Speed up your kernel
development cycle with QEMU
Kernel Recipes 2015
1 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Agenda
● Kernel development cycle
● Introduction to QEMU
● Basics
● Testing kernels inside virtual machines
● Debugging virtual machines
● Advanced topics
● Cross-architecture testing
● Device bring-up
● Error injection
2 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
About me
QEMU contributor since 2010
● Subsystem maintainer
● Google Summer of Code & Outreachy
mentor/admin
● http://qemu-advent-calendar.org/
Occassional kernel patch contributor
● vsock, tcm_vhost, virtio_scsi, line6 staging driver
Work in Red Hat's Virtualization team
3 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Kernel development cycle
Write code
Test Build kernel/modules
Deploy
This
presentation
4 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
If you are doing kernel development...
USB
PCI Tracing ftrace
Device drivers
etc ebpf
LIO SCSI target .
Storage File systems .
device-mapper targets .
Network protocols
Networking Netfilter
OpenVSwitch
Resource Cgroups
management & Linux Security Modules
security Namespaces
5 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
...you might have these challenges
In situ debugging mechanisms like kgdb or kdump
● Not 100% reliable since they share the environment
● Crashes interrupt your browser/text editor session
Web Text
test.ko
R.I.P. browser editor
All My Work
Gone CRASH!
2015/09/01 Development machine
6 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Dedicated test machines
Ex situ debugging requires an additional machine
● More cumbersome to deploy code and run tests
● May require special hardware (JTAG, etc)
● Less mobile, hard to travel with multiple machines
PXE boot kernel/initramfs
Test Run tests Dev
Machine Machine
Debug or collect crash dump
7 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Virtual machines: best of both worlds!
● Easy to start/stop
● Full access to memory & CPU state
● Cross-architecture support using emulation
● Programmable hardware (e.g. error injection)
test.ko
Web Text
CRASH!
browser editor
Virtual machine
Development machine
8 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
QEMU emulator and virtualizer
EMU Logo by Benoît Canet
Website: http://qemu-project.org/
Runs on Linux, Mac, BSD, and Windows
Emulates 17 CPU architectures (x86, arm, ppc, ...)
Supports fast hardware virtualization using KVM
Open source GPLv2 license
9 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
QEMU overview
Guest code runs in a virtual
machine
Hardware devices are Guest
emulated
QEMU performs I/O on behalf
of guest QEMU
QEMU appears as a normal
userspace process on the
host
Host kernel
10 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Cross-architecture emulation
Run another type of machine on your laptop
● qemusystemarm
● qemusystemppc
● ...
Uses just-in-time compilation to achieve reasonable
speed
● Overhead can still be noticable
11 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Launching a virtual machine
Example with 1024 MB RAM and 2 CPUs:
qemusystemx86_64 m 1024 \
smp 2 \
enablekvm
Drop enablekvm for emulation (e.g. ARM on x86)
Boots up to BIOS but there are no bootable drives...
12 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
QEMU virtual machine in BIOS/PXE
13 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
How to boot a development kernel
qemusystemx86_64 enablekvm m 1024 \
kernel /boot/vmlinuz \
initrd /boot/initramfs.img \
append param1=value1
These options are similar to bootloader (GRUB, etc)
options.
14 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Small tests can run from initramfs
Initramfs can be customized to contain test programs
No need for full root file system
● Kick off tests from /init executable
Rebuild initramfs when kernel or test code changes
Result: Fast deployment & test
15 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Deploying kernel build products
arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage busybox
Custom init script & tests
initramfs
Kernel modules
qemusystemx86_64 … \
kernel vmlinuz \
initrd initramfs.img \
append param1=value1
16 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Building initramfs with gen_init_cpio
gen_init_cpio takes description file as input:
file /init myinit.sh 0755 0 0
dir /bin 0755 0 0
nod /dev/zero 0666 0 0 c 1 5
file /sbin/busybox /sbin/busybox 0755 0 0
slink /bin/sh /sbin/busybox 0755 0 0
Produces cpio archive as output:
$ usr/gen_init_cpio input | gzip >initramfs.img
Included in Linux source tree (usr/gen_init_cpio)
17 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Build process
Compile your kernel modules:
$ make M=drivers/virtio \
CONFIG_VIRTIO_PCI=m modules
Build initramfs:
$ usr/gen_init_cpio input | gzip >initramfs.img
Run virtual machine:
$ qemusystemx86_64 m 1024 enablekvm \
kernel arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage \
initrd initramfs.img \
append 'console=ttyS0' \
nographic
18 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Using QEMU serial port for testing
I snuck in the QEMU nographic option
● Disables GUI
● Puts serial port onto stdin/stdout
● Perfect for running tests from terminal
● Easy to copy-paste error messages from output
Tell kernel to use console=ttyS0
19 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Challenges with manually built initramfs
Shared library dependencies must be found with
ldd(1) and added
Paths on the host may change across package
upgrades, breaking your initramfs build process
Rebuilding large initramfs every time is wasteful
Maybe it's time for a real root file system?
