Introduction

This script automates the process of building EFI application using the EDK II development environment and sending them to the virtual disk of an OVMF based virtual machine.

Main Features

• Build and copy EFI applications
• Manage individual application profiles
• Dynamic configuration of paths and parameters
• Build and replace the OVMF firmware image

Assumptions

• The script assumes you use EDK II and libvrt (qemu) running OVMF firmware
• You need to have root access permissions in order to mount the virtual disk
• The virtual disk must be a FAT32 raw image file named OVMF_DISK.img

Future development plans

• Control more parameters of the EDK II build
• Support other virtual disks formats and paths
• Add an automatically generated UEFI startup script

Virtual machine prerequisites

Configuring libvirt

After installing qemu, libvirt, OVMF, and virt-manager, add the path to your OVMF firmware image and runtime variables template to your libvirt config so virt-install or virt-manager can find those later on. Add the following line to /etc/libvirt/qemu.conf:

nvram = [ "<PATH_TO_OVMF>/OVMF_CODE.fd:<PATH_TO_OVMF>/OVMF_VARS.fd" ]

Creating a FAT32 raw image file

1. Create a file filled with zeros:
   $ dd if=/dev/zero of=OVMF_DISK.img bs=1M count=100
2. Use fdisk OVMF_DISK.img to create primary partition of type W95 FAT32 (LBA).
3. Create the FAT32 file system in the image:
   $ mkfs.vfat OVMF_DISK.img

Creating a OVMF VM using virt-manager

1. Press on File -> New Virtual Machine and select Import existing disk image.
2. Browse for the FAT32 raw image file you created.
3. On the final step of the wizard, select Customize configuration before install.
4. Change the Firmware to the UEFI x86_64 option.
5. [Optional] Change Chipset to Q35.
6. [Optional] Go to the CPUs screen, uncheck Copy host CPU configutaion and
   on the Model field write host-passthrough.
7. [Optional] Go to Disk 1 screen, change Disk Bus to SATA and Cache mode to writethrough.
8. Click on Begin Installation.

Script Usage

Installation

The script should be placed in a working directory where it will be able to save its profile and configurations files.

Before running the script, EDK II BaseTools should be compiled. The build configurations file edk2/Conf/target.txt should be edited with the following values: TOOL_CHAIN_TAG = GCC5 and TARGET_ARCH = X64. Currently, the script does not support other build configurations without editing it.

Run command ./efiappbnc --help for more information.

Configurations

The script needs to be configured with some paths and parameters in order to work. The configurations are saved to a .config file in the working directory. If the file does not exist, the script will ask to set configurations. The script will check for missing configurations when needed.

Run command ./efiappbnc configure to edit existing configurations.

Usage example

leyaniv@leyaniv-Airtop2 /work/TianoCore/efiappbnc $ ./efiappbnc
	===Edit configurations===
1) OVMF virtual image file path: Not set
2) Number of threads to build:   Not set
3) EDK2 repository path:         Not set
Select a number to edit (Press enter to save and continue): 1
Edit "OVMF virtual image file path": /work/TianoCore/OVMF
1) OVMF virtual image file path: /work/TianoCore/OVMF
2) Number of threads to build:   Not set
3) EDK2 repository path:         Not set
Select a number to edit (Press enter to save and continue): 2
Edit "Number of threads to build": 14
1) OVMF virtual image file path: /work/TianoCore/OVMF
2) Number of threads to build:   14
3) EDK2 repository path:         Not set
Select a number to edit (Press enter to save and continue): 3
Edit "EDK2 repository path": /work/TianoCore/edk2
1) OVMF virtual image file path: /work/TianoCore/OVMF
2) Number of threads to build:   14
3) EDK2 repository path:         /work/TianoCore/edk2
Select a number to edit (Press enter to save and continue):
>> Saving configurations
>> Looking for available app profiles
>> No profiles found, create a new one
Input application name: CLHello
	===EDK2 build===
>> Building shell environment
Loading previous configuration from /work/TianoCore/edk2/Conf/BuildEnv.sh
WORKSPACE: /work/TianoCore/edk2
EDK_TOOLS_PATH: /work/TianoCore/edk2/BaseTools
CONF_PATH: /work/TianoCore/edk2/Conf
Input platform name: Compulab
Input package name: CompulabPkg
Input package DSC file name: CompulabPkg.dsc
>> Building package
Build environment: Linux-4.13.0-45-generic-x86_64-with-LinuxMint-18.3-sylvia
Build start time: 17:50:09, Sep.06 2018

WORKSPACE        = /work/TianoCore/edk2
ECP_SOURCE       = /work/TianoCore/edk2/EdkCompatibilityPkg
EDK_SOURCE       = /work/TianoCore/edk2/EdkCompatibilityPkg
EFI_SOURCE       = /work/TianoCore/edk2/EdkCompatibilityPkg
EDK_TOOLS_PATH   = /work/TianoCore/edk2/BaseTools
CONF_PATH        = /work/TianoCore/edk2/Conf

