[Pkg-xen-devel] Bug#858962: Bug#858962: enabling OVMF - 4.10+

[Hans van Kranenburg]

Hey,

On 02/28/2018 12:59 AM, John Keates wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> 1. Install Xen with OVMF support
> 2. Install OVMF (which basically just gets you the binary file, package is called ovmf)
> 3. Get an EFI-bootable image, the Debian Netinstall image will probably do fine
> 3. Create a domU config like this:
> 
> name = 'uefi-domu-thingy'
> bios = "ovmf"
> builder = 'hvm'
> memory = '512'
> vcpus = 1
> 
> Then sudo xl create <whateveryoucalledit.cfg>
> 
> This should start the domu, and since there is no disk, just get to the UEFI shell and idle around and not do much else. You can connect to it over VNC, but I’m sure it can be started in UEFI text mode too so you get UEFI access via the serial console.

Ok, as promised, I tried.

For Xen 4.10, I ended up with:

name = 'uefi-domu-thingy'
bios = "ovmf"
type = 'hvm'
memory = '512'
vcpus = 1
vnc=1
vnclisten='0.0.0.0'
serial='pty'

I installed the qemu packages that Mark Pryor already rebuilt as test
(which use libxen 4.10).

When doing xen create -c on that, I get a serial console to it:

UEFI Interactive Shell v2.2
EDK II
UEFI v2.70 (EDK II, 0x00010000)
Mapping table
     BLK0: Alias(s):
          PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Floppy(0x0)
     BLK1: Alias(s):
          PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Floppy(0x1)
Press ESC in 1 seconds to skip startup.nsh or any other key to continue.
Shell>

A vnc connection also shows an ugly screen which a copy of the output.

Step 2: Use a disk

I simply added...
disk = ['file:/yolo/ovmf/debian-9.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso,xvda']

and now the serial console shows a purple blinking cursor, and the vnc
connection shows a graphical Debian GNU/Linux UEFI Installer menu.

Great success!

Hans