WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-devel

RE: [Xen-devel] [PATCH][RESEND]Nvram patch for IA64

To: "Ian Pratt" <m+Ian.Pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Keir Fraser" <Keir.Fraser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Christian Limpach" <christian.limpach@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: [Xen-devel] [PATCH][RESEND]Nvram patch for IA64
From: "Yu, Ke" <ke.yu@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:28:54 +0800
Cc: xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Huang, Xinmei" <xinmei.huang@xxxxxxxxx>
Delivery-date: Thu, 02 Nov 2006 13:36:12 -0800
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
List-help: <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-id: Xen developer discussion <xen-devel.lists.xensource.com>
List-post: <mailto:xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>
List-subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
Sender: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thread-index: Acbwn3GTeQX7YqjuSrWHsAKaEOOOQwANzaogAF+2ZZACaGUm0AAEkMSwAAbrrDAAAklb1wAAHUJQABe5ZSA=
Thread-topic: [Xen-devel] [PATCH][RESEND]Nvram patch for IA64
Ian Pratt  write on 2006?10?30? 22:23:
>>> The data is dynamic, so I am afraid it is hard to store NVRAM data
>>> in domain config.
>> 
>> There must be a possible static good configuration to allow
>> you to boot Oses you care about? Do changes happen during
>> guest execution that you really care about preserving across reboots?

Yes, static good configurations can be made for different guest OS (RHEL, SLES, 
Win 2003, Win Vista). But I am afraid this workaround will have potential 
issue, because we are unable to predict how guest OS would use variable. 

> 
> Further, storing it in a file will create compilcations when we move
> to running qemu in stub domains -- we'll need a way of passing it
> across xenbus.

Could you please elaborate what the "complications" is? Per my understanding, 
even without NVRAM file, qemu in stub domain still need to read/write the disk 
image file.

It is also OK to store NVRAM in xenstore, but seems xenstore have no capability 
to store binary data, it can only store null-termincated strings.  If we want 
to directly store EFI variable in xenstore instead of sotre NVRAM binary, we 
need to para-virtualize guest firmware GetVariable/Setvariable interface, which 
is more complicated. 

> 
> 
> Ian

_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel