Xen support for native EFI boot

Xen support for native EFI boot

[Cihula, Joseph]

Can someone provide instructions and the necessary environment/toolchain support needed to get Xen to build and boot on a native EFI system (i.e. with no CSM/legacy support)?

Joe

Re: Xen support for native EFI boot

[Jan Beulich]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1067 bytes --]

>>> On 01.03.12 at 21:40, "Cihula, Joseph" <joseph.cihula@intel.com> wrote:
> Can someone provide instructions and the necessary environment/toolchain 
> support needed to get Xen to build and boot on a native EFI system (i.e. with 
> no CSM/legacy support)?

gcc must be 4.5.x or newer (I'd recommend not trying anything below
4.6.x, as I'm unaware of anyone ever having tried that, and I can't
exclude that there are bugs in the relevant code that was newly added
in 4.5.0).

ld must support linking native 64-bit EFI applications, which so far no
released binutils version does. The single relevant change that's
necessary for this to work in 2.21 can be taken from
http://www.sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2011-05/msg00131.html (but
there's at least one other non-essential adjustment in case you want
to do anything with the generated binary that involves its symbol
table).

Next, a suitably enabled Dom0 kernel is needed.

Finally, a config file needs to be placed alongside the xen*.efi
binary; I'm attaching a simplistic example.

Jan


[-- Attachment #2: xen.cfg --]
[-- Type: application/octet-stream, Size: 193 bytes --]

[global]
default=sle11sp2

[sle11sp2]
options=console=vga,com1 com1=57600 loglvl=all noreboot
kernel=vmlinuz-2.6.32.43-0.4-xen ignore_loglevel #earlyprintk=xen
ramdisk=initrd-2.6.32.43-0.4-xen

[-- Attachment #3: Type: text/plain, Size: 126 bytes --]

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Re: Xen support for native EFI boot

[Keir Fraser]

On 02/03/2012 08:06, "Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@suse.com> wrote:

>>>> On 01.03.12 at 21:40, "Cihula, Joseph" <joseph.cihula@intel.com> wrote:
>> Can someone provide instructions and the necessary environment/toolchain
>> support needed to get Xen to build and boot on a native EFI system (i.e. with
>> no CSM/legacy support)?
> 
> gcc must be 4.5.x or newer (I'd recommend not trying anything below
> 4.6.x, as I'm unaware of anyone ever having tried that, and I can't
> exclude that there are bugs in the relevant code that was newly added
> in 4.5.0).
> 
> ld must support linking native 64-bit EFI applications, which so far no
> released binutils version does. The single relevant change that's
> necessary for this to work in 2.21 can be taken from
> http://www.sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2011-05/msg00131.html (but
> there's at least one other non-essential adjustment in case you want
> to do anything with the generated binary that involves its symbol
> table).

Has that patch been picked up by the maintainers?

 -- Keir

> Next, a suitably enabled Dom0 kernel is needed.
> 
> Finally, a config file needs to be placed alongside the xen*.efi
> binary; I'm attaching a simplistic example.
> 
> Jan
> 

Re: Xen support for native EFI boot

[Jan Beulich]

>>> On 02.03.12 at 09:22, Keir Fraser <keir.xen@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 02/03/2012 08:06, "Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@suse.com> wrote:
> 
>>>>> On 01.03.12 at 21:40, "Cihula, Joseph" <joseph.cihula@intel.com> wrote:
>>> Can someone provide instructions and the necessary environment/toolchain
>>> support needed to get Xen to build and boot on a native EFI system (i.e. 
> with
>>> no CSM/legacy support)?
>> 
>> gcc must be 4.5.x or newer (I'd recommend not trying anything below
>> 4.6.x, as I'm unaware of anyone ever having tried that, and I can't
>> exclude that there are bugs in the relevant code that was newly added
>> in 4.5.0).
>> 
>> ld must support linking native 64-bit EFI applications, which so far no
>> released binutils version does. The single relevant change that's
>> necessary for this to work in 2.21 can be taken from
>> http://www.sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2011-05/msg00131.html (but
>> there's at least one other non-essential adjustment in case you want
>> to do anything with the generated binary that involves its symbol
>> table).
> 
> Has that patch been picked up by the maintainers?

Oh, yes, I committed it a few days after sending (the mail thread above
even includes the approval).

