Re: [OpenBIOS] openfirmware boot partition layout

[Andreas Färber]

Hi Dinar,

Am 16.02.2011 um 14:23 schrieb Dinar Valeev:
> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Mark Cave-Ayland
>  wrote:
> > On 15/02/11 14:09, Dinar Valeev wrote:
> > > I'm playing with kvm on powerpc (I have LPAR'ed IBM Power5 machine).
> > >
> > > I have a couple of disk images which are working perfectly. (I've
> > > tested it by deploying it using VIO server with usual dd command
> > > directly to LPAR disk)
> > >
> > > But when I'm trying to attach same image as qemu (with KVM enabled)
> > > disk. VM won't boot. It just stuck on openbios banner.
> >
> > Okay - first question to ask is this: which version of KVM and  
> > which SVN
> > revision of OpenBIOS are you using? There has a been a lot of work  
> > in this
> > area last year for example.
>
> I'm using kvm with 2.6.38-rc3-67365-g7a67422 kernel
>
> mine qemu version is:
> QEMU emulator version 0.14.50, Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Fabrice Bellard
>
> I believe this is most recent version.

It may be, but its OpenBIOS version has not been updated for a while.  
For ppc64 you still need an SVN version.
> My qemu command is:
> ./ppc64-softmmu/qemu-system-ppc64 -enable-kvm -drive
> file=/root/k0daz_ppc_lvm_appliance.ppc64-1.0.1.raw -cpu power4
> -nographic -prom-env 'auto-boot?=false'
>
> Once I'm in OF prompt I've tried to invoke:
> 0 > dir disk:1\ pc-parts: Unable to determine filesystem
> ok
>
> If I'm trying to boot VM with one you proposed. VM just hangs.
> > > I have another image with old mac partition table (which is  
> > > working under
> > > qemu)
> > >
> > > So I have actually two questions:
> > > Is booting from PReP partition (type 0x41) is supported? (PReP
> > >
> > > just
> > > consists raw copy of yaboot binary)
> > > When VM have LVM root then it required to have FAT partition
> > >
> > > (type
> > > 0x06) with kernel, initrd, yaboot and its config.
> > > Does this scenario supported as well?
> > >
> > > Here is usual partition setups I have:
> > > non lvm setup:
> > > Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
> > >  1      32.3kB  8225kB  8193kB  primary                
> > > boot, , , , , ,
> > > , , , type=41, prep,
> > >  2      8225kB  897MB   888MB   primary   
> > > ext3         , , , , , , , ,
> > > , type=83, ,
> > >
> > > lvm setup:
> > > Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
> > >  1      32.3kB  49.4MB  49.3MB  primary  fat16         
> > > boot, , , , , ,
> > > , , , type=06, ,
> > >  2      49.4MB  979MB   929MB   primary               , , , , ,  
> > > lvm, ,
> > > , , type=8e, ,
> > >
> > > I'll glad to provide additional information or participate in  
> > > testing
> > > in the future.
> >
> > Andreas is the person most likely to know the current status of PPC  
> > support.
>
> Andreas, have you tried such scenarios?

No. I don't have a KVM setup.

Emulating a PReP machine (-M prep) I didn't get too far.
That was before Hervé's NVRAM patch though and booting ELF OpenBIOS  
with -M prep needs QEMU patches:
http://repo.or.cz/w/qemu/afaerber.git/commitdiff/b73968204a262e36a33da3c33dd...

Regards,
Andreas