Category: Software Debug and Trace – Intel

The mission of the Open Compute Project (OCP) is to design and enable the delivery of the most efficient server, storage and data center hardware designs for scalable computing. ASSET has just joined the OCP to contribute to the reliability and availability of OCP designs.
UEFI, like other embedded code bases, is riddled with printf style debug statements. In debug builds, these can slow the boot process down tremendously. There is a way to circumvent this.
Intel Processor Trace (Intel PT) is a capability on new Intel silicon that captures information about software execution using dedicated hardware facilities inside the chip. How is it used to debug UEFI?
Conventional printf statements within a BIOS being debugged add a lot of โ€œbackpressureโ€ due to the overhead within the printf routine and the cost of directing the output through a slow serial port. This slows the debugging process down, and may even mask some time-sensitive bugs. Is there a better, more non-intrusive way?
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