libvirt users - Nov 2021 - virsh create fails with "Unable to find any firmware to satisfy 'efi'" for aarch64 guest on macOS

On a Friday in 2021, Nathan Vander Wilt wrote:
>I am having trouble when I `virsh create test.xml` with an aarch64
>guest on a macOS (Apple Silicon) host. I've wrestled with a variety of
>issues but the one I simply haven't been able to get past is this
>regarding the UEFI firmware:
>
>error: Failed to create domain from test.xml
>error: operation failed: Unable to find any firmware to satisfy
'efi'
>
>This is with `virsh --version` of 7.9.0 and `qemu-system-aarch64
>--version` of 6.1.0, both installed via the common `brew` tool from
>its main 'homebrew/core' tap. I have confirmed that the loader/nvram
>files referenced do exist.
>
>Running `qemu-system-aarch64 -L help` outputs two lines:
>
>/opt/homebrew/Cellar/qemu/6.1.0_1/bin/../share/qemu-firmware
>/opt/homebrew/Cellar/qemu/6.1.0_1/bin/../share/qemu
>
>The ?/share/qemu-firmware folder does NOT exist, but symlinking it to
>a ?/share/qemu/firmware folder which does exist does not improve the
>situation.
>
>I have also tried renaming the ?/share/qemu/firmware folder (e.g. `mv
>firmware zzz-firmware`) as some notes I found led me to believe that
>libvirst might ignore my loader/nvram settings entirely if QEMU had
>the "new" firmware JSON configuration stuff there? But again no
>improvement?.
>
>
>How can I debug this further? What should I try next?
>
>thanks,
>-natevw
Can you try with the latest libvirt?
7.10.0-rc2 was just tagged today and should be out this week:
https://listman.redhat.com/archives/libvirt-announce/2021-November/msg00002.html

Andrea did some fixes that are supposed to help with Apple Silicon:
https://gitlab.com/libvirt/libvirt/-/issues/168

Jano
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 488 bytes
Desc: not available
URL:
<http://listman.redhat.com/archives/libvirt-users/attachments/20211129/8f7f38ec/attachment.sig>

On Mon, Nov 29, 2021 at 2:28 AM J?n Tomko <jtomko at redhat.com>
wrote:
> Can you try with the latest libvirt?
> 7.10.0-rc2 was just tagged today and should be out this week:
>
https://listman.redhat.com/archives/libvirt-announce/2021-November/msg00002.html
Ah, but it looks like the arm64 -> VIR_ARCH_AARCH64 patch
(https://github.com/ihsakashi/libvirt/commit/0f062221ae23e6ea0ed5e6ba65d47395581cb143.patch)
is still in limbo? AFAICT that's the main issue I'm hitting now.
> Andrea did some fixes that are supposed to help with Apple Silicon:
> https://gitlab.com/libvirt/libvirt/-/issues/168
Yes, I happened to find that thread a little while after posting here
and it has lots of tips but didn't directly address my confusion
regarding how to manually specify the files. But based on the
"internal error: undefined hardware architecture" I'm now getting
I
think I will need some of the patches.

For now I've just wrestled through direct usage of QEMU from the
command line as ironically this whole exercise was to try keeping
random build chains off my main "shiny new" macOS install itself.
Thanks for the pointers and glad these issues are gradually getting
worked out. I think I just must still be in the early adopters on the
M1 platform and hit some growing pains!

thanks again,
-natevw