On Tue, Sep 03, 2013 at 05:44:13PM +0100, Wookey wrote:
I am trying to set up a Xen CI job on lava. The components are built (Xen hypervisor, xen tools deb package, Xen-enabled kernel, standard minimal rootfs). Now I'm working out what the lava job should look like.
Xen requires a non-standard boot with the hypervisor loaded as well as the kernel before booting (and rootfs unpacked).
Julien says we need to do (at least some of) the config on this page before running XEN: http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions/Vexpress which involves disabling the A7 (required), and one way of loading the stuff in the right places, which there may be uboot/uefi-based alternatives to?). This config is done in images.txt and board.txt files.
Those files apparently live on the second, internal, microSD card. I presume that deploy_linaro_image only writes to the main SD card. Certainly the hwpack (http://releases.linaro.org/13.08/ubuntu/vexpress/hwpack_linaro-vexpress_2013...) does not contain an images.txt or board.txt file)
The card can apparently be exposed as a fat filesystem over USB (usb-storage). Is that cable plugged in?
It is.
Is there a lava mechanism for accessing this and updating it?
Yes, but at the moment it's only used to replace the UEFI binary with the one that comes with the test disk image. It would be possible to add some code that will also replace other files in there.
What firmware version (boot monitor) is in the machine in the lab?
ARM Versatile Express Boot Monitor Version: V5.1.9
What is currently in the images.txt, board.txt files it is booting with? Is 'sys_flags' bringup already selected or not?
It is not.
Who knows about this stuff?
If we can't change those files in lava jobs then I believe that the xen CI task is currently blocked until one of these becomes true:
- Xen runs on the standard vexpress config
- Xen runs on arndale properly
- A mechanism for changing these files is developed
The Xen card: https://cards.linaro.org/browse/VIRT-75