RE: [Qemu-devel] Saving Sparc NVRAM contents between QEMU sessions

RE: [Qemu-devel] Saving Sparc NVRAM contents between QEMU sessions

[Blue Swirl]

>Is there any functionality, existing or planned or patched, to save Sparc
>NVRAM contents between QEMU sessions and reload it when QEMU starts up ?

Currently nvram is used to pass some information from Qemu to BIOS. Some 
other mechanism would need to be implemented instead, if nvram contents 
can't be used anymore. For example, some memory at fixed location.

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Re: [Qemu-devel] Saving Sparc NVRAM contents between QEMU sessions

[Paul Brook]

On Thursday 08 June 2006 15:31, Blue Swirl wrote:
> >Is there any functionality, existing or planned or patched, to save Sparc
> >NVRAM contents between QEMU sessions and reload it when QEMU starts up ?
>
> Currently nvram is used to pass some information from Qemu to BIOS. Some
> other mechanism would need to be implemented instead, if nvram contents
> can't be used anymore. For example, some memory at fixed location.

Or just make qemu override certain sections of the nvram. I'm assuming there 
is some sort of structure to the nvram contents, or at least particular areas 
reserved for/commonly used by the BIOS and the OS.

Paul

Re: [Qemu-devel] Saving Sparc NVRAM contents between QEMU sessions

[Blue Swirl]

>Or just make qemu override certain sections of the nvram. I'm assuming 
>there
>is some sort of structure to the nvram contents, or at least particular 
>areas
>reserved for/commonly used by the BIOS and the OS.

I think a problem with current approach as well as this, is that after 
system reset, the bios can't assume that the information comes from Qemu 
anymore.

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[Qemu-devel] Saving Sparc NVRAM contents between QEMU sessions

[Armistead, Jason]

Hi

Is there any functionality, existing or planned or patched, to save Sparc
NVRAM contents between QEMU sessions and reload it when QEMU starts up ?

I'm working with some of the others on the OpenBIOS list to try and get QEMU
/ OpenBIOS to be able to boot SunOS 4 and Solaris

It'd be nice if we could get QEMU to save the NVRAM to a file between
sessions so that it's possible to either (a) resume where we left off, or
(b) be able to specify different NVRAM configurations according to what we
are trying to accomplish e.g. boot selection, HOSTID setting, etc.

Obviously, writing a save / restore function for NVRAM is not terribly
difficult, but how should it be approached "the QEMU way" ?

Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks

Jason

Re: [Qemu-devel] Saving Sparc NVRAM contents between QEMU sessions

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Armistead, Jason wrote:

> Is there any functionality, existing or planned or patched, to save Sparc
> NVRAM contents between QEMU sessions and reload it when QEMU starts up ?

AFICT, no.

> Obviously, writing a save / restore function for NVRAM is not terribly
> difficult, but how should it be approached "the QEMU way" ?

I think the spirit of QEmu would dictate to have a command line option 
pointing to a file. This file (provided it exists already) would be read 
in on startup, and written to, whenever the NVRAM changes (it would be 
best, probably to just fopen()/fseek()/fwrite()/fclose() rather than 
mmap()ing the file, since MinGW32 either does not support that, or not 
very well -- I don't remember which of these).

Ciao,
Dscho