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-rw-r--r--Documentation/x86/boot.txt38
1 files changed, 38 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/boot.txt b/Documentation/x86/boot.txt
index b443f1de0e5..3840b6f28af 100644
--- a/Documentation/x86/boot.txt
+++ b/Documentation/x86/boot.txt
@@ -1055,6 +1055,44 @@ must have read/write permission; CS must be __BOOT_CS and DS, ES, SS
must be __BOOT_DS; interrupt must be disabled; %esi must hold the base
address of the struct boot_params; %ebp, %edi and %ebx must be zero.
+**** 64-bit BOOT PROTOCOL
+
+For machine with 64bit cpus and 64bit kernel, we could use 64bit bootloader
+and we need a 64-bit boot protocol.
+
+In 64-bit boot protocol, the first step in loading a Linux kernel
+should be to setup the boot parameters (struct boot_params,
+traditionally known as "zero page"). The memory for struct boot_params
+could be allocated anywhere (even above 4G) and initialized to all zero.
+Then, the setup header at offset 0x01f1 of kernel image on should be
+loaded into struct boot_params and examined. The end of setup header
+can be calculated as follows:
+
+ 0x0202 + byte value at offset 0x0201
+
+In addition to read/modify/write the setup header of the struct
+boot_params as that of 16-bit boot protocol, the boot loader should
+also fill the additional fields of the struct boot_params as described
+in zero-page.txt.
+
+After setting up the struct boot_params, the boot loader can load
+64-bit kernel in the same way as that of 16-bit boot protocol, but
+kernel could be loaded above 4G.
+
+In 64-bit boot protocol, the kernel is started by jumping to the
+64-bit kernel entry point, which is the start address of loaded
+64-bit kernel plus 0x200.
+
+At entry, the CPU must be in 64-bit mode with paging enabled.
+The range with setup_header.init_size from start address of loaded
+kernel and zero page and command line buffer get ident mapping;
+a GDT must be loaded with the descriptors for selectors
+__BOOT_CS(0x10) and __BOOT_DS(0x18); both descriptors must be 4G flat
+segment; __BOOT_CS must have execute/read permission, and __BOOT_DS
+must have read/write permission; CS must be __BOOT_CS and DS, ES, SS
+must be __BOOT_DS; interrupt must be disabled; %rsi must hold the base
+address of the struct boot_params.
+
**** EFI HANDOVER PROTOCOL
This protocol allows boot loaders to defer initialisation to the EFI