linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] KVM: Add wrapper script around Qemu to test kernels

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Date:	Wed, 24 Aug 2011 08:19:07 +0300
From:	Pekka Enberg <penberg@...nel.org>
To:	Alexander Graf <agraf@...e.de>
Cc:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>, Avi Kivity <avi@...hat.com>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org List" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"kvm@...r.kernel.org list" <kvm@...r.kernel.org>,
	qemu-devel Developers <qemu-devel@...gnu.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] KVM: Add wrapper script around Qemu to test kernels

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 1:16 AM, Alexander Graf <agraf@...e.de> wrote:
> On LinuxCon I had a nice chat with Linus on what he thinks kvm-tool
> would be doing and what he expects from it. Basically he wants a
> small and simple tool he and other developers can run to try out and
> see if the kernel they just built actually works.
>
> Fortunately, Qemu can do that today already! The only piece that was
> missing was the "simple" piece of the equation, so here is a script
> that wraps around Qemu and executes a kernel you just built.
>
> If you do have KVM around and are not cross-compiling, it will use
> KVM. But if you don't, you can still fall back to emulation mode and
> at least check if your kernel still does what you expect. I only
> implemented support for s390x and ppc there, but it's easily extensible
> to more platforms, as Qemu can emulate (and virtualize) pretty much
> any platform out there.
>
> If you don't have qemu installed, please do so before using this script. Your
> distro should provide a package for it (might even call it "kvm"). If not,
> just compile it from source - it's not hard!
>
> To quickly get going, just execute the following as user:
>
>    $ ./Documentation/run-qemu.sh -r / -a init=/bin/bash
>
> This will drop you into a shell on your rootfs.
>
> Happy hacking!

It's nice to see such an honest attempt at improving QEMU usability, Alexander!

One comment: in my experience, having shell scripts under
Documentation reduces the likelihood that people actually discover
them so you might want to consider putting it under scripts or tools.

                        Pekka
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