[libvirt] [PATCHv6 5/6] bhyve: Add console support for grub-bhyve bootloader

[Conrad Meyer]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 2:29 AM, Roman Bogorodskiy
<bogorodskiy at gmail.com> wrote:
>   Conrad Meyer wrote:
>
>> This enables booting interactive GRUB menus (e.g. install CDs) with
>> libvirt-bhyve.
>>
>> Caveat: A terminal other than the '--console' option to 'virsh start'
>> (e.g. 'cu -l /dev/nmdm0B -s 115200') must be used to connect to
>> grub-bhyve because the bhyve loader path is synchronous and must occur
>> before the VM actually starts.
>>
>> Changing the bhyveProcessStart logic around to accommodate '--console'
>> for interactive loader use seems like a significant project and probably
>> not worth it, if UEFI/BIOS support for bhyve is "coming soon."
>
> I'm still feeling doubtful about this part. I see the impact of this
> change in the following way.
>
>  * Users, who wish to use console with grub-bhyve:
>    - They still cannot use 'virsh console' for that and need to use 'cu'
>      or something like that
>    - They need to update to a specific grub-bhyve version (currently
>      unreleased). The information about required version is not very
>      easy to find, so the chance is high that most users will miss it
>
>  * Users, who doesn't need to use console with grub-bhyve:
>    - They will still need to update to the specific grub-bhyve version,
>      otherwise a domain with bhyve-grub bootloader will fail with not
>      very obvious from user's POV error because of the unknown argument
>      to grub-bhyve
>
> If we leave the thing as is, e.g. only have bootloader support, then we
> will have:
>
>  * Users, who with to use console with grub-bhyve:
>    - Have to construct bootloader_args manually to add the --cons-dev
>    argument
>    - Like in a case with an explicit support, cannot use 'virsh console'
>      for the bootloader step
>    - Obviously, need to update grub-bhyve
>
>  * users, who doesn't need to use console with grub-bhyve
>    - Nothing changes for them, they can use an older grub-bhyve without
>      issues
>
> Roman Bogorodskiy

Hi,

I will improve patch 5 to at least do detection and resubmit 5-6. In
the mean time, patches 1-4 do not depend on 5-6 and can stand on their
own. I believe critiques brought up in earlier reviews have been
addressed.

Thanks,
Conrad