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Pedro Falcato edited this page Mar 28, 2022 · 70 revisions

These tasks have been identified by our community. Many of these tasks would make good GSoC projects. They are currently open for development by community members, and would be a great way to get involved and start contributing. Please let us know on edk2-devel if you plan to work on one of these tasks (to prevent duplicated effort). Also, please provide status updates on edk2-devel so the community will know the project is still being actively developed.

Medium versus Large Projects

  • Large Projects should take about 350 hours to complete.
  • Medium Project should take about 175 hours to complete.
  • Large projects are paid a different stipend. Please see the stipend page for exact amounts.
Skills Required

A good knowledge of the programming languages listed for each project will be required to be successful. We do not expect prior knowledge of firmware or UEFI, our mentors will help you learn those details. Having some experience finding your way around a large codebase is helpful but not required.

Table of Contents

Project Ideas

New Languages and Compilers

Large Projects

Dynamic Linking

Current EDK II doesn't support the dynamic linking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_linker), which limits UEFI firmware to be split into modular components that can be distributed separately in binary and loaded only when necessary. This project is to add native dynamic library build support (PE/COFF first) and introduce a dynamic linker in edk2 core.

Add Rust Support to EDK II

Add support for the Rust programming language to EDK II

  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Hard
  • Language: Rust, C, Assembly, Python
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @nate-desimone
More information: Tasks-Add-Rust-Support-to-EDK-II

Port the Go language to UEFI

Add support for the Go programming language to EDK II. Requires implementing a new "GOOS" target OS in the Go compiler. Bonus points if you can get this new GOOS upstreamed.

  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Hard
  • Language: Go, C, Assembly
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @nate-desimone
More information: TODO

Medium Projects

LLVM Sanitizer support

Add AddressSanitizer, UBSan, and possibly MSAN support to EDK2

New Platforms and Boards

Large Projects

MinPlatform Qemu Support

Build a MinPlatform Board Port for Qemu.

  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @nate-desimone
More information: Tasks-MinPlatform-QemuOpenBoardPkg

Port MinPlatform to a New Motherboard

Build a MinPlatform board port for a new motherboard of your choice.

  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Medium...Hard
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @nate-desimone
More information: Tasks-MinPlatform-Board-Port

Add a MinPlatform Board Port for the Raspberry Pi

Build a MinPlatform board port for the Raspberry Pi.

  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @nate-desimone
More information: Tasks-MinPlatform-Port-to-Raspberry-Pi

Add CI (Continuous Integration) Boot Testing for EDK II Platforms

Update EDK II CI to support testing of platforms in the edk2-plaforms repository. The CI tests can be run in simulators or on physical HW. This task involves defining a standard interface between EDK II CI agents and remote CI agents that take as input a FW image built by an EDK II CI agent and provides pass/fail results back to the EDK II CI agent.

  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Hard
  • Language: YAML, Python, C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @mdkinney

Medium Projects

Add S3 Resume Support to MinPlatform

Currently MinPlatform does not support S3 resume, so let's implement it! This will require implementing support for the SMM lock box, parsing of the DRAM scatter-gather list, and restore of system state. Demonstrate working S3 resume on at least one real board.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium..Hard
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @nate-desimone

Testing and Quality Improvements

Medium Projects

Write Unit Tests for EDK II

EDK II needs more unit tests... help us write them!

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Easy...Medium
  • Language: C, Assembly
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @nate-desimone

Host-based Unit Tests using Google Test

Add support for the GoogleTestLLVM mocking framework to the EDK II UnitTestFrameworkPkg to support implementing host based tests. Also port the cmocka based unit tests to GoogleTest to test the mocking framework and provide GoogleTest examples to the rest of the EDK II Community.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium...Hard
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @mdkinney

Test Harness Improvements

Improvements to the test harness in the edk2-test staging branch. https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/tree/edk2-test

  • Test Harness for PEI using Capsule Update or Recovery feature to deliver tests
  • Test Harness for SMM using Capsule Update or Recovery feature to deliver tests
  • Project Size: Medium
  • Performance improvements of test harness
  • Difficulty: Medium
Mentor: @mdkinney, Supreeth Venkatesh

