Reviewer for the possible duplicated CSM components in OvmfPkg

Reviewer for the possible duplicated CSM components in OvmfPkg

[Wu, Hao A]

Hello David,

According to the request in a previous mail discussion thread
'Drop CSM support in OvmfPkg?':

https://edk2.groups.io/g/devel/topic/30916686#35723

We plan to duplicate the required CSM modules into the OvmfPkg/Csm folder,
so that those modules will be kept within the edk2 repo.

Meanwhile, Laszlo suggested me to first figure out the ownership (review
duty) for these CSM components before such duplication:

https://edk2.groups.io/g/devel/topic/31627718#40659

Would you like to take such role to be the reviewer for the CSM components
that will be copied into the OvmfPkg?

Thanks in advance.

Best Regards,
Hao Wu

Re: Reviewer for the possible duplicated CSM components in OvmfPkg

[David Woodhouse]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1108 bytes --]

On Mon, 2019-05-20 at 05:08 +0000, Wu, Hao A wrote:
> Hello David,
> 
> According to the request in a previous mail discussion thread
> 'Drop CSM support in OvmfPkg?':
> 
> https://edk2.groups.io/g/devel/topic/30916686#35723
> 
> We plan to duplicate the required CSM modules into the OvmfPkg/Csm folder,
> so that those modules will be kept within the edk2 repo.
> 
> Meanwhile, Laszlo suggested me to first figure out the ownership (review
> duty) for these CSM components before such duplication:
> 
> https://edk2.groups.io/g/devel/topic/31627718#40659
> 
> Would you like to take such role to be the reviewer for the CSM components
> that will be copied into the OvmfPkg?
> 
> Thanks in advance.

Yes, I believe I have sufficient motivation to spend time on that am I
am willing to do so. My only caveat is that I haven't managed to
reproduce the working CSM situation that I had when I first implemented
this all; even by going back to those versions of OVMF + SeaBIOS. 

Lazslo has pointed me at some potential reasons for that, but I haven't
yet managed to chase them up.

[-- Attachment #2: smime.p7s --]
[-- Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature, Size: 5174 bytes --]

Re: Reviewer for the possible duplicated CSM components in OvmfPkg

[Wu, Hao A]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Woodhouse [mailto:dwmw2@infradead.org]
> Sent: Monday, May 20, 2019 1:11 PM
> To: Wu, Hao A; devel@edk2.groups.io
> Cc: Laszlo Ersek; Ni, Ray; Justen, Jordan L; Ard Biesheuvel
> Subject: Re: Reviewer for the possible duplicated CSM components in OvmfPkg
> 
> On Mon, 2019-05-20 at 05:08 +0000, Wu, Hao A wrote:
> > Hello David,
> >
> > According to the request in a previous mail discussion thread
> > 'Drop CSM support in OvmfPkg?':
> >
> > https://edk2.groups.io/g/devel/topic/30916686#35723
> >
> > We plan to duplicate the required CSM modules into the OvmfPkg/Csm folder,
> > so that those modules will be kept within the edk2 repo.
> >
> > Meanwhile, Laszlo suggested me to first figure out the ownership (review
> > duty) for these CSM components before such duplication:
> >
> > https://edk2.groups.io/g/devel/topic/31627718#40659
> >
> > Would you like to take such role to be the reviewer for the CSM components
> > that will be copied into the OvmfPkg?
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> 
> Yes, I believe I have sufficient motivation to spend time on that am I
> am willing to do so. My only caveat is that I haven't managed to

Thanks.

> reproduce the working CSM situation that I had when I first implemented
> this all; even by going back to those versions of OVMF + SeaBIOS.
> 
> Lazslo has pointed me at some potential reasons for that, but I haven't
> yet managed to chase them up.

My thought on this is the CSM components in the framework packages are
stable for a period of time. So my guess is that the issue is not directly
related to these components.

Also, if it turns out that there are some missing components left
uncopied, we are able to get them back (from the repo history) and put
them into OvmfPkg then. I can help on that.

Does this sound good to you?

Best Regards,
Hao Wu

Re: Reviewer for the possible duplicated CSM components in OvmfPkg

[David Woodhouse]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1498 bytes --]

On Mon, 2019-05-20 at 05:32 +0000, Wu, Hao A wrote:
> My thought on this is the CSM components in the framework packages are
> stable for a period of time. So my guess is that the issue is not directly
> related to these components.

Right. I went back to a SeaBIOS and OVMF from the time I last had this
working, and then I tripped over lots of toolchain issues. I ended up
having to git-bisect for various different issues at once.

ISTR I eventually got to the point where I could build the "last known
good" versions with the minimal set of fixes... and still they didn't
actually work. I need to revisit that.

> Also, if it turns out that there are some missing components left
> uncopied, we are able to get them back (from the repo history) and put
> them into OvmfPkg then. I can help on that.
> 
> Does this sound good to you?

That would be great. Thanks. I don't think there's anything really
*missing*. We do get into SeaBIOS as a CSM but SeaBIOS itself then
crashes somehow, in a hard-to-debug way.

In fact I did all this before we had proper SMM support in OVMF and
SeaBIOS, and I should probably revisit it completely. Originally I took
the simple approach where SeaBIOS takes over the hardware completely,
and returning from CSM to UEFI on a boot failure was not really going
to work. But if I move to what I understand is the "normal" CSM model
of invoking UEFI services through SMM instead of taking full control,
things might be a little saner.


[-- Attachment #2: smime.p7s --]
[-- Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature, Size: 5174 bytes --]

Re: Reviewer for the possible duplicated CSM components in OvmfPkg

[Wu, Hao A]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Woodhouse [mailto:dwmw2@infradead.org]
> Sent: Monday, May 20, 2019 1:40 PM
> To: Wu, Hao A; devel@edk2.groups.io
> Cc: Laszlo Ersek; Ni, Ray; Justen, Jordan L; Ard Biesheuvel
> Subject: Re: Reviewer for the possible duplicated CSM components in OvmfPkg
> 
> On Mon, 2019-05-20 at 05:32 +0000, Wu, Hao A wrote:
> > My thought on this is the CSM components in the framework packages are
> > stable for a period of time. So my guess is that the issue is not directly
> > related to these components.
> 
> Right. I went back to a SeaBIOS and OVMF from the time I last had this
> working, and then I tripped over lots of toolchain issues. I ended up
> having to git-bisect for various different issues at once.
> 
> ISTR I eventually got to the point where I could build the "last known
> good" versions with the minimal set of fixes... and still they didn't
> actually work. I need to revisit that.
> 
> > Also, if it turns out that there are some missing components left
> > uncopied, we are able to get them back (from the repo history) and put
> > them into OvmfPkg then. I can help on that.
> >
> > Does this sound good to you?
> 
> That would be great. Thanks. I don't think there's anything really
> *missing*. We do get into SeaBIOS as a CSM but SeaBIOS itself then
> crashes somehow, in a hard-to-debug way.
> 
> In fact I did all this before we had proper SMM support in OVMF and
> SeaBIOS, and I should probably revisit it completely. Originally I took
> the simple approach where SeaBIOS takes over the hardware completely,
> and returning from CSM to UEFI on a boot failure was not really going
> to work. But if I move to what I understand is the "normal" CSM model
> of invoking UEFI services through SMM instead of taking full control,
> things might be a little saner.

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

I will update my proposed series by adding a leading patch to update the
Maintainers.txt file with:

OvmfPkg
...
R: David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>
   (CSM modules)

Also, I will probably held the v2 of the series after the
edk2-stable201905, will let you know if there is any additional help needed.

Thanks again for the help.

Best Regards,
Hao Wu