Python UEFI Interpreter release version 3.6.8.1
The Python interpreter for UEFI shell is based on the standard C-Python version 3.6.8. It has been ported to UEFI shell and enhanced with basic capabilities required for interacting with the UEFI platform. This includes the register read/write of various types of registers such as MSR, MMIO, CPUID, PCIe, IO Port registers and etc. Python scripting on UEFI could be used for developing debug, diagnostic tools, validation tools, automation of Silicon, Firmware and platform related tests from UEFI shell. This brings the power of Python scripting on UEFI shell providing a way to leverage some of the existing tools from OS space to run on UEFI with little or no changes. Currently it has been supported for X64 and x86 platforms and the compilation of the source code is supported with VS2019 and the GCC tool chains.
The chipsec - an open source platform security analysis framework written in Python 3.x leverages the Python UEFI capabilities to run on UEFI shell. You may get more details about the project by visiting the link - https://github.com/chipsec/chipsec
Release Summary
The first release of the Python UEFI version 3.6.8.1 which is based on the standard C-Python version 3.6.8. Built using the 64 bit versions of the tool chains such as VS2019 and GCC.
The last digit in the version will be increased each time we make a release of Python UEFI from this repository.
Changelog
Below are the list of Bugzilla tickets that went into this release.
| ID | Summary |
|---|---|
| 3549 | Update edk2-libc to build with edk2/master and address VS2017/VS2019 compatibility issues |
| 3588 | Add Python 3 support for UEFI shell through edk2-libc project |
| 3589 | Remove the older versions of Python 2.7 port from edk2-libc |
| 3626 | AppPkg: Add support for atexit builtin module in Py 3.6.8 |
| 3638 | edk2-libc: Enhance the python 3 efi package creation supporting script with IA32 support |
| 3779 | edk2-libc: Enhance Py3 to build with latest version of GCC tool chain on Linux |
| 3780 | edk2-libc: Enhance Py3 to build with latest version of Clang compiler tool chain |
| 3899 | edk2-libc: uuid.py script needs porting to UEFI as it is one of the key modules required for chipsec open source tool |
| 4124 | edk2-libc : Remove substring 368 from the name of python interpreter application built from edk2-libc |
| 4161 | edk2-libc : merge the chipsec specific enhancements done for edk2 module to edk2-libc |
| 4506 | edk2-libc - uninitialized global variable _res in file res_init.c of BsdSockeLib |
| 4529 | edk2-libc - file descriptor leak in rename() |
| 4531 | edk2-libc : Fix console jump to 0, 0 on lseek(fd, position=0, SEEK_CUR) |
| 4545 | ek2-libc: socket module of python UEFI interpreter fails to compile with GCC tool chain |
| 4574 | edk2-libc - realpath function signature doesn't match the standard |
| 4576 | edk2-libc: The definition of the constant nanf is missing in StdiLib |
| 4579 | edk2-libc: Fix typo issues in StdLib comments |
| 4580 | edk2-libc Python: Provide sample python scripts to demonstrate socket client capabilities on UEFI shell |
| 4619 | edk2-libc: writeio function in edk2module.c not working as expected |
| 4668 | edk2 - Compilation error due to arithmetic operation on void pointer in EmbeddedPkg |
| 4745 | edk2-libc : wrmsr function available in edk2module is not working as expected |
| 4746 | edk2-libc : add rdmsr_ex and wrmsr_ex function to read/write of msrs from specific cpu |
| 4749 | edk2-libc : add cpuid_ex api to execute the CPUID instructions on specific CPU |
| 4788 | edk2-libc - add github actions workflow to build Python UEFI interpreter with VS2019 |
| 4789 | edk2-libc : make python368.inf compile conditionally in AppPkg.dsc file |
| 4791 | edk2-libc : update python UEFI build and package creation scripts to take edk2-libc path as environment variable |
| 4794 | edk2-libc : add github actions workflow to build Python UEFI interpreter with GCC |
Download Links
The release binaries are available at the below links for downloading:
- Artifacts built using VS2019 tool chain : https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-libc/actions/runs/9788764204/artifacts/1666612053
- Artifacts built using GCC tool chain : https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-libc/actions/runs/9788764199/artifacts/1666613814
You may use one of these packages for your work from UEFI shell using the Python programming language.
Usage Instructions:
- Download the zipped artifact from one of the above paths.
- Unzip the zip file using any of the standard zip utilities
- Copy the EFI folder from the unzipped folder to a USB thumb drive, ensure that EFI folder is available at the root of the thumb drive.
- Ensure that the thumb drive is formatted with FA32 file system before copying the EFI folder.
- Connect / insert the thumb drive to a system under test (SUT) and boot the SUT to UEFI shell.
- Switch to the right file system such as FS0: or FS1: and so on depending on how your USB thumb drive has been enumerated by the shell.
- Start using the Python interpreter in interactive mode or in command line mode.
Alternatively you could create a FAT32 partition on your system and copy the contents of the EFI folder from the above package to this partition. This partition will be visible to the UEFI shell as a file system such as FS1 / FS2 depending on how the UEFI environment enumerates.