UEFI Application

Submit New Article

November 15, 2008 9:00 PM PST


Home >> | Back to Courseware Access page >> | Back to Other Courseware Content page >> |

 

UEFI Curriculum

About UEFI

UEFI-Framework Course Contents

Introduction to PC Architecture

Beyond BIOS

UEFI Introduction

UEFI Architecture and Technical Overview

UEFI Application

UEFI Shell

UEFI Boot Manager

UEFI Services

UEFI Drivers

Framework Architecture and Technical Overview

Labs

References

Potential research topics


Agenda

• Introduction
• UEFI Shell
• UEFI Toolkit
• 3rd Party Libraries
• Summary

 

Contents

Introduction

Introduction

• EFI Applications extend firmware

–No hardware dependence

–No OS dependence

• Portable across platforms

–Intel® IA-32, EM64T, Itanium® Architecture and XScale® technology

• Enables rapid application development

 

What is UEFI Application?

• A UEFI Loadable Image

–Loaded by UEFI loader just like drivers
–Does not register protocols like drivers do
–Consumes protocols
–Typically user driven (exits when task completed)
–Same set of interfaces available as drivers have


• Can be used for

–Platform diagnostics
–Factory diagnostics
–Utilities
–Driver prototyping
–’Platform’ applications

 

UEFI Shell

• A UEFI Application

• Interactive Console Interface

• Application Launch

• Load UEFI Drivers

• Scripting Capability

• Automatic execution of startup script file

• Console redirection to files

 

UEFI Toolkit

UEFI Toolkit Components

• Utilities

• C Library

• Network Stack

• Platform Management

• Compression

• Database

Useful tools for UEFI application development

Programming Models

• Native UEFI Model

–Uses only UEFI constructs

–Access to all UEFI constructs

–Smaller code size

• Portability Model

–Familiar programming interfaces

–Easier to port ANSI/POSIX based programs

–Larger binary image

• A single program can use both

 

UEFI Toolkit Integration

 

C Library

• FreeBSD Port

• ANSI/POSIX compliant

• System I/O - open(), read(), write(), close(), stat()

• Standard I/O - fopen(), printf(), gets(), …

• String/Char - strcmp(), isascii(), atoi(), …

• Memory - malloc(), free(), realloc(), …

• Time/Date - time(), asctime(), ctime(), …

• Math - sqrt(), pow(), sin(), log(), …

 

UEFI Library

• Lite Weight” C Library like functions

–String Functions
–Memory Support Functions
–CRC Support Functions
–Text I/O Functions
–Math Functions
–Spin Lock Functions


• Specific EFI functions

–Handle and Protocol Support Functions
–Device Path Support Functions

 

Network Components

• Port of FreeBSD TCP/IP stack

• Supports standard protocols –IPv4, ICMP, ARP, UDP, TCP

• Socket library interface

• Implemented as an EFI protocol

 

Miscellaneous

• SMBIOS Library

–Library routines for parsing SMBIOS tables

• Database

–btree

–Hashing

• Compression

–General purpose compression/decompression

–Gzip functionality

 

Utilities

• Network utilities – FTP client and server, ping

• Text editor

• Scripting interpreter (Python)

• Sample applications

 

UEFI Hello.c

#include "efi.h"

EFI_STATUS
InitializeHelloApplication (
   IN EFI_HANDLE           ImageHandle,
   IN EFI_SYSTEM_TABLE     *SystemTable
   )
{
   UINTN Index;

   SystemTable->ConOut->OutputString(SystemTable->ConOut,
          L”Hello application started
");
   SystemTable->ConOut->OutputString(SystemTable->ConOut,
          L"



Hit any key to exit this image

"); 
   SystemTable->BootServices->WaitForEvent(
          1, &(SystemTable->ConIn->WaitForKey), &Index);
   SystemTable->ConOut->OutputString(SystemTable->ConOut, 
          L"


");
   return EFI_SUCCESS;
}


aewdsa saf wefrasf adsf sdaf

C Library Hello.c

#include <atk_libc.h>
#include <stdio.h>

EFI_STATUS
InitializeHelloLibCApplication (
   IN EFI_HANDLE           ImageHandle,
   IN EFI_SYSTEM_TABLE     *SystemTable
   )
{
        InitializeLib(ImageHandle, SystemTable);
        printf("Hello LibC application started


");
        print
f("Hit C/R to exit this image
");
       return( getchar() );
}

 

#include <atk_libc.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main (int argc, char **argv )
{
        printf("Hello LibC application started


");
        printf("Hit C/R to exit this image
");
        return( getchar() );
}

C++ Support

• No direct support

–No Global constructors and destructors

• New and Delete can be mapped to malloc/free

 

3rd Party Libraries

Portable Embedded Graphics

• Portable Embedded Graphics

–Portable graphics library for UEFI
–Similar windowing components (widgets) 
     •        Dialog boxes
     •        Progress bars, scroll bars
     •        Text boxes
     •        Window Management
     •        Fonts
     •        Bitmaps, JPEG, …

• Contact Swell Software

– http://www.swellsoftware.com

 

PEG Components

 

 

Summary

• UEFI Applications extend firmware

–Provides system independence in the pre-boot space
     •        Hardware
     •        Operating System
     •        Platform
–Intel® IA-32, EM64T, Itanium® Architecture and XScale® technology


• Large library support

• UEFI Shell provides convenient launch point