GRiSP2 RTEMS Toolchain

This repository contains the basic tools and libraries to get an RTEMS system running on GRiSP2. This includes:

• A Makefile that collects commands for building everything in this repository.
• The rtems-source-builder for building the toolchain (as a submodule).
• The bootloader barebox (as a submodule) and the necessary configuration.
• RTEMS and rtems-libbsd (as a submodule).
• A support library for some small GRiSP specific tasks libgrisp (as a submodule).
• A FDT (tested only with RTEMS)
• A RTEMS demo application.
• Some debugger scripts for a Lauterbach debugger (t32).

How to Build

Requirements

macOS

Building the toolchain on macOS requires the following dependencies:

• Xcode or Command Line Tools for Xcode.
• python (2 or 3)
• dtc
• u-boot-tools
• texinfo

Building OpenOCD additionally requires

• autoconf
• automake
• libtool
• libusb
• pkg-config

Install with Homebrew

brew install python dtc u-boot-tools texinfo
brew install autoconf automake libtool libusb pkg-config # OpenOCD

Ubuntu

Building the toolchain on Ubuntu requires the following packages:

• build-essential
• flex
• bison
• cmake
• texinfo
• device-tree-compiler
• u-boot-tools
• lzop
• python3
• python-is-python3
• libpython3-dev
• python3-dev

Building OpenOCD additionally requires

• libusb-1.0-0-dev

Install with apt-get

sudo apt-get install build-essential flex bison cmake texinfo device-tree-compiler u-boot-tools lzop libusb-1.0-0-dev python3 python-is-python3 libpython3-dev python3-dev

Building

For building the basic stuff do a

make install

This will build the toolchain, RTEMS, necessary libraries, the FDT, the bootloader and basically everything that you need to create a RTEMS application for the GRiSP2. Most of it will be installed to the rtems/5 directory. Exception: fdt and bootloader. The fdt will be at fdt/b-dtb/imx6ull-grisp2.dtb. The bootloader image will be placed at external/barebox/images/barebox-phytec-phycore-imx6ull-grisp2.img.

To build the demo application use a

make demo

in the project root directory.

How to Start an Application

The bootloader checks a number of boot devices. Among them is the SD-Card and the eMMC. For these two the bootloader searches for an application image called zImage and a device tree image called oftree. If these two files are found the application will be booted.

For example to start the demo application you can use a FAT formatted SD-Card, copy fdt/b-dtb/imx6ull-grisp2.dtb to <SD-Path>/oftree and copy demo/b-imx7/demo.zImage to <SD-Path>/zImage and put the SD card in your GRiSP. The bootloader will start this application.

Note that the eMMC has precedence. If the eMMC is written, the application from eMMC will be started regardless of the SD content.

Writing an Image to eMMC

⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️

Make absolutely sure the image that you write has a bootloader. Otherwise your GRiSP2 might can't boot any more and you have to use the recovery sequence.

⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️

Using an SD Card

1. Copy the image that you want onto an SD card. Put it in your GRiSP2.
2. Power up the GRiSP2.
3. Interrupt the boot loader when it outputs the Hit m for menu or any key to stop autoboot: line. You should drop into a shell with a barebox@PHYTEC phyCORE-i.MX6 ULL SOM with eMMC:/ prompt.
4. Type mmc1.probe=1 to start the eMMC detection.
5. Type mmc0.probe=1 to start the SD detection.
6. You can now do a ls on your SD card: ls /mnt/mmc0.0
7. Copy your image to the eMMC, for big images, that needs quite some time.
   1. With a raw image, use command cp /mnt/mmc/grisp2_emmc.img /dev/mmc1.
   2. With a compressed image, use command uncompress /mnt/mmc/grisp2_emmc.img.gz /dev/mmc1.
8. Reset the system with reset on the shell. Barebox should now boot your application.

Using TFTP

One way to write an Image to eMMC is via the bootloader:

1. Make sure you have a DHCP server and a TFTP (announced via DHCP). You can for example use dnsmasq with the following config for that:

    interface=eth0
    bootp-dynamic
    domain=my-pc.eb.localhost
    dhcp-authoritative
    log-dhcp
    expand-hosts
    local=/my-pc.eb.localhost/
   
    enable-tftp=eth0
    tftp-root=/srv/tftpboot/
   
    ##############################
    # GRiSP2
    dhcp-host=50:2d:f4:14:26:0b,GRiSP2Proto009,set:grisp2
    dhcp-range=tag:grisp2,172.24.0.130,172.24.0.140,255.255.255.0,2m
   

2. Prepare an image to write on your PC. That can be a raw image copied from an SD card or created with a loop-device on a Linux PC. Make sure that the image isn't too big (images >2GB maybe don't work depending on your tftp server). Also make sure that it has a barebox bootloader at the beginning (see (eMMC Image)6. The simplest possible image is to use the barebox/barebox-phytec-phycore-imx6ull-emmc-512mb.img directly.

3. Copy it to your tftp server directory with some simple name (e.g. grisp2.img).

4. Connect the network cable and power up the GRiSP2.

5. Interrupt the boot loader when it outputs the Hit m for menu or any key to stop autoboot: line. You should drop into a shell with a barebox@PHYTEC phyCORE-i.MX6 ULL SOM with eMMC:/ prompt.

