FreeBSD/Linux Kernel Cross Reference
sys/Documentation/debugging-via-ohci1394.txt

     
       Using physical DMA provided by OHCI-1394 FireWire controllers for debugging
       ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
     Introduction
     ------------
     
     Basically all FireWire controllers which are in use today are compliant
     to the OHCI-1394 specification which defines the controller to be a PCI
    bus master which uses DMA to offload data transfers from the CPU and has
    a "Physical Response Unit" which executes specific requests by employing
    PCI-Bus master DMA after applying filters defined by the OHCI-1394 driver.
    
    Once properly configured, remote machines can send these requests to
    ask the OHCI-1394 controller to perform read and write requests on
    physical system memory and, for read requests, send the result of
    the physical memory read back to the requester.
    
    With that, it is possible to debug issues by reading interesting memory
    locations such as buffers like the printk buffer or the process table.
    
    Retrieving a full system memory dump is also possible over the FireWire,
    using data transfer rates in the order of 10MB/s or more.
    
    Memory access is currently limited to the low 4G of physical address
    space which can be a problem on IA64 machines where memory is located
    mostly above that limit, but it is rarely a problem on more common
    hardware such as hardware based on x86, x86-64 and PowerPC.
    
    Together with a early initialization of the OHCI-1394 controller for debugging,
    this facility proved most useful for examining long debugs logs in the printk
    buffer on to debug early boot problems in areas like ACPI where the system
    fails to boot and other means for debugging (serial port) are either not
    available (notebooks) or too slow for extensive debug information (like ACPI).
    
    Drivers
    -------
    
    The ohci1394 driver in drivers/ieee1394 initializes the OHCI-1394 controllers
    to a working state and enables physical DMA by default for all remote nodes.
    This can be turned off by ohci1394's module parameter phys_dma=0.
    
    The alternative firewire-ohci driver in drivers/firewire uses filtered physical
    DMA by default, which is more secure but not suitable for remote debugging.
    Compile the driver with CONFIG_FIREWIRE_OHCI_REMOTE_DMA (Kernel hacking menu:
    Remote debugging over FireWire with firewire-ohci) to get unfiltered physical
    DMA.
    
    Because ohci1394 and firewire-ohci depend on the PCI enumeration to be
    completed, an initialization routine which runs pretty early has been
    implemented for x86.  This routine runs long before console_init() can be
    called, i.e. before the printk buffer appears on the console.
    
    To activate it, enable CONFIG_PROVIDE_OHCI1394_DMA_INIT (Kernel hacking menu:
    Remote debugging over FireWire early on boot) and pass the parameter
    "ohci1394_dma=early" to the recompiled kernel on boot.
    
    Tools
    -----
    
    firescope - Originally developed by Benjamin Herrenschmidt, Andi Kleen ported
    it from PowerPC to x86 and x86_64 and added functionality, firescope can now
    be used to view the printk buffer of a remote machine, even with live update.
    
    Bernhard Kaindl enhanced firescope to support accessing 64-bit machines
    from 32-bit firescope and vice versa:
    - http://halobates.de/firewire/firescope-0.2.2.tar.bz2
    
    and he implemented fast system dump (alpha version - read README.txt):
    - http://halobates.de/firewire/firedump-0.1.tar.bz2
    
    There is also a gdb proxy for firewire which allows to use gdb to access
    data which can be referenced from symbols found by gdb in vmlinux:
    - http://halobates.de/firewire/fireproxy-0.33.tar.bz2
    
    The latest version of this gdb proxy (fireproxy-0.34) can communicate (not
    yet stable) with kgdb over an memory-based communication module (kgdbom).
    
    Getting Started
    ---------------
    
    The OHCI-1394 specification regulates that the OHCI-1394 controller must
    disable all physical DMA on each bus reset.
    
    This means that if you want to debug an issue in a system state where
    interrupts are disabled and where no polling of the OHCI-1394 controller
    for bus resets takes place, you have to establish any FireWire cable
    connections and fully initialize all FireWire hardware __before__ the
    system enters such state.
    
    Step-by-step instructions for using firescope with early OHCI initialization:
    
    1) Verify that your hardware is supported:
    
       Load the ohci1394 or the fw-ohci module and check your kernel logs.
       You should see a line similar to
    
       ohci1394: fw-host0: OHCI-1394 1.1 (PCI): IRQ=[18]  MMIO=[fe9ff800-fe9fffff]
       ... Max Packet=[2048]  IR/IT contexts=[4/8]
   
      when loading the driver. If you have no supported controller, many PCI,
      CardBus and even some Express cards which are fully compliant to OHCI-1394
      specification are available. If it requires no driver for Windows operating
      systems, it most likely is. Only specialized shops have cards which are not
      compliant, they are based on TI PCILynx chips and require drivers for Win-
      dows operating systems.
   
   2) Establish a working FireWire cable connection:
   
      Any FireWire cable, as long at it provides electrically and mechanically
      stable connection and has matching connectors (there are small 4-pin and
      large 6-pin FireWire ports) will do.
   
      If an driver is running on both machines you should see a line like
   
      ieee1394: Node added: ID:BUS[0-01:1023]  GUID[0090270001b84bba]
   
      on both machines in the kernel log when the cable is plugged in
      and connects the two machines.
   
   3) Test physical DMA using firescope:
   
      On the debug host,
           - load the raw1394 module,
           - make sure that /dev/raw1394 is accessible,
      then start firescope:
   
           $ firescope
           Port 0 (ohci1394) opened, 2 nodes detected
   
           FireScope
           ---------
           Target : <unspecified>
           Gen    : 1
           [Ctrl-T] choose target
           [Ctrl-H] this menu
           [Ctrl-Q] quit
   
       ------> Press Ctrl-T now, the output should be similar to:
   
           2 nodes available, local node is: 0
            0: ffc0, uuid: 00000000 00000000 [LOCAL]
            1: ffc1, uuid: 00279000 ba4bb801
   
      Besides the [LOCAL] node, it must show another node without error message.
   
   4) Prepare for debugging with early OHCI-1394 initialization:
   
      4.1) Kernel compilation and installation on debug target
   
      Compile the kernel to be debugged with CONFIG_PROVIDE_OHCI1394_DMA_INIT
      (Kernel hacking: Provide code for enabling DMA over FireWire early on boot)
      enabled and install it on the machine to be debugged (debug target).
   
      4.2) Transfer the System.map of the debugged kernel to the debug host
   
      Copy the System.map of the kernel be debugged to the debug host (the host
      which is connected to the debugged machine over the FireWire cable).
   
   5) Retrieving the printk buffer contents:
   
      With the FireWire cable connected, the OHCI-1394 driver on the debugging
      host loaded, reboot the debugged machine, booting the kernel which has
      CONFIG_PROVIDE_OHCI1394_DMA_INIT enabled, with the option ohci1394_dma=early.
   
      Then, on the debugging host, run firescope, for example by using -A:
   
           firescope -A System.map-of-debug-target-kernel
   
      Note: -A automatically attaches to the first non-local node. It only works
      reliably if only connected two machines are connected using FireWire.
   
      After having attached to the debug target, press Ctrl-D to view the
      complete printk buffer or Ctrl-U to enter auto update mode and get an
      updated live view of recent kernel messages logged on the debug target.
   
      Call "firescope -h" to get more information on firescope's options.
   
   Notes
   -----
   Documentation and specifications: http://halobates.de/firewire/
   
   FireWire is a trademark of Apple Inc. - for more information please refer to:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireWire

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