qemu-system-aarch64: with "-display gtk" arrow keys are received as just ^[ on ttyAMA0

[Ryutaroh Matsumoto]

I originally observed this on Debian packaged qemu 5.2 at
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=976808

Today I checked out the latest git source at
Sun, 13 Dec 2020 19:21:09 +0900
and configured the source as follows:

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --libexecdir=/usr/lib/qemu \
 --localstatedir=/var --disable-blobs --disable-strip --localstatedir=/var \
 --libdir=/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu \
 --firmwarepath=/usr/share/qemu:/usr/share/seabios:/usr/lib/ipxe/qemu \
 --target-list=aarch64-softmmu,arm-softmmu --disable-werror \
 --disable-user --enable-gtk --enable-vnc
then executed "make" on an ARM64 (not an x86_64) host,
running the latest Debian testing.

I did the following commands on an arm64 host with the Debian Installer Alpha 3 at
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/bullseye_di_alpha3/arm64/iso-cd/debian-bullseye-DI-alpha3-arm64-netinst.iso

#!/bin/sh

ARCH=arm64
IMAGE=`pwd`/qemu-disk-${ARCH}.qcow2
CDROM=`pwd`/debian-bullseye-DI-alpha3-${ARCH}-netinst.iso
rm -f $IMAGE
qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o compat=1.1 -o lazy_refcounts=on -o preallocation=off $IMAGE 20G
cd /var/tmp
cp /usr/share/AAVMF/AAVMF_VARS.fd .
$HOME/qemu-git/qemu/build/qemu-system-aarch64 \
    -display gtk -enable-kvm -machine virt -cpu host -m 3072 -smp 2\
    -net nic,model=virtio -net user -object rng-random,filename=/dev/urandom,id=rng0 \
    -device virtio-rng-pci,rng=rng0,id=rng-device0 \
    -drive if=virtio,file=${IMAGE},index=0,format=qcow2,discard=unmap,detect-zeroes=unmap,media=disk \
    -drive if=virtio,file=${CDROM},index=1,format=raw,readonly=on,media=cdrom \
    -drive if=pflash,format=raw,unit=0,file=/usr/share/AAVMF/AAVMF_CODE.fd,readonly=on \
    -drive if=pflash,format=raw,unit=1,file=`pwd`/AAVMF_VARS.fd

Then 4 arrow keys on the physical keyboard are received as just "^[".

This symptom was not observed on qemu-system-x86_64.
This symptom was not observed with virt-manager on my arm64 host, neither.
This seems unique to -display gtk of qemu-system-aarch64.

[Ryutaroh Matsumoto (emojifreak)]

An easier way to reproduce the symptom was provided by Alper Nebi Yasak at
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=976808#88

qemu-system-aarch64 \
    -display gtk -enable-kvm -machine virt -cpu host -m 1G -smp 2 \
    -kernel /boot/vmlinuz -initrd /boot/initrd.img \
    -append "break console=ttyAMA0"

Then, run cat on the initramfs shell and see arrow keys result in ^[ .
For x86_64, it's console=ttyS0 and ^[[A etc.

[Peter Maydell (pmaydell)]

This should be fixed already in head-of-git, by commit 8eb13bbbac08aa077e ; this will be in QEMU 6.0.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package qemu - 1:6.0+dfsg-1~ubuntu3

---------------
qemu (1:6.0+dfsg-1~ubuntu3) impish; urgency=medium

  * d/p/u/lp-1935617-target-ppc-Fix-load-endianness-for-lxvwsx-lxvdsx.patch:
    fix TCG emulation for ppc64 (LP: #1935617)

qemu (1:6.0+dfsg-1~ubuntu2) impish; urgency=medium

  * d/control: remove fuse2 trial-build (LP 1934510)

qemu (1:6.0+dfsg-1~ubuntu1) impish; urgency=medium

  * Merge with Debian experimental, Among many other things this fixes LP Bugs:
    (LP: #1907952) broken arrow keys in -display gtk on aarch64
    - qemu-kvm to systemd unit
      - d/qemu-kvm-init: script for QEMU KVM preparation modules, ksm,
        hugepages and architecture specifics
      - d/qemu-system-common.qemu-kvm.service: systemd unit to call
        qemu-kvm-init
      - d/qemu-system-common.install: install helper script
      - d/qemu-system-common.qemu-kvm.default: defaults for
        /etc/default/qemu-kvm
      - d/rules: call dh_installinit and dh_installsystemd for qemu-kvm
    - Distribution specific machine type
      (LP: 1304107 1621042 1776189 1761372 1761372 1776189)
      - d/p/ubuntu/define-ubuntu-machine-types.patch: define distro machine
        types containing release versioned machine attributes
      - d/qemu-system-x86.NEWS Info on fixed machine type defintions
        for host-phys-bits=true
      - Add an info about -hpb machine type in debian/qemu-system-x86.NEWS
      - ubuntu-q35 alias added to auto-select the most recent q35 ubuntu type
    - Enable nesting by default
      - d/p/ubuntu/enable-svm-by-default.patch: Enable nested svm by default
        in qemu64 on amd
        [ No more strictly needed, but required for backward compatibility ]
    - improved dependencies
      - Make qemu-system-common depend on qemu-block-extra
      - Make qemu-utils depend on qemu-block-extra
      - Let qemu-utils recommend sharutils
    - tolerate ipxe size change on migrations to >=18.04 (LP: 1713490)
      - d/p/ubuntu/pre-bionic-256k-ipxe-efi-roms.patch: old machine types
        reference 256k path
      - d/control-in: depend on ipxe-qemu-256k-compat-efi-roms to be able to
        handle incoming migrations from former releases.
    - d/control-in: Disable capstone disassembler library support (universe)
    - d/qemu-system-x86.README.Debian: add info about updated nesting changes
    - d/control*, d/rules: disable xen by default, but provide universe
      package qemu-system-x86-xen as alternative
      [includes compat links changes of 5.0-5ubuntu4]
    - Fix upgrade module handling (LP 1905377)
      --enable-module-upgrades for qemu-xen which doesn't exist in Debian
  * Dropped Changes [in 6.0]:
    - d/p/ubuntu/lp-1907789-build-no-pie-is-no-functional-liker-flag.patch: fix
      ld usage of -no-pie (LP 1907789)
    - d/p/u/lp-1916230-hw-s390x-fix-build-for-virtio-9p-ccw.patch: fix
      virtio-9p-ccw being missing (LP 1916230)
    - d/p/u/lp-1916705-disas-Fix-build-with-glib2.0-2.67.3.patch: Fix FTFBS due
      to glib2.0 >=2.67.3 (LP 1916705)
    - d/p/u/lp-1921754*: add EPYC-Rome-v2 as v1 missed IBRS and thereby fails
      on some HW/Guest combinations e.g. Windows 10 on Threadripper chips
  ...