1. Prerequisites¶

This document describes the software requirements for building TF-A for AArch32 and AArch64 target platforms.

It may possible to build TF-A with combinations of software packages that are different from those listed below, however only the software described in this document can be officially supported.

1.1. Build Host¶

TF-A can be built using either a Linux or a Windows machine as the build host.

A relatively recent Linux distribution is recommended for building TF-A. We have performed tests using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (64-bit) but other distributions should also work fine as a base, provided that the necessary tools and libraries can be installed.

1.2. Toolchain¶

TF-A can be built with any of the following cross-compiler toolchains that target the Armv7-A or Armv8-A architectures:

GCC >= 9.2-2019.12 (from the Arm Developer website)
Clang >= 4.0
Arm Compiler >= 6.0

In addition, a native compiler is required to build the supporting tools.

Note

The software has also been built on Windows 7 Enterprise SP1, using CMD.EXE, Cygwin, and Msys (MinGW) shells, using version 5.3.1 of the GNU toolchain.

Note

For instructions on how to select the cross compiler refer to Performing an Initial Build.

1.3. Software and Libraries¶

The following tools are required to obtain and build TF-A:

An appropriate toolchain (see Toolchain)
GNU Make
Git

The following libraries must be available to build one or more components or supporting tools:

OpenSSL >= 1.0.1

Required to build the cert_create tool.

The following libraries are required for Trusted Board Boot support:

mbed TLS == 2.24.0 (tag: mbedtls-2.24.0)

These tools are optional:

Device Tree Compiler (DTC) >= 1.4.6

Needed if you want to rebuild the provided Flattened Device Tree (FDT) source files (.dts files). DTC is available for Linux through the package repositories of most distributions.
Arm Development Studio 5 (DS-5)

The standard software package used for debugging software on Arm development platforms and FVP models.

1.3.1. Package Installation (Linux)¶

If you are using the recommended Ubuntu distribution then you can install the required packages with the following command:

sudo apt install build-essential git libssl-dev

The optional packages can be installed using:

sudo apt install device-tree-compiler

1.4. Supporting Files¶

TF-A has been tested with pre-built binaries and file systems from Linaro Release 19.06. Alternatively, you can build the binaries from source using instructions in Performing an Initial Build.

1.5. Getting the TF-A Source¶

Source code for TF-A is maintained in a Git repository hosted on TrustedFirmware.org. To clone this repository from the server, run the following in your shell:

git clone "https://review.trustedfirmware.org/TF-A/trusted-firmware-a" && (cd "trusted-firmware-a" && mkdir -p .git/hooks && curl -Lo `git rev-parse --git-dir`/hooks/commit-msg https://review.trustedfirmware.org/tools/hooks/commit-msg; chmod +x `git rev-parse --git-dir`/hooks/commit-msg)

This will clone the Git repository also install a commit hook that automatically inserts appropriate Change-Id: lines at the end of your commit messages. These change IDs are required when committing changes that you intend to push for review via our Gerrit system.

You can read more about Git hooks in the githooks page of the Git documentation, available at: https://git-scm.com/docs/githooks

Alternatively, you can clone without the commit hook using:

git clone "https://review.trustedfirmware.org/TF-A/trusted-firmware-a"