The current firmware descriptor schema for flash requires that both the
executable to NVRAM template paths be provided. This is fine for the
most common usage of EDK2 builds in virtualization where the separate
_CODE and _VARS files are provided.
With confidential computing technology like AMD SEV, persistent storage
of variables may be completely disabled because the firmware requires a
known clean state on every cold boot. There is no way to express this
in the firmware descriptor today.
Even with regular EDK2 builds it is possible to create a firmware that
has both executable code and variable persistence in a single file. This
hasn't been commonly used, since it would mean every guest bootup would
need to clone the full firmware file, leading to redundant duplicate
storage of the code portion. In some scenarios this may not matter and
might even be beneficial. For example if a public cloud allows users to
bring their own firmware, such that the user can pre-enroll their own
secure boot keys, you're going to have this copied on disk for each
tenant already. At this point the it can be simpler to just deal with
a single file rather than split builds. The firmware descriptor ought
to be able to express this combined firmware model too.
This all points towards expanding the schema for flash with a 'mode'
concept:
- "split" - the current implicit behaviour with separate files
for code and variables.
- "combined" - the alternate behaviour where a single file contains
both code and variables.
- "stateless" - the confidential computing use case where storage
of variables is completely disable, leaving only the code.
Reviewed-by: Kashyap Chamarthy <kchamart@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <f4bug@amsat.org>
Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
2720ceda05