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
13 * IA32 and X64 architectures
14 * QEMU (0.10.0 or later)
15 - Video, keyboard, IDE, CD-ROM, serial
17 - Optional NIC support. Requires QEMU (0.12.2 or later)
19 * UEFI Windows 8 boots
23 * Test/Stabilize UEFI Self-Certification Tests (SCT) results
28 * Build environment capable of build the edk2 MdeModulePkg.
29 * A properly configured ASL compiler:
30 - Intel ASL compiler: Available from http://www.acpica.org
31 - Microsoft ASL compiler: Available from http://www.acpi.info
33 Update Conf/target.txt ACTIVE_PLATFORM for OVMF:
34 PEI arch DXE arch UEFI interfaces
35 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgIa32.dsc IA32 IA32 IA32
36 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgIa32X64.dsc IA32 X64 X64
37 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc X64 X64 X64
39 Update Conf/target.txt TARGET_ARCH based on the .dsc file:
41 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgIa32.dsc IA32
42 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgIa32X64.dsc IA32 X64
43 * OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc X64
45 Following the edk2 build process, you will find the OVMF binaries
46 under the $WORKSPACE/Build/*/*/FV directory. The actual path will
47 depend on how your build is configured. You can expect to find
50 - Please note! This filename has changed. Older releases used OVMF.Fv.
52 - This file is not built separately any longer, starting with svn r13520.
54 More information on building OVMF can be found at:
56 http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=How_to_build_OVMF
58 === RUNNING OVMF on QEMU ===
60 * QEMU 0.12.2 or later is required.
61 * Be sure to use qemu-system-x86_64, if you are using and X64 firmware.
62 (qemu-system-x86_64 works for the IA32 firmware as well, of course.)
63 * Use OVMF for QEMU firmware (3 options available)
64 - Option 1: QEMU 1.6 or newer; Use QEMU -pflash parameter
65 * QEMU/OVMF will use emulated flash, and fully support UEFI variables
66 * Run qemu with: -pflash path/to/OVMF.fd
67 - Option 2: Use QEMU -bios parameter
68 * Note that UEFI variables will be partially emulated, and non-volatile
69 variables may lose their contents after a reboot
70 * Run qemu with: -bios path/to/OVMF.fd
71 - Option 3: Use QEMU -L parameter
72 * Note that UEFI variables will be partially emulated, and non-volatile
73 variables may lose their contents after a reboot
74 * Either copy, rename or symlink OVMF.fd => bios.bin
75 * Use the QEMU -L parameter to specify the directory where the bios.bin
77 * The EFI shell is built into OVMF builds at this time, so it should
78 run automatically if a UEFI boot application is not found on the
80 * On Linux, newer version of QEMU may enable KVM feature, and this might
81 cause OVMF to fail to boot. The QEMU '-no-kvm' may allow OVMF to boot.
82 * Capturing OVMF debug messages on qemu:
83 - The default OVMF build writes debug messages to IO port 0x402. The
84 following qemu command line options save them in the file called
85 debug.log: '-debugcon file:debug.log -global isa-debugcon.iobase=0x402'.
86 - It is possible to revert to the original behavior, when debug messages were
87 written to the emulated serial port (potentially intermixing OVMF debug
88 output with UEFI serial console output). For this the
89 '-D DEBUG_ON_SERIAL_PORT' option has to be passed to the build command (see
90 the next section), and in order to capture the serial output qemu needs to
91 be started with eg. '-serial file:serial.log'.
92 - Debug messages fall into several categories. Logged vs. suppressed
93 categories are controlled at OVMF build time by the
94 'gEfiMdePkgTokenSpaceGuid.PcdDebugPrintErrorLevel' bitmask (an UINT32
95 value) in the selected .dsc file. Individual bits of this bitmask are
96 defined in <MdePkg/Include/Library/DebugLib.h>. One non-default bit (with
97 some performance impact) that is frequently set for debugging is 0x00400000
99 - The RELEASE build target ('-b RELEASE' build option, see below) disables
100 all debug messages. The default build target is DEBUG.
102 === Build Scripts ===
104 On systems with the bash shell you can use OvmfPkg/build.sh to simplify
105 building and running OVMF.
107 So, for example, to build + run OVMF X64:
108 $ OvmfPkg/build.sh -a X64
109 $ OvmfPkg/build.sh -a X64 qemu
111 And to run a 64-bit UEFI bootable ISO image:
112 $ OvmfPkg/build.sh -a X64 qemu -cdrom /path/to/disk-image.iso
114 To build a 32-bit OVMF without debug messages using GCC 4.5:
115 $ OvmfPkg/build.sh -a IA32 -b RELEASE -t GCC45
117 === Network Support ===
119 OVMF provides a UEFI network stack by default. Its lowest level driver is the
120 NIC driver, higher levels are generic. In order to make DHCP, PXE Boot, and eg.
121 socket test utilities from the StdLib edk2 package work, (1) qemu has to be
122 configured to emulate a NIC, (2) a matching UEFI NIC driver must be available
125 (If a NIC is configured for the virtual machine, and -- dependent on boot order
126 -- PXE booting is attempted, but no DHCP server responds to OVMF's DHCP
127 DISCOVER message at startup, the boot process may take approx. 3 seconds
130 * For each NIC emulated by qemu, a GPLv2 licensed UEFI driver is available from
131 the iPXE project. The qemu source distribution, starting with version 1.5,
132 contains prebuilt binaries of these drivers (and of course allows one to
133 rebuild them from source as well). This is the recommended set of drivers.
