The HHBSP framework

This framework provides buildfiles and scripts that demonstrate one way of configuring the QNX hypervisor, and allows you to quickly build a bootable image that you can run on target boards for evaluating the product. However, the resulting image has a limited set of demo-like functionality that might not be useful in a production system, and might not work on all of your intended target platforms. For example, the image doesn't work on x86 systems booting with the legacy BIOS instead of UEFI; the latter mode is the only one supported by the HHBSP.

When you're ready to go ahead with product development, you should no longer use the HHBSP framework but instead adapt an existing BSP to support your hypervisor system, as explained in “Build a hypervisor based on a BSP”.

Download the HHBSP

The HHBSP board-agnostic framework (or BSP wrapper) is available from the QNX Software Center. If you want to use the HHBSP framework to build a QNX hypervisor system:

1. Download the appropriate HHBSP from the QNX Software Center. HHBSP archives are named according to the following pattern:

   BSP_hypervisor-host_br-710_be-710_SVNrev_JBNbuild

   where rev is the revision number, and build is the build number.

   HHSBP archives for the QHS follow the same pattern, but include “safety” in the name; for example:

   BSP_hypervisor-host-safety_br-710_be-710_SVNrev_JBNbuild

2. Unpack your HHBSP archive to your workspace; for example, ~/qnx710/bsp/.

For up-to-date information about HHBSPs, see the Release Notes for your QNX hypervisor package.

The HHBSP and board-specific BSPs

The Hypervisor Host BSP (HHBSP) is architecture- and board-agnostic; it works on any supported board. The only board-specific components the HHBSP includes are some buildfiles.

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 build” in this chapter).

The descriptions below assume 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.

Contents of an HHBSP

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.

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 of images, install, prebuilt, and src. It also has 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.

Figure 1. Partial view of the HHBSP directory structure.

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_data

An empty directory where you can create subdirectories for each guest BSP (e.g., qnx710/, linux/).

Set up the appropriate environment in each guest-specific directory and build the guest in that directory (see “Building guests” in this chapter).

When you build your hypervisor system in the HHBSP, the build will include the contents of this directory at /guests/ in the disk image's QNX6 filesystem.

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 7.1 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.xml-arch.build files (where arch is either arm or x86) have architecture-specific build instructions common to all boards of the specified architecture; these are used when building a hypervisor system for a board not officially supported.

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.

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

Location of the IFSs after a build

When you run make to build your hypervisor system, the build places 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 (e.g., buildfiles) out of the IFS to this partition to speed up the boot time

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