Jan

Re: Xen support for native EFI boot

[Jan Beulich]

>>> On 02.03.12 at 09:22, Keir Fraser <keir.xen@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 02/03/2012 08:06, "Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@suse.com> wrote:
> 
>>>>> On 01.03.12 at 21:40, "Cihula, Joseph" <joseph.cihula@intel.com> wrote:
>>> Can someone provide instructions and the necessary environment/toolchain
>>> support needed to get Xen to build and boot on a native EFI system (i.e. 
> with
>>> no CSM/legacy support)?
>> 
>> gcc must be 4.5.x or newer (I'd recommend not trying anything below
>> 4.6.x, as I'm unaware of anyone ever having tried that, and I can't
>> exclude that there are bugs in the relevant code that was newly added
>> in 4.5.0).
>> 
>> ld must support linking native 64-bit EFI applications, which so far no
>> released binutils version does. The single relevant change that's
>> necessary for this to work in 2.21 can be taken from
>> http://www.sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2011-05/msg00131.html (but
>> there's at least one other non-essential adjustment in case you want
>> to do anything with the generated binary that involves its symbol
>> table).
> 
> Has that patch been picked up by the maintainers?

Wait - I was actually wrong: The patch pre-dates 2.22, and hence no
change is needed when using this (newest) binutils version.

Jan

Re: Xen support for native EFI boot

[Keir Fraser]

On 02/03/2012 08:48, "Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@suse.com> wrote:

>>>> On 02.03.12 at 09:22, Keir Fraser <keir.xen@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 02/03/2012 08:06, "Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@suse.com> wrote:
>> 
>>>>>> On 01.03.12 at 21:40, "Cihula, Joseph" <joseph.cihula@intel.com> wrote:
>>>> Can someone provide instructions and the necessary environment/toolchain
>>>> support needed to get Xen to build and boot on a native EFI system (i.e.
>> with
>>>> no CSM/legacy support)?
>>> 
>>> gcc must be 4.5.x or newer (I'd recommend not trying anything below
>>> 4.6.x, as I'm unaware of anyone ever having tried that, and I can't
>>> exclude that there are bugs in the relevant code that was newly added
>>> in 4.5.0).
>>> 
>>> ld must support linking native 64-bit EFI applications, which so far no
>>> released binutils version does. The single relevant change that's
>>> necessary for this to work in 2.21 can be taken from
>>> http://www.sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2011-05/msg00131.html (but
>>> there's at least one other non-essential adjustment in case you want
>>> to do anything with the generated binary that involves its symbol
>>> table).
>> 
>> Has that patch been picked up by the maintainers?
> 
> Oh, yes, I committed it a few days after sending (the mail thread above
> even includes the approval).

Ah, so I see. I didn't know you had commit rights to binutils. :-)

Looks like a binutils release must be about due, and that would include it?

 -- Keir

> Jan
> 

Re: Xen support for native EFI boot

[Jan Beulich]

>>> On 02.03.12 at 09:57, Keir Fraser <keir.xen@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 02/03/2012 08:48, "Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@suse.com> wrote:
> 
>>>>> On 02.03.12 at 09:22, Keir Fraser <keir.xen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 02/03/2012 08:06, "Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@suse.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>>>>> On 01.03.12 at 21:40, "Cihula, Joseph" <joseph.cihula@intel.com> wrote:
>>>>> Can someone provide instructions and the necessary environment/toolchain
>>>>> support needed to get Xen to build and boot on a native EFI system (i.e.
>>> with
>>>>> no CSM/legacy support)?
>>>> 
>>>> gcc must be 4.5.x or newer (I'd recommend not trying anything below
>>>> 4.6.x, as I'm unaware of anyone ever having tried that, and I can't
>>>> exclude that there are bugs in the relevant code that was newly added
>>>> in 4.5.0).
>>>> 
>>>> ld must support linking native 64-bit EFI applications, which so far no
>>>> released binutils version does. The single relevant change that's
>>>> necessary for this to work in 2.21 can be taken from
>>>> http://www.sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2011-05/msg00131.html (but
>>>> there's at least one other non-essential adjustment in case you want
>>>> to do anything with the generated binary that involves its symbol
>>>> table).
>>> 
>>> Has that patch been picked up by the maintainers?
>> 
>> Oh, yes, I committed it a few days after sending (the mail thread above
>> even includes the approval).
> 
> Ah, so I see. I didn't know you had commit rights to binutils. :-)
> 
> Looks like a binutils release must be about due, and that would include it?

See my later second reply - I forgot that there already was one.

Jan

Re: Xen support for native EFI boot

[Keir Fraser]

On 02/03/2012 09:06, "Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@suse.com> wrote:

>>>> Has that patch been picked up by the maintainers?
>>> 
>>> Oh, yes, I committed it a few days after sending (the mail thread above
>>> even includes the approval).
>> 
>> Ah, so I see. I didn't know you had commit rights to binutils. :-)
>> 
>> Looks like a binutils release must be about due, and that would include it?
> 
> See my later second reply - I forgot that there already was one.

Ah, I did wonder. That's good news.

 -- Keir