Processing meta-data . done!
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/ShellPkg/Library/UefiShellLib/UefiShellLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/ShellPkg/Library/UefiShellCEntryLib/UefiShellCEntryLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/UefiFileHandleLib/UefiFileHandleLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdeModulePkg/Library/UefiHiiLib/UefiHiiLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdeModulePkg/Library/UefiSortLib/UefiSortLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/UefiApplicationEntryPoint/UefiApplicationEntryPoint.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/UefiLib/UefiLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdeModulePkg/Library/UefiHiiServicesLib/UefiHiiServicesLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/UefiDevicePathLib/UefiDevicePathLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/UefiRuntimeServicesTableLib/UefiRuntimeServicesTableLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/UefiMemoryAllocationLib/UefiMemoryAllocationLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/UefiBootServicesTableLib/UefiBootServicesTableLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/BaseLib/BaseLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/BasePrintLib/BasePrintLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/UefiDebugLibConOut/UefiDebugLibConOut.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/BasePcdLibNull/BasePcdLibNull.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/BaseMemoryLib/BaseMemoryLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/MdePkg/Library/BaseDebugPrintErrorLevelLib/BaseDebugPrintErrorLevelLib.inf [X64]
Building ... /work/TianoCore/edk2/CompulabPkg/CLHello/CLHello.inf [X64]

- Done -
Build end time: 17:50:10, Sep.06 2018
Build total time: 00:00:01

	===Copy application to OVMF drive===
Input application file name: CLHello.efi
>> Mounting OVMF drive image
>> Copying application to mounted image
>> Unmounting OVMF drive image
>> Resseting OVMF qemu session
Domain OVMF-RAW was reset

Do you want to save a app profile? (Press y/n): y
>> Saving a profile for CLHello app
>> Done!

OVMF Tips & tricks

• Type exit on the EFI shell to get to the setup menu.
• To change the screen resolution, enter the setup menu, go to Device Manager,
  then OVMF Platform Configuration. Change the preferred resolution and exit.

Console output modes

The console output text mode (number of rows and columns) can be changed using the mode shell command. You might find the original selection of available modes to be very limited on your OVMF firmware. To add additional modes to your firmware, you need to edit the array mTerminalConsoleModeData with your desired selection of modes.

The array is located in MdeModulePkg/Universal/Console/TerminalDxe/Terminal.c

For example (based on this patch):

TERMINAL_CONSOLE_MODE_DATA mTerminalConsoleModeData[] = {
  {   80,  25 }, // from graphics resolution  640 x  480
  {   80,  50 }, // from graphics resolution  640 x  960
  {  100,  25 }, // from graphics resolution  800 x  480
  {  100,  31 }, // from graphics resolution  800 x  600
  {  104,  32 }, // from graphics resolution  832 x  624
  {  120,  33 }, // from graphics resolution  960 x  640
  {  128,  31 }, // from graphics resolution 1024 x  600
  {  128,  40 }, // from graphics resolution 1024 x  768
  {  144,  45 }, // from graphics resolution 1152 x  864
  {  144,  45 }, // from graphics resolution 1152 x  870
  {  160,  37 }, // from graphics resolution 1280 x  720
  {  160,  40 }, // from graphics resolution 1280 x  760
  {  160,  40 }, // from graphics resolution 1280 x  768
  {  160,  42 }, // from graphics resolution 1280 x  800
  {  160,  50 }, // from graphics resolution 1280 x  960
  {  160,  53 }, // from graphics resolution 1280 x 1024
  {  170,  40 }, // from graphics resolution 1360 x  768
  {  170,  40 }, // from graphics resolution 1366 x  768
  {  175,  55 }, // from graphics resolution 1400 x 1050
  {  180,  47 }, // from graphics resolution 1440 x  900
  {  200,  47 }, // from graphics resolution 1600 x  900
  {  200,  63 }, // from graphics resolution 1600 x 1200
  {  210,  55 }, // from graphics resolution 1680 x 1050
  {  240,  56 }, // from graphics resolution 1920 x 1080
  {  240,  63 }, // from graphics resolution 1920 x 1200
  {  240,  75 }, // from graphics resolution 1920 x 1440
  {  250, 105 }, // from graphics resolution 2000 x 2000
  {  256,  80 }, // from graphics resolution 2048 x 1536
  {  256, 107 }, // from graphics resolution 2048 x 2048
  {  320,  75 }, // from graphics resolution 2560 x 1440
  {  320,  84 }, // from graphics resolution 2560 x 1600
  {  320, 107 }, // from graphics resolution 2560 x 2048
  {  350, 110 }, // from graphics resolution 2800 x 2100
  {  400, 126 }, // from graphics resolution 3200 x 2400
  {  480, 113 }, // from graphics resolution 3840 x 2160
  {  512, 113 }, // from graphics resolution 4096 x 2160
  {  960, 227 }, // from graphics resolution 7680 x 4320
  { 1024, 227 }, // from graphics resolution 8192 x 4320
  //
  // New modes can be added here.
  //
};

UEFI shell startup script

After copying the application binary to the virtual disk, the script will reset the qemu session. A startup script can be useful to avoid typing the same commands after each reset. The startup script is a file named startup.nsh that is located at the root of the virtual disk. The following script is an example

echo -off
mode 128 40	# Change console output mode (suits 1024 x 768 resolution)
fs0:		# Go to the virtual drive
ls		# List files
echo -on