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32 .Nd kernel bootstrapping final stage
38 kernel bootstrapping process.
39 On IA32 (i386) architectures, it is a
42 It is linked statically to
44 and usually located in the directory
47 It provides a scripting language that can be used to
48 automate tasks, do pre-configuration or assist in recovery
50 This scripting language is roughly divided in
52 The smaller one is a set of commands
53 designed for direct use by the casual user, called "builtin
54 commands" for historical reasons.
55 The main drive behind these commands is user-friendliness.
56 The bigger component is an
58 Forth compatible Forth interpreter based on FICL, by
61 During initialization,
63 will probe for a console and set the
65 variable, or set it to serial console
67 if the previous boot stage used that.
68 If multiple consoles are selected, they will be listed separated by spaces.
69 Then, devices are probed,
78 is initialized, the builtin words are added to its vocabulary, and
80 is processed if it exists.
81 No disk switching is possible while that file is being read.
93 is processed if available, and, failing that,
95 is read for historical reasons.
96 These files are processed through the
98 command, which reads all of them into memory before processing them,
99 making disk changes possible.
103 has not been tried, and if
107 (not case sensitive), then an
110 If the system gets past this point,
114 will engage interactive mode.
115 Please note that historically even when
119 user will be able to interrupt autoboot process by pressing some key
120 on the console while kernel and modules are being loaded.
122 cases such behaviour may be undesirable, to prevent it set
128 will engage interactive mode only if
134 builtin commands take parameters from the command line.
136 the only way to call them from a script is by using
139 If an error condition occurs, an exception will be generated,
140 which can be intercepted using
142 Forth exception handling
144 If not intercepted, an error message will be displayed and
145 the interpreter's state will be reset, emptying the stack and restoring
148 The builtin commands available are:
150 .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
151 .It Ic autoboot Op Ar seconds Op Ar prompt
152 Proceeds to bootstrap the system after a number of seconds, if not
153 interrupted by the user.
154 Displays a countdown prompt
155 warning the user the system is about to be booted,
156 unless interrupted by a key press.
157 The kernel will be loaded first if necessary.
158 Defaults to 10 seconds.
161 Displays statistics about disk cache usage.
165 .It Ic boot Ar kernelname Op Cm ...
166 .It Ic boot Fl flag Cm ...
167 Immediately proceeds to bootstrap the system, loading the kernel
169 Any flags or arguments are passed to the kernel, but they
170 must precede the kernel name, if a kernel name is provided.
173 The behavior of this builtin is changed if
181 Displays text on the screen.
182 A new line will be printed unless
187 Displays memory usage statistics.
188 For debugging purposes only.
190 .It Ic help Op topic Op subtopic
191 Shows help messages read from
192 .Pa /boot/loader.help .
195 will list the topics available.
197 .It Ic include Ar file Op Ar
198 Process script files.
199 Each file, in turn, is completely read into memory,
200 and then each of its lines is passed to the command line interpreter.
201 If any error is returned by the interpreter, the include
202 command aborts immediately, without reading any other files, and
203 returns an error itself (see
210 Loads a kernel, kernel loadable module (kld), disk image,
211 or file of opaque contents tagged as being of the type
213 Kernel and modules can be either in a.out or ELF format.
214 Any arguments passed after the name of the file to be loaded
215 will be passed as arguments to that file.
218 type to make the kernel create a file-backed
221 This is useful for booting from a temporary rootfs.
222 Currently, argument passing does not work for the kernel.
230 encryption keyfile for the given provider name.
231 The key index can be specified via
233 or will default to zero.
239 Displays a listing of files in the directory
241 or the root directory if
246 is specified, file sizes will be shown too.
249 Lists all of the devices from which it may be possible to load modules.
252 is specified, more details are printed.
255 Displays loaded modules.
258 is specified, more details are shown.
260 .It Ic more Ar file Op Ar
261 Display the files specified, with a pause at each
265 .It Ic pnpscan Op Fl v
266 Scans for Plug-and-Play devices.
267 This is not functional at present.
274 Reads a line of input from the terminal, storing it in
277 A timeout can be specified with
279 though it will be canceled at the first key pressed.
