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Diffstat (limited to 'boot.asm')
| -rw-r--r-- | boot.asm | 90 |
1 files changed, 90 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/boot.asm b/boot.asm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4897e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/boot.asm @@ -0,0 +1,90 @@ +; Declare constants for the multiboot header. +MBALIGN equ 1 << 0 ; align loaded modules on page boundaries +MEMINFO equ 1 << 1 ; provide memory map +FLAGS equ MBALIGN | MEMINFO ; this is the Multiboot 'flag' field +MAGIC equ 0x1BADB002 ; 'magic number' lets bootloader find the header +CHECKSUM equ -(MAGIC + FLAGS) ; checksum of above, to prove we are multiboot + +; Declare a multiboot header that marks the program as a kernel. These are magic +; values that are documented in the multiboot standard. The bootloader will +; search for this signature in the first 8 KiB of the kernel file, aligned at a +; 32-bit boundary. The signature is in its own section so the header can be +; forced to be within the first 8 KiB of the kernel file. +section .multiboot +align 4 + dd MAGIC + dd FLAGS + dd CHECKSUM + +; The multiboot standard does not define the value of the stack pointer register +; (esp) and it is up to the kernel to provide a stack. This allocates room for a +; small stack by creating a symbol at the bottom of it, then allocating 16384 +; bytes for it, and finally creating a symbol at the top. The stack grows +; downwards on x86. The stack is in its own section so it can be marked nobits, +; which means the kernel file is smaller because it does not contain an +; uninitialized stack. The stack on x86 must be 16-byte aligned according to the +; System V ABI standard and de-facto extensions. The compiler will assume the +; stack is properly aligned and failure to align the stack will result in +; undefined behavior. +section .bss +align 16 +stack_bottom: +resb 16384 ; 16 KiB +stack_top: + +; The linker script specifies _start as the entry point to the kernel and the +; bootloader will jump to this position once the kernel has been loaded. It +; doesn't make sense to return from this function as the bootloader is gone. +; Declare _start as a function symbol with the given symbol size. +section .text +global _start:function (_start.end - _start) +_start: + ; The bootloader has loaded us into 32-bit protected mode on a x86 + ; machine. Interrupts are disabled. Paging is disabled. The processor + ; state is as defined in the multiboot standard. The kernel has full + ; control of the CPU. The kernel can only make use of hardware features + ; and any code it provides as part of itself. There's no printf + ; function, unless the kernel provides its own <stdio.h> header and a + ; printf implementation. There are no security restrictions, no + ; safeguards, no debugging mechanisms, only what the kernel provides + ; itself. It has absolute and complete power over the + ; machine. + + ; To set up a stack, we set the esp register to point to the top of our + ; stack (as it grows downwards on x86 systems). This is necessarily done + ; in assembly as languages such as C cannot function without a stack. + mov esp, stack_top + + ; This is a good place to initialize crucial processor state before the + ; high-level kernel is entered. It's best to minimize the early + ; environment where crucial features are offline. Note that the + ; processor is not fully initialized yet: Features such as floating + ; point instructions and instruction set extensions are not initialized + ; yet. The GDT should be loaded here. Paging should be enabled here. + ; C++ features such as global constructors and exceptions will require + ; runtime support to work as well. + + ; Enter the high-level kernel. The ABI requires the stack is 16-byte + ; aligned at the time of the call instruction (which afterwards pushes + ; the return pointer of size 4 bytes). The stack was originally 16-byte + ; aligned above and we've since pushed a multiple of 16 bytes to the + ; stack since (pushed 0 bytes so far) and the alignment is thus + ; preserved and the call is well defined. + ; note, that if you are building on Windows, C functions may have "_" prefix in assembly: _kernel_main + extern kernel_main + call kernel_main + + ; If the system has nothing more to do, put the computer into an + ; infinite loop. To do that: + ; 1) Disable interrupts with cli (clear interrupt enable in eflags). + ; They are already disabled by the bootloader, so this is not needed. + ; Mind that you might later enable interrupts and return from + ; kernel_main (which is sort of nonsensical to do). + ; 2) Wait for the next interrupt to arrive with hlt (halt instruction). + ; Since they are disabled, this will lock up the computer. + ; 3) Jump to the hlt instruction if it ever wakes up due to a + ; non-maskable interrupt occurring or due to system management mode. + cli +.hang: hlt + jmp .hang +.end: |