Re: [PATCH 2/8] docs/specs: IPMI device emulation: main processor

[Corey Minyard]

On Thu, Sep 09, 2021 at 04:06:14PM -0700, Hao Wu wrote:
> From: Havard Skinnemoen <hskinnemoen@google.com>
> 
> This document is an attempt to briefly document the existing IPMI
> emulation support on the main processor. It provides the necessary
> background for the BMC-side IPMI emulation proposed by the next patch.

I'm good with this for the most part.  One nit inline below.

This block diagrams depend on the previous patch.

> 
> Signed-off-by: Havard Skinnemoen <hskinnemoen@google.com>
> Signed-off-by: Hao Wu <wuhaotsh@google.com>
> ---
>  docs/specs/index.rst |   1 +
>  docs/specs/ipmi.rst  | 100 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 101 insertions(+)
>  create mode 100644 docs/specs/ipmi.rst
> 
> diff --git a/docs/specs/index.rst b/docs/specs/index.rst
> index 65e9663916..1b5d177d53 100644
> --- a/docs/specs/index.rst
> +++ b/docs/specs/index.rst
> @@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ guest hardware that is specific to QEMU.
>     ppc-spapr-xive
>     ppc-spapr-numa
>     acpi_hw_reduced_hotplug
> +   ipmi
>     tpm
>     acpi_hest_ghes
>     acpi_cpu_hotplug
> diff --git a/docs/specs/ipmi.rst b/docs/specs/ipmi.rst
> new file mode 100644
> index 0000000000..adb098b53d
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/docs/specs/ipmi.rst
> @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
> +=====================
> +IPMI device emulation
> +=====================
> +
> +QEMU supports emulating many types of machines. This includes machines that 
> may
> +serve as the main processor in an IPMI system, e.g. x86 or POWER server
> +processors, as well as machines emulating ARM-based Baseband Management
> +Controllers (BMCs), e.g. AST2xxx or NPCM7xxx systems-on-chip.
> +
> +Main processor emulation
> +========================
> +
> +A server platform may include one of the following system interfaces for
> +communicating with a BMC:
> +
> +* A Keyboard Controller Style (KCS) Interface, accessible via ISA
> +  (``isa-ipmi-kcs``) or PCI (``pci-ipmi-kcs``).
> +* A Block Transfer (BT) Interface, accessible via ISA (``isa-ipmi-bt``) or 
> PCI
> +  (``pci-ipmi-bt``).
> +* An SMBus System Interface (SSIF; ``smbus-ipmi``).
> +
> +These interfaces can all be emulated by QEMU. To emulate the behavior of the
> +BMC, the messaging interface emulators use one of the following backends:
> +
> +* A BMC simulator running within the QEMU process (``ipmi-bmc-sim``).
> +* An external BMC simulator or emulator, connected over a chardev
> +  (``ipmi-bmc-extern``). `ipmi_sim
> +  
> <https://github.com/wrouesnel/openipmi/blob/master/lanserv/README.ipmi_sim>`_

Here, and in the other reference below, can you reference the official
repository instead of your own?

> +  from OpenIPMI is an example external BMC emulator.
> +
> +The following diagram shows how these entities relate to each other.
> +
> +.. blockdiag::
> +
> +    blockdiag main_processor_ipmi {
> +        orientation = portrait
> +        default_group_color = "none";
> +        class msgif [color = lightblue];
> +        class bmc [color = salmon];
> +
> +        ipmi_sim [color="aquamarine", label="External BMC"]
> +        ipmi-bmc-extern <-> ipmi_sim [label="chardev"];
> +
> +        group {
> +            orientation = portrait
> +
> +            ipmi-interface <-> ipmi-bmc;
> +
> +            group {
> +                orientation = portrait
> +
> +                ipmi-interface [class = "msgif"];
> +                isa-ipmi-kcs [class="msgif", stacked];
> +
> +                ipmi-interface <- isa-ipmi-kcs [hstyle = generalization];
> +            }
> +
> +
> +            group {
> +                orientation = portrait
> +
> +                ipmi-bmc [class = "bmc"];
> +                ipmi-bmc-sim [class="bmc"];
> +                ipmi-bmc-extern [class="bmc"];
> +
> +                ipmi-bmc <- ipmi-bmc-sim [hstyle = generalization];
> +                ipmi-bmc <- ipmi-bmc-extern [hstyle = generalization];
> +            }
> +
> +        }
> +    }
> +
> +IPMI System Interfaces
> +----------------------
> +
> +The system software running on the main processor may use a *system 
> interface*
> +to communicate with the BMC. These are hardware devices attached to an ISA, 
> PCI
> +or i2c bus, and in QEMU, they all need to implement ``ipmi-interface``.
> +This allows a BMC implementation to interact with the system interface in a
> +standard way.
> +
> +IPMI BMC
> +--------
> +
> +The system interface devices delegate emulation of BMC behavior to a BMC
> +device, that is a subclass of ``ipmi-bmc``. This type of device is called
> +a BMC because that's what it looks like to the main processor guest software.
> +
> +The BMC behavior may be simulated within the qemu process (``ipmi-bmc-sim``) 
> or
> +further delegated to an external emulator, or a real BMC. The
> +``ipmi-bmc-extern`` device has a required ``chardev`` property which 
> specifies
> +the communications channel to the external BMC.
> +
> +Wire protocol
> +=============
> +
> +The wire protocol used between ``ipmi-bmc-extern`` and the external BMC
> +emulator is defined by `README.vm
> +<https://github.com/wrouesnel/openipmi/blob/master/lanserv/README.vm>`_ from
> +the OpenIPMI project.
> -- 
> 2.33.0.309.g3052b89438-goog
>