135 * Use the qemu -netdev and -device options, or the legacy -net option, to
136 enable NIC support: <http://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/Networking>.
138 * For a qemu >= 1.5 binary running *without* any "-M machine" option where
139 "machine" would identify a < qemu-1.5 configuration (for example: "-M
140 pc-i440fx-1.4" or "-M pc-0.13"), the iPXE drivers are automatically available
141 to and configured for OVMF in the default qemu installation.
143 * For a qemu binary in [0.13, 1.5), or a qemu >= 1.5 binary with an "-M
144 machine" option where "machine" selects a < qemu-1.5 configuration:
146 - download a >= 1.5.0-rc1 source tarball from <http://wiki.qemu.org/Download>,
148 - extract the following iPXE driver files from the tarball and install them
149 in a location that is accessible to qemu processes (this may depend on your
150 SELinux configuration, for example):
152 qemu-VERSION/pc-bios/efi-e1000.rom
153 qemu-VERSION/pc-bios/efi-ne2k_pci.rom
154 qemu-VERSION/pc-bios/efi-pcnet.rom
155 qemu-VERSION/pc-bios/efi-rtl8139.rom
156 qemu-VERSION/pc-bios/efi-virtio.rom
158 - extend the NIC's -device option on the qemu command line with a matching
161 -device e1000,...,romfile=/full/path/to/efi-e1000.rom
162 -device ne2k_pci,...,romfile=/full/path/to/efi-ne2k_pci.rom
163 -device pcnet,...,romfile=/full/path/to/efi-pcnet.rom
164 -device rtl8139,...,romfile=/full/path/to/efi-rtl8139.rom
165 -device virtio-net-pci,...,romfile=/full/path/to/efi-virtio.rom
167 * Independently of the iPXE NIC drivers, the default OVMF build provides a
168 basic virtio-net driver, located in OvmfPkg/VirtioNetDxe.
170 * Also independently of the iPXE NIC drivers, Intel's proprietary E1000 NIC
171 driver (PROEFI) can be embedded in the OVMF image at build time:
173 - Download UEFI drivers for the e1000 NIC
174 - http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=17515&lang=eng
175 - Install the drivers into a directory called Intel3.5 in your WORKSPACE.
177 - Include the driver in OVMF during the build:
178 - Add "-D E1000_ENABLE -D FD_SIZE_2MB" to your build command,
179 - For example: "build -D E1000_ENABLE -D FD_SIZE_2MB".
181 * When a matching iPXE driver is configured for a NIC as described above, it
182 takes priority over other drivers that could possibly drive the card too:
184 | e1000 ne2k_pci pcnet rtl8139 virtio-net-pci
185 -------------+------------------------------------------------
190 === OVMF Flash Layout ===
192 Like all current IA32/X64 system designs, OVMF's firmware
193 device (rom/flash) appears in QEMU's physical address space
194 just below 4GB (0x100000000).
196 The layout of the firmware device in memory looks like:
198 +--------------------------------------- 4GB (0x100000000)
199 | VTF0 (16-bit reset code) and OVMF SEC
201 +--------------------------------------- varies based on flash size
203 | Compressed main firmware image
206 +--------------------------------------- base + 0x20000
207 | Fault-tolerant write (FTW)
208 | Spare blocks (64KB/0x10000)
209 +--------------------------------------- base + 0x10000
210 | FTW Work block (4KB/0x1000)
211 +--------------------------------------- base + 0x0f000
212 | Event log area (4KB/0x1000)
213 +--------------------------------------- base + 0x0e000
214 | Non-volatile variable storage
216 +--------------------------------------- base address
218 OVMF supports building a 1MB or a 2MB flash image. The base address for
219 a 1MB image in QEMU physical memory is 0xfff00000. The base address for
220 a 2MB image is 0xffe00000.
222 The code in SECFV locates FVMAIN_COMPACT, and decompresses the
223 main firmware (MAINFV) into RAM memory at address 0x800000. The
224 remaining OVMF firmware then uses this decompressed firmware
227 === UNIXGCC Debug ===
229 If you build with the UNIXGCC toolchain, then debugging will be disabled
230 due to larger image sizes being produced by the UNIXGCC toolchain. The
231 first choice recommendation is to use GCC44 or newer instead.
233 If you must use UNIXGCC, then you can override the build options for
234 particular libraries and modules in the .dsc to re-enable debugging
235 selectively. For example:
237 OvmfPkg/Library/PlatformBdsLib/PlatformBdsLib.inf {
239 GCC:*_*_*_CC_FLAGS = -UMDEPKG_NDEBUG
241 IntelFrameworkModulePkg/Universal/BdsDxe/BdsDxe.inf {
243 GCC:*_*_*_CC_FLAGS = -UMDEPKG_NDEBUG