Continuous Integration For EDK II Platforms

Azure pipelines CI is currently only enabled for core EDK II. Extend this by implementing Azure pipelines to test patches submitted for open source platforms hosted in edk2-platforms.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Language: Python
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @nate-desimone

Add CLANG Compiler coverage to EDK II CI

EDK II CI currently supports GCC and VS2019. Add EDK II CI tests to build using CLANG compilers for Windows and Linux.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Easy...Medium
  • Language: Python, C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @mdkinney

Upgrade EDK II CI Agents from Ubuntu 18 to Ubuntu 20

Address all blocking issues that prevent EDK II CI agents from using Ubuntu 20.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: Python, C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @mdkinney

EDK II Core Improvements

Medium Projects

DataHub & GCD scalability

The DXE core's DataHub and GCD (Global Coherency Domain) layers don't scale well as the number of data items gets large, since they are based on simple linked lists. Find better data structures.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: bjjohnson

Intrinsic Libraries for VS20xx, GCC, and CLANG

Implement intrinsic libraries for the supported compilers for memcpy(), memset(), and 64-bit integer math operations. This improves compatibility of EDK II with standard C sources.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium...Hard
  • Language: C, Python
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @mdkinney

Accessibility

Large Projects

Audio Output device support

The first step towards an audio interface is enabling standardized support for audio output. This task means prototyping an AUDIO_OUTPUT_PROTOCOL, and implementing at least one device driver producing this protocol. The initial drivers envisioned are `virtio-sound` (for use with QEMU), `USB Audio Class`, and `HDA`. The HDA driver would additionally need to prototype an HDA_CODEC_PROTOCOL and implement it in a driver targeting a specific hardware codec.

Follow-on tasks
  • HII integration of Audio output
  • HII integration of Speech synthesis?
  • Audio Input device support
  • Voice control

Debug Tool Improvements

Large Projects

SourceLevelDebugPkg & GDB

Implement a fully functional gdb stub for x86/x64, attaching to SourceLevelDebugPkg's remote protocol. Expected outcome is the ability to debug GCC binaries via the software debugger attached to Qemu via an emulated serial port.

  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Medium...Hard
  • Language: Python, C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: bjjohnson

Utilize return address information

Make use of __builtin_return_address(n) & _ReturnAddress to add debug & data gathering capabilities. Some ideas:

  • Produce a protocol with info on the image handle so a shell command can dump out the information
  • Track, on a per call basis, where resources are being consumed
  • Detect memory leaks
  • Log information about stall and timer usage
  • Collect statistics on BootServices and RuntimeServices calls.
  • Performance profile library calls EFI boot and runtime services calls.
  • gBS is set up by a library so it could point to a debug wrapper for the functions.
  • Post process raw output (PDB name + offset in PE/COFF) to include function names via parsing .map files.
Summary:
  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @ajfish

Medium Projects

MP safe Print, DEBUG, and ASSERT

Create a thread safe version of the DEBUG and ASSERT trace functions. This will allow APs (CPUs other than the Boot Strap Processor (BSP)) to safely print and use DEBUG trace messages.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @ajfish

Port EmulatorPkg to ARM

Create a ARM based host environment for EmulatorPkg. Expected outcome is being able to run ARM UEFI binaries on top of Linux running on an ARM system.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @ajfish

EmulatorPkg network support for Linux

Port EmulatorPkg/EmuSnpDxe to support Linux. Expected outcome is being able to open TCP/IP connections from UEFI shell applications running in EmulatorPkg on top of Linux.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @ajfish

Various Debug Improvements

Note: There are many ideas here. Please feel free to gather any reasonable subset for a project proposal.

