Re: Testing SMM with QEMU, KVM and libvirt

[Laszlo Ersek <lersek@redhat.com>]

On 02/21/17 10:22, Shi, Steven wrote:
> Hi Laszlo,
> I wonder if you could offer a Ubuntu version wiki for the
> Testing-SMM-with-QEMU,-KVM-and-libvirt?

Sorry, I can't do that.

To give you a retrospective on the current article (which targets
Fedora), writing and testing that article took ~14 hours, on an
operating system that I'm both familiar with and can readily install in
our internal server farm (called "Beaker").

My method was to start with a wiped-clean physical machine, install a
fresh, clean Fedora system, and build it all up from there. I wanted to
make sure that all missing dependencies would be thrown in my face, so I
could explicitly document them for readers.

This approach paid off very well (it caught a whole lot of dependencies
that I "thought" would be available by default, but weren't!), but it
was also the *primary* time sink while writing the article.

"Porting" the article to another Linux distribution would mean an almost
complete rewrite. The package names are different, the package contents
are different, the package inter-dependencies are different, the
virtualization tools may have different versions available, the generic
tools may be different, and so on.

> I'm trying to port your
> steps to my Ubuntu 16.04, but meet lots of troubles. The Ubuntu
> apt-get virsh version is too old to support smm feature in your
> ovmf.fedora.q35.template,

That's *exactly* my point.

> and I have to build the new version libvirt
> by myself. I meet lots of failures when configure the new version
> virsh, and wonder if you could help.

Sorry, I don't have time for that. I don't know Ubuntu at all, have no
contact to Ubuntu developers, and cannot even auto-install Ubuntu easily
on a headless server in our internal server pool.

Frankly, one goal of using Fedora 25 for the host operating system was
*exactly* that the user could avoid this kind of struggle with the
virtualization toolstack, and they could focus on rebuilding *only* what
was unavoidable.

(It is bad enough that at the moment I must have instructions in there
for building QEMU from source -- once QEMU 2.9 is released and Fedora 25
picks it up, I think I will go ahead and replace that section of the
article, with a simple package installation command. I'll also update
references elsewhere, such as in the domain templates.)

So, unfortunately, what you are asking for is a complete rewrite of the
article, for Ubuntu, which I don't know and have no access to, in the
isolated server environment that is necessary for writing and testing
such an article.

I'm not trying to "push" Fedora with this -- a fresh Ubuntu release
should be entirely suitable for this I *guess*, but the devil is in the
details, and you'll need an Ubuntu person, with a corporate(-like)
Ubuntu environment, to write that article for you.

I do confirm that I intend to support the Fedora setup with high
priority, so if you have questions about that, I'll do my best to answer.

Thanks,
Laszlo


> 
> 
> 
> Steven Shi
> Intel\SSG\STO\UEFI Firmware
> 
> Tel: +86 021-61166522
> iNet: 821-6522
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: edk2-devel [mailto:edk2-devel-bounces@lists.01.org] On Behalf Of
>> Laszlo Ersek
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 7, 2017 9:07 PM
>> To: edk2-devel-01 <edk2-devel@ml01.01.org>
>> Cc: Tian, Feng <feng.tian@intel.com>; Justen, Jordan L
>> <jordan.l.justen@intel.com>; Yao, Jiewen <jiewen.yao@intel.com>; Kinney,
>> Michael D <michael.d.kinney@intel.com>; Fan, Jeff <jeff.fan@intel.com>; Zeng,
>> Star <star.zeng@intel.com>
>> Subject: [edk2] Testing SMM with QEMU, KVM and libvirt
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've added the following article to the TianoCore wiki:
>>
>> https://github.com/tianocore/tianocore.github.io/wiki/Testing-SMM-with-
>> QEMU,-KVM-and-libvirt
>>
>> It should help both Windows and Linux desktop users build a KVM test
>> machine / environment that closely resembles mine. Such an environment
>> is useful for testing and regression-testing new MP and SMM features and
>> bugfixes.
>>
>> The initial setup is not short, but once you got it up and running, it's
>> very simple to rebuild OVMF with the edk2 changes, install the firmware
>> binary in the right place (see the article) and then click the Play
>> button on the Fedora 25 and Windows 10 guests, to see the changes in action.
>>
>> If you have smaller updates or structural reorgs for the document,
>> there's no need to ask me, just go ahead and do them.
>>
>> If some significant information is missing that you'd like me to add, I
>> think I'd prefer new TianoCore BZs at this time (Product: Tianocore
>> Feature Requests, Component: Web Content, Assignee: yours truly). I
>> don't know when I'll have time again to dig into this.
>>
>> Sorry if I forgot someone off the CC list.
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Laszlo
>> _______________________________________________
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