The document discusses how to enable ACRN on a new hardware board by preparing configurations. It describes obtaining a board configuration file that stores hardware-specific information by running a parser tool on the target board. Scenario and launch configuration files can then be generated and modified using a web-based configuration app to define VM attributes, resources, and capabilities. The configured files are used when building the ACRN hypervisor, which is then deployed along with kernel and device model binaries to the target board to enable the new ACRN scenario. Serial port enabling is also noted as important for debugging.

1. ACRN Hypervisor
New platform enabling
ACRN vMeet-Up Europe 2021
Contributor: Victor Sun Nanlin Xie

2. Agenda
1: Understand Configurations
2: ACRN config tool preliminary
3: Let’s start!

3. Q: How to enable ACRN on a new hardware board?
A: Just prepare configurations for your new board!

4. Understand Configurations
▪ Board configurations
The board configuration is scenario-neutral by nature. Thus, multiple
scenario configurations can be based on the same board
configuration.
▪ Scenario configurations
The scenario configuration defines a working scenario by configuring
hypervisor capabilities and defining VM attributes and resources.
▪ Launch Configuration
The launch configuration defines the attributes and resources of a
post-launched VM.

5. ▪ Board configurations
The board configuration stores hardware-specific information extracted on the
target platform:
❖ scenario-irrelevant: host ACPI/BDF info/…
❖ scenario-relevant: ve820/sos_console/sos_rootdev/kernel cmdline
▪ Scenario configurations
The scenario configuration defines a working scenario by configuring hypervisor
capabilities and defining VM attributes and resources.
✓Hypervisor capabilities
❖ Availability and settings of hypervisor features
❖ Hardware management capacity of the hypervisor
❖ Memory consumption of the hypervisor
✓VM capabilities
❖ VM attributes, such as VM names
❖ Maximum number of VMs supported
❖ Resources allocated to each VM
❖ Guest OS settings
❖ Settings of virtual devices
▪ Launch configurations
The launch configuration defines the attributes and resources of a post-
launched VM.
Classify ACRN Configurations

6. IMPORTANT hint:
ACRN config tool architecture is under refinement. The build command and configure
source file structure is a bit different between release 2.4 and master branch.
BUT:
Whatever changes on config tool architecture, the working method is same, so let’s
start from ACRN release 2.4.

7. ACRN config tool source code (release 2.4)
acrn-hypervisor/misc/config_tools/

8. Diagram of config tool Working Flow

9. ACRN Configuration App: a web user interface application based on Flask
▪ Imports board info for current reference
▪ Imports saved scenario/launch XML files for re-configuration
▪ Exports current configuration items and save to XML file
* source: acrn-hypervisor/misc/config_tools/config_app/
* the app needs network to download some js/css
Use the ACRN Configuration App

10. ACRN config XMLs
acrn-hypervisor/misc/config_tools/data/tgl-rvp/

11. We use different root element to identify XML type:
▪Board XML:
❖ <acrn-config board="BOARD">
▪ Scenario XML:
❖ <acrn-config board="BOARD" scenario="SCENARIO">
▪ Launch XML:
❖ <acrn-config board="BOARD" scenario="SCENARIO" uos_launcher="UOS_NUMBER">
ACRN configuration XMLs format

12. Glimpse of scenario XML
acrn-hypervisor/misc/config-tools/data/tgl-rvp/industry.xml

13. Let’s start!

14. ▪Setup native Linux environment on target
✓ VM-x/VT-d were enabled and security boot is disabled in BIOS
✓ Ubuntu 18.04
✓ Required tools: python3, cpuid, rdmsr, lspci, dmidecode
✓ Add cmdline of “idle=nomwait intel_pstate=disable intel_idle.max_cstate=0”
▪ Copy folder of “acrn-hypervisor/misc/config_tools/target”to target
▪ Run “sudo python3 board_parser.py $(BOARD_NAME)” to get your
board.xml
✓ sudo python3 /home/acrn/work/acrn-
hypervisor/misc/config_tools/target/board_parser.py tgl-nuc
✓ ls /home/acrn/work/acrn-hypervisor/misc/config_tools/target/out/
tgl-nuc.xml
▪ Board.xml includes physical platform info like ACPI/memory/cpuinfo
for acrn-config tool reference
1. Get target board info

15. Install its requirements (one time setup):
$ cd ~/acrn-hypervisor/misc/config_tools/config_app
$ sudo pip3 install -r requirements
Launch app:
$ python3 app.py
Open a browser and navigate to the website http://127.0.0.1:5001/
automatically, or you may need to visit this website manually.
Note:
app.py needs to be run locally with desktop machine for WEBUI.
2. Launch config app (HOST machine)

16. 3. Import Board info
1
2

17. 4. select your scenario
3
4
5
hybrid
hybrid_rt
logical_partition
industry

18. 5. Configure your scenario
6
7

19. 6. Configure your scenario – continued
ACRN:> vcpu_list
VM ID PCPU ID VCPU ID VCPU ROLE VCPU STATE THREAD STATE
0 0 0 PRIMARY Running BLOCKED
0 1 1 SECONDARY Init BLOCKED
0 2 2 SECONDARY Init BLOCKED
0 3 3 SECONDARY Init BLOCKED
error: couldn't find
suitable memory
target.
error: you need to
load the kernel first.
Press any key to
continue...

20. 7.(optional) Generate launch script
8
9

21. $ make all BOARD=/path/xxx.xml
SCENARIO=/path/yyy.xml
8. Make hypervisor

22. Deploy ACRN on your target board
✓Copy ACRN Hypervisor binary and devicemodel to target:
acrn.bin acrn-dm
✓Copy Service VM kernel image and module to target
✓Install or update IASL version
✓Copy launch script and OVMF.fd to Service VM if you want to launch post_launched VMs later.
Note:
Please refer GSG for detail if you aren’t familiar with ACRN deployment.
9. Let’s rock!

23. NOTES
▪ ACRN config tool refinement is still ongoing
▪ Hypervisor serial port is important for debug
✓ Please refer Enable serial port on NUC to enable serial for
ACRN hypervisor
✓ Additional patch is needed for PCIe serial port enabling if the
code base isn’t newer than v2.4
▪ Please refer ACRN Configuration Tool —
Project ACRN™ 2.4 documentation for more
details

24. Summary
▪ How to enable new platform for ACRN
✓ BOARD.xml
✓ SCENARIO.xml
✓ LAUNCH.xml
▪ ACRN hypervisor serial port enabling
✓ Option 1: internal serial header
✓ Option 2: PCIe serial port

25. Q&A