What: /sys/firmware/qemu_fw_cfg/ Date: August 2015 Contact: Gabriel Somlo <somlo@cmu.edu> Description: Several different architectures supported by QEMU (x86, arm, sun4*, ppc/mac) are provisioned with a firmware configuration (fw_cfg) device, originally intended as a way for the host to provide configuration data to the guest firmware. Starting with QEMU v2.4, arbitrary fw_cfg file entries may be specified by the user on the command line, which makes fw_cfg additionally useful as an out-of-band, asynchronous mechanism for providing configuration data to the guest userspace. The authoritative guest-side hardware interface documentation to the fw_cfg device can be found in "docs/specs/fw_cfg.txt" in the QEMU source tree. **SysFS fw_cfg Interface** The fw_cfg sysfs interface described in this document is only intended to display discoverable blobs (i.e., those registered with the file directory), as there is no way to determine the presence or size of "legacy" blobs (with selector keys between 0x0002 and 0x0018) programmatically. All fw_cfg information is shown under: /sys/firmware/qemu_fw_cfg/ The only legacy blob displayed is the fw_cfg device revision: /sys/firmware/qemu_fw_cfg/rev **Discoverable fw_cfg blobs by selector key** All discoverable blobs listed in the fw_cfg file directory are displayed as entries named after their unique selector key value, e.g.: /sys/firmware/qemu_fw_cfg/by_key/32 /sys/firmware/qemu_fw_cfg/by_key/33 /sys/firmware/qemu_fw_cfg/by_key/34 ... Each such fw_cfg sysfs entry has the following values exported as attributes: ==== ==================================================== name The 56-byte nul-terminated ASCII string used as the blob's 'file name' in the fw_cfg directory. size The length of the blob, as given in the fw_cfg directory. key The value of the blob's selector key as given in the fw_cfg directory. This value is the same as used in the parent directory name. raw The raw bytes of the blob, obtained by selecting the entry via the control register, and reading a number of bytes equal to the blob size from the data register. ==== ==================================================== **Listing fw_cfg blobs by file name** While the fw_cfg device does not impose any specific naming convention on the blobs registered in the file directory, QEMU developers have traditionally used path name semantics to give each blob a descriptive name. For example:: "bootorder" "genroms/kvmvapic.bin" "etc/e820" "etc/boot-fail-wait" "etc/system-states" "etc/table-loader" "etc/acpi/rsdp" "etc/acpi/tables" "etc/smbios/smbios-tables" "etc/smbios/smbios-anchor" ... In addition to the listing by unique selector key described above, the fw_cfg sysfs driver also attempts to build a tree of directories matching the path name components of fw_cfg blob names, ending in symlinks to the by_key entry for each "basename", as illustrated below (assume current directory is /sys/firmware):: qemu_fw_cfg/by_name/bootorder -> ../by_key/38 qemu_fw_cfg/by_name/etc/e820 -> ../../by_key/35 qemu_fw_cfg/by_name/etc/acpi/rsdp -> ../../../by_key/41 ... Construction of the directory tree and symlinks is done on a "best-effort" basis, as there is no guarantee that components of fw_cfg blob names are always "well behaved". I.e., there is the possibility that a symlink (basename) will conflict with a dirname component of another fw_cfg blob, in which case the creation of the offending /sys/firmware/qemu_fw_cfg/by_name entry will be skipped. The authoritative list of entries will continue to be found under the /sys/firmware/qemu_fw_cfg/by_key directory.