Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH 2/2] hvmloader: remove timestamp from vgabios

["Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

>>> On 03.02.15 at 17:28, <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, 2015-02-03 at 16:17 +0000, Jan Beulich wrote:
>> >>> On 03.02.15 at 17:06, <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > On 03/02/15 15:54, Olaf Hering wrote:
>> >> Including a timestamp into the binary makes it impossible to get
>> >> reproducible binaries. Remove the timestamp because it carries no
>> >> valuable info.
>> >>
>> >> Signed-off-by: Olaf Hering <olaf@xxxxxxxxx>
>> >> Cc: Ian Jackson <ian.jackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> >> Cc: Stefano Stabellini <stefano.stabellini@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> >> Cc: Ian Campbell <ian.campbell@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> >> Cc: Wei Liu <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> > 
>> > In this case, it would appear that the vgabios_date symbol is completely
>> > unused inside the binary.  Good riddance!
>> 
>> Let's hope there are no tools scanning the BIOS image for a date
>> string.
> 
> That occurred to me too and I forgot to mention it, it looks vaguely
> like this stuff is trying to conform to something or other (e.g.
> specific offset and some things which look a bit like signatures),
> probably some ancient PC spec?

Exactly - that's what though of too. Just that I don't have any old
VGA BIOS spec around (anymore; if there ever was any). Ralph
Brown's once famous interrupt and memory documentation at least
doesn't mention anything, but however good and useful it was, it
never was official documentation in any way.

Jan


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