280 A prompt may also be displayed through the
285 Immediately reboots the system.
287 .It Ic set Ar variable
288 .It Ic set Ar variable Ns = Ns Ar value
289 Set loader's environment variables.
291 .It Ic show Op Va variable
292 Displays the specified variable's value, or all variables and their
298 Remove all modules from memory.
300 .It Ic unset Va variable
303 from the environment.
306 Lists available commands.
308 .Ss BUILTIN ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
311 has actually two different kinds of
314 There are ANS Forth's
315 .Em environmental queries ,
316 and a separate space of environment variables used by builtins, which
317 are not directly available to Forth words.
318 It is the latter type that this section covers.
320 Environment variables can be set and unset through the
324 builtins, and can have their values interactively examined through the
328 Their values can also be accessed as described in
331 Notice that these environment variables are not inherited by any shell
332 after the system has been booted.
334 A few variables are set automatically by
336 Others can affect the behavior of either
338 or the kernel at boot.
339 Some options may require a value,
340 while others define behavior just by being set.
341 Both types of builtin variables are described below.
342 .Bl -tag -width bootfile
343 .It Va autoboot_delay
346 will wait before booting.
347 If this variable is not defined,
349 will default to 10 seconds.
355 will be automatically attempted after processing
356 .Pa /boot/loader.rc ,
359 will be processed normally, defaulting to 10 seconds delay.
363 no delay will be inserted, but user still will be able to interrupt
365 process and escape into the interactive mode by pressing some key
366 on the console while kernel and
367 modules are being loaded.
371 no delay will be inserted and
373 will engage interactive mode only if
375 has failed for some reason.
377 Instructs the kernel to prompt the user for the name of the root device
378 when the kernel is booted.
380 Instructs the kernel to try to mount the root file system from CD-ROM.
382 Instructs the kernel to start in the DDB debugger, rather than
383 proceeding to initialize when booted.
385 Instructs the kernel to mount the statically compiled-in root file system.
387 Selects gdb-remote mode for the kernel debugger by default.
388 .It Va boot_multicons
389 Enables multiple console support in the kernel early on boot.
390 In a running system, console configuration can be manipulated
395 All console output is suppressed when console is muted.
396 In a running system, the state of console muting can be manipulated by the
400 During the device probe, pause after each line is printed.
402 Force the use of a serial console even when an internal console
405 Prevents the kernel from initiating a multi-user startup; instead,
406 a single-user mode will be entered when the kernel has finished
409 Setting this variable causes extra debugging information to be printed
410 by the kernel during the boot phase.
412 List of semicolon-separated search path for bootable kernels.
415 .It Va comconsole_speed
416 Defines the speed of the serial console (i386 and amd64 only).
417 If the previous boot stage indicated that a serial console is in use
418 then this variable is initialized to the current speed of the console
420 Otherwise it is set to 9600 unless this was overridden using the
421 .Va BOOT_COMCONSOLE_SPEED
427 variable take effect immediately.
428 .It Va comconsole_port
429 Defines the base i/o port used to access console UART
430 (i386 and amd64 only).
431 If the variable is not set, its assumed value is 0x3F8, which
432 corresponds to PC port COM1, unless overridden by
433 .Va BOOT_COMCONSOLE_PORT
434 variable during the compilation of
438 variable automatically set
440 environment variable to provide a hint to kernel for location of the console.
441 Loader console is changed immediately after variable
444 .It Va comconsole_pcidev
445 Defines the location of a PCI device of the 'simple communication'
446 class to be used as the serial console UART (i386 and amd64 only).
447 The syntax of the variable is
448 .Li 'bus:device:function[:bar]' ,
449 where all members must be numeric, with possible
451 prefix to indicate a hexadecimal value.
454 member is optional and assumed to be 0x10 if omitted.
455 The bar must decode i/o space.
457 .Va comconsole_pcidev
458 automatically sets the variable
460 to the base of the selected bar, and hint
461 .Va hw.uart.console .
462 Loader console is changed immediately after variable
463 .Va comconsole_pcidev
466 Defines the current console or consoles.
467 Multiple consoles may be specified.
468 In that case, the first listed console will become the default console for
469 userland output (e.g.\& from
472 Selects the default device.
473 Syntax for devices is odd.
475 Sets the device for kernel dumps.
476 This can be used to ensure that a device is configured before the corresponding
480 has been processed, allowing kernel panics that happen during the early stages
481 of boot to be captured.
