ppc64le on x86_64: QEMU full-system emulation
You can run a ppc64le virtual machine on your x86_64 computer with QEMU full-system emulation!
This provides an environment that is very similar to an original system, although with slower performance due to processor instruction emulation.
It can be handy to run programs that are not processor intensive, and help a bit in growing your patience.
QEMU
Let’s build the QEMU target for full-system emulation of the ppc64le architecture (ppc64-softmmu).
Download (for example, a stable release):
$ wget https://download.qemu.org/qemu-2.11.0.tar.xz
$ tar xf qemu-2.11.0.tar.xz
$ cd qemu-2.11.0
Build:
$ ./configure --target-list=ppc64-softmmu
...
host CPU x86_64
host big endian no
target list ppc64-softmmu
...
$ make -j$(nproc)
...
LINK ppc64-softmmu/qemu-system-ppc64
Run:
$ cp ppc64-softmmu/qemu-system-ppc64 ~/bin
$ qemu-system-ppc64 --version
QEMU emulator version 2.11.0
Copyright (c) 2003-2017 Fabrice Bellard and the QEMU Project developers
QEMU machines
QEMU provides a number of machine types for PowerPC (for the various PowerPC platforms).
The ppc64le architecture currently runs on 2 platforms:
-
pseries: the virtualized environment traditionally provided by the PowerVM hypervisor for LPARs (logical partitions – virtual machines), and later introduced in QEMU for KVM guests. -
powernv: the non-virtualized (nv) environment provided by the OPAL firmware, to run without a hypervisor and/or as a hypervisor (KVM host), also known as bare-metal mode.
(note: originally non-virtualized, more recently introduced in QEMU; so sort of virtualized here :-)
The QEMU machines for those are:
$ qemu-system-ppc64 -machine help
Supported machines are:
...
powernv IBM PowerNV (Non-Virtualized)
...
pseries pSeries Logical Partition (PAPR compliant) (alias of pseries-2.11)
...
QEMU processors
Similarly, QEMU provides a number of processor types for PowerPC.
The ppc64le architecture currently runs on PowerPC server-class processors,
also known as “POWER” processors (originally manufactured by IBM), on POWER8 and later.
The QEMU processors range from POWER5+ to POWER9, currently:
$ qemu-system-ppc64 -cpu help | grep power[0-9] | grep alias
PowerPC power5+ (alias for power5+_v2.1)
PowerPC power5gs (alias for power5+_v2.1)
PowerPC power7 (alias for power7_v2.3)
PowerPC power7+ (alias for power7+_v2.1)
PowerPC power8e (alias for power8e_v2.1)
PowerPC power8nvl (alias for power8nvl_v1.0)
PowerPC power8 (alias for power8_v2.0)
PowerPC power9 (alias for power9_v2.0)
QEMU files and options for PowerPC platforms
The QEMU machine for the pseries platform requires 2 files:
-
spapr-rtas.bin: Server POWER Architecture Platform Requirements - Run-Time Abstraction Services
(otherwise,qemu-system-ppc64: Could not find LPAR rtas 'spapr-rtas.bin') -
slof.bin: Slimline Open Firmware
(otherwise,qemu-system-ppc64: Could not find LPAR firmware 'slof.bin')
Both files ship with QEMU, and should be automatically installed at the right places with make install.
However, for our local QEMU binary (for testing purposes) that is not done, so copy the files to the current directory when QEMU runs:
$ cp qemu-2.11.0/pc-bios/spapr-rtas.bin .
$ cp qemu-2.11.0/pc-bios/slof.bin .
UPDATE (2018-03-17): another option is to configure the QEMU build with the --firmwarepath option,
and copy the files over there; in this example:
$ ./configure --target-list=ppc64-softmmu --firmwarepath=$HOME/bin # don't use '~'
...
firmware path /home/mfoliveira/bin
...
$ make -j$(nproc)
...
LINK ppc64-softmmu/qemu-system-ppc64
$ cp ppc64-softmmu/qemu-system-ppc64 \
pc-bios/spapr-rtas.bin \
pc-bios/slof.bin \
~/bin
And these QEMU options allow you to run without a couple of other files:
-
-nodefaults
(otherwise,qemu-system-ppc64: Initialization of device VGA failed: failed to find romfile "vgabios-stdvga.bin") -
-nographic
(otherwise,Could not read keymap file: 'en-us')
QEMU command line
Finally, this QEMU command line is good for starters: pseries platform, power8 processor,
and text console on terminal (tip: do not press ctrl-c for now :-)
$ qemu-system-ppc64 \
-machine pseries \
-cpu power8 \
-nodefaults \
-nographic \
-serial stdio
Alpine Linux
Now, let’s test that with something real, Alpine Linux.
