The HHBSP

The HHBSP is also a convenient vehicle for distributing hypervisor-specific reference source code (e.g., for shmem-host and, in future, for vdevs).

The HHBSP and board-specific BSPs

The Hypervisor Host BSP (HHBSP) is architecture- and board-agnostic; it works on any supported board. In order to be board-agnostic, the HHBSP doesn't include board-specific components. For convenience, however, it does include buildfiles for each of the boards for which QNX provides a reference image (Intel Broadwell NUC 5i5, Intel Gordon Ridge MRB, and Renesas R-Car H3).

Thus, after you have your HHBSP on your development host, you must download the board-specific BSP for your target board (e.g., the BSP for the Renesas R-Car H3) and place it in a convenient location. The default location is inside the HHBSP, in the images/host_bsp/ directory, but you can use another location as long as you set up your build environment accordingly (see “Configuring the hypervisor build” in this chapter).

The descriptions below assume that you are using the HHBSP and the default locations for the board-specific BSP for the host, and for the architecture-specific BSPs for the QNX guests.

Note: You can build a QNX Hypervisor system outside the HHBSP framework (see “Using your own board-specific BSP for the host” in this chapter).

Contents of an HHBSP

When the host and guest BSPs have been downloaded and placed in the directories placed in the directories specified by the *_BSP_LOCATION variables, the HHBSP brings together into a single BSP directory structure the board-specific BSP for the hypervisor host itself, the BSPs for the guests, and the build and configuration files required to build the hosts and the guests.

The HHBSP provides:

a directory structure where you can place the host BSP and the guest BPSs so that you can use a single make command to build the host, bring in the prebuilt guests files, and, if required, build the board-specific BSPs
the source code files and the prebuilt binary for shmem-host, the host portion of the shmem-* demo application (download the guest portion (shmem-guest) separately in the guest BSP from the QNX Software Center)
in the images/ directory, scripts, buildfiles, make files, etc. that allow you to build a hypervisor host (following the model of the reference images), provided an appropriate board BSP is installed in the HHBSP's images/host_bsp/ directory (or another location referenced by the BOARD_SPECIFIC_BSP_LOCATION variable)
a configuration file: configure.mk, where you must specify your target board, and where you may modify the locations of your host board-specific and guest OS architecture-specific BSPs (see “Configuring the hypervisor build” in this chapter). You only need to modify these if you are putting the BSPs in locations other than the default locations in the HHBSP
configuration files, in the disk_config/ directory, which you can use to configure the disk image you will transfer to your target board
a generated/ directory, where the build process puts files it generates, including the final buildfiles it used to create the IFSs, so you can review them if you need to troubleshoot the build

Structure of an HHBSP

The figure below shows the HHBSP directory structure after the host BSP and the guest BSPs have been added to the default locations. Not all directories and files are shown; the diagram shows only the directories and files most relevant to building a hypervisor system.

Figure 1. Partial view of the HHBSP directory structure.

When you have an HHBSP in your working directory, you will have there a typical QNX BSP directory structure, which will include the following:

HHBSP root directory: This directory has the standard BSP directories: images, install, prebuild and src; a Makefile; a source.xml file identifying the package (for the QNX Software Center); and a readme file (readme.txt) with information to identify the BSP.

Note:

The HHBSP is a framework. If you are using the default directories, you must place the board-specific BSP in the host_bsp/ directory, and the BSPs for any guest you will use in the appropriate guest_bsps/guest/ directories.

If you are using the default directories, you only need to specify the board type. If you are placing your host and guest BSPs elsewhere than the default location, you must configure variables to point to them (either your environment variables through the command line or the make variables by editing the configure.mk configuration file; see “Specify the component locations” in this chapter).

Assuming that you are using the default locations, the images/ directory includes:

disk_config: A directory with the diskimage*.cfg and the *.partition.build.template files, which you can use to adjust the partition sizes in your disk image, and the contents of the filesystem in the image, for example, to speed up the boot time.
generated: Initially empty, this directory is a repository for files (e.g., the final buildfiles: hypervisor_FINAL_*.build), generated by the build.; You can examine the files in these directories to learn more about how your build was made. Do not modify the files in this directory; they will be overwritten by the next build.
guest_bsps: A directory with a subdirectory for each guest BSP: qnx700/, qnx660/, linux/.; Set up the appropriate environment in each guest-specific directory and build the guest in that directory (see “Building the guests” in this chapter).; The guest BSPs provided for the QNX Hypervisor include a guest IFS or image in the guest_bspsguestOS/images/ directory.
host_bsp: The host BSP directory. Extract the board-specific BSP for your hypervisor host into this directory. This BSP is the standard QNX SDP 7.0 BSP used for the board.
hypervisor-*.build files: The hypervisor-common.build file has build instructions common to all architectures and boards.; The hypervisor-generic-arch.build files (where arch is either arm or x86) have architecture-specific build instructions.; The hypervisor-board.build files (where board is a board) have board-specific build instructions (see “How the build uses the buildfiles” in this chapter).
scripts: A directory with the HV_mod_Build_file*.sed scripts that modify buildfiles in the board-specific BSP directory to produce final, board-specific buildfiles for each each IFS that will be built (see “How the build uses the buildfiles” in this chapter).; These final buildfiles will be placed in the generated/ directory.

Note:

Remember:

The directories inside the host_bsp/ and guest_bsps/guestOS directories (install and images) are added in only after you bring in the relevant BSPs.
If you make changes to the board BSP buildfiles for your hypervisor host, make the changes in images/host_bsp/images/. Don't make the changes to the generated buildfiles in the generated/ directory, as these will be overwritten when you run your build.

For more information about the structure of QNX BSPs, see Building Embedded Systems in the QNX SDP 7.0 documentation.

Location of the IFSs after a build

When you run make to build your hypervisor system, the build will place the following in the images/ directory:

a bootable disk image called hypervisor.diskimage with IFSs for the hypervisor host in the bootable partition
a data partition with IFSs for the guests, as well as miscellaneous system files not needed at boot time; you can move files from the bootable partition to this partition to speed up the boot time

For more information, see “Building in the HHBSP” in this chapter.