question about switching from real mode to protected mode in smm handler

[Fengwei Zhang]

Hi all,

I am implementing SMM on K8/vt8237r, and I have problem with switching 
from real mode to protected mode in smm handler.

I followed the smmhandler.S code in /src/cpu/x86/smm/ directory
If I put my rsm instruction before ljmp instruction, I could invoke SMI 
successfully.
    /* Enable protected mode */
    data32  ljmp    $0x08, $1f

but if I put rsm instruction below that(even commented out the C 
procedure), my machine will freeze after the invoking.

The only difference between my code and ICH4 implementation is:
I didn't copy the smm bin file(include smmhandler.S smihandler.c 
smm.ld), to location 0xa0000, I just copied the smmhandler.S file to 
location 0xa0000 and wrote a jmp statement at 0xa8000.

In order to make it simple, I commented out the C procedure, and only 
assembly in smmhandler.

I may didn't set global descriptor table correctly.
I understand ljmp $0x08, $1f is going to use first entry of gdt, and 
traslate the logical address to linear address.
smmhandler.S code has setted up correct smm_gdt, and I also copied the 
code to location 0xa0000 (since it is in smmhander.S file).

.code16
.align	4, 0xff
smm_gdtptr16:
    .word	smm_gdt_end - smm_gdt - 1
    .long	smm_gdt - smm_handler_start + 0xa0000 + SMM_HANDLER_OFFSET
.code32
smm_gdt:
    /* The first GDT entry can not be used. Keep it zero */
    .long	0x00000000, 0x00000000
    /* gdt selector 0x08, flat code segment */
    .word	0xffff, 0x0000
    .byte	0x00, 0x9b, 0xcf, 0x00 /* G=1 and 0x0f, 4GB limit */
    /* gdt selector 0x10, flat data segment */
    .word	0xffff, 0x0000
    .byte	0x00, 0x93, 0xcf, 0x00
smm_gdt_end:

I would appreciate it if someone could help me out.

Best,
Fengwei

[Stefan Reinauer]

On 11/16/10 7:41 PM, Fengwei Zhang wrote:
> I followed the smmhandler.S code in /src/cpu/x86/smm/ directory
> If I put my rsm instruction before ljmp instruction, I could invoke
> SMI successfully.
>     /* Enable protected mode */
>     data32  ljmp    $0x08, $1f
>
> but if I put rsm instruction below that(even commented out the C
> procedure), my machine will freeze after the invoking.
>
> The only difference between my code and ICH4 implementation is:
> I didn't copy the smm bin file(include smmhandler.S smihandler.c
> smm.ld), to location 0xa0000, I just copied the smmhandler.S file to
> location 0xa0000 and wrote a jmp statement at 0xa8000.
>
> In order to make it simple, I commented out the C procedure, and only
> assembly in smmhandler.

That won't work. Just leave the sequence as it is, and adapt the
southbridge/northbridge specific code to your chipset.

Pretty much like the attached patch, but it's not complete yet.