483 If set to a valid directory in the root file system, it causes
487 operation on that directory, making it the new root directory.
488 That happens before entering single-user mode or multi-user
489 mode (but after executing the
493 Sets the list of binaries which the kernel will try to run as the initial
495 The first matching binary is used.
497 .Dq Li /sbin/init:/sbin/oinit:/sbin/init.bak:\:/rescue/init .
499 If set to a valid file name in the root file system,
502 to run that script as the very first action,
503 before doing anything else.
504 Signal handling and exit code interpretation is similar to
508 In particular, single-user operation is enforced
509 if the script terminates with a non-zero exit code,
510 or if a SIGTERM is delivered to the
514 Defines the shell binary to be used for executing the various shell scripts.
517 It is used for running the
519 if set, as well as for the
524 The value of the corresponding
526 variable is evaluated every time
528 calls a shell script, so it can be changed later on using the
531 In particular, if a non-default shell is used for running an
533 it might be desirable to have that script reset the value of
535 back to the default, so that the
537 script is executed with the standard shell
542 if the Forth's current state is interpreting.
544 Define the number of lines on the screen, to be used by the pager.
546 Sets the list of directories which will be searched for modules
547 named in a load command or implicitly required by a dependency.
548 The default value for this variable is
549 .Dq Li /boot/kernel;/boot/modules .
551 Sets the number of IDE disks as a workaround for some problems in
552 finding the root disk at boot.
553 This has been deprecated in favor of
560 .Dq Li "${interpret}" .
563 is unset, the default prompt is
565 .It Va root_disk_unit
566 If the code which detects the disk unit number for the root disk is
567 confused, e.g.\& by a mix of SCSI and IDE disks, or IDE disks with
568 gaps in the sequence (e.g.\& no primary slave), the unit number can
569 be forced by setting this variable.
571 By default the value of
573 is used to set the root file system
574 when the kernel is booted.
575 This can be overridden by setting
580 Other variables are used to override kernel tunable parameters.
581 The following tunables are available:
584 Limit the amount of physical memory the system will use.
585 By default the size is in bytes, but the
586 .Cm k , K , m , M , g
590 are also accepted and indicate kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes
592 An invalid suffix will result in the variable being ignored by the
594 .It Va hw.pci.host_start_mem , hw.acpi.host_start_mem
595 When not otherwise constrained, this limits the memory start
597 The default is 0x80000000 and should be set to at least size of the
598 memory and not conflict with other resources.
599 Typically, only systems without PCI bridges need to set this variable
600 since PCI bridges typically constrain the memory starting address
601 (and the variable is only used when bridges do not constrain this
603 .It Va hw.pci.enable_io_modes
604 Enable PCI resources which are left off by some BIOSes or are not
605 enabled correctly by the device driver.
606 Tunable value set to ON (1) by default, but this may cause problems
607 with some peripherals.
609 Set the size of a number of statically allocated system tables; see
611 for a description of how to select an appropriate value for this
613 When set, this tunable replaces the value declared in the kernel
614 compile-time configuration file.
615 .It Va kern.ipc.nmbclusters
616 Set the number of mbuf clusters to be allocated.
617 The value cannot be set below the default
618 determined when the kernel was compiled.
619 .It Va kern.ipc.nsfbufs
622 buffers to be allocated.
625 Not all architectures use such buffers; see
628 .It Va kern.maxswzone
629 Limits the amount of KVM to be used to hold swap
630 metadata, which directly governs the
631 maximum amount of swap the system can support,
632 at the rate of approximately 200 MB of swap space
633 per 1 MB of metadata.
634 This value is specified in bytes of KVA space.
635 If no value is provided, the system allocates
636 enough memory to handle an amount of swap
637 that corresponds to eight times the amount of
638 physical memory present in the system.
640 Note that swap metadata can be fragmented,
641 which means that the system can run out of
642 space before it reaches the theoretical limit.
643 Therefore, care should be taken to not configure
644 more swap than approximately half of the
647 Running out of space for swap metadata can leave
648 the system in an unrecoverable state.
649 Therefore, you should only change
650 this parameter if you need to greatly extend the
651 KVM reservation for other resources such as the
653 .Va kern.ipc.nmbclusters .
654 Modifies kernel option
655 .Dv VM_SWZONE_SIZE_MAX .
