[Ubuntu 16.04] Please update slof package to the upstream

[bugproxy]

Package slof version on Ubuntu 16.04 is very old and a new one is required to run KVM properly. It is not able to run KVM on ppc64el properly.

Please update it for 16.04.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

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[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

We have certainly been using the version of slof in Ubuntu already to run KVM on ppc64el - since 14.04, with no noticeable problems. What are the symptoms of this version not running correctly, and which is the upstream version that is needed to address those symptoms?

[Breno Leitão (breno-leitao)]

Hi Steve,

Guilherme is working to describe the problems he is having with the old slof. Meanwhile, do you know why the slof package is not being synced with Debian?

Debian has the package version we want (based on qemu-2.5).

Thank you,
Breno

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 05:57:33PM -0000, Breno Leitão wrote:
> Guilherme is working to describe the problems he is having with the old
> slof.

Thanks.

> Meanwhile, do you know why the slof package is not being synced with
> Debian?

There is an Ubuntu delta in the package, so it requires active attention
from an Ubuntu developer to merge it. We'll take a look at it now.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

slof 20151103+dfsg-1ubuntu1 has now been uploaded to xenial.

[bugproxy (bugproxy)]

------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2016-01-29 17:41 EDT-------
(In reply to comment #5)
> We have certainly been using the version of slof in Ubuntu already to run
> KVM on ppc64el - since 14.04, with no noticeable problems. What are the
> symptoms of this version not running correctly, and which is the upstream
> version that is needed to address those symptoms?

vorlon, we couldn't add an ethernet adapter via PCI passthrough with the slof.bin included in the distro. We can see the following message right after boot:

Populating /pci@800000020000000

Warning: 64-bit PCI space not supported yet! 100000000 10120000000
Adapters on 0800000020000000
00 0800 (D) : 106b 003f serial bus [ usb-ohci ]
00 1000 (D) : 1af4 1002 unknown-legacy-device*
00 1800 (D) : 14e4 168e network [ ethernet ]
00 1900 (D) : 14e4 168e network [ ethernet ]

It complains about not supporting 64-bit PCI space. When guest is done booting, we can't use the adapter because the guest's kernel (Ubuntu's 4.4.0-1-generic) can't access its PCI configuration space.

The first lines of this "old" slof are:

SLOF **********************************************************************
QEMU Starting
Build Date = Oct 16 2014 08:49:16
FW Version = buildd@ release 20140630

Now, by updating to upstream slof (found in qemu git repo, but it seems Debian version is the same) we got the following lines on boot.

Populating /pci@800000020000000
00 1900 (D) : 14e4 168e network [ ethernet ]
00 1800 (D) : 14e4 168e network [ ethernet ]
00 1000 (D) : 1af4 1002 unknown-legacy-device*
00 0800 (D) : 106b 003f serial bus [ usb-ohci ]

Notice there's no more warning regarding the PCI 64-bit space, and adapter works on guest's kernel. The first lines of boot, reflecting the newer firmware, are:

SLOF **********************************************************************
QEMU Starting
Build Date = Nov 5 2015 15:23:31
FW Version = git-b4c93802a5b2c72f

Thanks,

Guilherme

[bugproxy (bugproxy)]

------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2016-02-04 10:50 EDT-------
Closing it at IBM side, since the package was already upgraded.