Re: [Xen-devel] Status of HVM improvements, support of recent technologies and request for some tips

[Paul Durrant <Paul.Durrant@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fabio Fantoni [mailto:fabio.fantoni@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 03 August 2015 11:25
> To: xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: Anthony Perard; Stefano Stabellini; Wei Liu; Paul Durrant
> Subject: Status of HVM improvements, support of recent technologies and
> request for some tips
> 
> Some years ago the support/improvement of hvm domUsseemed
> neglected,
> recently seems to be good.
> 
> Qemu upstream when I started using early versions from the 1.2 was
> neglected but now it seems early to be quite used, tested and
> considered, thanks to all those who are working to improve support for xen.
> 
> New windows pv driversseems to be well alignedwith several
> improvements.
> I found many bugs at the beginning but thanks to Paul Durrant have been
> resolved quickly.
> Will be an official xen project build withsigned drivers out there?
> 

The Xen Project does not have the necessary agreements with Microsoft to create 
logo signed drivers. Citrix, however, does and our aim is to create a set of PV 
drivers based closely on the Xen Project source and that should function on any 
Xen installation, not just XenServer (although, of course we couldn't 'support' 
that use as such).

Also, because XenServer's QA group subject the drivers to a lot of testing, and 
because they are built from largely unmodified upstream Xen Project source, I 
will aim to tag an upstream release candidate of each driver once XenServer QA 
results are looking clean.

  Paul

> OVMF (eufi firmware for hvm domUs) support some years ago was bad but
> now with contribution of Anthony Perard and Wei Lui seems usable with
> windows and linux domUs.
> On my latest fast tests I found that boot option is not working or not
> supported for now as I reported in another mail.
> Should I report it to ovmf upstream?
> In boot tests I saw also floppy test that should be not present based on
> qemu settings: is it only a boot test or is there a bug about it?
> I'll test it further and I'll compare with seabios about some small
> strange things I found.
> 
> Actuallywhere a system binaries are specified they will not update
> automatically hvmloader built-in seabios and ovmf firmware but require
> xen rebuild (probably major for production system from distro build).
> I saw in wiki project "Improvements to firmware handling HVM guests"
> that include also it, is there any news about?
> 
> Another probably good thing should be unified eufi and bios support in
> hvmloader.
> I saw in wiki project "OVMF Compatibility Support Module support in
> Xen", is there any news about?
> 
> 
> Another interesting thing is Q35 support.
> Now we are still using very old emulated hardware based on I440FX
> emulation.
> Q35 adds emulation for the ICH9 host chipset, PCI-E bus by default, ahci
> disk controller by default and other things probably useful on recent
> systems.
> I did a fast tests with it on xen 2 years ago but I was blocked by disk
> not visible that was require new qemu parameters and that had a bug about.
> With a basic ahci support in libxl (included in 4.6) and another patch
> to convert other disk cases (I'll keep it tested and I'll repost for
> 4.7) seems that now is possible use new qemu parameters for disks, and
> I'll now retry Q35 on xen.
> I'll probably start to write some libxl patches about and I have some
> questions:
> 
> Have someone already start to do it but without posting the patches for
> now?
> About xl parameter for chipset selection what is the correct parameter
> to add? device_model_machine="q35|i440fx" (default="i440fx") can be
> good?
> I did a fast look to in libxl_dm.c and I don't know what to do for q35
> case of xen_platform_pci=0. Actually "-machine xenfv" is used but it
> seems only for old chipset case. Any idea/advice?
> AHCI disks controller is the default built-in in q35 instead of ide one
> for old chipset. Is it correct to force hdtype="ahci" with q35 and add a
> warning if user selects hdtype="ide"?
> If I remember well, is old pci bridge still needed
> ("-device","i82801b11-bridge") for emulated vgas support along other
> things or did something changed in the meanwhile?
> About hvmloader also this time I'll remove an assert (if I remember
> good) to do q35 tests but a better change is needed and I don't know about.
> Any help is appreciated.
> 
> 
> Thanks for any reply and sorry for my bad english.

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