Virtualization Support

[soccercheng]

Hi All,

I am not able to find any clear information if Pine64+ supports virtualization. The followings are my questions

-- Does Allwinner A64 SOC support Arm virtualization extensions?
    * How about its MMU, it support stage 2 translations?
    * Is there any further document for our reference?
-- Does Pine64+2G support secure EL2 boot for hypervisor?
    * We need to enable KVM and Xen or other hypervisor support on Pine64, but from the sunxi wiki, it seems
       the current u-boot enters the kernel in the secure(?) EL1 exception level. 
       This currently denies any virtualization (KVM) to be used.

~Sting

[StefanB]

Hi All,

I am not able to find any clear information if Pine64+ supports virtualization. The followings are my questions

The A64 cores are ARM A53, so virtualization is supported. Caveat, due to how the Pine boots virtualization is not yet supported, see http://linux-sunxi.org/Pine64#Sunxi.2FLegacy_U-Boot

For everything else, see the ARM A53 TRM.

[janjwerner]

Guys at linux-sunxi (apritzel, ssvb & wens) made some tremendous progress with the mainline support. Now the biggest issue is interfacing the power regulator (I briefly looked at it, but day job and complexity of the problem prevented me from doing anything). When that piece of hardware is supported all the pieces should fall in together.

[Ghost]

Guys at linux-sunxi (apritzel, ssvb & wens) made some tremendous progress with the mainline support. Now the biggest issue is interfacing the power regulator (I briefly looked at it, but day job and complexity of the problem prevented me from doing anything). When that piece of hardware is supported all the pieces should fall in together.

That's fantastic news that positive progress is being made

[janjwerner]

I am amazed how quickly apritzel got things up running! I have to find his email / paypal account and get him some beer. 
If you are serious about running linux on your Pine you should too!

[Ghost]

I am amazed how quickly apritzel got things up running! I have to find his email / paypal account and get him some beer. 
If you are serious about running linux on your Pine you should too!

I should think quite a few people would be glad to make a small contribution to apritzel's beer fund

[patrickhwood]

I am amazed how quickly apritzel got things up running! I have to find his email / paypal account and get him some beer. 
If you are serious about running linux on your Pine you should too!

Yeah, he works for ARM, so he's got a big head start on almost everyone.

[tllim]

I am amazed how quickly apritzel got things up running! I have to find his email / paypal account and get him some beer. 
If you are serious about running linux on your Pine you should too!

Yes, I am appreciating on the apritzel assistance.
... TL Lim

[lenny.raposo-pine64.pro]

yes a beer fund for apritzel should be made or at the very least funds should be raised for his major contributions to the cause.

[longsleep]

Apritzel has fixed the ATF to boot the CPU in EL2 - KVM works kind of (see http://paste.ubuntu.com/15174425/ for a bootlog of a guest) until the host BSP Kernel crashes with http://paste.ubuntu.com/15174460/ - so some work to be done here or wait for a suitable mainline Kernel.

---

Update:

Ok, @apritzel also remembered the fix - so i added it to my Kernel tree (https://github.com/longsleep/linux-pine6...a5c90a3bb9) and now KVM works. See http://paste.ubuntu.com/15174728/ for full guest boot log to shell.

Thats some progress i would say. KVM guest with Pine64 host - check!