Download:
$ wget http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/releases/ppc64le/alpine-vanilla-3.7.0-ppc64le.iso
Run:
$ qemu-system-ppc64 \
-machine pseries \
-cpu power8 \
-nodefaults \
-nographic \
-serial stdio \
-cdrom alpine-vanilla-3.7.0-ppc64le.iso
And you can (slowly) watch SLOF load, populate the PowerPC device tree with the devices emulated by QEMU, search for boot devices, and boot one.
SLOF **********************************************************************
QEMU Starting
Build Date = Jul 24 2017 15:15:46
FW Version = git-89f519f09bf85091
Press "s" to enter Open Firmware.
Populating /vdevice methods
Populating /vdevice/vty@71000000
Populating /vdevice/nvram@71000001
Populating /vdevice/v-scsi@71000002
SCSI: Looking for devices
8200000000000000 CD-ROM : "QEMU QEMU CD-ROM 2.5+"
Populating /pci@800000020000000
No NVRAM common partition, re-initializing...
Scanning USB
Using default console: /vdevice/vty@71000000
Welcome to Open Firmware
Copyright (c) 2004, 2017 IBM Corporation All rights reserved.
This program and the accompanying materials are made available
under the terms of the BSD License available at
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php
Trying to load: from: disk ...
E3405: No such device
Trying to load: from: /vdevice/v-scsi@71000002/disk@8200000000000000 ... Successfully loaded
And GRUB2 comes to the screen!
Welcome to GRUB!
GNU GRUB version 2.02
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|*Linux vanilla |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the ^ and v keys to select which entry is highlighted.
Press enter to boot the selected OS, `e' to edit the commands
before booting or `c' for a command-line.
You can edit the boot entry to remove the quiet option to watch the kernel
booting in more detail (as that is a bit slow); press ctrl-x to boot.
GNU GRUB version 2.02
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|setparams 'Linux vanilla' |
| |
|linux /boot/vmlinuz modules=loop,squashfs,sd-mod,usb-storage nomodes\|
|et console=hvc0 |
|initrd /boot/initramfs-vanilla |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Minimum Emacs-like screen editing is supported. TAB lists
completions. Press Ctrl-x or F10 to boot, Ctrl-c or F2 for
a command-line or ESC to discard edits and return to the GRUB menu.
And it boots Linux:
Booting a command list
OF stdout device is: /vdevice/vty@71000000
Preparing to boot Linux version 4.9.65 (buildozer@build-3-7-ppc64le) (gcc version 6.4.0 (Alpine 6.4.0) ) #1-Alpine SMP Fri Nov 24 17:48:26 GMT 2017
...
instantiating rtas at 0x000000001daf0000... done
...
Booting Linux via __start() @ 0x0000000002000000 ...
...
Linux version 4.9.65 (buildozer@build-3-7-ppc64le) (gcc version 6.4.0 (Alpine 6.4.0) ) #1-Alpine SMP Fri Nov 24 17:48:26 GMT 2017
Found initrd at 0xc000000002d00000:0xc0000000033c6535
Using pSeries machine description
...
Alpine Init 3.2.0-r0
* Loading boot drivers: squashfs: version 4.0 (2009/01/31) Phillip Lougher
...
* Mounting boot media: ibmvscsi 71000002: SRP_VERSION: 16.a
...
* Installing packages to root filesystem: (1/16) Installing musl (1.1.18-r2)
...
OpenRC 0.24.1.a941ee4a0b is starting up Linux 4.9.65 (ppc64le)
...
Welcome to Alpine Linux 3.7
Kernel 4.9.65 on an ppc64le (/dev/hvc0)
localhost login:
And you can check the environment around:
localhost login: root
Welcome to Alpine!
...
localhost:~# uname -sm
Linux ppc64le
localhost:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
cpu : POWER8 (architected), altivec supported
clock : 1000.000000MHz
revision : 2.0 (pvr 004d 0200)
timebase : 512000000
platform : pSeries
model : IBM pSeries (emulated by qemu)
machine : CHRP IBM pSeries (emulated by qemu)
Yeehaw!
It’s indeed a bit slow, as that is full-system emulation, but it can very well
be used to run programs which are not processor intensive, just like the
ones to learn and practice the basics about ppc64le. ;-)