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

[Keir Fraser <keir.xen@xxxxxxxxx>]

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.


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.
>> 
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> 
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