Splitting embedded program in multiple parts in memory

Question

I am working on an embedded system (Stellaris Launchpad) and writing a simple OS (as a hobby project). The used toolchain is gcc-none-eabi.

My next step is to get used to the MPU to allow the kernel to prevent user programs from altering specific data. I have a bunch of C files and I splitted them in two parts: kernel and other. I have the following linker script to start out with:

MEMORY
{
    FLASH (rx) : ORIGIN = 0x00000000, LENGTH = 0x00040000
    SRAM (rwx) : ORIGIN = 0x20000000, LENGTH = 0x00008000
}

SECTIONS
{
    .text :
    {
        _text = .;
        KEEP(*(.isr_vector))
        *(.text*)
        *(.rodata*)
        _etext = .;
    } > FLASH

    .data : /*AT(ADDR(.text) + SIZEOF(.text))*/ /*contains initialized data*/
    {
        _data = .;
        *(vtable)
        *(.data*)
        _edata = .;
    } > SRAM AT > FLASH

    .bss : AT (ADDR(.data) + SIZEOF(.data)) /*contains unitialized data (should be set to all zero's)*/
    {
        _bss = .;
        *(.bss*)
        *(COMMON)
        _ebss = .;
        _start_heap = .;
    } > SRAM

    _stack_top = ORIGIN(SRAM) + LENGTH(SRAM) - 1; /*The starting point of the stack, at the very bottom of the RAM*/

}

And after reading up on linker scripts I know that I can replace the stars with filenames, and thus start splitting the flash in multiple parts. I would for example create a .kernel.bss section and put all of the kernel object files instead of the stars in that section. My only problem left is that the kernel is not one file, it is a whole lot of files. And files might be added, removed etc. So how do I do this? How do I change my linker script so that a dynamic first group of files is mapped to the first place and a dynamic second group of files is mapped to a second place?

Answer 1

you know that you can specify what files are used as input for a section? We use this for separating kernel and application code into fast internal flash, and slower external flash memory, like so:

.kernel_text :
{
     build/kernel/*.o (.text*) /*text section from files in build/kernel*/
} > INT_FLASH

.app_text:
{
    build/app/*.o(.text*)
} > EXT_FLASH

Section 4.6.4 might be helpful, (describes input sections in more detail) https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/4/html/Using_ld_the_GNU_Linker/sections.html