PL-I Assignment

Broup B-Ass 5

BIOS & UEFI

 Vocabulary
 BIOS = Basic Input Output System
 UEFI = Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
 POST= Power On Self Test
 BR = Boot Record (aka MBR)
 BC =Boot Code (aka MBC)
 GUID = Globally Unique Identifier
 GPT = GUID Partition Table
What is booting
 When we start our computer then there is an operation
which is performed automatically by the Computer which
is also called as Booting.
 In the Booting, System will check all the hardware’s and
Software’s those are installed or Attached with the
System and this will also load all the Files those are
needed for running a system.
 In the Booting Process all the Files those are Stored into
the ROM Chip will also be Loaded for Running the
System.
 In the Booting Process the System will read all the
information from the Files those are Stored into the ROM
Chip and the ROM chip will read all the instructions those
are Stored into these Files.
Types of booting

Warm booting
 When the System Starts from the Starting or from
initial State Means when we Starts our System
this is called as warm Booting.
Cold booting
 The Cold Booting is that in which System
Automatically Starts when we are Running the
System, For Example due to Light Fluctuation the
system will Automatically Restarts So that in this
Chances Damaging of system are More.
 BIOS
 Instructions used to start the computer from a cold
start. (power off to power on).
 The BIOS instructions are written on non-volatile

RAM.
 EEP-ROM is the common media choice for the BIOS,
installed on the motherboard.
 The BIOS instructions are based on the chip-set
installed on the motherboard
 BIOS
 The BIOS primary functions are
 Power-on self-test (POST)
 Detect the video card’s (chip’s) BIOS and execute its code to
initialize the video hardware
 Detect any other device BIOSes and invoke their initialize
functions
 Display the BIOS start-up screen
 Perform a brief memory test (identify how much memory is in
the system)
 Set memory and drive parameters
 Configure Plug & Play devices
 Assign resources
 Identify the boot device
 Hardware Boot Sequence
 Turn on the power switch
 All memory and cache is empty at startup.
 A reset signal is generated by the chipset to the CPU
until the power is ready.
 The CPU powers up and reads address xFFFF0 from

the ROM. This contains a jump instruction to the start

of the BIOS instructions.
Linux boot process
1. BIOS


 BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System

 Performs some system integrity checks
 Searches, loads, and executes the boot loader program.
 It looks for boot loader in floppy, cd-rom, or hard drive. You
can press a key (typically F12 of F2, but it depends on your
system) during the BIOS startup to change the boot sequence.
 Once the boot loader program is detected and loaded into the
memory, BIOS gives the control to it.
 So, in simple terms BIOS loads and executes the MBR boot
loader.
2. MBR
 MBR stands for Master Boot Record.
 It is located in the 1st sector of the bootable disk.
Typically /dev/hda, or /dev/sda
 MBR is less than 512 bytes in size. This has three
components 1) primary boot loader info in 1st 446 bytes
2) partition table info in next 64 bytes 3) mbr validation
check in last 2 bytes.
 It contains information about GRUB (or LILO in old
systems).
 So, in simple terms MBR loads and executes the GRUB
boot loader.
3. GRUB

 GRUB stands for Grand Unified Bootloader.

 If you have multiple kernel images installed on your
system, you can choose which one to be executed.
 GRUB displays a splash screen, waits for few seconds, if
you don‟t enter anything, it loads the default kernel image
as specified in the grub configuration file.
 GRUB has the knowledge of the filesystem (the older
Linux loader LILO didn‟t understand filesystem).
Grub configuration file is /boot/grub/grub.conf
(/etc/grub.conf is a link to this).
4. Kernel

 Mounts the root file system as specified in the “root=” in

grub.conf
 Kernel executes the /sbin/init program
 Since init was the 1st program to be executed by Linux
Kernel, it has the process id (PID) of 1. Do a „ps -ef | grep init‟
and check the pid.
 initrd stands for Initial RAM Disk.
 initrd is used by kernel as temporary root file system until
kernel is booted and the real root file system is mounted. It
also contains necessary drivers compiled inside, which helps it
to access the hard drive partitions, and other hardware.
 5.Init
 Looks at the /etc/inittab file to decide the Linux run level.
 Following are the available run levels
 0 – halt
 1 – Single user mode
 2 – Multiuser, without NFS
 3 – Full multiuser mode
 4 – unused
 5 – X11
 6 – reboot
 Init identifies the default initlevel from /etc/inittab and uses that to load all appropriate
program.
 Execute „grep initdefault /etc/inittab‟ on your system to identify the default run level.
 If you want to get into trouble, you can set the default run level to 0 or 6. Since you know
what 0 and 6 means, probably you might not do that.
 Typically you would set the default run level to either 3 or 5.
6. Run level programs