6. Type mmc1.probe=1 to start the eMMC detection.

7. Type dhcp to get an IP address.

8. Now you have two alternatives. For both: If your tftp server isn't announced via DHCP use global dev.eth0.serverip=172.24.0.99 to explicitly set your server.

   1. For small images that fit into RAM: Type tftp grisp2.img and write the received image to the eMMC with cp grisp2.img /dev/mmc1.
   2. For big images: Directly copy from the mount point for the tftp server. Note that tftp don's support listing files. Therefore a ls won't show you what's on the server. As long as there isn't an error, the tftp is mounted anyway. Use cp /mnt/tftp/grisp2.img /dev/mmc1 for this method.

9. Wait for the image to be written. That can need quite some time.

10. Reset the system with reset on the shell. Barebox should now boot your application.

Debugging

Debugging is either possible by connecting your favorite JTAG adapter to the JTAG port. The connector pin out is the same as for the ARM Cortex M connectors.

Alternatively you can use the on-board FTDI to JTAG adapter. The adapter is compatible to a Floss-JTAG supported by OpenOCD. The following text shows how to use that on-board solution.

First build and install OpenOCD by running make submodule-update (if you havn't build the toolchain before) and make openocd.

Make sure that your GRiSP2 starts some sample application with a sane FDT. The debugger scripts will wait till the bootloader loads the FDT and the application and then replaces the application with the one that you want to debug.

After that you should start openocd on one console using ./debug/openocd/start-openocd.sh. This starts an GDB-Server. Do not terminate the process. You can then start a gdb that connects to the server using ./debug/openocd/start-gdb.sh path/to/app.exe. The script adds a reset command to the normal gdb that restarts the target and reloads the application. Note that for bigger applications, that might need quite some time.

Notes for MacOS

To build OpenOCD on mac, you need texinfo 6.7 from brw but also add it to th path:

export PATH=/usr/local/opt/texinfo/bin:$PATH
make openocd

Boot Loader

• Instructions for updating the boot loader on GRiSP 2

Recovery

Note: you should prefer to use Linux for this, on MacOS this works very unreliably. A Linux VM with proper USB access is sufficient.

For some reason the boot loader has been damaged on your system? Here is the solution:

• Build the imx_uart tool with make imx_uart.
• Set the BOOT_MODE Jumpers on your GRiSP2 so that the serial download mode will be started.
• Prepare to execute the following command. Don't execute it yet. Replace the picocom ... part with your preferred serial terminal application.

./rtems/5/bin/imx_uart -nN /dev/ttyGRiSP ./rtems/5/etc/imx-loader.d/mx6ull_usb_work.conf barebox/barebox-phytec-phycore-imx6ul-emmc-512mb.img && picocom -l -b 115200 /dev/ttyGRiSP

• Power-Cycle or Power up the GRiSP2. A reset is not enough!
• Press the reset button and execute the prepared command in the next seconds.
• Wait till imx_uart finishes and a barebox starts. That will need quite a bit of time (nearly a minute).
• Interrupt the barebox start when it tells you to Hit m for menu or any to stop autoboot: 1
• Use the eMMC image from barebox/grisp2_emmc.img.gz and follow the steps from the section Writing an Image to eMMC. The image contains the initial factory image, with barebox, a first partition with the grisp erlang demo and an uninitialized second partition.
• Power down the GRiSP2 and remove the BOOT_MODE Jumpers.
• Power up the GRiSP2. You should now get a Bootloader again. Interrupt the boot when it tells you to Hit m for menu or any to stop autoboot:
• Now you can copy new files onto the partition (mounted at /mnt/emmc). If you want to copy from an SD Card you have to do a mmc0.probe=1 first. Then you can access the SD Card in /mnt/mmc.

eMMC Image

The eMMC has to contain the barebox bootloader. Basically that means that you copy the image from barebox/barebox-phytec-phycore-imx6ull-emmc-512mb.img to address 0x0 of your image before you create your partitions. Otherwise there is nothing special when creating the image.

The following is an example for creating an SD image with Linux. Please be careful when partitioning the file and double or better tripple check that everything is set up correctly with the loop device and that you use the correct loop device. Otherwise you might destroy your Linux installation with these commands.

dd if=/dev/zero of=grisp2_emmc.img bs=1M count=128
dd if=barebox/barebox-phytec-phycore-imx6ul-emmc-512mb.img of=grisp2_emmc.img conv=notrunc
sudo modprobe loop
sudo losetup /dev/loop4 grisp2_emmc.img
echo 'type=83' | sudo sfdisk /dev/loop4
sudo partprobe /dev/loop4
sudo mkfs.vfat -n "GRISP2" -s 8 /dev/loop4p1
sudo mount /dev/loop4p1 some/mount/point
sudo cp demo/b-imx7/demo.zImage some/mount/point/zImage
sudo cp fdt/b-dtb/imx6ul-grisp2.dtb some/mount/point/oftree
sudo cp -r demo/loader some/mount/point/loader
sudo umount some/mount/point
sudo losetup -d /dev/loop4