4.28. Sandbox

barebox can be run as a simulator on your host to check and debug new non hardware related features.

4.28.1. Building barebox for simulation

The barebox sandbox can be built with the host compiler:

ARCH=sandbox make sandbox_defconfig
ARCH=sandbox make

4.28.2. Running the sandbox

Once you compile barebox for the sandbox, you can run it with:

$ barebox [<OPTIONS>]

Available sandbox invocation options include:

-m, --malloc=<size>

Start sandbox with a specified malloc-space <size> in bytes.

-i <file>

Map a <file> to barebox. This option can be given multiple times. The <file>s will show up as /dev/fd0 … /dev/fdX in the barebox simulator.

How the file is mapped in barebox can be controlled by a number of flags:

  • ,ro: The host file is mapped read-only

  • ,blkdev: The host file is to be mapped as block device. This is the default when passing block devices from the host. The file’s size must be a multiple of the barebox sector size of 512 bytes.

  • ,cdev: The host file is mapped as character device. This is the default, unless the the host file is a block device.

Multiple options can be appended if they don’t clash. Literal commas within the file path can be escaped with a backslash. Example: -i './0\,0.hdimg,blkdev,ro'.

-e <file>

Map <file> to barebox. With this option <file>s are mapped as /dev/env0 … /dev/envX and thus are used as default environment. A clean file generated with dd will do to get started with an empty environment.

-O <file>

Register <file> as a console capable of doing stdout. <file> can be a regular file or a FIFO.

-I <file>

Register <file> as a console capable of doing stdin. <file> can be a regular file or a FIFO.

-x, --xres <res>

Specify SDL width.

-y, --yres <res>

Specify SDL height.

To terminate barebox and return to the calling shell, the poweroff command is suitable.