656 .It Va kern.maxbcache
657 Limits the amount of KVM reserved for use by the
658 buffer cache, specified in bytes.
659 The default maximum is 200MB on i386,
660 and 400MB on amd64 and sparc64.
661 This parameter is used to
662 prevent the buffer cache from eating too much
663 KVM in large-memory machine configurations.
664 Only mess around with this parameter if you need to
665 greatly extend the KVM reservation for other resources
666 such as the swap zone or
667 .Va kern.ipc.nmbclusters .
669 the NBUF parameter will override this limit.
671 .Dv VM_BCACHE_SIZE_MAX .
672 .It Va kern.msgbufsize
673 Sets the size of the kernel message buffer.
674 The default limit of 64KB is usually sufficient unless
675 large amounts of trace data need to be collected
676 between opportunities to examine the buffer or
678 Overrides kernel option
680 .It Va machdep.disable_mtrrs
681 Disable the use of i686 MTRRs (x86 only).
682 .It Va net.inet.tcp.tcbhashsize
683 Overrides the compile-time set value of
685 or the preset default of 512.
686 Must be a power of 2.
687 .It Va twiddle_divisor
688 Throttles the output of the
690 I/O progress indicator displayed while loading the kernel and modules.
691 This is useful on slow serial consoles where the time spent waiting for
692 these characters to be written can add up to many seconds.
693 The default is 1 (full speed); a value of 2 spins half as fast, and so on.
695 Sets the size of kernel memory (bytes).
696 This overrides the value determined when the kernel was compiled.
699 .It Va vm.kmem_size_min
700 .It Va vm.kmem_size_max
701 Sets the minimum and maximum (respectively) amount of kernel memory
702 that will be automatically allocated by the kernel.
703 These override the values determined when the kernel was compiled.
707 .Dv VM_KMEM_SIZE_MAX .
710 When a builtin command is executed, the rest of the line is taken
711 by it as arguments, and it is processed by a special parser which
712 is not used for regular Forth commands.
714 This special parser applies the following rules to the parsed text:
717 All backslash characters are preprocessed.
720 \eb , \ef , \er , \en and \et are processed as in C.
722 \es is converted to a space.
729 Useful for things like
732 \e0xN and \e0xNN are replaced by the hex N or NN.
734 \eNNN is replaced by the octal NNN
738 \e" , \e' and \e$ will escape these characters, preventing them from
739 receiving special treatment in Step 2, described below.
741 \e\e will be replaced with a single \e .
743 In any other occurrence, backslash will just be removed.
746 Every string between non-escaped quotes or double-quotes will be treated
747 as a single word for the purposes of the remaining steps.
753 with the value of the environment variable
756 Space-delimited arguments are passed to the called builtin command.
757 Spaces can also be escaped through the use of \e\e .
760 An exception to this parsing rule exists, and is described in
761 .Sx BUILTINS AND FORTH .
762 .Ss BUILTINS AND FORTH
763 All builtin words are state-smart, immediate words.
764 If interpreted, they behave exactly as described previously.
765 If they are compiled, though,
766 they extract their arguments from the stack instead of the command line.
768 If compiled, the builtin words expect to find, at execution time, the
769 following parameters on the stack:
770 .D1 Ar addrN lenN ... addr2 len2 addr1 len1 N
773 are strings which will compose the command line that will be parsed
774 into the builtin's arguments.
775 Internally, these strings are concatenated in from 1 to N,
776 with a space put between each one.
778 If no arguments are passed, a 0
780 be passed, even if the builtin accepts no arguments.
782 While this behavior has benefits, it has its trade-offs.
783 If the execution token of a builtin is acquired (through
791 the builtin behavior will depend on the system state
799 This is particularly annoying for programs that want or need to
801 In this case, the use of a proxy is recommended.
806 is a Forth interpreter written in C, in the form of a forth
807 virtual machine library that can be called by C functions and vice
812 each line read interactively is then fed to
816 back to execute the builtin words.
823 The words available to
825 can be classified into four groups.
828 Forth standard words, extra
832 words, and the builtin commands;
833 the latter were already described.
836 Forth standard words are listed in the
839 The words falling in the two other groups are described in the
840 following subsections.
