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authorPeter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org>2023-02-02 18:00:40 +0000
committerPeter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org>2023-02-02 18:00:41 +0000
commitf991d61d35d037ba5e627becb6f99bfd065443bf (patch)
tree9b79dece50e54b26fea432b2ff929b5b05873ffb /docs/system
parent387b2b52558bbb44ad74634415e1ab488d3c62a7 (diff)
parentb3ca9646b9a5c44dfd110c5db9b4a8b8497de34e (diff)
Merge tag 'pull-jan-omnibus-020223-1' of https://gitlab.com/stsquad/qemu into staging
Testing, docs, semihosting and plugin updates - update playbooks for custom runners - add section timing support to gitlab - upgrade fedora images to 37 - purge perl from the build system and deps - disable unstable tests in CI - improve intro, emulation and semihosting docs - semihosting bug fix and O_BINARY default - add memory-sve test - fix some races in qht - improve plugin handling of memory helpers - optimise plugin hooks - fix some plugin deadlocks - reduce win64-cross build time by dropping some targets # -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- # # iQEzBAABCgAdFiEEZoWumedRZ7yvyN81+9DbCVqeKkQFAmPb3fgACgkQ+9DbCVqe # KkQbXAf9Eoc+PdNvafbqzH/blPjvd9ve8pJ+GcPDukNXwxP8OF/jFEJUQ1E7l9O7 # y0qV4akKCdIqVice4R5bK2CAq44Y3aut8SDf56C8E3Riha2zA2RbQWOv/zCvA3OP # LFF+OaXZyg4JTR48HUKzh9ei2bd1+ccBSUe+xlRi59XaV5K8+5bmcZj10QKUR0lD # 0HC5auEWWpayvd5D7Da15C7+oVY3LMCFxSdpHwbuIPPan/TRo5yqMI6ChYDKB8QD # gdwMCL8znj2ADCTBftyBDYDAtjKVyLQidf7KdQHiSF+nmXYopS6SbsPCOMtJqCMH # tXcKAIxs/MEntPrWTKTdtdnzotJVKw== # =AtfN # -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- # gpg: Signature made Thu 02 Feb 2023 15:59:52 GMT # gpg: using RSA key 6685AE99E75167BCAFC8DF35FBD0DB095A9E2A44 # gpg: Good signature from "Alex Bennée (Master Work Key) <alex.bennee@linaro.org>" [full] # Primary key fingerprint: 6685 AE99 E751 67BC AFC8 DF35 FBD0 DB09 5A9E 2A44 * tag 'pull-jan-omnibus-020223-1' of https://gitlab.com/stsquad/qemu: (36 commits) gitlab: cut even more from cross-win64-system build plugins: Iterate on cb_lists in qemu_plugin_user_exit cpu-exec: assert that plugin_mem_cbs is NULL after execution tcg: exclude non-memory effecting helpers from instrumentation translator: always pair plugin_gen_insn_{start, end} calls plugins: fix optimization in plugin_gen_disable_mem_helpers plugins: make qemu_plugin_user_exit's locking order consistent with fork_start's util/qht: use striped locks under TSAN thread: de-const qemu_spin_destroy util/qht: add missing atomic_set(hashes[i]) cpu: free cpu->tb_jmp_cache with RCU tests/tcg: add memory-sve test for aarch64 semihosting: add O_BINARY flag in host_open for NT compatibility semihosting: Write back semihosting data before completion callback docs: add an introduction to the system docs semihosting: add semihosting section to the docs docs: add a new section to outline emulation support docs: add hotlinks to about preface text MAINTAINERS: Fix the entry for tests/tcg/nios2 gitlab: wrap up test results for custom runners ... Signed-off-by: Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'docs/system')
-rw-r--r--docs/system/arm/emulation.rst2
-rw-r--r--docs/system/index.rst4
-rw-r--r--docs/system/introduction.rst220
-rw-r--r--docs/system/multi-process.rst2
-rw-r--r--docs/system/quickstart.rst21
5 files changed, 227 insertions, 22 deletions
diff --git a/docs/system/arm/emulation.rst b/docs/system/arm/emulation.rst
index b33d7c28dc..b87e064d9d 100644
--- a/docs/system/arm/emulation.rst
+++ b/docs/system/arm/emulation.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+.. _Arm Emulation:
+
A-profile CPU architecture support
==================================
diff --git a/docs/system/index.rst b/docs/system/index.rst
index e3695649c5..3605bbe1ce 100644
--- a/docs/system/index.rst
+++ b/docs/system/index.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+.. _System Emulation:
+
----------------
System Emulation
----------------
@@ -10,7 +12,7 @@ or Hypervisor.Framework.
