Chuck Robey | 18 Apr 2009 00:48

Pandora questions


I bought me a nice new Pandora, and in the next 6 weeks before it arrives, I
want to get a bunch of questions answered dealing with me trying to do a ARMv7A
OpenBSD port.

My pandora hasn't been delivered yet, but I'm coming up with questions, some I'd
like to bounce of folks here.  I don't begin coding until my pandora gets
delivered, but I can do the research right now).  The first ones that hit me
regard some differences I've noted with the Cortex-A8, versus maybe an Arm6 (?)
 The Cortex-A8 has that 2 level security thing (they call it TrustZone), one
processor being secure, the other one being insecure (I think that's how you
refer to it).  This hasn't anything whatever to do with the ordinary split
between user-level and system-level, and beyond that, the split apparently
continues all the way out to peripherals.  Things like only code in the secure
processors can access secure peripherals.  Well, the question is, is there any
place in OpenBSD for TrustZone features?  That question not only asks whether
it's been used yet, it also asks if there is even any contemplated way that such
a feature *could* be used in OpenBSD.  I need to consider this, if I'm going to
seriously try to port the OpenBSD code to use the ARMv7A (same as Cortex-A8).  I
figure most of the differences I'm going to hit against are going to be more
obvious to me, just look how it's been done before (maybe for the Xscale in the
Sharp Zaurus) and see what possible changes might be available for me to use.
The trouble with TrustZone is, I know its not been done for any other palmtop I
ever heard of, so I don't have much idea how TrustZone might get used for
OpenBSD for ARMv7A.

I know another thing, that the BeagleBoard is based on precisely the same chip
(including all of the available modules that are in it, like the DSP stuff in
the Neon) as the Pandora.  I get the odea that the BeagleBoard might be the
perfect, cheap ($150 versus Pandora's $330) development platform.  I think, from
(Continue reading)

Leif Lindholm | 21 Apr 2009 11:15
Picon

Re: Pandora questions

Hi Chuck,

> The trouble with TrustZone is, I know its not been done for any other
> palmtop I
> ever heard of, so I don't have much idea how TrustZone might get used for
> OpenBSD for ARMv7A.

There is a (recently released) document about TrustZone available at:
http://infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.prd29-genc-009424c/index.html

My understanding it that this would not be the intended use of the
TrustZone features - although that does not necessarily mean they couldn't
be used for it.

Also, I think there is a "high security" version of the OMAP3530 that
actually implements useful TrustZone support, but that the one used on the
beagleboard for example does not really implement any of the hardware
features (i.e. Secure only memory) that would be required to actually gain
any additional security.

Regards,

Leif


Gmane