[PATCH RFT 7/9] Documentation: efi: describe load options handling

[Ahmad Fatoum]

Document that arguments following an EFI application's path on the shell
command line become its load options, that bootm populates the load options
from global.efi.bootargs.* and that the Linux bootargs follow for
EFI-stubbed kernels, both for barebox as EFI payload and as EFI loader.

Assisted-by: Claude:fable-5
Signed-off-by: Ahmad Fatoum <a.fatoum at pengutronix.de>
---
 Documentation/boards/efi.rst         | 53 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
 Documentation/user/booting-linux.rst |  6 +++-
 2 files changed, 56 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/boards/efi.rst b/Documentation/boards/efi.rst
index da50fc8ff6cd..05f040660809 100644
--- a/Documentation/boards/efi.rst
+++ b/Documentation/boards/efi.rst
@@ -110,8 +110,56 @@ means passing control to the calling instance. Note that currently the :ref:`com
 command will pass the control to the calling instance rather than resetting
 the CPU. This may change in the future.
 
+Arguments following the path on the command line are passed to the
+application as its load options, so an EFI shell can for example be
+started with:
+
+.. code-block:: sh
+
+  barebox:/ /boot/shell.efi -nostartup
+
 Although the Linux Kernel can be directly executed one should use the :ref:`command_bootm`
-command. Only the bootm command passes the Kernel commandline to the Kernel.
+command. Only the bootm command passes the Kernel commandline to the Kernel
+and provides it with an initrd and a device tree.
+
+.. _efi_load_options:
+
+Load options
+^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+When booting an EFI application via :ref:`command_bootm`, barebox populates
+its load options from the :ref:`global device<global_device>` variables
+beginning with ``global.efi.bootargs.``. Like the Linux bootargs, these are
+concatenated in lexicographical order of their names. For EFI-stubbed Linux
+kernels, the ``global.linux.bootargs.``-prefixed
+:ref:`kernel arguments <booting_linux>` are appended to the load options,
+so that the EFI stub sees both as the kernel command line:
+
+.. code-block:: sh
+
+  global efi.bootargs.base="efi=debug"
+  global linux.bootargs.base="console=ttyS0,115200"
+
+  bootm /boot/vmlinuz.efi
+
+  ...
+
+  Kernel command line: efi=debug console=ttyS0,115200
+
+This works both when barebox runs as EFI payload and when it acts as
+EFI loader for the application. The load options are not used when booting
+x86 kernels via the legacy handover protocol (``global.linux.efi.handover``),
+as the EFI stub, which would interpret them, is bypassed in that case.
+
+Like :ref:`boot entries <boot_entries>` do for the Linux
+bootargs, boot entries should add load options to variables with ``.dyn``
+in their name, e.g. ``global.efi.bootargs.dyn.initrd``. These are cleared
+after each boot entry, so that load options do not leak into subsequently
+booted entries.
+
+.. note:: Unified kernel images (UKIs) are not detected as Linux kernels,
+   but as regular EFI applications. Only ``global.efi.bootargs.*`` is
+   passed to them as load options; the Linux bootargs are not appended.
 
 Drivers
 ^^^^^^^
@@ -281,7 +329,8 @@ it's readable at
 ``/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/barebox-dtb-5b91f69c-8b88-4a2b-9269-5f1d802b5175``,
 where the blob is prefixed by a four byte EFI variable attribute word.
 
-This is not done when barebox acts as EFI loader for the application.
+Unlike the `Load options`_, this is not done when barebox acts as EFI
+loader for the application.
 
 EFI variables
 -------------
diff --git a/Documentation/user/booting-linux.rst b/Documentation/user/booting-linux.rst
index fa5a355183eb..56a94b890887 100644
--- a/Documentation/user/booting-linux.rst
+++ b/Documentation/user/booting-linux.rst
@@ -101,6 +101,9 @@ to the bootargs. Variables without a value are skipped:
 
   Kernel command line: ignore_loglevel console=ttyO0,115200 earlyprintk
 
+When booting an EFI-stubbed kernel as EFI application, the
+:ref:`EFI load options <efi_load_options>` precede the Linux bootargs.
+
 .. _bootargs_concat_order:
 
 Concatenation order
@@ -167,7 +170,8 @@ This takes the kernel from ``/mnt/mmc1/zImage`` (which could be an
 boot entries should always add Kernel command line parameters to variables with
 ``.dyn`` in it. These will be cleared before booting different boot entries.
 This is done so that following boot entries do not leak command line
-parameters from the previous boot entries.
+parameters from the previous boot entries. The same applies to the
+:ref:`EFI load options <efi_load_options>` in ``global.efi.bootargs.dyn.*``.
 
 This entry can be booted with ``boot mmc``. It can also be made the default by
 setting the :ref:`global.boot.default <magicvar_global_boot_default>` variable
-- 
2.47.3