Running Etherboot within qemu ============================= Michael Brown To get qemu running is fairly simple: 1. Build the utilities in this directory: make 2. Get the qemu source code: cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.savannah.nongnu.org:/sources/qemu \ login cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.savannah.nongnu.org:/sources/qemu \ co qemu 2a. Patch the qemu code. There is currently a bug that causes qemu to execute Etherboot incredibly slowly. The bug seems to be related to the relative prioritisation of CPU and I/O operations within qemu. This patch (which I found via Google) isn't a proper fix, but it does work around the problem: patch -p0 < qemu-patch 3. Configure qemu with pushd qemu ./configure --enable-system popd Note that qemu will not compile with gcc4; if your system's default compiler is gcc4 then specify the path to gcc3 using e.g. --cc=gcc-3.3.6 4. Build qemu: make -C qemu 5. As root, set up a TAP virtual network device: /sbin/modprobe tun chmod o+rw /dev/net/tun ./tunctl -u -t tap0 /sbin/ifconfig tap0 up 10.254.254.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 6. As root, add the following fragment to /etc/dhcpd.conf: subnet 10.254.254.0 netmask 255.255.255.252 { range dynamic-bootp 10.254.254.1 10.254.254.1; } You will also need to add in any of your usual declarations for Etherboot, e.g. 'filename "vmlinuz.ltsp";'. Note that this setup assumes that your DHCP server, TFTP server etc. all live on the machine you are using for running qemu. If not, then you're on your own. 7. As root, restart dhcpd /etc/init.d/dhcpd restart 8. Build Etherboot floppy disk images and pad to 1.44MB pushd ../../src make bin/rtl8139.dsk ./util/dskpad.pl bin/rtl8139.dsk popd 9. Start qemu export SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0 ./qemu/i386-softmmu/qemu -L qemu/pc-bios \ -net nic,model=rtl8139 -net tap,ifname=tap0 \ -boot a -fda ../../src/bin/rtl8139.dsk You should see qemu start up, load up Etherboot and attempt to boot from the network. Serial console ============== You can use the program "serial-console" to obtain a virtual serial console for Etherboot running within qemu. Run "./serial-console" on a spare tty (e.g. a separate xterm window) before starting qemu, and ensure that you have enabled CONSOLE_SERIAL in config.h. When serial-console starts, it will print out the message "Slave pty is /dev/pts/XX", where XX is a number. You need to append the option -serial /dev/pts/XX to the qemu command line. There is a manual page for "serial-console"; use "man ./serial-console.1" to view it.