[RFC] ARM VM System Sepcification

[Robie Basak]

On Sat, Mar 01, 2014 at 03:27:56PM +0000, Grant Likely wrote:
> I would also reference section 3.3 (Boot Option Variables Default Boot
> Behavior) and 3.4.1.1 (Removable Media Boot Behavior) here. It's fine to
> restate the meaning of the requirement in this spec, but the UEFI spec
> is the authoritative source. Distributed VM disk images fall under the
> same scenario as the firmware not having any valid boot variables.

What happens when the VM is first booted without boot variables, but
then the OS expects to be able to set boot variables and see them on
next boot?

AIUI, we don't have an implementation of this right now, and even if we
did, there are implications for persistent storage of this data further
up the stack (a required implementation in libvirt, OpenStack nova
providing a storage area for it, etc).

If possible, I would prefer to mandate that the host implementation is
permitted to no-op (or otherwise disable) boot variable write operations
altogether to avoid having to deal with this. In the common case, I
don't see why an OS installation shipped via a VM disk image would need
to write boot variables anyway.

Would there be any adverse consequences to doing this?

My reason is that this would save us from blocking a general OpenStack
implementation on ARM by requiring that these pieces are implemented
further up the stack first, when it would bring actual gain to doing so.

This would not preclude host implementations from implementing writeable
variables, or guests from using them. Just that for a _portable VM disk
image_, the OS on it cannot assume that this functionality is present.
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