Bug 593317
| Summary: | seabios: SMBIOS data is different from that shown in RHEL5, even with -M rhel5.4.0 | ||||||||||||||
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| Product: | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | Reporter: | Daniel Berrangé <berrange> | ||||||||||||
| Component: | seabios | Assignee: | Eduardo Habkost <ehabkost> | ||||||||||||
| Status: | CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE | QA Contact: | Virtualization Bugs <virt-bugs> | ||||||||||||
| Severity: | medium | Docs Contact: | |||||||||||||
| Priority: | urgent | ||||||||||||||
| Version: | 6.0 | CC: | apevec, cperry, ehabkost, gyue, jhutar, jkastner, john.cooper, jpazdziora, mjenner, msuchy, mzazrivec, riek, syeghiay, virt-maint | ||||||||||||
| Target Milestone: | beta | ||||||||||||||
| Target Release: | --- | ||||||||||||||
| Hardware: | All | ||||||||||||||
| OS: | Linux | ||||||||||||||
| Whiteboard: | |||||||||||||||
| Fixed In Version: | seabios-0.5.1-0.10.20100108git669c991.1.el6 | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | ||||||||||||
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |||||||||||||
| Clone Of: | |||||||||||||||
| : | 605704 612851 (view as bug list) | Environment: | |||||||||||||
| Last Closed: | 2010-08-02 20:52:04 UTC | Type: | --- | ||||||||||||
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- | ||||||||||||
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |||||||||||||
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |||||||||||||
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |||||||||||||
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |||||||||||||
| Embargoed: | |||||||||||||||
| Bug Depends On: | |||||||||||||||
| Bug Blocks: | 582655, 605522, 605704, 612851 | ||||||||||||||
| Attachments: |
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Created attachment 414862 [details]
SMBIOS dump from RHEL5 host
Created attachment 414863 [details]
SMBIOS dump from RHEL6 host
Ok so doing a bit more research on this, it looks like at least half the differences are because libvirt doesn't specify the correct options on the command line. It is likely that these strings may change again in the future, so relying builtin default values just isn't going to cut it. For example after I brought up the issue on the SeaBIOS list, it was suggested to change some of the strings that currently say Bochs to say SeaBIOS. Adding the following to the QEMU command line eliminates most of the differences: -smbios type=1,manufacturer="Red Hat" -smbios type=1,product="KVM" -smbios type=1,family="Red Hat Enterprise Linux" -smbios type=0,vendor=QEMU -smbios type=0,version=QEMU Hi, I brought this up on the QEMU+SeaBIOS lists and the general consensus in the community is not to touch the current state of SMBIOS in SeaBIOS unless we have specific cases where we can document something broke because of this. The bulk of the SMBIOS strings can be mangled per my previous post, so it's up to libvirt to add those arguments to QEMU. Beyond that, I recommend we close this as WONTFIX, unless there are strong objections. Jes The thing with the values we've seen have changed between rhel-5 and rhel-6 is that Red Hat Network (hosted) as well as Red Hat Network Satellite relies on these values when determining whether or not a particular system registering with RHN / Satellite is a virtual guest (entitlement consumption thing). With these values changed, KVM virtual guests will now be recognized and registered as physical machines. See bug #605522 Milan, Relying on a virtual BIOS that can be replaced with a simple copy, or most of it by just adding extra arguments to the qemu command line isn't a good way to do this. Plus it means patching the SeaBIOS code, diverting it from upstream for this. The consensus from the discussion I opened with the community about this is that those SMBIOS strings are likely to change again, and relying on such changes is going to turn it into an endless patch chase. If you want to validate RHN access, have the guest RHN talk to a license server on the host to verify that access is granted instead. Cheers, Jes *** Bug 605522 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** Created attachment 425895 [details]
RHEL-5.5 guest, dmidecode output
RHEL-6 host, w/ seabios-0.5.1-0.14.20100108git669c991.el6.x86_64
RHEL6 is a different system, with a different BIOS. RHN should check for the RH-specific fields (e.g. System Information vendor/product) instead of bios.vendor. Created attachment 425936 [details]
dmidecode on rhel5, rhel6 guests after seabios upgrade
Created attachment 434072 [details]
dmidecode output
# rpm -q seabios seabios-0.5.1-2.el6.x86_64 |
Description of problem: I moved a guest from a RHEL5 host to a RHEL6 host using identical libvirt configuration, in order to check for any guest visible hardware differences. I noticed that the SMBIOS data on RHEL6 is significantly different, refering to 'Bochs' in many places instead of 'QEMU'. It is also missing the Red Hat manufacturer info and has a different naming scheme for CPUs. It is unclear if these differences would negatively impact a guest, but the data from RHEL5 QEMU looks a lot better so should probably be fixed in RHEL6 regardless. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.50 (on RHEL6 host) kvm-83-164.el5 (on RHEL5 host) How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Configure a guest on RHEL5, making sure it has a 'rhel-5.4.0' machine type (or similar stable machine type) 2. Copy the guest unchanged to a RHEL6 machine 3. Run 'dmidecode' in both guests, and then compare using diff Actual results: --- qemu-rhel5.txt 2010-05-18 14:57:22.356761971 +0100 +++ qemu-rhel6.txt 2010-05-18 14:57:27.671884237 +0100 @@ -1,12 +1,12 @@ # dmidecode 2.9 SMBIOS 2.4 present. -11 structures occupying 331 bytes. -Table at 0x000FBDAF. +11 structures occupying 308 bytes. +Table at 0x198FFEC0. Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes BIOS Information - Vendor: QEMU - Version: QEMU + Vendor: Bochs + Version: Bochs Release Date: 01/01/2007 Address: 0xE8000 Runtime Size: 96 kB @@ -18,18 +18,18 @@ Handle 0x0100, DMI type 1, 27 bytes System Information - Manufacturer: Red Hat - Product Name: KVM + Manufacturer: Bochs + Product Name: Bochs Version: Not Specified Serial Number: Not Specified UUID: A29D663E-3083-1096-B8BA-A11C081E77E0 Wake-up Type: Power Switch SKU Number: Not Specified - Family: Red Hat Enterprise Linux + Family: Not Specified Handle 0x0300, DMI type 3, 20 bytes Chassis Information - Manufacturer: RED HAT + Manufacturer: Bochs Type: Other Lock: Not Present Version: Not Specified @@ -43,11 +43,11 @@ Handle 0x0401, DMI type 4, 32 bytes Processor Information - Socket Designation: CPU 1 + Socket Designation: CPU01 Type: Central Processor Family: Other - Manufacturer: QEMU - ID: 63 06 00 00 FD FB 8B 07 + Manufacturer: Bochs + ID: 23 06 00 00 FD FB 8B 07 Version: Not Specified Voltage: Unknown External Clock: Unknown @@ -61,11 +61,11 @@ Handle 0x0402, DMI type 4, 32 bytes Processor Information - Socket Designation: CPU 2 + Socket Designation: CPU02 Type: Central Processor Family: Other - Manufacturer: QEMU - ID: 63 06 00 00 FD FB 8B 07 + Manufacturer: Bochs + ID: 23 06 00 00 FD FB 8B 07 Version: Not Specified Voltage: Unknown External Clock: Unknown Expected results: No differences Additional info: