docs/design/cold-and-warm-boot-design.rst

.. SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
.. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright TF-RMM Contributors.

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RMM Cold and Warm boot design
#############################

This section covers the boot design of RMM. The below
diagram gives an overview of the boot flow.

|Boot Design|

Both warm and cold boot enters RMM at the same entry point
``rmm_entry()``. This scheme simplifies the
`RMM-EL3 communications interface`_. The boot args as specified by boot
contract are stashed to high registers.

The boot is divided into several phases as described below:

1. **Sysreg and C runtime initialization phase.**

   The essential system registers are initialized. ``SCTLR_EL2.I``
   is set to 1 which means instruction accesses to Normal memory are
   Outer Shareable, Inner Write-Through cacheable, Outer Write-Through
   cacheable. ``SCTLR_EL2.C`` is also set 1 and data accesses default
   to Device-nGnRnE. The cpu-id, received as part of boot args, is programmed
   to ``tpidr_el2`` and this can be retrieved using the helper function
   ``my_cpuid()``. The per-CPU stack is also initialized using the cpu-id
   received and this completes the C runtime initialization for warm boot.

   Only the primary CPU enters RMM during cold boot and a global
   variable is used to keep track whether it is cold or warm boot. If
   cold boot, the Global Descriptor Table (GDT) and Relocations are fixed
   up so that RMM can run as position independent executable (PIE). The BSS
   is zero initialized which completes the C runtime initialization
   for cold boot.

2. **Platform initialization phase**

   The boot args are restored to their original registers and plat_setup()
   and plat_warmboot_setup() are invoked for cold and warm boot respectively.
   During cold boot, the platform is expected to consume the boot manifest
   which is part of the `RMM-EL3 communications interface`_. The platform
   initializes any platform specific peripherals and also intializes and
   configures the translation table contexts for Stage 1.

3. **MMU enable phase**

   The EL2&0 translation regime is enabled after suitable TLB and cache
   invalidations.

4. **RMM Main phase**

   Any cold boot or warm initialization of RMM components is done in this
   phase. This phase also involves invoking suitable EL3 services, like
   acquiring platform attestation token for Realm attestation.

After all the phases have completed successfully, RMM issues
``RMM_BOOT_COMPLETE`` SMC. The next entry into RMM from EL3 would be for
handling RMI calls and hence the next intruction following the SMC call
branches to the main SMC handler routine.


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RMM-EL3 communication specification
###################################

The communication interface between RMM and EL3 is specified in
`RMM-EL3 communications interface`_ specification in the TF-A repository.

.. |Boot Design| image:: ./diagrams/boot_design.drawio.png
.. _`RMM-EL3 communications interface`: https://trustedfirmware-a.readthedocs.io/en/latest/components/rmm-el3-comms-spec.html