.. toctree::
:maxdepth: 3
- quickstart
+ introduction
invocation
device-emulation
keys
diff --git a/docs/system/introduction.rst b/docs/system/introduction.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..c8a9fe6c1d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/system/introduction.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,220 @@
+Introduction
+============
+
+Virtualisation Accelerators
+---------------------------
+
+QEMU's system emulation provides a virtual model of a machine (CPU,
+memory and emulated devices) to run a guest OS. It supports a number
+of hypervisors (known as accelerators) as well as a JIT known as the
+Tiny Code Generator (TCG) capable of emulating many CPUs.
+
+.. list-table:: Supported Accelerators
+ :header-rows: 1
+
+ * - Accelerator
+ - Host OS
+ - Host Architectures
+ * - KVM
+ - Linux
+ - Arm (64 bit only), MIPS, PPC, RISC-V, s390x, x86
+ * - Xen
+ - Linux (as dom0)
+ - Arm, x86
+ * - Intel HAXM (hax)
+ - Linux, Windows
+ - x86
+ * - Hypervisor Framework (hvf)
+ - MacOS
+ - x86 (64 bit only), Arm (64 bit only)
+ * - Windows Hypervisor Platform (wphx)
+ - Windows
+ - x86
+ * - NetBSD Virtual Machine Monitor (nvmm)
+ - NetBSD
+ - x86
+ * - Tiny Code Generator (tcg)
+ - Linux, other POSIX, Windows, MacOS
+ - Arm, x86, Loongarch64, MIPS, PPC, s390x, Sparc64
+
+Feature Overview
+----------------
+
+System emulation provides a wide range of device models to emulate
+various hardware components you may want to add to your machine. This
+includes a wide number of VirtIO devices which are specifically tuned
+for efficient operation under virtualisation. Some of the device
+emulation can be offloaded from the main QEMU process using either
+vhost-user (for VirtIO) or :ref:`Multi-process QEMU`. If the platform
+supports it QEMU also supports directly passing devices through to
+guest VMs to eliminate the device emulation overhead. See
+:ref:`device-emulation` for more details.
+
+There is a full :ref:`featured block layer<Live Block Operations>`
+which allows for construction of complex storage topology which can be
+stacked across multiple layers supporting redirection, networking,
+snapshots and migration support.
+
+The flexible ``chardev`` system allows for handling IO from character
+like devices using stdio, files, unix sockets and TCP networking.
+
+QEMU provides a number of management interfaces including a line based
+:ref:`Human Monitor Protocol (HMP)<QEMU monitor>` that allows you to
+dynamically add and remove devices as well as introspect the system
+state. The :ref:`QEMU Monitor Protocol<QMP Ref>` (QMP) is a well
+defined, versioned, machine usable API that presents a rich interface
+to other tools to create, control and manage Virtual Machines. This is
+the interface used by higher level tools interfaces such as `Virt
+Manager <https://virt-manager.org/>`_ using the `libvirt framework
+<https://libvirt.org>`_.
+
+For the common accelerators QEMU, supported debugging with its
+:ref:`gdbstub<GDB usage>` which allows users to connect GDB and debug
+system software images.
+
+Running
+-------
+
+QEMU provides a rich and complex API which can be overwhelming to
+understand. While some architectures can boot something with just a
+disk image, those examples elide a lot of details with defaults that
+may not be optimal for modern systems.
+
+For a non-x86 system where we emulate a broad range of machine types,
+the command lines are generally more explicit in defining the machine
+and boot behaviour. You will find often find example command lines in
+the :ref:`system-targets-ref` section of the manual.
+
+While the project doesn't want to discourage users from using the
+command line to launch VMs, we do want to highlight that there are a
+number of projects dedicated to providing a more user friendly
+experience. Those built around the ``libvirt`` framework can make use
+of feature probing to build modern VM images tailored to run on the
+hardware you have.
+
+That said, the general form of a QEMU command line can be expressed
+as:
+
+.. parsed-literal::
+
+ $ |qemu_system| [machine opts] \\
+ [cpu opts] \\
+ [accelerator opts] \\
+ [device opts] \\
+ [backend opts] \\
+ [interface opts] \\
+ [boot opts]
+
+Most options will generate some help information. So for example:
+
+.. parsed-literal::
+
+ $ |qemu_system| -M help
+
+will list the machine types supported by that QEMU binary. ``help``
+can also be passed as an argument to another option. For example:
+
+.. parsed-literal::
+
+ $ |qemu_system| -device scsi-hd,help
+
+will list the arguments and their default values of additional options
+that can control the behaviour of the ``scsi-hd`` device.