20 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Persistent root file system
Two options:
1)Share directory with host using virtfs or NFS
Pro: Easy to manipulate and inspect on host
2)Use disk image file with partition table and file
systems
Pro: Easy to install full Linux distro
Kernel can still be provided by kernel option.
Kernel modules need to be in initramfs and/or root file
system.
21 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Debugging a virtual machine
How do I inspect CPU registers and memory?
How do I set breakpoints on kernel code inside the
virtual machine?
QEMU supports GDB remote debugging to attach to
the virtual machine.
kgdb is not required inside virtual machine.
22 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Remote debugging != debugging QEMU
Often causes confusion:
If you want to debug what the virtual machine sees,
use remote debugging (gdbstub).
If you want to debug device emulation or QEMU
internals, use gdb -p $QEMU_PID.
23 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
GDB remote debugging
Protocol for remote debugging:
● Get/set CPU registers
● Load/store memory
Guest state
● Add/remove breakpoints
(CPU + RAM)
● Single-step and run
GDB stub
GDB
(client)
QEMU
24 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
QEMU gdbstub example
qemusystemx86_64 s enablekvm m 1024 \
drive if=virtio,file=test.img
(gdb) set architecture i386:x8664
(gdb) file vmlinux
(gdb) target remote 127.0.0.1:1234
(gdb) backtrace
#0 native_safe_halt () at
./arch/x86/include/asm/irqflags.h:50
#1 0xffffffff8101efae in arch_safe_halt ()
...
25 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Things to remember with remote debugging
Tell GDB which (sub-)architecture to use
● x86: 16-bit vs 32-bit vs 64-bit mode, check RFLAGS
register
● Careful with guest programs that switch modes!
Memory addresses are generally virtual addresses
(i.e. memory translation applies)
GDB doesn't know much about current userspace
process or swapped out pages!
26 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Device bring-up
Challenges for driver developers:
● Real hardware is not available yet
● Hardware is expensive
● Hardware/software co-development
How to develop & test drivers under these conditions?
1)Implement device emulation in QEMU
2)Develop driver against emulated device
3)Verify against real hardware when available
27 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
QEMU for device bring-up
Write C code in QEMU to emulate your device
● Out-of-tree solutions for hw simulation exist too!
QEMU device emulation covers common busses:
● PCI, USB, I2C
Examples where this approach was used:
● Rocker OpenFlow network switch
● NVDIMM persistent memory
● NVMe PCI flash storage controller
28 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
QEMU device model
Object-oriented device model:
device
pci-device
e1000-base
e1000-82540em
Allows you to focus on unique device functionality
instead of common behavior.
29 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Memory API
Device register memory regions for PIO and MMIO
hardware register access:
static const MemoryRegionOps vmport_ops = {
.read = vmport_ioport_read,
.write = vmport_ioport_write,
.impl = {
.min_access_size = 4,
.max_access_size = 4,
},
.endianness = DEVICE_LITTLE_ENDIAN,
};
memory_region_init_io(&s>io, OBJECT(s),
&vmport_ops, s, "vmport", 1);
isa_register_ioport(isadev, &s>io, 0x5658);
30 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Interrupts
Devices use bus-specific methods to raise interrupts:
void pci_set_irq(PCIDevice *pci_dev, int level)
QEMU emulates interrupt controllers and injecting
interrupts
● Interrupt controller state is updated
● Guest CPU interrupt vector is taken
31 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
More information on device emulation
Plenty of examples in QEMU hw/ directory
● Learn from existing devices
● Documentation is sparse
feedback
● Guidelines for submitting patches:
http://qemu-project.org/Contribute/SubmitAPatch
32 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Error injection
How do I exercise rare error code paths in kernel?
QEMU can simulate error conditions
● Without overheating or damaging real hardware
● Without reaching into a box to pull cables
Simple scenarios:
● Test hot unplug while device is in use
(qemu) device_del e1000.0
33 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Advanced error injection
QEMU's block layer has an error injection engine:
[setstate]
state = "1"
event = "write_aio"
new_state = "2"
[injecterror]
state = "2"
event = "read_aio"
errno = "5"
This script fails disk reads after the first write.
Documentation: docs/blkdebug.txt
34 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
Questions?
Email: [email protected]
IRC: stefanha on #qemu irc.oftc.net
Blog: http://blog.vmsplice.net/
QEMU: http://qemu-project.org/
Slides available on my website: http://vmsplice.net/
35 KERNEL RECIPES 2015 | STEFAN HAJNOCZI
