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



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.
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Xen-devel mailing list
>> Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel



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