RC2 broke my OVMF VM i built in 6.3RC1. Passed through NVME SSD was no longer available as a boot device in the OVMF boot manager. I assume it had something to do with the firmware revert to the 6.2.1 version.

 

To fix ive rolled back to RC1 and im able to boot fine again.

 

Worth bearing in mind for anyone who's built OVMF VMs on 6.3RC1 before the upgrade to RC2. I suspect VMs built in 6.2 or 6.2.1 wouldn't be effected.

Ok, so I'm guessing in 6.3-rc1, you created a new OVMF virtual machine where you passed through the PCIe NVMe device as a PCI device (not block device assignment, but full PCI pass through).  This previously did NOT work in 6.2 and earlier releases, correct?  Then with the new OVMF firmware we included in 6.3-rc1, it did work.  Then in 6.3-rc2 it no longer works.  Is that accurate?

Yep.

I wasn't aware it didn't work in 6.2.1.... (My nvme coincided with upgrading to 6.3 RC1)

Although I'm sure other people are booting from nvme pcie devices pre 6.2.1....

Although I'm sure other people are booting from nvme pcie devices pre 6.2.1....

 

Maybe but I don't think it was possible pre-6.2.1.  Given that we were using the older OVMF firmware in previous releases, not sure how this would have worked.

Just to drop a bit of information in this I boot from nvme for my vms however I do this by using my nvme drive as a cache drive and having a vm image on it.

 

So yes vms booting from an nvme does work prior to 6.2.1 but not by directly pass through to my knowledge

 

I've been using nvme as my vm storage location since Christmas 2015 and dont notice the fact I have 3 windows installs running off it at the same time

 

Jamie

if you do want to boot from a passed through nvme device, you can download ovmf firmware from here https://www.kraxel.org/repos/jenkins/edk2/, stick it on your cache drive and reference it in your XML rather than using the default values:

 

<os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-q35-2.7'>hvm</type>
    <loader readonly='yes' type='pflash'>/mnt/user/VMData/Windows10VM/OVMF-pure-efi.fd</loader>
    <nvram>/mnt/user/VMData/Windows10VM/OVMF_VARS-pure-efi.fd</nvram>
    <boot dev='hd'/>
  </os>

 

I've been able to boot from my passed through nvme drive fine on RC3 for a while now. bear in mind it'll change these values if you modify anything in the GUI for the VM.

 

if you do want to boot from a passed through nvme device, you can download ovmf firmware from here https://www.kraxel.org/repos/jenkins/edk2/, stick it on your cache drive and reference it in your XML rather than using the default values:

 

<os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-q35-2.7'>hvm</type>
    <loader readonly='yes' type='pflash'>/mnt/user/VMData/Windows10VM/OVMF-pure-efi.fd</loader>
    <nvram>/mnt/user/VMData/Windows10VM/OVMF_VARS-pure-efi.fd</nvram>
    <boot dev='hd'/>
  </os>

 

I've been able to boot from my passed through nvme drive fine on RC3 for a while now. bear in mind it'll change these values if you modify anything in the GUI for the VM.

 

Mark, which firmware did you download and use? I am having trouble with RC6 and booting my nvme drive. I downloaded the CODE and VARS firmware but OVMF BIOS is taking much longer to display (about 20 seconds in total).

Im not sure what version it was im using, it'll have been around the date of my previous post with the link though (sorry!)

 

although this is how i got the files:

 

• downloaded the edk2.git-ovmf-x64-0-2016xxxx.b2360.g15dae68.noarch.rpm file
  
• open with 7zip and drill down until you get to the edk2.git\ovmf-x64\ folder and pull out the OVMF-pure-efi.fd and OVMF_VARS-pure-efi.fd files and put them on an accessible share somewhere (be sure to do both)
  
• reference the new files in XML
  

 

are the files on a cache only share? the delay in boot up could be due to the files being on a HDD backed share, so it having to spin up a disk to access?

<os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-q35-2.7'>hvm</type>
    <loader readonly='yes' type='pflash'>/mnt/user/VMData/Windows10VM/OVMF-pure-efi.fd</loader>
    <nvram>/mnt/user/VMData/Windows10VM/OVMF_VARS-pure-efi.fd</nvram>
    <boot dev='hd'/>
  </os>