Introduction

The go-boot project is a TamaGo unikernel implementing a UEFI Shell and OS loader for AMD64 platforms, allowing UEFI API interaction and OS loading.

The OS loading functionality supports launching of:

• . EFI application images
• l Linux kernels, with configuration parsed from Linux Userspace API (UAPI) boot loader entries
• w Windows UEFI boot manager

Authors

Andrea Barisani
[email protected]

Operation

The default operation is to present an UEFI shell and its help, the ⏎ shortcut (identically to l or linux) boots the default UAPI entry set at compile time (see Compiling).

Shell> go-boot.efi

initializing EFI services
initializing console (com1)

go-boot • tamago/amd64 (go1.24.1) • UEFI x64

.               <path>                   # load and start EFI image
build                                    # build information
cat             <path>                   # show file contents
clear                                    # clear screen
cpuid           <leaf> <subleaf>         # show CPU capabilities
date            (time in RFC339 format)? # show/change runtime date and time
exit,quit                                # exit application
halt,shutdown                            # shutdown system
info                                     # runtime information
linux,l         (loader entry path)?     # boot Linux kernel image
linux,l,\r                               # `l \loader\entries\arch.conf`
log                                      # show runtime logs
lspci                                    # list PCI devices
memmap          (e820)?                  # show UEFI memory map
mode            <mode>                   # set screen mode
peek            <hex offset> <size>      # memory display (use with caution)
poke            <hex offset> <hex value> # memory write   (use with caution)
protocol        <registry format GUID>   # locate UEFI protocol
reset           (cold|warm)?             # reset system
stack                                    # goroutine stack trace (current)
stackall                                 # goroutine stack trace (all)
stat            <path>                   # show file information
uefi                                     # UEFI information
uptime                                   # show system running time
windows,win,w                            # launch Windows UEFI boot manager

> uefi
UEFI Revision ......: 2.70
Firmware Vendor ....: Lenovo
Firmware Revision ..: 0x1560
Runtime Services  ..: 0x90e2eb98
Boot Services ......: 0x6bd17690
Frame Buffer .......: 1920x1200 @ 0x4000000000
Configuration Tables: 0x8f426018
  ee4e5898-3914-4259-9d6e-dc7bd79403cf (0x8db6dc98)
  dcfa911d-26eb-469f-a220-38b7dc461220 (0x8b037018)
...

> memmap
Type Start            End              Pages            Attributes
02   0000000090000000 0000000090000fff 0000000000000001 000000000000000f
...

> linux \loader\entries\arch.conf
loading boot loader entry \loader\entries\arch.conf
go-boot exiting EFI boot services and jumping to kernel
Linux version 6.13.6-arch1-1 (linux@archlinux) (gcc (GCC) 14.2.1 20250207, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.44)
...

Package documentation

Hardware Compatibility List

The list of supported hardware is available in the project wiki HCL.

The list provides test IMAGE_BASE values to pass while Compiling.

Compiling

Build the TamaGo compiler (or use the latest binary release):

wget https://github.com/usbarmory/tamago-go/archive/refs/tags/latest.zip
unzip latest.zip
cd tamago-go-latest/src && ./all.bash
cd ../bin && export TAMAGO=`pwd`/go

The following environment variables configure the go-boot.efi executable build:

• CONSOLE: set to either com1 or text (default) controls the output console to either serial port or UEFI console.

• IMAGE_BASE: must be set (in hex) within a memory range available in the target UEFI environment for the unikernel allocation, the HCL or memmap command from an UEFI Shell can provide such value, when empty a common default value is set.

• DEFAULT_LINUX_ENTRY: defines the linux,l,\r shortcut loader entry path for Linux kernel image booting, it defaults to \loader\entries\arch.conf when unspecified.

Build the go-boot.efi executable:

git clone https://github.com/usbarmory/go-boot && cd go-boot
make efi IMAGE_BASE=10000000 CONSOLE=text

Executing as UEFI application

The go-boot.efi application executable, built after Compiling, can be loaded from an UEFI Shell or boot manager, the following example shows an entry for systemd-boot:

# /boot/loader/entries/go-boot.conf
title Go Boot
efi /EFI/Linux/go-boot.efi

UEFI boot manager entry

The following example shows creation of an EFI boot entry using efibootmgr:

efibootmgr -C -L "go-boot" -d $DISK -p $PART -l '\EFI\go-boot.efi'

Emulated hardware with QEMU

QEMU supported targets can be executed under emulation, using the Open Virtual Machine Firmware as follows:

make qemu CONSOLE=com1 OVMFCODE=<path to OVMF_CODE.fd> OVMFVARS=<path to OVMF_VARS.fd>

The emulation run will provide an interactive console.

An emulated target can be debugged with GDB using make qemu-gdb, this will make qemu waiting for a GDB connection that can be launched as follows:

gdb -ex "target remote 127.0.0.1:1234"

Breakpoints can be set in the usual way:

b cpuinit
continue

License

go-boot | https://github.com/usbarmory/go-boot
Copyright (c) WithSecure Corporation

These source files are distributed under the BSD-style license found in the LICENSE file.