Xen devel - Sep 2012 - Re: [kvmarm] boot-wrapper: simple multi module loading support

On 03/09/12 14:30, Ian Campbell wrote:

Hi Ian,
> Apparently kvmarm@ is the place for boot-wrapper discussions so
> apologies for the otherwise Xen related mail ;)
> 
> The following implements support for a very basic protocol for loading
> multiple "modules" and providing them to the kernel. The ARM port
of Xen
> uses this to support passing both a dom0 kernel and initrd to the
> hypervisor "kernel".
> 
> The Xen side of this can be found in the series at:
>         http://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2012-09/msg00065.html
> 
> With that you can boot Xen on arm using the semi-hosting feature of the
> model (paths are host paths):
>         $MODEL linux-system-semi.axf -C cluster.cpu0.semihosting-cmd_line=\
>                 	''--kernel xen-arm.bin \
>                 	 --module zImage earlyprintk=xenboot console=ttyAMA1
root=/dev/mmcblk0 ro \
>                 	 --dtb vexpress-v2p-aem-v7a-xen.dtb --
dom0_mem=256M''
> 
> Until we know what bootloaders are going to become common in the ARM
> servers world it hard to know who we should be working with to define a
> proper protocol going forward and which bootloaders to supply patches
> for etc. If anyone has any pointers that would be very useful.
I don''t have any useful insight about bootloaders (I tend to hate them
all ;-), but what we (KVM/ARM) need is something that implements the
"boot in HYP mode" thing, as described here:

https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/pipermail/kvmarm/2012-August/002829.html

From a discussion with Stefano last week, it looks like this protocol
can fit Xen as well, but it would be nice to have a formal Ack before we
push this into RMK''s patch system.

Thanks,

	M.
-- 
Jazz is not dead. It just smells funny...