EFI Architecture

Handle Database

The handle database is composed of objects called handles and protocols. Handles are a collection of one or more protocols, and protocols are data structures that are named by a GUID. The data structure for a protocol may be empty, may contain data fields, may contain services, or may contain both services and data fields. During EFI initialization, the system firmware, EFI drivers, and EFI applications create handles and attach one or more protocols to the handles. Information in the handle database is global and can be accessed by any executable EFI image.

The handle database is the central repository for the objects that are maintained by EFI-based firmware. The handle database is a list of EFI handles, and each EFI handle is identified by a unique handle number that is maintained by the system firmware. A handle number provides a database "key" to an entry in the handle database. Each entry in the handle database is a collection of one or more protocols. The types of protocols, named by a GUID, that are attached to an EFI handle determine the handle type. An EFI handle may represent components such as the following:

• Executable images such as EFI drivers and EFI applications
• Devices such as network controllers and hard drive partitions
• EFI services such as EFI Decompression and the EBC Virtual Machine

Figure 1 shows a portion of the handle database. In addition to the handles and protocols, a list of objects is associated with each protocol. This list is used to track which agents are consuming which protocols. This information is critical to the operation of EFI drivers, because this information is what allows EFI drivers to be safely loaded, started, stopped, and unloaded without any resource conflicts.

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Figure 1: Handle Database.

Figure 2 shows the different types of handles that can be present in the handle database and the relationships between the various handle types. All handles reside in the same handle database and the types of protocols that are associated with each handle differentiate the handle type. Like file system handles in an operating system context, the handles are unique for the session, but the values can be arbitrary. Also, like the handle returned from an fopen function in a C library, the value does not necessarily serve a useful purpose in a different process or during a subsequent restart in the same process. The handle is just a transitory value to manage state.

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Figure 2: Handle Types.