FLATBOOT Barebones

The S/390 architecture is one of the most interesting ones for kernels, since it involves concepts not seen on standard small computer architectures, such as a dedicated processor for I/O or failure-prone checks.

Pre-requisites

• Hercules emulator
• GCC ESA S/390 Cross-Compiler (s390-linux target)

Sources

The Flatboot bootloader is an easy starting point for starting OS-development on the S/390. It partially-implements the stivale protocol (but it is not fully compliant). Supports ELF loading and BIN loading as well. In general; in the mainframe world having a general purpouse bootloader is not practical, since most IPL bootloaders are dependant on the device they loaded on. Flatboot wastes precious amounts of memory (64KB) which is a lot on the S/360 and the S/370. But it provides an easy starting point for newcomers.

kernel.c

The central controlling part of the system (runs in an LPAR for any S/390 or z/Arch system):

// Source: https://github.com/limine-bootloader/limine-barebones/blob/master/stivale2-barebones/kernel/kernel.c
#include <stdint.h>
#include <stddef.h>
 
#define _STIVALE2_SPLIT_64_FORCE 1
#include <stivale2.h>
 
static uint8_t stack[8192];
static struct stivale2_header_tag_terminal terminal_hdr_tag = {
    .tag = {
        .identifier = STIVALE2_HEADER_TAG_TERMINAL_ID,
        .next = 0
    },
    .flags = 0
};
 
__attribute__((section(".stivale2hdr"), used))
static struct stivale2_header stivale_hdr = {
    .entry_point = 0,
    .stack = (uintptr_t)stack + sizeof(stack),
    .flags = (1 << 1) | (1 << 2),
    .tags = (uintptr_t)&terminal_hdr_tag
};
 
// We will now write a helper function which will allow us to scan for tags
// that we want FROM the bootloader (structure tags).
void *stivale2_get_tag(struct stivale2_struct *stivale2_struct, uint64_t id) {
    struct stivale2_tag *current_tag = (void *)stivale2_struct->tags;
    for (;;) {
        // If the tag pointer is NULL (end of linked list), we did not find
        // the tag. Return NULL to signal this.
        if (current_tag == NULL) {
            return NULL;
        }
 
        // Check whether the identifier matches. If it does, return a pointer
        // to the matching tag.
        if (current_tag->identifier == id) {
            return current_tag;
        }
 
        // Get a pointer to the next tag in the linked list and repeat.
        current_tag = (void *)current_tag->next;
    }
}
 
// The following will be our kernel's entry point.
void _start(struct stivale2_struct *stivale2_struct) {
    // Let's get the terminal structure tag from the bootloader.
    struct stivale2_struct_tag_terminal *term_str_tag;
    term_str_tag = stivale2_get_tag(stivale2_struct, STIVALE2_STRUCT_TAG_TERMINAL_ID);
 
    // Check if the tag was actually found.
    if (term_str_tag == NULL) {
        // It wasn't found, just hang...
        for (;;);
    }
 
    // Let's get the address of the terminal write function.
    void *term_write_ptr = (void *)term_str_tag->term_write;
 
    // Now, let's assign this pointer to a function pointer which
    // matches the prototype described in the stivale2 specification for
    // the stivale2_term_write function.
    void (*term_write)(const char *string, size_t length) = term_write_ptr;
    term_write("Hello World\n", 13);
    for (;;);
}

linker.ld

The kernel needs to be loaded above 0x20000 due to Flatboot's strict no-low-64K rule for kernels.

ENTRY(_start);
SECTIONS {
    . = 0x20000;

    .text : {
        *(.text);
        *(.text.*);
        *(.stivale2hdr*);
    }
    
    .rodata : {
        *(.rodata);
        *(.rodata.*);
    }

    .data : {
        *(.data);
        *(.data.*);
    }

    .bss : ALIGN(4K) {
        *(COMMON);
        *(.bss);
        *(.bss.*);
    }
}

hercules.cnf

The configuration file for Hercules, enables diagnostic messages, sets the architecture mode to ESA S/390 and uses the IBM-1047 codepage (EBCDIC)

MAINSIZE             32
ARCHMODE             ESA/390
CPUSERIAL            000611
CPUMODEL             4381
DIAG8CMD             ENABLE
NUMCPU               1 
PANRATE              MEDIUM
PGMPRDOS             RESTRICTED
CODEPAGE             819/1047

# This is the IPL disk and can be any address
01b9      3390       flat00.cckd

dasd.txt

Describe the files in the DASD disk, this is needed since ZDSFS has an unique way to order datasets (files) - which includes support for text-files (70-columns) or binaries.

FLAT00       3390-1 * stage1.txt
STAGE2.BIN   SEQ stage2.bin          TRK 10 1 0 PS FB 1 18452
SYSVTOC      VTOC                    CYL  2
KERNEL.ELF   SEQ kernel              CYL  1 1 0 PS FB 1 18452

Running the mainframe

#!/usr/bin/bash
 
# Download headers required for the stivale2 structs
rm stivale2.h
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stivale/stivale/master/stivale2.h
 
# Download the disk-dependant IPL
wget https://github.com/udos-project/flatboot/releases/download/0.1.2/stage1_S390.txt
mv stage1_S390.txt stage1.txt
 
# Download the second stage bootloader
wget https://github.com/udos-project/flatboot/releases/download/0.1.2/stage2_S390.bin
mv stage2_S390.bin stage2.bin
 
CC=s390-linux-gcc
CFLAGS="-fexec-charset=IBM-1047 -fno-stack-protector -pipe -m31 -ffreestanding -mpacked-stack -I. -O2 -g"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-static,--no-dynamic-linker,-ztext -nostdlib -z max-page-size=0x1000 -static -fno-pic -fno-pie -g"
 
$CC $CFLAGS -c kernel.c -o kernel.o
$CC $LDFLAGS $CFLAGS -Tlinker.ld kernel.o -o kernel
 
# Create the DASD disk
dasdload -bz2 dasd.txt flat00.cckd
 
# Fire up the emulator and concat to a log file
hercules -f hercules.cnf >hercules.log

Once the hercules screen appears, the kernel can be loaded with:

IPL 1B9

What's next?

• Use MVS 3.8/tk4 in hercules to know how a mainframe operates
• Read this
• Catch program exceptions
• Get the CSS to be able to do read/write operations on devices
• There is no framebuffer to speak of, no GUI, only terminals - so implement a 3270 (Graphical terminal) driver or 2703 (Telnet)
• Implement multiprocessing