On Thu, Mar 08, 2018 at 09:47:27PM +0100, Laszlo Ersek wrote:
On 03/08/18 16:47, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
On Thu, Mar 08, 2018 at 12:10:30PM +0100, Laszlo Ersek wrote:
[...]
For OVMF (x86), I guess the initial set of properties should come from the "-D FOO[=BAR]" build flags that OVMF currently supports. (The list might grow or change incompatibly over time, so this is just a raw starter idea.)
I really don't want to see us using firmware implementation specific property names in these files. It means libvirt will require knowledge of what each different firmware's property names mean.
We need to have some core standardized set of property names that can be provided by any firmware implementation using the same terminology.
If we want to /also/ provide some extra firmeware-specific property names that would be ok for informative purposes, but when lbivirt is picking which firmware file to use, it would only ever look at the standardized property names/values.
This is a reasonable requirement from the libvirt side.
Unfortunately (or not), it requires someone (or a tight group of people) to collect the features of all virtual firmwares in existence, and extract a common set of properties that maps back to each firmware one way or another.
Hmm, if people consider the above worthwhile (no clue how much time & investigation it takes to arrive at a common set of properties) maybe slowly we should start collecting such a page? From a quick look up, list of open source firmware implementations I found so (besides OVMF & ArmVirt): - OpenBIOS - SmartFirmware - OpenBoot - CoreBoot - U-Boot - SLOF - ... Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBIOS I notice you said "virtual firmwares". I couldn't find such a list from my look up. Hmm, I also wonder if the "arriving at a common set of properties across existing virtual firmwares" is an absolute blocker.
This is not unusual (basically this is how all standards bodies work that intend to codify existing practice), it just needs a bunch of work and coordination. We'll have to maintain a registry.
Personally I can't comment on anything else than OVMF and the ArmVirt firmwares.
Thanks, Laszlo
-- /kashyap