Running and Testing Modules and Applications

Running and Testing Modules and Applications

[Ayush Singh]

Hello everyone, I wanted to ask everyone how most modules and
applications are run/tested in edk2. I will be working on Adding Rust
support for edk2 during GSoC and thus will probably have to do a lot
of primitive testing. I did look at the EmulationPkg but didn't really
understand how to use it. It simply drops me into gdb, although maybe
that's what it is supposed to do?

There were also some GUI programs (VisualUefi) that can be used in
windows, but since I am in Linux, they aren't much useful. I also
found a tutorial to run it in a physical machine
(https://tait.tech/2021/04/18/uefi-development-environment/), but that
seems more for the final testing rather than testing during
development.

I have also tried using qemu for running applications, and I guess I
was somewhat successful by using the script:
`https://github.com/Richard-W/uefi-run` to test out uefi applications
in qemu. However, it builds a FAT filesystem around the EFI
application, so I was wondering if there was a better and simpler way
to do it.

Ayush Singh

Re: [edk2-devel] Running and Testing Modules and Applications

[Brian J. Johnson]

Qemu's virtual VFAT (vvfat) disk type is a convenient way to test UEFI 
applications.  It presents a folder on the host as a VFAT file system to 
the guest.  It's not the fastest or the most stable disk type (be 
careful not to modify files from the host while the guest is running), 
but it's really handy.

Another way to put a file on a UEFI VFAT disk image for qemu is to use 
mtools (https://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/), a set of user-mode 
programs which can manipulate FAT disk images.  You can write some 
scripts around them to automate your workflow, similarly to uefi-run. 
I've done that quite a bit in the past.

Good luck,
Brian J. Johnson

-------- Original Message --------
From: Ayush Singh [mailto:ayushdevel1325@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, June 3, 2022, 11:49 AM
To: edk2-devel-groups-io <devel@edk2.groups.io>
Subject: [edk2-devel] Running and Testing Modules and Applications

Hello everyone, I wanted to ask everyone how most modules and
applications are run/tested in edk2. I will be working on Adding Rust
support for edk2 during GSoC and thus will probably have to do a lot
of primitive testing. I did look at the EmulationPkg but didn't really
understand how to use it. It simply drops me into gdb, although maybe
that's what it is supposed to do?

There were also some GUI programs (VisualUefi) that can be used in
windows, but since I am in Linux, they aren't much useful. I also
found a tutorial to run it in a physical machine
(https://tait.tech/2021/04/18/uefi-development-environment/ 
), but that
seems more for the final testing rather than testing during
development.

I have also tried using qemu for running applications, and I guess I
was somewhat successful by using the script:
`https://github.com/Richard-W/uefi-run` to test out uefi applications
in qemu. However, it builds a FAT filesystem around the EFI
application, so I was wondering if there was a better and simpler way
to do it.

Ayush Singh

Re: [edk2-devel] Running and Testing Modules and Applications

[Mara Sophie Grosch]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2637 bytes --]

In addition to mtools, I wrote a tool to package a set of files into a
fresh VFAT image - kinda like tar, but fat32 as output format. I'm using
it in my hobby OS project. It's a single C file but seems to work great,
albeit only tested in my workflow so far. Called it `fatcreate`, it's
available on my Gitlab [1] or on GitHub[2].

Best, Mara
[1] https://praios.lf-net.org/littlefox/lf-os_amd64/-/blob/main/util/fatcreate.c
[2] https://github.com/LittleFox94/lf-os_amd64/blob/main/util/fatcreate.c


