Re: [PATCH] linux-user: use 'max' instead of 'qemu32' / 'qemu64' by defualt

[Claudio Fontana]

On 8/26/22 13:39, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> The 'qemu64' CPU model implements the least featureful x86_64 CPU that's
> possible. Historically this hasn't been an issue since it was rare for
> OS distros to build with a higher mandatory CPU baseline.
> 
> With RHEL-9, however, the entire distro is built for the x86_64-v2 ABI
> baseline:
> 
>   
> https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2021/01/05/building-red-hat-enterprise-linux-9-for-the-x86-64-v2-microarchitecture-level
> 
> It is likely that other distros may take similar steps in the not too
> distant future. For example, it has been suggested for Fedora on a
> number of occassions.
> 
> This new baseline is not compatible with the qemu64 CPU model though.
> While it is possible to pass a '-cpu xxx' flag to qemu-x86_64, the
> usage of QEMU doesn't always allow for this. For example, the args
> are typically controlled via binfmt rules that the user has no ability
> to change. This impacts users who are trying to use podman on aarch64
> platforms, to run containers with x86_64 content. There's no arg to
> podman that can be used to change the qemu-x86_64 args, and a non-root
> user of podman can not change binfmt rules without elevating privileges:
> 
>   https://github.com/containers/podman/issues/15456#issuecomment-1228210973
> 
> Changing to the 'max' CPU model gives 'qemu-x86_64' maximum
> compatibility with binaries it is likely to encounter in the wild,
> and not likely to have a significant downside for existing usage.

How do we know for sure? Do we have a base of binaries to test across qemu 
versions?

> 
> Most other architectures already use an 'any' CPU model, which is
> often mapped to 'max' (or similar) already, rather than the oldest
> possible CPU model.
> 
> For the sake of consistency the 'i386' architecture is also changed
> from using 'qemu32' to 'max'.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
> ---
>  linux-user/i386/target_elf.h   | 2 +-
>  linux-user/x86_64/target_elf.h | 2 +-
>  2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/linux-user/i386/target_elf.h b/linux-user/i386/target_elf.h
> index 1c6142e7da..238a9aba73 100644
> --- a/linux-user/i386/target_elf.h
> +++ b/linux-user/i386/target_elf.h
> @@ -9,6 +9,6 @@
>  #define I386_TARGET_ELF_H
>  static inline const char *cpu_get_model(uint32_t eflags)
>  {
> -    return "qemu32";
> +    return "max";
>  }
>  #endif
> diff --git a/linux-user/x86_64/target_elf.h b/linux-user/x86_64/target_elf.h
> index 7b76a90de8..3f628f8d66 100644
> --- a/linux-user/x86_64/target_elf.h
> +++ b/linux-user/x86_64/target_elf.h
> @@ -9,6 +9,6 @@
>  #define X86_64_TARGET_ELF_H
>  static inline const char *cpu_get_model(uint32_t eflags)
>  {
> -    return "qemu64";
> +    return "max";
>  }
>  #endif

Just seems an abrupt change to me if we don't have a mechanism in place to 
ensure we don't break existing workloads.

C