GNU bug report logs -
#36117
qemu-binfmt with non-native chroot
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Your message dated Mon, 15 Mar 2021 18:07:27 -0400
with message-id <87eeggrrz4.fsf_-_ <at> gmail.com>
and subject line Re: bug#36117: qemu-binfmt with non-native chroot
has caused the debbugs.gnu.org bug report #36117,
regarding qemu-binfmt with non-native chroot
to be marked as done.
(If you believe you have received this mail in error, please contact
help-debbugs <at> gnu.org.)
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36117: http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=36117
GNU Bug Tracking System
Contact help-debbugs <at> gnu.org with problems
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I've been trying to use qemu-binfmt-service-type to build a non-native
chroot of a Debian system on Guix... because, well... because!
In Debian, this works with the qemu-user-static package, where the
binfmt sets these flags:
$ cat /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/qemu-aarch64
enabled
interpreter /usr/bin/qemu-aarch64-static
flags: OCF
offset 0
magic 7f454c460201010000000000000000000200b700
mask ffffffffffffff00fffffffffffffffffeffffff
In particular, the F flag allows the host system binaries to be used as
the interpreter inside the chroot. But apparently, this only works with
static-built qemu targets, according to the linux's
Documentation/admin-guide/binfmt-misc.rst.
On Guix there are no flags set, and the binary used is a dynamically
linked executable:
$ cat /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/qemu-aarch64
enabled
interpreter
/gnu/store/sw2rrqmjij73wcy3ajd47ypvmzh12yz6-qemu-3.1.0/bin/qemu-aarch64
flags:
offset 0
magic 7f454c460201010000000000000000000200b700
mask ffffffffffffff00fffffffffffffffffeffffff
So there are (at least) two things needed to make this work on Guix:
* A way to set the flags on qemu-binfmt-service-type.
* A static build of qemu-user targets
* A way to set which qemu to use for qemu-binfmt-service-type.
The *three* things are...
With this working correctly foreign-architecture chroots would become
trivial:
# on an amd64 host:
$ debootstrap --arch=arm64 buster buster-chroot http://deb.debian.org/debian
...
$ chroot buster-chroot /bin/bash
Enabling qemu-binfmt-service-type to operate in this way would obviate
the need for the "guix-support?" qemu-binfmt-configuration option, as
you could simply assemble the build environment without having to
include all of qemu's dependencies in the container.
It's a pretty magical feature.
live well,
vagrant
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Hi,
Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com> writes:
> Hello again,
>
> Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org> writes:
>
> [...]
>
>>> ;; Platforms that QEMU can emulate.
>>> -(define-record-type <qemu-platform>
>>> - (qemu-platform name family magic mask)
>>> +(define-record-type* <qemu-platform>
>>
>> Since this is for internal consumption, I’m in favor of keeping plain
>> ‘define-record-type’. Also, I don’t think the “F” flag belongs here,
>> it’s mostly orthogonal.
>
> Even though it's still internal for now, the intent here was to allow
> the advanced users (those who would use (@@ ...) to access what they
> need) to configure the qemu-platform objects should they have special
> needs for it.
>
> I also don't think the flags belong to a qemu-platform object, but the
> same can be said for the magic field. The most elegant thing would be
> to have a binfmt_misc service which we would then extend for QEMU, but
> that's more work and the use cases appear to be rare outside of QEMU (I
> can only think of WINE). If you feel strongly about it I can revert
> those hunks and hard-coded the F flag.
>
>>> (define qemu-binfmt-service-type
>>> ;; TODO: Make a separate binfmt_misc service out of this?
>>> (service-type (name 'qemu-binfmt)
>>> @@ -800,9 +833,7 @@ given QEMU package."
>>> (const
>>> (list %binary-format-file-system)))
>>> (service-extension shepherd-root-service-type
>>> - qemu-binfmt-shepherd-services)
>>> - (service-extension guix-service-type
>>> - qemu-binfmt-guix-chroot)))
>>> + qemu-binfmt-shepherd-services)))
>>
>> As discussed on IRC, the downside of this approach is increased disk and
>> memory footprint (those big binaries have to be loaded in memory).
>
> The 'big' binaries are not that bigger than what we already have. For a
> typical one:
>
> $ du -h {/gnu/store/7w04gv6m92n40dainn4s6xr3l20r90xw-qemu-5.1.0,\
> /gnu/store/wqh2dyskzkl4vjn6harclyl317h4vfaf-qemu-5.1.0-static}/bin/qemu-arm
>
> 4.6M /gnu/store/7w04gv6m92n40dainn4s6xr3l20r90xw-qemu-5.1.0/bin/qemu-arm
> 6.4M /gnu/store/wqh2dyskzkl4vjn6harclyl317h4vfaf-qemu-5.1.0-static/bin/qemu-arm
>
> Only the registered QEMU architectures would be preloaded; so if you
> enable 5, the increase it at worst ~ 30 MiB. Nothing too worrying on
> machines that should be quite capable for transparent emulation
> purposes, in my opinion.
>
>> One possibility would be to add an option to choose between this and the
>> current approach, but maybe it’s not worth the maintenance trouble.
>
> I would rather K.I.S.S., with this only case that works everywhere and
> thus doesn't surprise anyone.
>
>> Thanks for fixing this issue!
>
> Thanks for the review!
>
> Maxim
I went ahead and pushed this change to master alongside the update to
QEMU 5.2.0.
If there are improvements/changes to be made, we can pick it up from
there!
Closing,
Maxim
This bug report was last modified 4 years and 72 days ago.
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