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ACRN UOS (User Operating System)¶

Overview¶

This board configuration defines an ACRN User OS execution environment for running Zephyr RTOS applications.

ACRN is a flexible, lightweight reference hypervisor, built with real-time and safety-criticality in mind, optimized to streamline embedded development through an open source platform. Check out the Introduction to Project ACRN for more information.

This baseline configuration can be used as a starting point for creating custom ACRN UOS configurations. It currently supports the following devices:

I/O APIC
local APIC timer
NS16550 UARTs

Serial Ports¶

The serial ports are assumed present at traditional COM1: and COM2: I/O-space addresses (based at 0x3f8 and 0x2f8, respectively). Only polled operation is supported in this baseline configuration, as IRQ assignments under ACRN are configurable (and frequently non-standard). Interrupt-driven and MMIO operation are also possible.

Building and Running¶

This details the process for building the Hello World sample and running it as an ACRN User OS.

On the Zephyr Build System¶

The build process for the ACRN UOS target is similar to other boards. We will build the Hello World sample for ACRN with:

Using west:

west build -b acrn samples/hello_world

Using CMake and ninja:

# On Linux/macOS
cd $ZEPHYR_BASE/samples/hello_world
mkdir build && cd build

# On Windows
cd %ZEPHYR_BASE%\samples\hello_world
mkdir build & cd build

# Use cmake to configure a Ninja-based build system:
cmake -GNinja -DBOARD=acrn ..

# Now run ninja on the generated build system:
ninja

This will build the application ELF binary in samples/hello_world/build/zephyr/zephyr.elf.

Build GRUB2 boot loader image

We can build the GRUB2 bootloader for Zephyr using boards/x86/common/scripts/build_grub.sh:
```
$ ./boards/x86/common/scripts/build_grub.sh x86_64
```
The EFI executable will be found at boards/x86/common/scripts/grub/bin/grub_x86_64.efi.

Preparing the boot device

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=zephyr.img bs=1M count=35
$ mkfs.vfat -F 32 zephyr.img
$ LOOP_DEV=`sudo losetup -f -P --show zephyr.img`
$ sudo mount $LOOP_DEV /mnt
$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/efi/boot
$ sudo cp boards/x86/common/scripts/grub/bin/grub_x86_64.efi /mnt/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/kernel
$ sudo cp samples/hello_world/build/zephyr/zephyr.elf /mnt/kernel

Create /mnt/efi/boot/grub.cfg containing the following:

set default=0
set timeout=10

menuentry "Zephyr Kernel" {
    multiboot /kernel/zephyr.elf
}

And then unmount the image file:

$ sudo umount /mnt

You now have a virtual disk image with a bootable Zephyr in zephyr.img. If the Zephyr build system is not the ACRN SOS, then you will need to transfer this image to the ACRN SOS (via, e.g., a USB stick or network).

On the ACRN SOS¶

If you are not already using the ACRN SOS, follow Getting started guide for Intel NUC to install and boot “The ACRN Service OS”.
Boot Zephyr as User OS

On the ACRN SOS, prepare a directory and populate it with Zephyr files.
```
$ mkdir zephyr
$ cd zephyr
$ cp /usr/share/acrn/samples/nuc/launch_zephyr.sh .
$ cp /usr/share/acrn/bios/OVMF.fd .
```
You will also need to copy the zephyr.img created in the first section into this directory. Then run launch_zephyr.sh script to launch the Zephyr as a UOS.
```
$ sudo ./launch_zephyr.sh
```
Then Zephyr will boot up automatically. You will see the banner:
```
Hello World! acrn
```
Which indicates that Zephyr is running successfully under ACRN!