Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [Xen-users] Is xen planning to support hvm guests booting under UEFI?

[Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Adding Bei Guan and Andrey Warkentin who I think were student and mentor
respectively. Hi guys!

On Sun, 2011-09-25 at 15:50 +0100, Keir Fraser wrote:
> The GSOC project student seemed to be making good progress, and there were
> others on the OVMF side who were giving him support. I haven't heard
> anything in about a month now, though.

It would be very interesting to get an update (or a pointer to one) of
the status/result of this particular project now that the GSoC is over.

Thanks,
Ian.


> 
> 
> On 25/09/2011 07:12, "Paul Durrant" <Paul.Durrant@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Since I was at the presentation in question, I asked about requirements for
> > virtual platforms. I seem to recall the response being that UEFI was not a
> > requirement for virtual platforms as yet and moreover I don't believe 
> > hyper-v
> > VMs UEFI boot. 
> > That said I'm not sure about the requirements surrounding trusted boot; I
> > guess they will become clearer as the HCK requirements are firmed up.
> > 
> > I'd certainly like to see HVM UEFI boot sooner rather than later as I think 
> > it
> > will speed up Windows boot (and not just for Windows 8) quite a lot but I
> > didn't see any need to panic just yet.
> > 
> >   Paul 
> > 
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:xen-devel-
> >> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of jim burns
> >> Sent: 25 September 2011 03:18
> >> To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> Cc: Todd Deshane
> >> Subject: [Xen-devel] Re: [Xen-users] Is xen planning to support hvm
> >> guests booting under UEFI?
> >> 
> >> On Sat September 24 2011, 6:43:42 PM, Todd Deshane wrote:
> >>> On Sat, Sep 24, 2011 at 5:34 PM, jim burns
> >> <jim_burn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>>> On Wed September 21 2011, 9:06:38 PM, jim burns wrote:
> >>>>> Pls cc: me as I am not subscribed.
> >>>> 
> >>>> [...]
> >>>> http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenParavirtOps has been
> >> reworked
> >>>> recently. Not sure if this was there before:
> >>>> 
> >>>> "Add EFI support in Linux pv-ops. Jan Beulich wrote patches to
> >> make
> >>>> Xen hypervisor be able to compile as an EFI application. "Build
> >>>> xen.efi, write up a config file for it to read (most importantly
> >> so
> >>>> it knows what Dom0 kernel and initrd to use), and you should be
> >> good
> >>>> to go (provided the EFI implementation isn't too flawed). This
> >> being
> >>>> an EFI application you can simply run it from the shell prompt.
> >>>> Parameter for Xen.efi is -cfg <file>, and <file> has: kernel=,
> >>>> ramdisk=, options=, video=gfx-x. The Linux pv-ops needs at least
> >> to
> >>>> parse XEN_VGATYPE_EFI_LFB data, E820 parsed (should be working)
> >> and
> >>>> give the ACPI subsystem a pointer to the ACPI DSDT without
> >> consulting EBDA."
> >>>> 
> >>>> This doesn't solve the Windows 8 hvm problem, but at least EFI
> >> is
> >>>> being considered.
> >>> 
> >>> There was a google summer of code project around UEFI:
> >>> http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code-2011-
> >> tianocore/download
> >>> s/deta
> >>> il?name=Bei_Guan.tar.gz&can=2&q=
> >>> 
> >>> I don't know if it was submitted to xen-devel, but you can follow
> >> up
> >>> with the xen-devel mailing list if you are interested.
> >>> 
> >>> Hope that helps.
> >> 
> >> The article I quoted was from http://www.itworld.com/it-
> >> managementstrategy/205255/windows-8-oem-specs-
> >> may-block-linux-booting :
> >> 
> >> "Red Hat's Matthew Garrett was one of the first to notice that
> >> according to the new logo rules, all Windows 8 machines will need to
> >> be have the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) instead of
> >> the venerable BIOS firmware layer. BIOS has been pretty much the
> >> sole firmware interface for PCs for a long time.
> >> 
> >> The EFI system has slowly been making headway in recent years, and
> >> right now EFI firmware is compatible with Windows supporting the
> >> GUID Partition Table (GPT), OS X/Intel, and Linux 2.6 and beyond
> >> machines. EFI is seen as a better hardware/software interface than
> >> BIOS, since it is platform-agnostic, runs in
> >> 32- or 64-bit mode, and GPT machines can handle boot partitions of
> >> up to 9.4 zettabytes. (That's 9.5 billion terabytes to you and me.)
> >> 
> >> EFI, and the later UEFI specification, is not the problem for Linux.
> >> The problem is Microsoft's other requirement for any Windows 8-
> >> certified client:
> >> the system must support secure booting. This hardened boot means
> >> that "all firmware and software in the boot process must be signed
> >> by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA)," according to slides from a
> >> recent presentation on the UEFI boot process made by Arie van der
> >> Hoeven, Microsoft Principal Lead Program Manager."
> >> 
> >> Putting aside the signing problem for now, the immediate problem is
> >> qemu-dm as the emulator for hvm guests, since it provides an
> >> emulated *bios*. Or hvmloader as the bootloader. The url Todd
> >> provides points to a project to modify 'ovmf', an EFI bootloader, to
> >> be xen hvm aware. Windows 8 will be a game changer, if the article
> >> is right. Hope plans are being made to incorporate some sort of EFI
> >> bootloader into xen.
> >> 
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Xen-devel mailing list
> >> Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Xen-devel mailing list
> > Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel
> 
> 
> 
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