Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH for-xen-4.5 v3 06/16] x86: Introduce boot_info structure

[Daniel Kiper <daniel.kiper@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 02:55:51PM +0100, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Oct 2014, Daniel Kiper wrote:
> > This patch introduces boot_info structure. Subsequent patches will move
> > step by step all boot related data to above mentioned struct. At the end
> > of this process multiboot (v1) protocol dependency will be broken. It means
> > that most of Xen code (excluding preloader) could be bootloader agnostic
> > and does not need almost any knowledge about boot protocol. Additionally,
> > it will be possible to pass all boot data to __start_xen() in one bucket
> > without any side channels. I do not mention that we are also able to easily
> > identify boot data in Xen code.
> >
> > Here is boot data flow for legacy BIOS platform:
> >
> >  BIOS -> GRUB -> multiboot[12]* -> __reloc() -> MBD ->-\
> >                                                        /
> >         ------<------<------<------<------<------<-----
> >          \
> >           \
> >            ---> __init_boot_info() -> boot_info_mb -> __start_xen() -> 
> > boot_info
> >           /
> >  BIOS ->-/
> >
> >   * multiboot2 is not implemented yet. Look for it in later patches.
> >
> > Here is boot data flow for EFI platform:
> >
> >   EFI -> efi_start() -> boot_info_efi -> __start_xen() -> boot_info
> >
> > WARNING: ARM build has not been tested yet.
>
> I am not completely against this patch series for 4.5 but I am really
> wary of allowing this amount of changes to EFI (which is now working on
> ARM) at this stage of the release cycle without even being built tested
> on ARM.
>
> We need to make sure it doesn't introduce any regressions on x86 but
> also on ARM, so even if the ARM bits are not implemented, I think it
> should be required that the series is not only compiled but also
> properly tested on ARM too.

I concur. Fortunately this patch series do not introduce major functional
changes in EFI code (there is only one function change). Hence, I hope
there should not be any regressions here. Anyway, I will do ARM test build
before next release (I hope that it will happen next week). However,
I do not have ARM hardware here so I am not able to do more tests. So,
I will be more than happy if somebody could do relevant tests for me.

Daniel

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