For the last few days, I have been working on build new image for a new platform at work. I found out it is useful to able to boot manually with kernel, dtb, initramfs from u-boot. By doing this, if the thing doesn’t work, we can change any one of them to identify which one has issue.

armada7k boot manually

First you need prepare kernel image as “Image” format, device tree blob (dtb file), and initramfs.

If you have initramfs file in cpio.gz format, you need do following:

#since it is for u-boot to use, it has to be converted to add a header in front
mkimage -A arm64 -T ramdisk -C gzip -n "Sparrow Ramdisk Image" -d initramfs.cpio.gz initramfs.cpio.gz.uRamdisk

When all three images are ready, and loaded them into SD card,

 

#check what files are in SD card partition#1 
Marvell>>  fatls mmc 0:1
 14472704   image-armv8le-a70x0-a80x0-ga-17.02.2 
    25563   armada-7040-db-a-armv8le-a70x0-a80x0-ga-17.02.2.dtb 
 94229849   initramfs.igz 
 304035328   initramfs.cpio 
   407653   ramdisk.img.gz 
 97505226   uramdisk 
    21008   armada-7040-tsn-h-sgmii.dtb.cisco 
 12466176   image-4.4.27-a7040-16.07.8.cisco 
  3815722   initramfs.arm64.ir909.ramfs.cpio.gz 
  3815786   initramfs.arm64.ir909.filesystem 
  4758592   u_rootfs-buildroot-2015.11-16.08.0.ext2 
  1794156   uramdisk-armv8-tiny-le 
  3866681   initramfs.arm64.uramdisk 
  3815786   initramfs.arm64.ramfs.cpio.gz.uramdisk 
 13428224   image.new 
 12651270   initramfs.arm64.ir909.ramfs.new.cpio.gz 
 12651334   initramfs.arm64.ir909.ramfs.new.cpio.gz.uramdisk 
    25740   devicetree-image-armada-7040-db-a.new.dtb 

18 file(s), 0 dir(s)

# load dtb file
Marvell>>  fatload mmc 0:1 $fdt_addr devicetree-image-armada-7040-db-a.new.dtb
reading devicetree-image-armada-7040-db-a.new.dtb
25740 bytes read in 40 ms (627.9 KiB/s)

#load image file
Marvell>> fatload mmc 0:1 $kernel_addr image.new
reading image.new
13428224 bytes read in 2736 ms (4.7 MiB/s)
Marvell>> setenv ramfs_addr 0x12000000
Marvell>> fatload mmc 0:1 $ramfs_addr initramfs.arm64.ramfs.new.cpio.gz.uramdisk
reading initramfs.arm64.ir909.ramfs.new.cpio.gz.uramdisk
12651334 bytes read in 2587 ms (4.7 MiB/s)

# set console
Marvell>> setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200
Marvell>> booti $kernel_addr $ramfs_addr $fdt_addr
## Current stack ends at 0x3f970fd0 *  ramdisk: cmdline image address = 0x12000000
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 12000000 ...
   Image Name:   Sparrow Ramdisk Image
   Created:      2017-03-23  23:52:49 UTC
   Image Type:   AArch64 Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    12651270 Bytes = 12.1 MiB
   Load Address: 00000000
   Entry Point:  00000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   ramdisk start = 0x12000040, ramdisk end = 0x12c10b46
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 01000000
   Booting using the fdt blob at 0x1000000
using: FDT
## initrd_high = 0xffffffffffffffff, copy_to_ram = 1
   Loading Ramdisk to 3ed5f000, end 3f96fb06 ... OK
   ramdisk load start = 0x3ed5f000, ramdisk load end = 0x3f96fb06
   Using Device Tree in place at 0000000001000000, end 000000000100948b
## Transferring control to Linux (at address 80000)...

Starting kernel ...

Timer summary in microseconds:
       Mark    Elapsed  Stage
          0          0  reset
    987,000    987,000  id=64
  1,188,000    201,000  id=65
  1,214,000     26,000  main_loop
  4,236,000  3,022,000  id=80
  4,236,000          0  tftp_start
  4,236,000          0  eth_start
  4,245,000      9,000  id=81
  4,245,000          0  tftp_done
  4,258,000     13,000  bootm_start
160,127,000155,869,000  id=9
160,127,000          0  id=10
162,117,000  1,990,000  id=11
162,135,000     18,000  id=12
166,294,000  4,159,000  id=15
166,296,000      2,000  start_kernel
769,189,068,930,788,833,6769,189,068,914,159,233,6  board_init_f

Accumulated time:
[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
[    0.000000] Linux version 4.4.51-armada-17.02.2  (xelinux@xe-linux-bld2) (gcc version 5.3.0 (GCC) ) #1 SMP Wed Mar 22 05:447
[    0.000000] Boot CPU: AArch64 Processor [410fd081]
[    0.000000] efi: Getting EFI parameters from FDT:
[    0.000000] efi: UEFI not found.
[    0.000000] cma: Reserved 128 MiB at 0x0000000078000000
...