  • Debug version of libraries, and tools to analyze the data:
  • UefiBootServicesTableLib.h & UefiRuntimeServicesLib.h that can profile UEFI service usage.
  • Debug version of MemoryAllocationLib.h that can detect memory leaks, buffer overruns, etc.
  • Add a library class for logging the data
  • Log data directly to image handle, per driver.
  • Log data to centralized data service.
  • Add a library class for a module to access/initiate leak checking.
  • Add sample based profiling to EmulatorPkg/Nt32Pkg. On a Mac this would be figuring out how to use Instruments to profile the emulator.
  • Add a sampling based profiling tool to a real EFI system. Note this requires the ability to capture a stack trace and then post process it (likely on the build system).
Summary:
  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium ... Hard
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @ajfish

UEFI Networking Improvements

Large Projects

SMB network share support

Enable accessing content on an SMB network share. Expected outcome is being able to read data from an SMB network share via the UEFI shell. Bonus points if you implement EFI_SIMPLE_FILESYSTEM_PROTOCOL, which allows the network share to be mounted as a disk.

Medium Projects

Network Block Device (NBD) client

http://nbd.sourceforge.net/

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: bjjohnson, andreiwarkentin
More information: Tasks-Network Block Device

DNS Proxy Support

Implement DNS proxy on EDK II. Expected outcome is being able to resolve hostnames via a tunneled DNS connection. TCP/IP utilities like ping can be used to test and demonstrate this.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: kidzyoung

UEFI Applications and UEFI Shell Improvements

Large Projects

HII command-line browser

A command-line based HII browser, suitable for automation. Either a shell command or set of commands for locating, dumping, and modifying configuration values, or commands for dumping and loading HII data to/from a file in an easily-edited format.

  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Medium...Hard
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: bjjohnson

Python3 for UEFI Shell: Python modules for standard UEFI Services and Protocols

Python3 in the edk2-libc AppPkg can be used to implement UEFI firmware tests. In order to increase the scope of possible tests, it would be valuable to have python modules that wrap the UEFI Boot Services, UEFI Runtime Services, and the commonly used UEFI Protocols.

  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C, Python
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @jpshivakavi

Medium Projects

Port ACPI-CA to a shell application

Port portions of ACPI-CA to a shell application to enable dumping and disassembly of ACPI tables.

Port OpenSSH as a shell application

Port OpenSSH to the UEFI shell. Use the UEFI networking stack to establish TCP/IP connections to remote systems. Should be able to demonstrate working remote shell session from the UEFI shell.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium...Hard
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: bjjohnson

Python3 for UEFI Shell: Add GCC & CLANG tool chain support

Python3 in the edk2-libc AppPkg supports Visual Studio builds. Update the sources and the build files to support the GCC and CLANG compilers.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @jpshivakavi

Python3 for UEFI Shell: Add AARCH64 CPU Architecture

Python3 in the edk2-libc AppPkg supports IA32/X64. Update the sources and the build files to support AARCH64.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: C
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @jpshivakavi

EDK II BaseTools

Large Projects

Port C Tools to Python

Port tools currently implemented in C to Python. This removes the need to run a C compiler to build the tools required to build EDK II firmware.

  • Project Size: Large
  • Difficulty: Hard
  • Language: C, Python
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @mdkinney

Medium Projects

Resource Compiler

Implement a resource compiler in Python that can add resource sections defined by the UEFI Specification to a PE/COFF image.

  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Language: Python
  • Mentor:
  • Suggested by: @mdkinney

Tools for EDK II Ease-of-Use

Medium Projects

UEFI Driver Wizard

Improvements to existing UEFI Driver Wizard

  • Update to latest version of wxPython
  • Update for latest UEFI Specifications
  • Consider adding PI module types (PEIMs, DXE Drivers, DXE Runtime Drivers, SMM Drivers)
  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Mentor: @mdkinney

Various Ease-Of-Use Tools

Simplify EDK II development:

  • GUI frontend for EdkRepo.
  • GUI helper tool to configure and launch a build.
  • GUI helper tool to configure platform PCDs.
  • GUI helper tool to configure FLASH layout, Recovery, and Capsules.
  • Automatically set values in target.txt based on platform configuration (compiler, thread count, etc.).
  • Output a compile_commands.json at build time that can be consumed by various tools like clangd, etc.
  • Project Size: Medium
  • Difficulty: Easy...Medium
  • Languages: C, Python
  • Mentor: @ashedesimone, @mdkinney

Partially Complete Projects

None at the moment.

See Also

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