Re: [Qemu-devel] [RESEND PATCH v3 0/5] Add UUID support.

[Gleb Natapov <gleb@qumranet.com>]

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 12:04:50AM +0200, Fabrice Bellard wrote:
> Gleb Natapov wrote:
> > There was no additional comments last time I sent this patch series and
> > it was not yet committed to the SVN. Resend it for review/inclusion.
> > 
> >  This is updated version of the patch series. The patch #5 checks libuuid
> > availability and uses it for UUID generation if present, but it is
> > optional so if people think that libvirt is a better place for UUID generation
> > just don't apply the last patch.
> 
> I don't like this vmport "backdoor" and I would like to disable it by
> default, so I consider it is not the solution to pass the UUID
> information to the BIOS.
Do you have other interface in mind for host/guest communication?
VMware uses the I/O port backdoor interface. Microsoft Virtual PC
uses "Invalid Opcode" mechanism as a backdoor.
We need this interface for other things too. For instance there are OEM
Windows versions that require specific vendor's ACPI table to be present
for installation. I have a patch that pass additional ACPI tables to BIOS
using backdoor interface since it's not practical to compile different
BIOSes for different Windows OEM versions.

> 
> BTW, what is the use of this UUID ?
> 
It is used for system management to tell two identical computers apart.
Something like MAC but more stable. In Windows WMI can be used to obtain
UUID and we have vendors that use VB scripts to configure machines
differently based on their UUIDs.

--
			Gleb.