4 The Open Virtual Machine Firmware (OVMF) project aims
5 to support firmware for Virtual Machines using the edk2
6 code base. More information can be found at:
8 http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=OVMF
15 * IA32 and X64 architectures
16 * QEMU (0.10.0 or later)
17 - Video, keyboard, IDE, CD-ROM, serial
19 - Optional NIC support. Requires QEMU (0.12.2 or later)
21 * UEFI Windows 8 boots
25 * Stabilize UEFI Linux boot
26 * Test/Stabilize UEFI Self-Certification Tests (SCT) results
31 * Build environment capable of build the edk2 MdeModulePkg.
32 * A properly configured ASL compiler:
33 - Intel ASL compiler: Available from http://www.acpica.org
34 - Microsoft ASL compiler: Available from http://www.acpi.info
36 Update Conf/target.txt ACTIVE_PLATFORM for OVMF:
37 PEI arch DXE arch UEFI interfaces
38 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgIa32.dsc IA32 IA32 IA32
39 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgIa32X64.dsc IA32 X64 X64
40 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc X64 X64 X64
42 Update Conf/target.txt TARGET_ARCH based on the .dsc file:
44 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgIa32.dsc IA32
45 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgIa32X64.dsc IA32 X64
46 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc X64
48 Following the edk2 build process, you will find the OVMF binaries
49 under the $WORKSPACE/Build/*/*/FV directory. The actual path will
50 depend on how your build is configured. You can expect to find
53 - Please note! This filename has changed. Older releases used OVMF.Fv.
55 - This file is not built separately any longer, starting with svn r13520.
57 More information on building OVMF can be found at:
59 http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=How_to_build_OVMF
61 === RUNNING OVMF on QEMU ===
63 * QEMU 0.9.1 or later is required.
64 * Either copy, rename or symlink OVMF.FD => bios.bin
65 * Be sure to use qemu-system-x86_64, if you are using and X64 firmware.
66 (qemu-system-x86_64 works for the IA32 firmware as well, of course.)
67 * Use the QEMU -L parameter to specify the directory where the bios.bin
69 * The EFI shell is built into OVMF builds at this time, so it should
70 run automatically if a UEFI boot application is not found on the
72 * On Linux, newer version of QEMU may enable KVM feature, and this might
73 cause OVMF to fail to boot. The QEMU '-no-kvm' may allow OVMF to boot.
74 * Capturing OVMF debug messages on qemu:
75 - The default OVMF build writes debug messages to IO port 0x402. The
76 following qemu command line options save them in the file called
77 debug.log: '-debugcon file:debug.log -global isa-debugcon.iobase=0x402'.
78 - It is possible to revert to the original behavior, when debug messages were
79 written to the emulated serial port (potentially intermixing OVMF debug
80 output with UEFI serial console output). For this the
81 '-D DEBUG_ON_SERIAL_PORT' option has to be passed to the build command (see
82 the next section), and in order to capture the serial output qemu needs to
83 be started with eg. '-serial file:serial.log'.
84 - Debug messages fall into several categories. Logged vs. suppressed
85 categories are controlled at OVMF build time by the
86 'gEfiMdePkgTokenSpaceGuid.PcdDebugPrintErrorLevel' bitmask (an UINT32
87 value) in the selected .dsc file. Individual bits of this bitmask are
88 defined in <MdePkg/Include/Library/DebugLib.h>. One non-default bit (with
89 some performance impact) that is frequently set for debugging is 0x00400000
91 - The RELEASE build target ('-b RELEASE' build option, see below) disables
92 all debug messages. The default build target is DEBUG.
96 On systems with the bash shell you can use OvmfPkg/build.sh to simplify
97 building and running OVMF.