842 .Bl -tag -width wid-set-super
850 This is the STRING word set's
857 This is the STRING word set's
867 .Ss FREEBSD EXTRA WORDS
868 .Bl -tag -width XXXXXXXX
870 Evaluates the remainder of the input buffer, after having printed it first.
872 Evaluates the remainder of the input buffer under a
878 but without outputting a trailing space.
879 .It Ic fclose Pq Ar fd --
881 .It Ic fkey Pq Ar fd -- char
882 Reads a single character from a file.
883 .It Ic fload Pq Ar fd --
886 .It Ic fopen Pq Ar addr len mode Li -- Ar fd
888 Returns a file descriptor, or \-1 in case of failure.
891 parameter selects whether the file is to be opened for read access, write
894 .Dv O_RDONLY , O_WRONLY ,
898 .Pa /boot/support.4th ,
899 indicating read only, write only, and read-write access, respectively.
902 .Pq Ar fd addr len -- len'
910 Returns the actual number of bytes read, or -1 in case of error or end of
912 .It Ic heap? Pq -- Ar cells
913 Return the space remaining in the dictionary heap, in cells.
914 This is not related to the heap used by dynamic memory allocation words.
915 .It Ic inb Pq Ar port -- char
916 Reads a byte from a port.
917 .It Ic key Pq -- Ar char
918 Reads a single character from the console.
919 .It Ic key? Pq -- Ar flag
922 if there is a character available to be read from the console.
927 .It Ic outb Pq Ar port char --
928 Writes a byte to a port.
929 .It Ic seconds Pq -- Ar u
930 Returns the number of seconds since midnight.
931 .It Ic tib> Pq -- Ar addr len
932 Returns the remainder of the input buffer as a string on the stack.
933 .It Ic trace! Pq Ar flag --
934 Activates or deactivates tracing.
938 .Ss FREEBSD DEFINED ENVIRONMENTAL QUERIES
942 if the architecture is IA32.
945 version at compile time.
950 .Ss SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION
952 .Bl -tag -width /boot/defaults/loader.conf -compact
956 .It Pa /boot/boot.4th
960 .It Pa /boot/boot.conf
962 bootstrapping script.
964 .It Pa /boot/defaults/loader.conf
965 .It Pa /boot/loader.conf
966 .It Pa /boot/loader.conf.local
968 configuration files, as described in
970 .It Pa /boot/loader.rc
972 bootstrapping script.
973 .It Pa /boot/loader.help
976 Contains the help messages.
979 Boot in single user mode:
983 Load the kernel, a splash screen, and then autoboot in five seconds.
984 Notice that a kernel must be loaded before any other
986 command is attempted.
987 .Bd -literal -offset indent
990 load -t splash_image_data /boot/chuckrulez.bmp
994 Set the disk unit of the root device to 2, and then boot.
995 This would be needed in a system with two IDE disks,
996 with the second IDE disk hardwired to ada2 instead of ada1.
997 .Bd -literal -offset indent
999 boot /boot/kernel/kernel
1003 .Bl -tag -width /usr/share/examples/bootforth/X
1004 .It Pa /boot/loader.4th
1005 Extra builtin-like words.
1006 .It Pa /boot/support.4th
1009 .It Pa /usr/share/examples/bootforth/
1013 The following values are thrown by
1015 .Bl -tag -width XXXXX -offset indent
1017 Any type of error in the processing of a builtin.
1028 Out of interpreting text.
1030 Need more text to succeed -- will finish on next run.
1044 For the purposes of ANS Forth compliance, loader is an
1046 ANS Forth System with Environmental Restrictions, Providing
1052 parse, pick, roll, refill, to, value, \e, false, true,
1055 compile\&, , erase, nip, tuck
1060 from the Core Extensions word set, Providing the Exception Extensions
1061 word set, Providing the Locals Extensions word set, Providing the
1062 Memory-Allocation Extensions word set, Providing
1066 bye, forget, see, words,
1073 from the Programming-Tools extension word set, Providing the
1074 Search-Order extensions word set.
1086 .An Michael Smith Aq msmith@FreeBSD.org .
1090 .An John Sadler Aq john_sadler@alum.mit.edu .
1096 words will read from the input buffer instead of the console.
1097 The latter will be fixed, but the former will not.
projects / FreeBSD / releng / 10.3.git / blob