 When the Linux system is booting up, you might see various
services getting started. Those are the runlevel programs
 Depending on your default init level setting, the system will
execute the programs from one of the following directories.
o Run level 0 – /etc/rc.d/rc0.d/
o Run level 1 – /etc/rc.d/rc1.d/
o Run level 2 – /etc/rc.d/rc2.d/
o Run level 3 – /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/
o Run level 4 – /etc/rc.d/rc4.d/
o Run level 5 – /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/
o Run level 6 – /etc/rc.d/rc6.d/
Good by BIOS. Hello EFI

 As 32-bit architectures became the norm and 64-bit

architectures emerged, the BIOS was starting to look
quite dated.
 Intel set out to create a specification of a BIOS
successor that had no restrictions on running in 16-
bit mode with 20-bit addressing.
 This specification is called the Unified Extensible
Firmware Interface, or UEFI (but typically called EFI).
Although developed by Intel, it was managed since
2005 by the Unified EFI Forum.
 It is used by many newer 64-bit systems, including
Macs, which also have legacy BIOS support for
running Windows.
 EFI Features
BIOS components - preserved some components from the BIOS, including power

Support for larger disks- The BIOS only supported four partitions per disk, with a capacity of
up to 2.2 TB per partition. EFI supports a maximum partition size of 9.4 ZB (9.4 × 1021 bytes).

No need to start up in 16-bit (real) mode- The pre-boot execution environment gives you
direct access to all of system memory.

Device drivers - The EFI includes device drivers, including the ability to interpret architecture-
independent EFI Byte Code (EBC) Operating systems use their own drivers.

Boot manager- EFI has its own command interpreter and complete boot manager.

Extensibility- The firmware is extensible. Extensions to EFI can be loaded into non-volatile
memory.
EFI Booting
 With EFI, there is no longer a need for the Master
Boot Record to contain a stage 1 boot loader; EFI
has the smarts to load a file on its own.
 Instead, EFI reads the GUID (Globally Unique
IDentifier) Partition Table (GPT), which is located in
blocks immediately after block 0 (which is where the
MBR still sits for legacy reasons).
 The GPT describes the layout of the partition table
on a disk. From this, the EFI boot loader identifies
the EFI System Partition. This system partition
contains boot loaders for all operating systems that
are installed on other partitions on the device.
BIOS/UEFI
 In the beginning there was the BIOS
 Intel creates the Extensible Firmware Interface in

 1998
 UEFI now supersedes EFI
 – UEFI can run on-top-of the traditional BIOS or
in place
 of the BIOS.
 Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
(UEFI)
• The interface defined by the EFI specification includes data tables
that contain platform information, and boot and runtime services
that are available to the OS loader and OS. UEFI firmware provides
several technical advantages over a traditional BIOS system
• Ability to boot from large disks (over 2 TiB) with a GUID Partition
Table, GPT
• CPU-independent architecture
• CPU-independent drivers
• Flexible pre-OS environment, including network capability
• Modular design
BIOS & UEFI
UEFI Boot
 UEFI Booting

• The UEFI specification defines a "boot manager", a firmware policy engine

that is in charge of loading the operating system loader and all necessary
drivers.
• The boot configuration is controlled by a set of global NVRAM variables,
including boot variables that indicate the paths to the loaders.
• Operating system loaders are a class of the UEFI applications. As such, they
are stored as files on a file system that can be accessed by the firmware,
called EFI System partition (ESP).
• UEFI does not rely on a boot sector, although ESP provides space for it as
part of the backwards compatibility.[28]
• UEFI booting from GPT disks is commonly called UEFI-GPT.
• Boot loaders can also be automatically detected by the UEFI firmwares, to
enable booting from removable devices.]
• It is common for UEFI firmware to include a user interface to the boot
manager, to allow the user to select and load the operating system among
the possible options.
UEFI Features
Breaking out of size limitations
 UEFI uses the GUID partition table (GPT).GPT uses
64-bit entries in its table which dramatically extends
the support for size possibilities of the hard drive.
Speed and performance
 Since UEFI is platform independent, it may be able
to enhance the boot time and speed of the computer.
Security
 Secure boot is a feature of UEFI. UEFI can allow
only authentic drivers and services to load at boot
time, making sure that no malware can be loaded at
computer startup.
Advantages of UEFI vs. BIOS

Interface Legacy BIOS UEFI

Architecture x86 / X64 only Agnostic
Mode 16 bit (real mode) 32/64 bit
Boot Partition MBR (2.2 TB limit) GPT (9.4 ZB* limit)
Runtime Services No Yes

Driver model No Yes

POST Graphics VGA Graphical Output Protocol
(GOP)