Changes/Virt ARM on x86

ARM on x86 with libvirt/virt-manager

Summary

Fix running ARM VMs on x86 hosts using standard libvirt tools libvirt virsh, virt-manager and virt-install.

Owner

• Name: Cole Robinson
• Email: crobinso@redhat.com
• Release notes owner:

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 20
• Last updated: 2013-06-11
• Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

qemu has an ARM emulator that works well and is actively used in the Fedora ARM effort. However libvirt and virt-manager currently have issues launching qemu-system-arm VMs, mostly by encoding x86 assumptions in the generated command line that cause qemu-system-arm to fail to start. Let's fix it!

Benefit to Fedora

• ARM developers can now use virt-manager/libvirt to manage ARM VMs without having to hack around it
• Fedora QA can use standard tools to test ARM in its bid for Primary Architecture
• Packagers who want to do ARM work can use standard virt tools to run ARM VMs.
• Enthusiasts who want to try out the Fedora ARM spin can use standard tools to try it in a VM.

Scope

• Proposal owners:

1. Get fixed virt-manager and libvirt packages into Fedora by the feature freeze
2. Fix issues in libvirt with generating qemu-system-arm command lines
   • We may only target a single machine type for this, need to determine
   • https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=807538
   • https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=983306
3. Fix virt-manager to not encode incorrect device types like 'ide'
   • https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=806105
4. Consider qemu virtio-mmio for improved performance: https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2013-06/msg04920.html
5. Optionally identify any UI defaults that can be improved to handle this case

• Other developers: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Release engineering: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Policies and guidelines: N/A (not a System Wide Change)

Upgrade/compatibility impact

N/A (not a System Wide Change)

How To Test

TBD when work is testable.

User Experience

N/A (not a System Wide Change)

Dependencies

N/A (not a System Wide Change)

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Blocks release? N/A (not a System Wide Change)

Documentation

• https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM/HowToQemu#Using_QEMU_with_libvirt
• XXX: Should blog about this when it's testable

Release Notes

ARM VMs can now be run on x86 hosts using standard libvirt tools like virsh, virt-manager, and virt-install.