BIOS Startup and linking

[bensam56]

Hello all, I'm Benjamin..now, I'm developing a Virtual project which is same concept as VMware workstation. I searched everywhere regarding this query and I hope someone here will help me. Ok coming to the point, In VMware workstation its creating a nvram file which is BIOS settings. When we power on virtual machine how vmware is passing info or execute BIOS things? I mean suppose if we switch on a PC its checking BIOS and clearing it. But in virtually how we can create a temp BIOS for virtual machine and how we can add the selected hardware information to that?....I want to know

• How to create a temp BIOS for virtual machine after getting H/w information needed for starting OS as in vmware?

• How to execute BIOS after starting virtual machine? How the vmware process goes?

Someone please tell me about this....Thank you

[wila]

Hello Benjamin,

Welcome at the VMware communities forum.

I'm not sure I read that correctly, you want to develop a competing product to VMware Workstation and you come here for help??

My guess would be that a product like VirtualBox would make more sense to study then as it has the source available for some parts, but maybe I'm just not understanding what you want to develop. Building a hypervisor is not a "one man project" really, it's a bit like saying that you are going to build a 30 story apartment all by yourself....

Anyways... the .nvram file is not the BIOS, it has BIOS settings and is read by the hypervisor on start of your VM.

If you want to create your own BIOS and have your VM boot from that, then that's possible, but you'll have to tell it in the .vmx file to load an alternative BIOS file.

Something along the lines of:

bios440.filename = "/opt/var/Virtual Machines/test/Mybios.bin"

Good luck, i think that writing your own BIOS will be enough work to keep you busy for a while already

--
Wil
_____________________________________________________
VI-Toolkit & scripts wiki at http://www.vi-toolkit.com

Contributing author at blog www.planetvm.net

Twitter: @wilva

[bensam56]

hi...Thank you for your reply....But I saw phoenix BIOS splash in screen once starting VMware....this is where I'm getting stuck. Listen, I know its a big task to do but I'm not a single man working on this. I'm working for this BIOS part. In this project I have to do as vmware is launching after selecting a OS to run. I want to know, once we power on the VM, how this flash the BIOS and entering the further steps. If you give me some information on this it will be helpful like from Power on app ->BIOS->loading OS....This is not a virtual project but similarly like that. Thank you for your help.

[wila]

?:| I don't think I understand your question or what you are trying to do.

The virtual BIOS is just executed like it would be on a physical host. In fact you could get yourself a BX440 compatible BIOS and attach it to the virtual machine configuration file in the method described. It will most likely run. Will it work perfectly? Hmm... probably not, but it might be OK.

There's open source BIOS projects on the web you could run a few tests with.

The part where the hypervisor reads the .nvram file for the settings is done at hypervisor level, its not something you can control.

If you want to control that, then you'll have to write a hypervisor. Discussing how-to write a hypervisor is way beyond the scope of the user communities forum.

--

Wil

_____________________________________________________

VI-Toolkit & scripts wiki at

Contributing author at blog www.planetvm.net

Twitter: @wilva

[bensam56]

Thank you for your reply....I think you really didn't got my query. Anyhow no problem, my project don't need hypervisor interface b/w hardware and OS. What we are doing will be completely different from vmware. Anyhow your information helped me in someway. Thank you