From: sig-hypervisors@... <sig-hypervisors@...> On Behalf Of Anup Patel via
lists.riscv.org
Sent: Friday, June 3, 2022 5:01

We have legacy SBI v0.1 calls where most of them are replaced by
newer SBI v0.2 (or higher) calls. Only the SBI v0.1 putchar() does not
have a replacement. This putchar() was being used in various cases
for early prints from OSes and bootloaders.

The SBI debug console extension is an attempt to replace the legacy
SBI v0.1 putchar(). The use of shared memory in this proposal is
motivated by the need to allow users to print multiple characters in
one SBI call.

As I pointed out in an earlier message, the design using a shared memory block
is a hindrance. Instead, each call should provide a pointer to the (virtual)
address of the character buffer.

The legacy SBI v0.1 also had a getchar() call which is deprecated and
does not need any newer SBI call replacing it because it is expected
all platforms (including virtual platforms emulated by hypervisors) will
have a proper interrupt driver console for supervisor software. The
proposed SBI debug console extension only tries to provide a solution
for early prints.

Consider the case where we have more VMs than physical UARTs -- this
will actually be the norm in most deployments.

(To counter the argument that the hypervisor can provide virtual UARTs
for its guests, note that a dedicated para-virtualized interface is much more
efficient than trapping individual memory accesses to simulated HW registers).

By making the interface a bit richer, as discussed in my earlier proposal,
a hypervisor can cover a much larger set of use cases.


--
Konrad