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QNX® Hypervisor 1.0: Release and Installation Notes

Date of this edition: Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Target platform: The QNX Hypervisor Release 1.0 requires an ARMv7 processor with a Cortex A-15 core, which includes NEON SIMD and hardware virtualization support, and the ARMv7 virtualization extensions for hypervisor operation paired with a V2 Generic Interrupt Controller (GIC). This release has been implemented and tested for the following board:

  • Texas Instruments DRA7xx (Jacinto 6) EVM, RevG2

Host OS: You can work with the QNX Hypervisor from any of the following host systems:

  • Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 32- or 64-bit; Windows 8 Professional 64-bit
  • Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 32- or 64-bit; Linux Ubuntu Workstation 14.04 LTS 64-bit

You will also need the appropriate environments to modify and build the guest OSs you plan to run in the hypervisor's virtual machines (VMs). For more information, see the chapter "Getting Started" in the QNX Hypervisor User Guide for more information.

What's in this release?

This release includes the binaries, configuration files and utilities you will need to install and configure your hypervisor. You need to download the guest OSs and the appropriate BSPs separately. If you will run an Android guest OS, you will also need the qvmnet driver for Linux.

This hypervisor release supports the following guest OSs:

  • QNX Neutrino RTOS 6.6.0
  • QNX Neutrino RTOS 6.5.0 SP1
  • Linux Android "L" OS

Installation

The QNX Hypervisor User Guide "Getting Started" chapter has detailed information about how to install the hypervisor, guest OSs, and the qvmnet networking driver module. This guide is available at the same location as the hypervisor installer and these release notes.

Hypervisor installer

The installer for the QNX Hypervisor:

  • qnx-hypervisor-1.0-timestamp.bin (Linux)
  • qnx-hypervisor-1.0-timestamp.exe (Windows)
QNX guest OSs and BSPs

QNX Neutrino RTOS 6.5.0 SP1, QNX Neutrino RTOS 6.6.0, and the BSPs for these OSs:

  • Guest OS with direct hardware access: BSP_ti-j6-dra74x_vayu-evm_br-660_be-660_build.zip (or its 6.5.0 SP1 equivalent)
  • Guest OS without direct hardware access: BSP_vmarm-generic_br-660_be-660_build.zip (or its 6.5.0 SP1 equivalent)
Android guest OS
Android "L" OS, made available by Texas Instruments for TI DRA7xx (Jacinto 6) EVM platforms.
qvmnet networking driver module
Networking driver module. This module is included in the QNX BSPs, but you need to uncomment the hypervisor-specific lines in your Jacinto 6 BSP, and rebuild it to make it hypervisor-aware. If you are using an Android guest OS, you need to download the module and add it to the Android guest OSs (see the User Guide for instructions).

Known issues

This release contains known issues in the following areas:

  • HYPR-416: When it encounters problems with the VM cpuset property, the hypervisor moves to its DSS as expected, but it might not output the most appropriate error messages.

    Workaround: If the hypervisor exits with error messages such as "Sharing physical CPUs among guests is experimental" or "Virtual context migration is not supported", start debugging by confirming that the VMs' cpuset properties are correctly configured.

  • HW-12824: The Jacinto 6 EVM BSP generates omap_i2c_wait_status connection timed out errors. For example:

    omap_i2c_wait_status: PID_7 Connection timed out(260), dev->status 0, stat reg 0

    Workaround: Slay the offending i2c process, in this case 7.

Technical support

To obtain technical support for your QNX product, visit the Discussions area on our website (community.qnx.com/sf/discussion/do/listForums/projects.hypervisor_1_0/discussion), or contact your QNX FAE.

Where can I get more information?

The QNX Hypervisor User Guide has information about the hypervisor design, configuration, virtual devices, as well as instructions for installing the hypervisor and its guest OSs. This guide is available at the same location as the hypervisor installer and these release notes.