+
+.. list-table:: Options Overview
+ :header-rows: 1
+ :widths: 10, 90
+
+ * - Options
+ -
+ * - Machine
+ - Define the machine type, amount of memory etc
+ * - CPU
+ - Type and number/topology of vCPUs. Most accelerators offer
+ a ``host`` cpu option which simply passes through your host CPU
+ configuration without filtering out any features.
+ * - Accelerator
+ - This will depend on the hypervisor you run. Note that the
+ default is TCG, which is purely emulated, so you must specify an
+ accelerator type to take advantage of hardware virtualization.
+ * - Devices
+ - Additional devices that are not defined by default with the
+ machine type.
+ * - Backends
+ - Backends are how QEMU deals with the guest's data, for example
+ how a block device is stored, how network devices see the
+ network or how a serial device is directed to the outside world.
+ * - Interfaces
+ - How the system is displayed, how it is managed and controlled or
+ debugged.
+ * - Boot
+ - How the system boots, via firmware or direct kernel boot.
+
+In the following example we first define a ``virt`` machine which is a
+general purpose platform for running Aarch64 guests. We enable
+virtualisation so we can use KVM inside the emulated guest. As the
+``virt`` machine comes with some built in pflash devices we give them
+names so we can override the defaults later.
+
+.. code::
+
+ $ qemu-system-aarch64 \
+ -machine type=virt,virtualization=on,pflash0=rom,pflash1=efivars \
+ -m 4096 \
+
+We then define the 4 vCPUs using the ``max`` option which gives us all
+the Arm features QEMU is capable of emulating. We enable a more
+emulation friendly implementation of Arm's pointer authentication
+algorithm. We explicitly specify TCG acceleration even though QEMU
+would default to it anyway.
+
+.. code::
+
+ -cpu max,pauth-impdef=on \
+ -smp 4 \
+ -accel tcg \
+
+As the ``virt`` platform doesn't have any default network or storage
+devices we need to define them. We give them ids so we can link them
+with the backend later on.
+
+.. code::
+
+ -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=unet \
+ -device virtio-scsi-pci \
+ -device scsi-hd,drive=hd \
+
+We connect the user-mode networking to our network device. As
+user-mode networking isn't directly accessible from the outside world
+we forward localhost port 2222 to the ssh port on the guest.
+
+.. code::
+
+ -netdev user,id=unet,hostfwd=tcp::2222-:22 \
+
+We connect the guest visible block device to an LVM partition we have
+set aside for our guest.
+
+.. code::
+
+ -blockdev driver=raw,node-name=hd,file.driver=host_device,file.filename=/dev/lvm-disk/debian-bullseye-arm64 \
+
+We then tell QEMU to multiplex the :ref:`QEMU monitor` with the serial
+port output (we can switch between the two using :ref:`keys in the
+character backend multiplexer`). As there is no default graphical
+device we disable the display as we can work entirely in the terminal.
+
+.. code::
+
+ -serial mon:stdio \
+ -display none \
+
+Finally we override the default firmware to ensure we have some
+storage for EFI to persist its configuration. That firmware is
+responsible for finding the disk, booting grub and eventually running
+our system.
+
+.. code::
+
+ -blockdev node-name=rom,driver=file,filename=(pwd)/pc-bios/edk2-aarch64-code.fd,read-only=true \
+ -blockdev node-name=efivars,driver=file,filename=$HOME/images/qemu-arm64-efivars
diff --git a/docs/system/multi-process.rst b/docs/system/multi-process.rst
index 210531ee17..16f0352416 100644
--- a/docs/system/multi-process.rst
+++ b/docs/system/multi-process.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+.. _Multi-process QEMU:
+
Multi-process QEMU
==================
diff --git a/docs/system/quickstart.rst b/docs/system/quickstart.rst
deleted file mode 100644
index 681678c86e..0000000000
--- a/docs/system/quickstart.rst
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,21 +0,0 @@
-.. _pcsys_005fquickstart:
-
-Quick Start
------------
-
-Download and uncompress a PC hard disk image with Linux installed (e.g.
-``linux.img``) and type:
-
-.. parsed-literal::
-
- |qemu_system| linux.img
-
-Linux should boot and give you a prompt.
-
-Users should be aware the above example elides a lot of the complexity
-of setting up a VM with x86_64 specific defaults and assumes the
-first non switch argument is a PC compatible disk image with a boot
-sector. For a non-x86 system where we emulate a broad range of machine
-types, the command lines are generally more explicit in defining the
-machine and boot behaviour. You will find more example command lines
-in the :ref:`system-targets-ref` section of the manual.