MultiArchUefiPkg - Multi-Architecture UEFI Environment Driver

This repo implements a UEFI driver that allows non-native UEFI boot service drivers and applications to be executed in 64-bit UEFI environments.

The primary motivation is bringing together the IHV device and standardized AARCH64 and RISCV64 ecosystems. This driver allows plugging off the shelf storage, network and video cards into non-x86 machines and using them with UEFI for OS boot.

Today, AArch64 and RISC-V are supported as host environments. In AArch64 environments, EmulatorDxe supports X64 (aka x86_64, AMD64) UEFI binaries. On RISCV64, EmulatorDxe can be built with X64 and AARCH64 UEFI binary support.

It's derived from X86EmulatorPkg, yet is otherwise a reimplementation using a UEFI-enabled version of the Unicorn Engine - a flexible CPU emulator framework.

MultiArchUefiPkg has competitive performance, portability and size (2/3rds the binary size on AArch64, even smaller for RISCV64!), support for multiple emulated ISAs, a regression test suite, and improved (but not perfect) correctness in modeling the emulated UEFI Boot Service environment.

See a demo.

Updates

When	What
May 2024	Deal with reported issue for a Micron NVMe OpRom, which uses rdrand instruction and scribbles to low RAM on success.
December 2023	More docs, conversion to UEFI DM, MAU_TRY_WITHOUT_MMU as an explicit build option (still enabled by default for RISC-V). LoadOpRom.efi tool. MAU_STANDALONE_LOGGING choices (and EFI_SERIAL_IO_PROTOCOL-backed implementation). SetCon tool.
November 2023	Doc and build system updates.
October 2023	Presented at the UEFI Fall 2023 Developers Conference and Plugfest. See the presentation slides.
September 2023	Move away from TPL manipulation and reduce RISC-V binary size by half.
July 2023	Support for building with MAU_EMU_RAZ_WI_PIO.
June 2023	Presented at the RISC-V Summit Europe, Barcelona. See the extended abstract, poster and presentation slides.
May 2023	Project reported to RISE Board as active priority.
March 2023	Released to GitHub

Theory Of Operation

UEFI code uses a pretty narrowly-defined ABI, which makes it easy to thunk x64/AArch64 client code making EFIAPI calls to native code: no FP/SIMD, no returning large values, etc. E.g. calls like:

    UINT64
    EFIAPI
    Fn(UINT64, UINT64, UINT64, UINT64,
       UINT64, UINT64, UINT64, UINT64,
       UINT64, UINT64, UINT64, UINT64,
       UINT64, UINT64, UINT64, UINT64);

...with up to 16 arguments are supported both client -> native and native -> client, which covers all UEFI needs.

Seamless thunking from native code to emulated code relies on MMU support in the UEFI firmware, specifically the ability to mark a range non-executable.

MultiArchUefiPkg won't work with just any UEFI implementations, but only with implementations that provide the EDKII_PECOFF_IMAGE_EMULATOR_PROTOCOL interface, which is the magic that enables loading foreign ISA binaries. Today this means you must use TianoCore EDK2 or a derived implementation.

The emulator presents an x64 and/or AArch64 UEFI Boot Services environment appropriate for running Boot Service drivers (e.g. OpRom drivers for video cards, NICs) and UEFI applications that aren't OS loaders. Certain Boot, Runtime and DXE services are filtered or disabled.

Quick Start

To quickly build a RISC-V version:

    $ git clone https://github.com/tianocore/edk2.git
    $ cd edk2
    $ git submodule add https://github.com/intel/unicorn-for-efi.git unicorn
    $ git submodule add https://github.com/intel/MultiArchUefiPkg.git
    $ git submodule update --init
    $ export GCC_RISCV64_PREFIX=... (if you are on a non-RISCV64 system)
    $ build -a RISCV64 -t GCC -p MultiArchUefiPkg/Emulator.dsc -b RELEASE

This will produce Build/MultiArchUefiPkg/RELEASE_GCC/RISCV64/EmulatorDxe.efi.

Also see the documents on building and running.

Modeled Environment

The emulator presents UEFI Boot Services environment appropriate for running Boot Service drivers (e.g. OpRom drivers for video cards, NICs) and UEFI applications that aren't OS loaders.

The details are described by a separate document.

Tested Platforms

The emulator is known to work on Qemu -M virt for both AArch64 and RISCV64, Ampere Altra, Raspberry Pi 4 and StarFive VisionFive 2 systems.

License

MultiArchUefiPkg is approved for release under GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1+ for the respective components under those licenses. EmulatorDxe itself is covered by the LGPL v2.1+, but it is statically linked to the Unicorn Engine library, which has a mix of LGPL and GPLv2 code.

Security Policy

Intel is committed to rapidly addressing security vulnerabilities affecting our customers and providing clear guidance on the solution, impact, severity and mitigation.

Reporting A Vulnerability

Please report any security vulnerabilities in this project utilizing the guidelines here.

Contribute

This is a RISE Project under the Firmware WG. See the project wiki page.

Contributions are welcome. Please raise issues and pull requests.

Please see the policy on contributions and our Code of Conduct.