Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH 00/07] HVM firmware passthrough

[Julian Pidancet <julian.pidancet@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 11:17 PM, Tim Deegan <tim@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> At 20:47 +0100 on 01 May (1335905240), Julian Pidancet wrote:
>> I don't think ACPI and SMBIOS firmware passthrough are the only use
>> cases here.
>>
>> The module architecture could also be used to pass the BIOS and Option
>> ROMs to hvmloader. The toolstack could load them from dom0's filesystem
>> dynamically and pass them to hvmloader, instead of having them
>> compiled-in statically in hvmloader.
>
> AFAIK the BIOS can already load option ROMs from real or emulated
> hardware, the way a real BIOS does, and I think that's a good interface.
>

That's true for SeaBIOS, but when using rombios, hvmloader loads the
VGA option ROM and etherboot into the VM's address space before
executing the BIOS.

> Is loading a custom BIOS (as opposed to option ROM) something you
> actually want to do, BTW?
>

Yes.

>> Would we still be able to do that with the simplifications you're
>> suggesting here ?
>
> Yes, you could definitely do it without all this module stuff. ÂPassing
> an address and length in Xenstore would work.
>

Isn't it kind of the same thing ? I mean, the BIOS or an Option ROM to
pre-load could be seen by hvmloader as "modules" because they would
have to be passed by the toolstack the same way as ACPI or SMBIOS
tables.

-- 
Julian

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