Am Fri, Jun 03, 2022 at 05:06:50PM -0500 schrieb Brian J. Johnson:
>Qemu's virtual VFAT (vvfat) disk type is a convenient way to test UEFI 
>applications.  It presents a folder on the host as a VFAT file system 
>to the guest.  It's not the fastest or the most stable disk type (be 
>careful not to modify files from the host while the guest is running), 
>but it's really handy.
>
>Another way to put a file on a UEFI VFAT disk image for qemu is to use 
>mtools (https://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/), a set of user-mode 
>programs which can manipulate FAT disk images.  You can write some 
>scripts around them to automate your workflow, similarly to uefi-run. 
>I've done that quite a bit in the past.
>
>Good luck,
>Brian J. Johnson
>
>-------- Original Message --------
>From: Ayush Singh [mailto:ayushdevel1325@gmail.com]
>Sent: Friday, June 3, 2022, 11:49 AM
>To: edk2-devel-groups-io <devel@edk2.groups.io>
>Subject: [edk2-devel] Running and Testing Modules and Applications
>
>Hello everyone, I wanted to ask everyone how most modules and
>applications are run/tested in edk2. I will be working on Adding Rust
>support for edk2 during GSoC and thus will probably have to do a lot
>of primitive testing. I did look at the EmulationPkg but didn't really
>understand how to use it. It simply drops me into gdb, although maybe
>that's what it is supposed to do?
>
>There were also some GUI programs (VisualUefi) that can be used in
>windows, but since I am in Linux, they aren't much useful. I also
>found a tutorial to run it in a physical machine
>(https://tait.tech/2021/04/18/uefi-development-environment/ ), but 
>that
>seems more for the final testing rather than testing during
>development.
>
>I have also tried using qemu for running applications, and I guess I
>was somewhat successful by using the script:
>`https://github.com/Richard-W/uefi-run` to test out uefi applications
>in qemu. However, it builds a FAT filesystem around the EFI
>application, so I was wondering if there was a better and simpler way
>to do it.
>
>Ayush Singh
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Re: [edk2-devel] Running and Testing Modules and Applications

[Ayush Singh]

Hi Brian, thanks for the tip about vvfat. It's pretty neet for
testing, especially since the whole build output folder can be mounted
that way. I guess I will write a blog post or something so I don't
forget it in the future.

Also, I think it would be a great idea if BaseTools contained a script
to run/test the applications in qemu.

Ayush Singh

On Sat, Jun 4, 2022 at 3:36 AM Brian J. Johnson <brian.johnson@hpe.com> wrote:
>
> Qemu's virtual VFAT (vvfat) disk type is a convenient way to test UEFI
> applications.  It presents a folder on the host as a VFAT file system to
> the guest.  It's not the fastest or the most stable disk type (be
> careful not to modify files from the host while the guest is running),
> but it's really handy.
>
> Another way to put a file on a UEFI VFAT disk image for qemu is to use
> mtools (https://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/), a set of user-mode
> programs which can manipulate FAT disk images.  You can write some
> scripts around them to automate your workflow, similarly to uefi-run.
> I've done that quite a bit in the past.
>
> Good luck,
> Brian J. Johnson
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> From: Ayush Singh [mailto:ayushdevel1325@gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, June 3, 2022, 11:49 AM
> To: edk2-devel-groups-io <devel@edk2.groups.io>
> Subject: [edk2-devel] Running and Testing Modules and Applications
>
> Hello everyone, I wanted to ask everyone how most modules and
> applications are run/tested in edk2. I will be working on Adding Rust
> support for edk2 during GSoC and thus will probably have to do a lot
> of primitive testing. I did look at the EmulationPkg but didn't really
> understand how to use it. It simply drops me into gdb, although maybe
> that's what it is supposed to do?
>
> There were also some GUI programs (VisualUefi) that can be used in
> windows, but since I am in Linux, they aren't much useful. I also
> found a tutorial to run it in a physical machine
> (https://tait.tech/2021/04/18/uefi-development-environment/
> ), but that
> seems more for the final testing rather than testing during
> development.
>
> I have also tried using qemu for running applications, and I guess I
> was somewhat successful by using the script:
> `https://github.com/Richard-W/uefi-run` to test out uefi applications
> in qemu. However, it builds a FAT filesystem around the EFI
> application, so I was wondering if there was a better and simpler way
> to do it.
>
> Ayush Singh
>
>
> 
>
>