qemu discuss - Dec 2006 - User Mode Emulation for Solaris Binaries

What are your thoughts on User Mode Emulation?

Is it feasable to create Solaris Binary User Mode Emulation?

If so, it would make possible running all those Sparc Binaries released over the
last two decades on OpenSolaris x86 and PPC, what are your thoughts?

Best Regards,

Peter Firmstone.
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This message posted from opensolaris.org

On 12/2/06, Peter Firmstone <eagle.coal at bigpond.com>
wrote:
> What are your thoughts on User Mode Emulation?
>
> Is it feasable to create Solaris Binary User Mode Emulation?
>
> If so, it would make possible running all those Sparc Binaries released
> over the last two decades on OpenSolaris x86 and PPC, what are your
thoughts?
http://www.transitive.com/products/sol_xeon.htm

Now, this is for Solaris/SPARC to Linux/x86 user mode emulation,
but if it can be done for Linux/x86 it can almost certainly be
done for Solaris/x86 as well.

By the way, Transitive is the same company that did PPC
to x86 user mode emulation for Apple''s MacOS X.

- Andrei

Having that confirmed, I guess the question is then, does someone want
to do it, or is there sufficient economic value for Sun to develop it?

QEMU Sparc V9 emulation is still under development, Sparc V8 emulation
is described as somewhat complete.

It does appear (my interpretation only) from reading the documentation
on Linux User Mode Emulation from QEMU, that Solaris User Mode Emulation
using QEMU is not out of the question but it would require a smart
developer/s to reproduce this functionality with OpenSolars System
calls.  Incidentally Brandz or lxrun should give a good indication of
system call compatibility between Linux and Solaris.

QEMU''s dynamic binary translation features could be valuable,
integrated
with Brandz and Zones.  However QEMU Usermode emulation is licensed
under the GPL and it would probably be better to wait and see if Sun and
the OpenSolaris community decide to license under GPL v3.

If this does eventuate, the QEMU source code could become a more
integrated part of OpenSolaris where long term it could be extended to
open up the possibility of Running Non Native Binary Programmes from not
only Solaris Sparc but other Unix''s/Linux in Zones on any architecture
that OpenSolaris is ported to. In doing so it would allow easy migration
from most platforms to OpenSolaris.

Is this worth pursuing further?

Cheers,

Peter.
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This message posted from opensolaris.org

> Having that confirmed, I guess the question is then,  does someone want
> to do it, or is there sufficient economic value for  Sun to develop it?
While it sounds daunting initially, I mentioned it on the #qemu irc channel
last night and Paul Brook thought that it may just require a minimal amount
of work, with just a new batch of syscall numbers for Solaris.

I suspect that the work can be incremental, just getting a couple of system
calls working, with a set of test cases to get it going.
> QEMU Sparc V9 emulation is still under development,
> Sparc V8 emulation is described as somewhat complete.
Sparc V8 emulation may be there, but we still can''t boot Solaris/Sparc
in
a qemu guest.  There are openbios issues, as well as continuing sparc32
issues that continue to get patching.  
> It does appear (my interpretation only) from reading the documentation
> on Linux User Mode Emulation from QEMU, that Solaris User Mode Emulation
> using QEMU is not out of the question but it would  require a smart
> developer/s to reproduce this functionality with OpenSolars System
> calls.  Incidentally Brandz or lxrun should give a good indication of
> system call compatibility between Linux and Solaris.
Exactly.  I don''t think someone would have to be super smart to do
this.
A pair of systems, linux and Solaris/X86 could probably do what is required,
with a little spin up on linux-user-mode, and then start working on minimal
cases on Solaris. I don''t know if there would be any difference between
x86 and sparc.
 
