Hello,

can You tell me what qemu command is used to run OVMF?


Thanks in advance

Peter

Hi Peter,

This pair of options should do the trick:

-drive if=pflash,format=raw,readonly,file=path/to/OVMF_CODE.fd
-drive if=pflash,format=raw,file=path/to/OVMF_VARS.fd

Note that the OVMF_CODE is mounted using read only - it consists of the code part of the built platform, while the OVMF_VARS is the EFI variable store, and hence is mounted using read/write.

Cheers,
Tom

On 06/17/20 02:20, Peter Wiehe wrote:

Hello,

can You tell me what qemu command is used to run OVMF?

Use whatever qemu-system-x86_64 command you would otherwise use, with
the following remarks:

(1) Do not use "-bios" or "-L".

(2) Do not use "-boot", in general. Special cases you can use:

-boot menu=on

-boot menu=on,splash-time=N

(See the QEMU manual for these.)

(3) For specifying a UEFI boot order for bootable devices, use the
"bootindex" device property. For example:

-device virtio-scsi-pci,id=scsi0 \
-device scsi-hd,drive=drive0,bus=scsi0.0,bootindex=0 \
-device scsi-cd,drive=drive1,bus=scsi0.0,bootindex=1 \
-device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net0,bootindex=2 \

The above would attempt booting first from a virtio-scsi hard disk, then
from a virtio-scsi CD-ROM, then from the network (PXEv4, PXEv6,
HTTP(S)v4, HTTP(S)v6).

(4) if you want your virtual machine to persistently save the
non-volatile UEFI variables across QEMU invocations, then copy the
OVMF_VARS.fd file to a separate file (such as "my-vars.fd") *before* you
first launch the virtual machine.

Then, use the following QEMU options:

-drive if=pflash,format=raw,unit=0,file=OVMF_CODE.fd,readonly=on \
-drive if=pflash,format=raw,unit=1,file=my-vars.fd \

(5) If you don't care about the above kind of persistence, then you can use:

-drive if=pflash,format=raw,unit=0,file=OVMF_CODE.fd,readonly=on \
-drive if=pflash,format=raw,unit=1,file=OVMF_VARS.fd,snapshot=on \

(6) It's recommended to capture the firmware debug log (if you report a
problem, that's the first thing we ask for):

-debugcon file:debug.log \
-global isa-debugcon.iobase=0x402 \

(7) if you run an OVMF binary built with "-D SMM_REQUIRE", then add the
following too:

-machine q35,smm=on \
-global driver=cfi.pflash01,property=secure,value=on \

(8) Do not use "usb-uas" or "usb-bot" device models. If you absolutely
need USB mass storage in the guest, use "usb-storage". See commit
f9c59fa44ae2.


If you don't insist on the raw QEMU command line, then I strongly
suggest using OVMF with libvirt.

Thanks
Laszlo

Please check this page.
https://github.com/tianocore/tianocore.github.io/wiki/How-to-run-OVMF

Thanks,
Bob

On 06/25/20 22:47, Peter Wiehe wrote:

On 25.06.20 13:05, Laszlo Ersek wrote:

On 06/17/20 02:20, Peter Wiehe wrote:

Hello,

can You tell me what qemu command is used to run OVMF?

Use whatever qemu-system-x86_64 command you would otherwise use, with
the following remarks:

(1) Do not use "-bios" or "-L".

Thanks to all for the helpful replies!

But why shouldn't I use "-bios"?

Because the UEFI variable store needs to exist in an emulated flash
chip, and "-bios" doesn't do that.

If you use "-bios", OVMF can only fake the UEFI variable runtime
services for the guest in such a way that does not meet the UEFI spec.

People should have stopped using "-bios" with OVMF since QEMU 1.6 (that
means 2013-08-15). I've several times considered killing "-bios" support
in OVMF altogether, but I'm just too annoyed at the thought of having to
explain myself to every (mistaken) "-bios" user.

So for now it's only the -D SMM_REQUIRE build of OVMF that forces users
-- for technical reasons, and not because I'm a pedant -- to use pflash
rather than "-bios".

Laszlo

On 25.06.20 13:05, Laszlo Ersek wrote:

On 06/17/20 02:20, Peter Wiehe wrote:

Hello,

can You tell me what qemu command is used to run OVMF?

Use whatever qemu-system-x86_64 command you would otherwise use, with
the following remarks:

(1) Do not use "-bios" or "-L".

Thanks to all for the helpful replies!

But why shouldn't I use "-bios"?


Greetings

Peter