[SeaBIOS] Qemu-kvm VM halt at allocate VGA stack when continuously reset VM

[Xulei (Stone)]

>On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 07:12:47AM +0000, Xulei (Stone) wrote:
>> Hi,
>> Recently, i use a script to continuously reset a VM and 
>> i found my VM frequently halts at "Attempting to allocate 
>> VGA stack via pmm call". After analyzing, i think it may
>> be a problem of SeaBIOS.
>> 
>> From the log(attached below), we can see handle_post() 
>> executes twice and this makes the destination address of 
>> "Relocating init" change when the 2nd reset command comes.
>> This also influences on the source address of "Copying MPTABLE". 
>> At last, the VM will be stuck at attempting to allocate VGA 
>> stack via pmm call.
>> 
>> Could you offer me a solution to fix this problem?
>> 
>> ==============bad SeaBIOS log======
>> SeaBIOS (version rel-1.8.1-0-g4adadbd-20151127_220019-UVP)
>> No Xen hypervisor found.
>> Running on QEMU (i440fx)
>> Running on KVM
>> RamSize: 0xc0000000 [cmos]
>> Now vcpu cpu_id = 0                                          <<========= i add
>> Static seabios entry times =1                                <<========= i add
>> Relocating init from 0x000dbb30 to 0xbffad2c0 (size 76928)
>> Found QEMU fw_cfg
>> SeaBIOS (version rel-1.8.1-0-g4adadbd-20151127_220019-UVP)   <<=========  handle_post() execute again?
>
>If seabios resets before it sets HaveRunPost then it probably wont
>work well, as it will rerun the POST code without resetting the global
>variables it has modified.
>
>Unfortunately, it's not clear to me that we can simply move the
>setting of HaveRunPost to an earlier point, as the handle_resume()
>code would need to be audited to ensure it can run even if POST hasn't
>completed.

I move HaveRunPost = 1 in the very early point of POST phase (begin
at handle_post()), so that when the 2nd reset comes, HaveRunPost is 
already 1 which makes entry_post jmps to handle_resume() instead of 
handle_post(). As we know, handle_resume() will reset all global variables. 

Can you tell me is this solution ok? or, does this have some side effects?
>So, it looks like a fix for this will take some further analysis.
>
>-Kevin