Xen ARM with Virtualization Extensions/Vexpress

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  • If you are trying to run Xen on a Versatile Express Cortex A15 machine, you might want to copy xen.bin (the Xen binary output) and the Linux Dom0 zImage to the SOFTWARE directory and add the two following stanzas to your images.txt file:
NOR3UPDATE: AUTO                    ;IMAGE UPDATE:NONE/AUTO/FORCE
NOR3ADDRESS: 0c000000               ;Image Flash Address
NOR3FILE: \SOFTWARE\Xen\xen.bin     ;Image File Name
NOR3LOAD: 80200000                  ;Image Load Address
NOR3ENTRY: 80200000                 ;Image Entry Point

NOR4UPDATE: AUTO                    ;IMAGE UPDATE:NONE/AUTO/FORCE
NOR4ADDRESS: 000c0000               ;Image Flash Address
NOR4FILE: \SOFTWARE\Xen\zImage      ;Image File Name
NOR4LOAD: 80008000                  ;Image Load Address
NOR4ENTRY: 80008000                 ;Image Entry Point
  • We recommend disabling the A7 cpus by editing the board.txt file under the SITE directory corresponding to your Cortex A15 daughterboard:
;SCC: 0x018 0x1FFFFFFF           ;Reset control (CA7s running, CA15s running) - uncomment this for normal operation
;SCC: 0x018 0x1FFFF000           ;Reset control - (CA7s running, CA15s reset) - uncomment this to hold A15 cluster in reset
SCC: 0x018 0x00001FFF            ;Reset control - (CA7s reset, CA15s running) - uncomment this to hold A7 cluster in 
  • The address of the Dom0 kernel in Flash at the moment is not configurable, it is defined as KERNEL_FLASH_ADDRESS in Xen. On a Versatile Express machine this address can be determined by executing flash list images from the boot manager. You'll have to manually change it.
  • In order to make your Dom0 boot sequence faster, you might want to consider passing init=/bin/bash to your kernel and then manually executing a minimal init script like this.