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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/admin-guide')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/admin-guide/bootconfig.rst | 190 | ||||
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst | 1 | ||||
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt | 6 |
3 files changed, 197 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/bootconfig.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/bootconfig.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..b342a6796392 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/bootconfig.rst @@ -0,0 +1,190 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +.. _bootconfig: + +================== +Boot Configuration +================== + +:Author: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org> + +Overview +======== + +The boot configuration expands the current kernel command line to support +additional key-value data when booting the kernel in an efficient way. +This allows administrators to pass a structured-Key config file. + +Config File Syntax +================== + +The boot config syntax is a simple structured key-value. Each key consists +of dot-connected-words, and key and value are connected by ``=``. The value +has to be terminated by semi-colon (``;``) or newline (``\n``). +For array value, array entries are separated by comma (``,``). :: + +KEY[.WORD[...]] = VALUE[, VALUE2[...]][;] + +Unlike the kernel command line syntax, spaces are OK around the comma and ``=``. + +Each key word must contain only alphabets, numbers, dash (``-``) or underscore +(``_``). And each value only contains printable characters or spaces except +for delimiters such as semi-colon (``;``), new-line (``\n``), comma (``,``), +hash (``#``) and closing brace (``}``). + +If you want to use those delimiters in a value, you can use either double- +quotes (``"VALUE"``) or single-quotes (``'VALUE'``) to quote it. Note that +you can not escape these quotes. + +There can be a key which doesn't have value or has an empty value. Those keys +are used for checking if the key exists or not (like a boolean). + +Key-Value Syntax +---------------- + +The boot config file syntax allows user to merge partially same word keys +by brace. For example:: + + foo.bar.baz = value1 + foo.bar.qux.quux = value2 + +These can be written also in:: + + foo.bar { + baz = value1 + qux.quux = value2 + } + +Or more shorter, written as following:: + + foo.bar { baz = value1; qux.quux = value2 } + +In both styles, same key words are automatically merged when parsing it +at boot time. So you can append similar trees or key-values. + +Comments +-------- + +The config syntax accepts shell-script style comments. The comments starting +with hash ("#") until newline ("\n") will be ignored. + +:: + + # comment line + foo = value # value is set to foo. + bar = 1, # 1st element + 2, # 2nd element + 3 # 3rd element + +This is parsed as below:: + + foo = value + bar = 1, 2, 3 + +Note that you can not put a comment between value and delimiter(``,`` or +``;``). This means following config has a syntax error :: + + key = 1 # comment + ,2 + + +/proc/bootconfig +================ + +/proc/bootconfig is a user-space interface of the boot config. +Unlike /proc/cmdline, this file shows the key-value style list. +Each key-value pair is shown in each line with following style:: + + KEY[.WORDS...] = "[VALUE]"[,"VALUE2"...] + + +Boot Kernel With a Boot Config +============================== + +Since the boot configuration file is loaded with initrd, it will be added +to the end of the initrd (initramfs) image file. The Linux kernel decodes +the last part of the initrd image in memory to get the boot configuration +data. +Because of this "piggyback" method, there is no need to change or +update the boot loader and the kernel image itself. + +To do this operation, Linux kernel provides "bootconfig" command under +tools/bootconfig, which allows admin to apply or delete the config file +to/from initrd image. You can build it by the following command:: + + # make -C tools/bootconfig + +To add your boot config file to initrd image, run bootconfig as below +(Old data is removed automatically if exists):: + + # tools/bootconfig/bootconfig -a your-config /boot/initrd.img-X.Y.Z + +To remove the config from the image, you can use -d option as below:: + + # tools/bootconfig/bootconfig -d /boot/initrd.img-X.Y.Z + +Then add "bootconfig" on the normal kernel command line to tell the +kernel to look for the bootconfig at the end of the initrd file. + +Config File Limitation +====================== + +Currently the maximum config size size is 32KB and the total key-words (not +key-value entries) must be under 1024 nodes. +Note: this is not the number of entries but nodes, an entry must consume +more than 2 nodes (a key-word and a value). So theoretically, it will be +up to 512 key-value pairs. If keys contains 3 words in average, it can +contain 256 key-value pairs. In most cases, the number of config items +will be under 100 entries and smaller than 8KB, so it would be enough. +If the node number exceeds 1024, parser returns an error even if the file +size is smaller than 32KB. +Anyway, since bootconfig command verifies it when appending a boot config +to initrd image, user can notice it before boot. + + +Bootconfig APIs +=============== + +User can query or loop on key-value pairs, also it is possible to find +a root (prefix) key node and find key-values under that node. + +If you have a key string, you can query the value directly with the key +using xbc_find_value(). If you want to know what keys exist in the boot +config, you can use xbc_for_each_key_value() to iterate key-value pairs. +Note that you need to use xbc_array_for_each_value() for accessing +each array's value, e.g.:: + + vnode = NULL; + xbc_find_value("key.word", &vnode); + if (vnode && xbc_node_is_array(vnode)) + xbc_array_for_each_value(vnode, value) { + printk("%s ", value); + } + +If you want to focus on keys which have a prefix string, you can use +xbc_find_node() to find a node by the prefix string, and iterate +keys under the prefix node with xbc_node_for_each_key_value(). + +But the most typical usage is to get the named value under prefix +or get the named array under prefix as below:: + + root = xbc_find_node("key.prefix"); + value = xbc_node_find_value(root, "option", &vnode); + ... + xbc_node_for_each_array_value(root, "array-option", value, anode) { + ... + } + +This accesses a value of "key.prefix.option" and an array of +"key.prefix.array-option". + +Locking is not needed, since after initialization, the config becomes +read-only. All data and keys must be copied if you need to modify it. + + +Functions and structures +======================== + +.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/bootconfig.h +.. kernel-doc:: lib/bootconfig.c + diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst index 4433f3929481..f1d0ccffbe72 100644 --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst @@ -64,6 +64,7 @@ configure specific aspects of kernel behavior to your liking. binderfs binfmt-misc blockdev/index + bootconfig braille-console btmrvl cgroup-v1/index diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt index ddc5ccdd4cd1..dbc22d684627 100644 --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt @@ -437,6 +437,12 @@ no delay (0). Format: integer + bootconfig [KNL] + Extended command line options can be added to an initrd + and this will cause the kernel to look for it. + + See Documentation/admin-guide/bootconfig.rst + bert_disable [ACPI] Disable BERT OS support on buggy BIOSes. |