Re: [Xen-devel] (pv)?grub and PVHv2

["Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

>>> On 05.06.17 at 14:08, <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 05/06/17 11:55, George Dunlap wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 2, 2017 at 10:58 AM, Roger Pau Monné <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx> 
>> wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jun 02, 2017 at 11:33:50AM +0200, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Is there any method to boot PVHv2 domain using a kernel fetched from
>>>> that domain's disk image, _without_ mounting it in dom0? Something like
>>>> pvgrub was for PV.
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> Anthony (Cced) is working on an OVMF port, so it can be used as
>>> firmware for PVHv2 guests.
>> I think in theory it shouldn't be too hard to port the pvgrub2 code to
>> boot into PVH, since it already boots in PV, right?
>>
>> Is this something we should try to encourage, or do you think it would
>> be better to route everyone through EFI?
> 
> Even a PVH pvgrub still suffers the a priori problem which makes booting
> PV guests extremely difficult.  You don't know ahead-of-time which
> bootloader the guest is using without peering at its disks, which opens
> a massive attack surface in dom0.
> 
> Using things like EFI allows any compatible OS to function, not just
> ones which use grub.

This is certainly valid to say when considering only 64-bit OSes, but
as soon as you look at a mix of 32- and 64-bit ones there are
complications again resulting from possibly mixed bitness between
EFI and OS.

Jan

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