The Capstone-RISC-V Spike Simulator SDK

The Capstone-RISC-V Spike Simulator SDK is based on the RSS SDK. The simulator simulates a RISC-V processor with the Capstone-RISC-V extension. A Linux kernel is loaded in the normal world and the simulator is started. The simulation of Capstone-RISC-V extension follows the Capstone-RISC-V ISA.

The functions of each folder in the project are as follows:

Folder	Description	Version	Capstone Adaption/Specific
container	Apptainer image for the SDK	-	-
repo/buildroot	Build Initramfs	2021.11	No
repo/linux	Linux Kernel	5.16.0	No
repo/riscv-gnu-toolchain	GNU Compiler Toolchain	gcc 11	No
repo/riscv-pk	Bootloader	-	No
repo/riscv-isa-sim	Simulator	-	Yes
repo/opensbi	Supervisor / Bootloader	-	No
conf	Config for SDK	-	-

Quick Start

The easiest way to get started is to use the Apptainer image defined in the container folder. This will build the toolchain and the Capstone-RISC-V Spike simulator, and then run the simulation of the Capstone-RISC-V processor. Make sure you have Apptainer already installed and simply run make inside the container folder.

git clone https://github.com/project-starch/capstone-sim.git
git submodule update --init --recursive --progress
cd capstone-sim/container
make

This will build an Apptainer image (capstone_sim.sif) under the container folder.

If you have your own Apptainer image and want to prevent make from building one, you can set EXTERNAL_CONTAINER_IMG:

make EXTERNAL_CONTAINER_IMG=<path-to-your-image>

Build the SDK

Ubuntu 16.04/18.04/20.04:

Note: Do not set $RISCV and make sure no origin RISC-V toolchain in your $PATH.

sudo apt install device-tree-compiler autoconf automake autotools-dev \
curl libmpc-dev libmpfr-dev libgmp-dev gawk build-essential bison flex texinfo \
gperf libtool patchutils bc zlib1g-dev libexpat-dev python-dev python3-dev unzip \
libglib2.0-dev libpixman-1-dev git rsync wget cpio

git clone https://github.com/project-starch/capstone-sim.git
cd capstone-sim
git submodule update --init --recursive --progress
make

Specify Spike Parameters

Specify the number of harts

Note: Multi-hart support is still under development for Capstone-RISC-V ISA. It's recommended to keep the default value for now.

The default is 1. To override this number, set the SPIKE_NCORES variable for make. For example:

make SPIKE_NCORES=4

Specify the secure-world memory region

The default is 0x100000000:0x80000000. To override this number, set the SPIKE_SECURE_MEM variable for make. For example:

make SPIKE_SECURE_MEM=0x100000000:0x40000000

Use command line directly

If you want to run Spike using its interface in CLI, you can make changes to the following command:

make fw-image
make spike

./toolchain/bin/spike --isa=rv64imafdc -p1 -m0x80000000:0x80000000 -M0x100000000:0x80000000 --kernel ./build/linux/arch/riscv/boot/Image ./build/opensbi/platform/generic/firmware/fw_jump.elf

If you want to run Spike using proxy kernel, you can make changes to the following command:

make spike
make pk

./toolchain/bin/spike --isa=rv64imafdc -p1 -m0x80000000:0x80000000 -M0x100000000:0x80000000 ./build/riscv-pk/pk [path-to-your-program]

File System in Simulation

After building the SDK, you can find the file system in build/buildroot_initramfs_sysroot. You can copy the files to this folder, update the timestamp of the folder, and rebuild the SDK to update the file system.

For Developers

Rebuild the SDK

If you want to rebuild the SDK after modifying the source code of any of the submodules, you need to update the timestamp of the submodules first and rebuild the SDK.

Debugging

To enable debugging instructions in Spike, use

make debug-capstone

To debug Spike using GDB with debugging instructions, use

make gdb-capstone

To check memory leak of Spike using Valgrind with debugging instructions, use

make valgrind-capstone