From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Don Slutz Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] Add vmware_hw to xl.cfg Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 13:44:27 -0400 Message-ID: <54108DFB.8030804@terremark.com> References: <1409585629-25840-1-git-send-email-dslutz@verizon.com> <1409585629-25840-2-git-send-email-dslutz@verizon.com> <1410182256.3680.16.camel@kazak.uk.xensource.com> <540E00AB.1000501@terremark.com> <1410255568.8217.65.camel@kazak.uk.xensource.com> <540F32A0.2070609@terremark.com> <1410341443.8217.260.camel@kazak.uk.xensource.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; Format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <1410341443.8217.260.camel@kazak.uk.xensource.com> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xen.org Errors-To: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xen.org To: Ian Campbell , Don Slutz Cc: Kevin Tian , Keir Fraser , Eddie Dong , Stefano Stabellini , Andrew Cooper , Tim Deegan , xen-devel@lists.xen.org, Jan Beulich , Aravind Gopalakrishnan , Jun Nakajima , Suravee Suthikulpanit , Boris Ostrovsky , Ian Jackson List-Id: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org On 09/10/14 05:30, Ian Campbell wrote: > On Tue, 2014-09-09 at 13:02 -0400, Don Slutz wrote: >> On 09/09/14 05:39, Ian Campbell wrote: >>> Just updating the description to give users some clue as to what number >>> they should use would be enough. >> How does the following look: >> >> vmware_hw numbers come from VMware config files. >> >> In a .vmx it is virtualHW.version >> >> In a .ovf it is part of the value of vssd:VirtualSystemType >> >> for vssd:VirtualSystemType == vmx-07, vmware_hw = 7 >> >> Should I refer them to the vmware web site? > Probably. Will the above make sense to a normal vmware user? Since it is > essentially Greek to me. The includes how to dig into a .vmx or .ovf to > find these values. e..g are they plain text files? Are specific tools > needed? > Yes, I would expect a normal vmware user to understand this. Both files are "text". .vmx is a list of "key = value" lines. .ovf is a xml file. Any text editor is enough (or more or less). -Don Slutz >>>>> Other than parroting this value back to the guest in a cpuid leaf does >>>>> this value control anything else? If so then we may want to consider >>>>> something like an enum to allow us to advertise more precisely which >>>>> versions of vmware we are prepared to ape, but at the least we need to >>>>> range check this input somewhere along the way. >>>> See above, mostly just QEMU. >>> What does qemu do with a number which it doesn't understand, perhaps >>> corresponding to a newer vmware version which it hasn't learnt about >>> yet? >> My version currently checks for various ranges. Like != 0, >= 4, >> >= 4 && < 7, >= 7. I do not expect that I can upstream it with this, >> but it should be similar. >> >> >>> This sort of issue is why I was proposing an enum, or at least some sort >>> of range checking. >> Since most of the use is in QEMU, I see no need for an enum in xen. >> All xen uses I know of are == 0 or != 0. I can add some range checking >> but think a warning might be better so that a newer QEMU with support >> for a given value could be used with an older xen without change to >> xen. > Will qemu error out in an obvious way if an unsupported number is used? > My version does not. However, that is the kind of change I expect to make when I get there. Since this is not yet done, not sure it matters. Today the valid values are 0,3-4,6-11. When I first coded this it was 0,3-4,6-7. At that time all my testing showed only 0, 4 and 7 as the key points. 6 was the same as 4. VMware does have differences between 6 and 4 but they were all around things like 4 does not support device pvscsi, 6 and 7 do. Trying and embedding this knowledge in Xen to me is not the right way to go. I would expect some one using this to know the "right" value, or to just use 3. -Don Slutz