[PATCH 1/1] doc: emulation: qemu-arm: add secure state steps

Johannes Krottmayer krotti83 at proton.me
Wed Feb 25 03:01:45 CET 2026


Add build steps for building U-Boot in secure state with
TF-A and OP-TEE. It includes the full steps for building
OP-TEE and TF-A to use with U-Boot. Also a short
description how to invoke QEMU with enabled EL3 and EL2.
EL3 (machine option secure=on) is required to run TF-A.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Krottmayer <krotti83 at proton.me>
Cc: Tuomas Tynkkynen <tuomas.tynkkynen at iki.fi>
Cc: Tom Rini <trini at konsulko.com>
---
 doc/board/emulation/qemu-arm.rst | 86 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 82 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/board/emulation/qemu-arm.rst b/doc/board/emulation/qemu-arm.rst
index 1c91c7f3ac6..017dbab3831 100644
--- a/doc/board/emulation/qemu-arm.rst
+++ b/doc/board/emulation/qemu-arm.rst
@@ -24,8 +24,76 @@ Additionally, a number of optional peripherals can be added to the PCI bus.
 See :doc:`../../develop/devicetree/dt_qemu` for information on how to see
 the devicetree actually generated by QEMU.
 
-Building U-Boot
-------
---------
+Building (secure)
+-----------------
+
+U-Boot
+^^^^^^
+
+- For AArch64::
+
+    make qemu_arm64_defconfig
+    make
+
+On successful build 'u-boot.bin' should be created. It's necessary in the following steps
+(building TF-A).
+
+OT-TEE
+^^^^^^
+
+- For AArch64::
+
+    git clone https://github.com/OP-TEE/optee_os.git
+    cd optee_os
+    export CROSS_COMPILE64=aarch64-none-elf-
+    export CROSS_COMPILE32=arm-none-eabi-
+    make PLATFORM=vexpress-qemu_armv8a CFG_TRANSFER_LIST=y CFG_MAP_EXT_DT_SECURE=y
+
+At least OP-TEE v4.9.0 for AArch64 needs both compiler (64-Bit and 32-Bit edition) for a
+successful build. On a successful build following files should be created under the directory
+'out/arm-plat-vexpress/core' from OP-TEE::
+
+    optee_os/out/arm-plat-vexpress/core/tee-header_v2.bin
+    optee_os/out/arm-plat-vexpress/core/tee-pageable_v2.bin
+    optee_os/out/arm-plat-vexpress/core/tee-pager_v2.bin
+
+TF-A
+^^^^
+
+- For AArch64
::
+
+    git clone https://github.com/ARM-software/arm-trusted-firmware.git
+    cd arm-trusted-firmware
+    git submodule update --init
+    export CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-none-elf-
+    export BL32=path/to/tee-header_v2.bin
+    export BL32_EXTRA1=path/to/tee-pager_v2.bin
+    export BL32_EXTRA2=path/to/tee-pageable_v2.bin
+    export BL33=path/to/u-boot.bin
+    make PLAT=qemu BL32_RAM_LOCATION=tdram SPD=opteed TRANSFER_LIST=1 all fip
+
+On successful build the following files should be created under the directory
+'build/qemu/release' from TF-A::
+
+    arm-trusted-firmware/build/qemu/release/bl1.bin
+    arm-trusted-firmware/build/qemu/release/fip.bin
+
+The following file is at least created with TF-A v2.14.0 and can directly passed
+with the '-bios' option to QEMU::
+
+    arm-trusted-firmware/build/qemu/release/qemu_fw.bios
+
+If the single file doesn't exists 'bl1.bin' and 'fip.bin' can be concatenated with the
+command 'dd' alternatively::
+
+    dd 
if=bl1.bin of=flash.bin bs=4096 conv=notrunc
+    dd if=fip.bin of=flash.bin seek=64 bs=4096 conv=notrunc
+
+Building (none-secure)
+----------------------
+
+U-Boot
+^^^^^^
 Set the CROSS_COMPILE environment variable as usual, and run:
 
 - For ARM::
@@ -38,8 +106,18 @@ Set the CROSS_COMPILE environment variable as usual, and run:
     make qemu_arm64_defconfig
     make
 
-Running U-Boot
---------------
+Running U-Boot (secure)
+-----------------------
+
+- For AArch64::
+
+    qemu-system-aarch64 -machine virt,secure=on,virtualization=on \
+    -nographic -cpu cortex-a57 -bios qemu_fw.bios
+
+For additional QEMU command description see running U-Boot in none-secure state.
+
+Running U-Boot (none-secure)
+----------------------------
 The minimal QEMU command line to get U-Boot up and running is:
 
 - For ARM::
-- 
2.47.3

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