QEMU plans for R

Registered by Serge Hallyn

qemu-kvm is the preferred hardware emulation platform in Ubuntu. The goal of
this work is to follow and help test upstream development, collaborate on
bug fixing with upstream, and ensure that kvm is stable and fullfills our
needs.

In this cycle, we will focus on merging divergent source packages into one,
and re-syncing our packaging as far as possible with Debian. This should
result in increased testing for arm users, reduced duplication of effort
between qemu-linaro and qemu-kvm sources, and increase collaboration with
Debian.

Etherpad: http://pad.ubuntu.com/uds-q-servercloud-r-qemu
Blueprint: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/servercloud-r-qemu

Blueprint information

Status:
Complete
Approver:
Dave Walker
Priority:
High
Drafter:
Ubuntu Server
Direction:
Approved
Assignee:
Serge Hallyn
Definition:
Approved
Series goal:
Accepted for raring
Implementation:
Implemented
Milestone target:
milestone icon ubuntu-13.04-feature-freeze
Started by
Dave Walker
Completed by
Serge Hallyn

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

User Stories:
N/A

Risks:

None

Test Plans:

The qrt qemu tests are to be run before every upload.

Release Note:
1. The qemu and qemu-kvm sources have been merged. Some of the kvm command line usage therefore has changed. For instance, '-enable-kvm' must be specified rather than being implied. (List of changes to come here)
2. Transparent hugepages are now supported. The performance gains of hugepages in kvm will be automatically realized when available.

Notes:

The {qemu-kvm,qemu-linaro}->qemu switch does not require MIR'ing the binary packages which migrated from qemu-linaro. We can look at that, but it's low priority unless someone (independently) requires qemu-user etc in main. The work item was in case somehow it was required for this switch. As it is not, I dropped the WI.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1029430 shows that vhost_net is not safe to be automatically loaded everywhere.

openbios-sparc (and the required cross-compilers) is in ppa:serge-hallyn/crossc. It is too late in raring to try and push a set of new packages however.

ovm/edk2: there is no support upstream at all for maintaining state (i.e. custom loaded keys) in a file. Do we want to consider during the next cycle developing that?

(?)

Work Items

Work items:
[serge-hallyn] (or slangasek) fix persistence issues in ed2k: POSTPONED
[serge-hallyn] (or slangasek) find a solution for useful default in ovmf for secureboot: POSTPONED
[serge-hallyn] get openbios-ppc into archive (work done by infinity - thanks!): DONE
[serge-hallyn] look into openbios-sparc for archive: DONE
[serge-hallyn] merge qemu-linaro patches into qemu source: DONE
[serge-hallyn] drop vde2 and spice from build-deps: DONE
[serge-hallyn] build candidate qemu to replace qemu-linaro and qemu-kvm: DONE
[pmaydell] test candidate qemu with arm: POSTPONED
[serge-hallyn] enable spice in qemu: DONE
[serge-hallyn] merge upstream 1.3: DONE
[smb] review gridcentric patches: DONE
[sarnold] do a security review of gridcentric patches: DONE
[serge-hallyn] merge gridcentric patches into qemu source: DONE
[ivoks] (or was it louis-bouchard?) test vhost-net for reliability and performance: POSTPONED
[serge-hallyn] switch vhost-net to enabled-by-default if deemed safe: BLOCKED