Re: [edk2-devel] [GSoC 2022] Introducing myself & seeking for project ideas

["Gerd Hoffmann" <kraxel@redhat.com>]

  Hi,

> > SimicsOpenBoardPkg can partially boot QEMU with a minimum of changes. It
> > makes it into the DXE phase (where we'd eventually get a shell), but fails
> > to initialise SMM, so it can't load the variable driver in there. Many
> > drivers depend on the variable protocol, including critical
> > UEFI-architecture ones, so the DXE core will assert and hang after printing
> > a bunch of "driver GUID discovered but not loaded" messages. To fix this,
> > the SMM access, maybe SMM control drivers would need to be patched; some
> > register definitions differ between chipsets.
> >
> One issue with QEMU is that you currently have 3 machines worth supporting:
> the i440fx (i440fx + PIIX), which is the default, the Q35 (Q35 + ICH9), and
> the microvm (probably not going to be apart of the scope of this project,
> at least for now, even though OVMF supports it).

If you want support for authenticated variables (+ secure boot I guess)
and SMM q35 is pretty much the only option you have.  microvm doesn't
support smm at all, and the i440fx is too old and hasn't enough SMM
memory (no TSEG).

take care,
  Gerd