vBIOS Why not provide a small 32-Bit environment with tools on the vmdk or vdisk

Eric S. Perkins

Driven professional with fresh, relevant concepts on enterprise computing.

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While we all focus on our applications, operating system, cpu speed, ram, virtualization etc... etc.. why have we not asked more out of our basic input-output system. I can remember working on my Dad’s 8088 (yeah it had the math co-processor) his work gave it to him, because they could not figure out why it kept losing its settings every night (this is way before the days of auto detecting the HD or pretty much anything). I was born in '76, if you where wondering.

With basically unlimited flash memory available compared to the 70’s, why is the BIOS left untouched? Why is it not handling more or all of the boot process or providing more tools. I know the Apple zealots will rave about OpenFirmware & EFI but I can’t figure out why? It seems like Microsoft powershell for BIOS with a limited command set! So I started reading about Coreboot and it got me thinking about the virtualization space.

Many of us in the virtualization space have played around with USB flash drive booting hypervisors etc, but why go through the USB sub-system? Has anyone played around with or seen Coreboot? There are a couple other opensource projects similar to Coreboot but the concepts behind them seem to be the right direction.

Here is a quote from the Coreboot wiki:
“A unique feature of Coreboot is that the x86 version runs in 32-bit mode after executing only ten instructions[9] (almost all other x86 BIOSes run exclusively in 16-bit mode).”

So without the constaints of a 2mb BIOS chip inside a VM it seems like it could hold some serious benefits in the virutalization space like quicker boot times, more advanced features, and the one I can think that would be the most helpful, a basic set of linux commands at the virtual bios for doing things like filesystem checks, easier repair of corrupt OS components if no snapshot is applicable, and other. Maybe not even basic maybe even advanced like getting a NIC driver and FTP?

I know VMware, Citrix and Microsoft have been working closely with Intel (and AMD, just maybe not as in your face) I would just think the BIOS as we know it would be an easy thing to address with a hypervisor and could provide some serious benefits. Maybe it’s just not something that matters? Maybe it is easier to change the boot order and boot up your favorite repair iso, maybe 3 seconds to a command prompt for a down server could be beneficial though.

Thoughts? Anyone got any good links for me? Check out Coreboot’s wiki and some of the other projects and think how cool this would be if we tied it into the VM’s vBIOS.

Check this out and think about as a VM: http://www.coreboot.org/Welcome_to_coreboot

Anyway just a thought and a lighthearted conversation for the weekend!

Eric S. Perkins
http://www.chimerically.com

Comments

Guest on Sunday, November 22, 2009 says

WOW! Your thought processes are light speed. Thanks for your insights and thought provoking discussion points. Coreboot - tied into the VM's vBIOS -- Definitely worth a discussion!

Guest on Sunday, November 22, 2009 says

Also see http://www.coreboot.org/AVATT -- Patrick Georgi

Eric S. Perkins on Sunday, November 22, 2009 says

Nice - now let's see it move into the enterprise with VMware, Xenserver and Hyper-V

I spent sometime talking to the Coreboot folks on IRC this morning and the though was mentioned that Microsoft would not allow/support a Linux based BIOS and I certainly am not advocating a specific system. All I am saying is that it just seems like we are not provided anything but a replicated, antiquated Phoenix BIOS!!

As I look into it the folks running the Coreboot project seem to be on the right track....

Eric S. Perkins on Monday, November 23, 2009 says

Interesting link was passed to me:

http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/it-infrastructure/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217400294

Just makes sense to improve it in the Virtual space.... also if compatability is a concern you could always implement it at the VMware hardware level so right now we are at version 7 right? we could have version 8 Coreboot?

Happy Monday!