Hi Rob, On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 10:57 AM Rob Bradford <robert.bradf...@intel.com> wrote: > > Hi Stefano, > > On Mon, 2018-11-26 at 17:40 +0100, Stefano Garzarella wrote: > > Hi Samuel, Rob, > > I'm proceeding to compare several x86 firmwares in order to > > understand > > which suits better with -kernel option to have a fast boot with > > QEMU/NEMU. > > > > For your use cases, what boot time do you expect? > > > > Kata Containers, one of the use cases we're looking at, is very > sensitive to boot time, although it is configurable, the default > configuration is to use qemu-lite with it's direct to kernel loader. > > That is probably a baseline we should be comparing with. > > As an aside, yesterday I posted the Seabios patches for enabling on > NEMU/virt: > > https://github.com/rbradford/seabios/tree/virt-x86 > > I didn't yet start optimising the configuration file we use for it > beyond getting it < 128KiB or apply any optimisation patches. > > And I also have some qboot patches too: > > https://github.com/rbradford/qboot/tree/virt-x86 > > So we're in a situation where we can start comparing other machine > types against virt too.
Thanks for the pointers, I'll try to do the same tests with qemu-lite and direct kernel loader and also with NEMU "virt" machine, using your versions of SeaBIOS and qboot. > > > > > I compared SeaBIOS, qboot, and OVMF. I started each test using this > > qemu parameters: "./qemu-system-x86_64 -bios path/to/bios.bin -m 1G > > -cpu host -M accel=kvm -vga none -kernel path/to/bzImage -initrd > > path/to/rootfs.cpio ..." > > > > As Samuel suggested, I added the total time to userspace adding a > > probe in the kernel_init(), so the times (in msec) that I measured > > are: > > - qemu_init_end: first kvm_entry (i.e. QEMU initialized has finished) > > - fw_start: first entry of the firmware > > - fw_do_boot: after the firmware initialization (e.g. PCI setup, > > etc.) > > - linux_start_boot: before the jump to the Linux kernel > > - linux_start_user: before starting the init process > > > > * SeaBIOS > > Default configuration without debug messages (CONFIG_DEBUG_LEVEL=0) + > > Stephen's patch (tpm: Check for TPM related ACPI tables before > > attempting hw) + my patch (qemu: fast boot when linuxboot optionrom > > is > > used). > > qemu_init_end: 41.634812 > > fw_start: 41.857374 (+0.222562) > > fw_do_boot: 52.754109 (+10.896735) > > linux_start_boot: 54.117220 (+1.363111) > > linux_start_user: 495.684199 (+441.566979) > > > > * qboot > > Default configuration + my patch (pci: reduce pci_foreach() calls). > > qemu_init_end: 40.233717 > > fw_start: 40.384048 (+0.150331) > > fw_do_boot: 45.660497 (+5.276449) > > linux_start_boot: 47.252119 (+1.591622) > > linux_start_user: 509.173886 (+461.921767) > > > > * OVMF (https://github.com/intel/ovmf-virt) > > I followed this script > > ( > > https://github.com/intel/nemu/blob/topic/virt-x86/tools/CI/run_nats.sh > > ) > > to build OVMF. > > Note: I put the "fw_start" probe in the BdsEntry() > > [MdeModulePkg/Universal/BdsDxe/BdsEntry.c], I'm not sure if it is > > "near" to the real entry point. > > qemu_init_end: 42.734555 > > fw_start: 163.611506 (+120.876951) > > fw_do_boot: 369.713760 (+206.102254) > > linux_start_boot: 370.960364 (+1.246604) > > linux_start_user: 796.799667 (+425.839303) > > > > For OVMF case, are reasonable the times that I measured? Do you use a > > different configuration? > > > > That is the same OVMF configuration as we normally use, I have the > configuration file checked in. Those numbers look like the ones I > expect. Perfect! Please, let me know if you have something more important than boot time to help you. Regards, Stefano > > > Thanks, > > Stefano > > > > Great work, > > Rob > -- Stefano Garzarella Red Hat
