[SeaBIOS] [PATCH RFC 00/13] qemu: generate acpi tables for the guest

Kevin O'Connor kevin at koconnor.net
Tue May 14 03:54:00 CEST 2013


On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 03:38:51PM -0500, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst at redhat.com> writes:
> > git trees, for those interested in testing this:
> >
> > git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/virt/kvm/mst/qemu.git acpi
> >
> > git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/virt/kvm/mst/seabios.git acpi
> >
> > bios patchset will be posted tomorrow (need to clean up
> > the commit log a bit).
> 
> I don't think it's a good idea to move BIOS functionality in QEMU.
> 
> We don't frequently add firmware or chipsets so it seems like we're
> optimizing for an uncommon scenario here.

Your objection has come as a surprise to me.  Are you stating that you
don't think QEMU should generate the ACPI tables and pass them through
to SeaBIOS via fw_cfg?

I do think it would be worthwhile to do the above.  If we look at the
ACPI tables that are currently generated in SeaBIOS, nearly every
field describes the hardware.  (I've described this in some detail at:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2013-02/msg04417.html )
When generating ACPI tables, SeaBIOS can only guess at what the QEMU
hardware is or it must receive the hardware details directly from
QEMU.

When receiving hardware information from QEMU today, a one-off fw_cfg
format is inevitably created.  Currently there are seven different
fw_cfg entries that control various "bios tables".  (These are
"irq0-override", "system-states", "numa-nodes", "acpi tables", "smbios
tables", "pvpanic-port", and "max cpus".)  Of these, only one has any
use directly to SeaBIOS (max cpus) - the rest are purely pass through
to one or more of the various guest visible bios tables.

The problem with generating custom fw_cfg structures to describe the
hardware, is that it inevitably causes the creation of new (poorly
documented) structures that serve only to pass the info so another
program can create an industry standard structure with the info.  A
good example of this is the FW_CFG_NUMA entry.  If one looks at the
definition of this fw_cfg structure (see hw/i386/pc.c:bochs_bios_init)
they will find a complex structure (it's actually two dynamically
sized arrays of two different values with the size of the first
dynamically sized array determined by the FW_CFG_MAX_CPUS fw_cfg
entry).  This undocumented fw_cfg structure serves no purpose other
than to generate an ACPI SRAT table.  Had QEMU just populated an SRAT
table and put it into a fw_cfg entry then there would be a much better
documented and understood interface.  Had SeaBIOS wanted to know the
numa information (it doesn't) it would be much easier for it to parse
out the well documented ACPI SRAT table passed via fw_cfg then it
would be for it to handle the cumbersome undocumented fw_cfg entry
present today.

There have been several requests recently to add more enhanced and
detailed ACPI tables to SeaBIOS that require new custom fw_cfg
entries.  I've been pushing back on them because I don't wish to
invent new custom fw_cfg entries and propagate the code throughout
QEMU and SeaBIOS, when the sole goal is to create an industry standard
ACPI table.  We're better off accepting that the goal is an ACPI
table, that only QEMU has the knowledge to generate it, and that QEMU
is the best place to generate it.

Hopefully I've misunderstood your objection or you will reconsider.

Cheers,
-Kevin



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