Bug 2385692 - unable to handle EFI zboot image with "zstd" compression
Summary: unable to handle EFI zboot image with "zstd" compression
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: qemu
Version: rawhide
Hardware: aarch64
OS: Linux
unspecified
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Fedora Virtualization Maintainers
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks: 2385561
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2025-07-31 12:02 UTC by Richard W.M. Jones
Modified: 2026-01-14 15:13 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:
Type: ---
Embargoed:


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Description Richard W.M. Jones 2025-07-31 12:02:12 UTC
qemu on aarch64 is unable to boot the current Fedora Rawhide kernels because those use zboot + zstd, which is apparently not supported by qemu (even upstream, it seems).

https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/blob/4e06566dbd1b1251c2788af26a30bd148d4eb6c1/hw/core/loader.c#L889

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run qemu-sanity-check on aarch64 hardware with the Rawhide kernel installed.

Actual Results:
Fails to boot with:
all kernels:
/lib/modules/6.16.0-0.rc7.60.fc43.aarch64/vmlinuz
/boot/vmlinuz-6.16.0-0.rc7.60.fc43.aarch64
all qemus: /usr/bin/qemu-system-aarch64
/usr/bin/qemu-system-aarch64 -display none -no-user-config -nodefaults -machine virt,accel=kvm:tcg -cpu max -m 768 -no-reboot -serial file:/tmp/tmp.SSxhVnHnkx.out -kernel /lib/modules/6.16.0-0.rc7.60.fc43.aarch64/vmlinuz -initrd ../src/initrd -append console=ttyAMA0 oops=panic panic=-1
qemu-system-aarch64: Could not access KVM kernel module: No such file or directory
qemu-system-aarch64: failed to initialize kvm: No such file or directory
qemu-system-aarch64: falling back to tcg
unable to handle EFI zboot image with "zstd" compression
qemu-system-aarch64: could not load kernel '/lib/modules/6.16.0-0.rc7.60.fc43.aarch64/vmlinuz'
/builddir/build/BUILD/qemu-sanity-check-1.1.6-build/qemu-sanity-check-1.1.6/src/qemu-sanity-check: error: test /lib/modules/6.16.0-0.rc7.60.fc43.aarch64/vmlinuz on /usr/bin/qemu-system-aarch64: failed

Comment 1 Davide Cavalca 2026-01-14 15:00:36 UTC
This should be resolved by https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2025-11/msg03753.html which is queued for 11.0 (see https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2025-11/msg03759.html). Maybe we can backport it in the Fedora package in the meantime?

Comment 2 Davide Cavalca 2026-01-14 15:13:45 UTC
Uh, I don't actually see those commits on https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/commits/master?ref_type=HEADS though. Will followup with upstream and see what's up there.


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