configurations.

The boot entry "NUC Gen6 boot" shall be shown in boot menu.

The content of KBOOTPARAM shall be in /proc/cmdline too.

A directory /etc/mylib/ is created and a file "mylib.conf" is there. The content
of that file shall be what we put in mylib.conf in
common/recipes-bsp/rmc/boards/nucgen6

POSTINSTALL.sh shows how we get rid of an error message caused by no serial
console available on NUC Gen 6, without creating another static board
configuration.

EXAMPLE 4: For validation only
T100 (32bit):
common/recipes-bsp/rmc/boards/T100-32bit
This example is provided for validation on 32 bit X86 architecture. It doesn't
provide any new function not mentioned in above examples.

EXAMPLE 5: RMC for quark
Galileo Gen 2
common/recipes-bsp/rmc/boards/Galileo2
This example doesn't show any feature not covered in the above examples. Note
RMC only supports hddimg image format so far. Please refer to the section II.c
in README in meta-intel for how to boot Galileo with images in hddimg format.
Bootloader should show a board-specific boot option "Galileo Gen 2 boot" when
the board boots off.

Troubleshooting
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Issue: Cannot obtain RMC fingerprint for a board

RMC tool requires UEFI BIOS and SMBIOS support in firmware. It doesn't support
other type of firmware, e.g. legacy BIOS. It also requires EFI driver enabled
in Linux kernel.

Issue: Configuration for a board seems not effective at runtime.

Check if board is booted from the storage where the image or installation lives
when you have multiple boot options in BIOS. On some old hardwares it is not
that obvious as you assume. A build image can support boot from both of legacy
and UEFI mode, but RMC only works with UEFI boot so far.

Make sure configuration files (BOOTENTRY.CONFIG, INSTALLER.CONFIG and,
KBOOTPARAM ...) are properly named in the board directory.

Make sure configuration files have correct contents.

Some file attributes could not be supported by targeted file system. Installer
cannot setup file blobs as you wish. It simply move to the next step if a step
fails.

Kernel command line can be customized globally with KBOOTPARAM or just in a boot
entry for the type of board. They have different effective scopes.

If no any board-specific configuration becomes effective on your board but it
works on other boards of same product, you can run rmc tool to obtain
fingerprint file on your board and compare it with fingerprint of a working
board. It is possible they have different firmware versions and unluckily, some
information for fingerprint changes between two versions. You can update BIOS
on every board to the same BIOS version if it is feasible. Otherwise you have
to treat them as two different type of boards. We could extend rmc design to
allow multiple fingerprints in a board directory as a workaround.

Issue: RMC reports error because it cannot find fingerprint when building image.

Make sure you have a fingerprint file. Its name must be ended with '.fp'. You
can put a fingerprint file in a board directory and provide data later.

Issue: Any problems the above troubleshooting cannot help

Please report it to us. Extra information like the type of your board or a dump
file from dmidecode tool is helpful. We will investigate the problem and keep
improving this feature.




When you (don't) need RMC feature
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RMC feature is designed to as generic as possible, in order to support a large
number of types of boards. And it shall be designed not to break things when it
is disabled. These considerations help users to decide if they really need or
enable it.

If you are satisfied with a dedicated build target and image for each board in
your development cycle (source, build, validation, release, etc), you don't need
this feature.

If you have a generic build for multiple type of boards and features supported
by that build meet your needs to functionality on all of boards, you don't need
to have this feature or you can disable it until you need to check in the first
board's data, in order to apply a quirk or customization only for that board.

If you want this feature but have concerns to see more and more boards' finger-
prints and data in a generic project, you can have another layer to hold all of
board-specific data to split them from a generic layer at source level. Another
suggestion is always seeking chances not to clone or copy a common configuration
to each board's directory.



Thanks

Jianxun Zhang <jianxun.zhang@linux.intel.com>