99 So, for example, to build + run OVMF X64:
100 $ OvmfPkg/build.sh -a X64
101 $ OvmfPkg/build.sh -a X64 qemu
103 And to run a 64-bit UEFI bootable ISO image:
104 $ OvmfPkg/build.sh -a X64 qemu -cdrom /path/to/disk-image.iso
106 To build a 32-bit OVMF without debug messages using GCC 4.5:
107 $ OvmfPkg/build.sh -a IA32 -b RELEASE -t GCC45
109 === Network Support ===
111 OVMF provides a UEFI network stack by default. Its lowest level driver is the
112 NIC driver, higher levels are generic. In order to make DHCP, PXE Boot, and eg.
113 socket test utilities from the StdLib edk2 package work, (1) qemu has to be
114 configured to emulate a NIC, (2) a matching UEFI NIC driver must be available
117 (If a NIC is configured for the virtual machine, and -- dependent on boot order
118 -- PXE booting is attempted, but no DHCP server responds to OVMF's DHCP
119 DISCOVER message at startup, the boot process may take approx. 3 seconds
122 * For each NIC emulated by qemu, a GPLv2 licensed UEFI driver is available from
123 the iPXE project. The qemu source distribution, starting with version 1.5,
124 contains prebuilt binaries of these drivers (and of course allows one to
125 rebuild them from source as well). This is the recommended set of drivers.
127 * Use the qemu -netdev and -device options, or the legacy -net option, to
128 enable NIC support: <http://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/Networking>.
130 * For a qemu >= 1.5 binary running *without* any "-M machine" option where
131 "machine" would identify a < qemu-1.5 configuration (for example: "-M
132 pc-i440fx-1.4" or "-M pc-0.13"), the iPXE drivers are automatically available
133 to and configured for OVMF in the default qemu installation.
135 * For a qemu binary in [0.13, 1.5), or a qemu >= 1.5 binary with an "-M
136 machine" option where "machine" selects a < qemu-1.5 configuration:
138 - download a >= 1.5.0-rc1 source tarball from <http://wiki.qemu.org/Download>,
140 - extract the following iPXE driver files from the tarball and install them
141 in a location that is accessible to qemu processes (this may depend on your
142 SELinux configuration, for example):
144 qemu-VERSION/pc-bios/efi-e1000.rom
145 qemu-VERSION/pc-bios/efi-ne2k_pci.rom
146 qemu-VERSION/pc-bios/efi-pcnet.rom
147 qemu-VERSION/pc-bios/efi-rtl8139.rom
148 qemu-VERSION/pc-bios/efi-virtio.rom
150 - extend the NIC's -device option on the qemu command line with a matching
153 -device e1000,...,romfile=/full/path/to/efi-e1000.rom
154 -device ne2k_pci,...,romfile=/full/path/to/efi-ne2k_pci.rom
155 -device pcnet,...,romfile=/full/path/to/efi-pcnet.rom
156 -device rtl8139,...,romfile=/full/path/to/efi-rtl8139.rom
157 -device virtio-net-pci,...,romfile=/full/path/to/efi-virtio.rom
159 * Independently of the iPXE NIC drivers, the default OVMF build provides a
160 basic virtio-net driver, located in OvmfPkg/VirtioNetDxe.
162 * Also independently of the iPXE NIC drivers, Intel's proprietary E1000 NIC
163 driver (PROEFI) can be embedded in the OVMF image at build time:
165 - Download UEFI drivers for the e1000 NIC
166 - http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=17515&lang=eng
167 - Install the drivers into a directory called Intel3.5 in your WORKSPACE.
169 - Include the driver in OVMF during the build:
170 - Add "-D E1000_ENABLE -D FD_SIZE_2MB" to your build command,
171 - For example: "build -D E1000_ENABLE -D FD_SIZE_2MB".
173 * When a matching iPXE driver is configured for a NIC as described above, it
174 takes priority over other drivers that could possibly drive the card too:
176 | e1000 ne2k_pci pcnet rtl8139 virtio-net-pci
177 -------------+------------------------------------------------
182 === UNIXGCC Debug ===
184 If you build with the UNIXGCC toolchain, then debugging will be disabled
185 due to larger image sizes being produced by the UNIXGCC toolchain. The
186 first choice recommendation is to use GCC44 or newer instead.
188 If you must use UNIXGCC, then you can override the build options for
189 particular libraries and modules in the .dsc to re-enable debugging
190 selectively. For example:
192 OvmfPkg/Library/PlatformBdsLib/PlatformBdsLib.inf {
194 GCC:*_*_*_CC_FLAGS = -UMDEPKG_NDEBUG
196 IntelFrameworkModulePkg/Universal/BdsDxe/BdsDxe.inf {
198 GCC:*_*_*_CC_FLAGS = -UMDEPKG_NDEBUG