Re: Make possible point to system seabios instead include it in hvmloader

[Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>]

On 12/05/2014 09:43, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Sat, 2014-05-10 at 14:08 +0200, Fabio Fantoni wrote:
>> Actually is possible specify upstream qemu and seabios from distro's 
>> packages or custom builds with xen configure.
>> If these are used and qemu package will be updated, xen will use updated 
>> qemu but if seabios package will be updated, xen will use the new one 
>> only with xen rebuild.
> Correct.
>
>> If for example seabios will be updated with fixes and/or new version (in 
>> some case required by newer qemu) xen will still have the bug fixed and 
>> will have new bugs until will be rebuilded.
> Correct.
>
>> Is possible make hvmloader point to seabios specified in configure 
>> instead include it in hvmloader?
> You would have to arrange for something (probably the toolstack) to load
> the seabios file off disk and place it into guest memory as part of
> building the domain and then you would need to invent some protocol
> (perhaps xenstore based) so that the toolstack could signal to hvmloader
> where to go an look for the seabios binary in guest RAM.

Making the BIOS a multiboot module and teaching hvmloader about
multiboot seems much simpler.

The toolstack already has code for doing this in the PV case.

~Andrew