> QEMU''s dynamic binary translation features could be
> valuable, integrated with Brandz and Zones.  However QEMU Usermode
> emulation is licensed  under the GPL and it would probably be better to
wait
> and see if Sun and the OpenSolaris community decide to license under GPL
> v3.
I''m not sure what the GPL has to do with Qemu and Solaris.  I think as
long
as Qemu is a standalone project, a solaris user-mode emulation could be
done.  If I''m wrong about the GPL as it relates to this issue, please
explain
why. I thought I had a pretty good understanding.
> If this does eventuate, the QEMU source code could become a more
> integrated part of OpenSolaris where long term it
> could be extended to open up the possibility of Running Non Native Binary
> Programmes from not  only Solaris Sparc but other Unix''s/Linux in
Zones on
> any architecture  that OpenSolaris is ported to. In doing so it would
> allow easy migration  from most platforms to OpenSolaris.
Sounds good.  As it is, we need more people to just be banging on qemu
on Solaris.  Not just running premade binaries, but building it, and figuring
out what else can be done in the solaris/qemu port.
> Is this worth pursuing further?
I think so.  I don''t have a lot of bandwidth.  I''ve spent the
last two weeks on some very
esoteric qemu/sparc/i386-softmmu bugs (keymaps and rtl8139 emulation), plus
there''s
a fair bit of integration to actually support v8plus/v8plusa CPU compilation.

Ben
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This message posted from opensolaris.org

I''m all for extending Qemu to be able to run Solaris/SPARC binaries on
Solaris/x86(64) or, even better, Linux/x86(64).  I''m currently a
customer of the aforementioned Transitive, but would certainly like an open
source solution like this.

Wish I was a better programmer and maybe I''d be able to tackle the
project myself :-).
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This message posted from opensolaris.org

---- Nick <nick.couchman at seakr.com> wrote: 
> I''m all for extending Qemu to be able to run Solaris/SPARC
binaries on Solaris/x86(64) or, even better, Linux/x86(64).  I''m
currently a customer of the aforementioned Transitive, but would certainly like
an open source solution like this.
> 
I had a conversation months ago with one of the qemu developers who
thought that it would not be too hard to build a solaris-x86 and 
solaris-sparc user tree (allowing a single  binary to be run, as opposed
to the entire environment).  As noted before, the biggest problem we
have on emulating Solaris-sparc (for the whole OS) is that the openbios
folks need some forth help to figure out how to do the device relocation.
> Wish I was a better programmer and maybe I''d be able to tackle the
project myself :-).
Just  get good at building it.  If you find things that need changed, ask
for help.   The code on opensolaris.org has some modifications that
are slowly getting pushed back to CVS.  I''ve got a couple more patches
I need to push back that have to do with building on x86-64 and doing
a 32-bit build on x86-64.  

Speaking of which, anyone who has some experience with libSDL 
might want to look at the keyboard handling.  On my U60 running
Solaris 10, the set of function key (Ctrl-Alt-1, Ctrl-Alt-2, Ctrl-Alt-3,
Ctrl-Altf-F [full screen mode]) map to very different key sequences
on the Sun Keyboard.  I was working on that in March, but couldn''t
make heads or tails of it.

Ben

I know this was written a bit more than a year ago... but have there been any
updates on QEMU User mode + Solaris x86/SPARC?... any info?
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This message posted from opensolaris.org

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:16:34 PDT
> Von: Victor <victorc25 at hotmail.com>
> An: qemu-discuss at opensolaris.org
> Betreff: Re: [qemu-discuss] User Mode Emulation for Solaris Binaries
> I know this was written a bit more than a year ago... but have there been
> any updates on QEMU User mode + Solaris x86/SPARC?... any info?
> --
Hello, a work-alike (with higher stability and better performance) :
http://www.transitive.com/products/solsparc_solx86

However, it is a commercial product and you won''t see the src for (at
least) some time.

well, thank you for answering, but I already knew about Transitive''s
solution... even so, I find more interesting the work done with QEMU,
particularly the possible combination of Solaris 8/9 Containers and User Mode
QEMU on Solaris 10 x64... maybe the BrandZ interface could be extended to not
only translate system calls to the kernel, but also translate processor
instructions...

QuickTransit, as mentioned before in this thread, shows it is doable... and QEMU
is a very competent technology (parts of it having found it''s way not
only on Xen, but also on KVM and Virtualbox)... so I consider the stability and
performance part more about tuning and optimizing it than a problem with QEMU
per se

I was asking because since Ben said he had talked with one of QEMU developers,
maybe he (or someone else) had some update on this... because I can''t
find anything yet heh
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This message posted from opensolaris.org