[libvirt] [PATCH v2 1/2] conf: add support for setting OEM strings SMBIOS data fields

[John Ferlan]

On 01/25/2018 09:26 AM, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 09:03:38AM -0500, John Ferlan wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 01/17/2018 12:37 PM, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>>> The OEM strings table in SMBIOS allows the vendor to pass arbitrary
>>> strings into the guest OS. This can be used as a way to pass data to an
>>> application like cloud-init, or potentially as an alternative to the
>>> kernel command line for OS installers where you can't modify the install
>>> ISO image to change the kernel args.
>>>
>>> As an example, consider if cloud-init and anaconda supported OEM strings
>>> you could use something like
>>>
>>>     <oemStrings>
>>>       <entry>cloud-init:ds=nocloud-net;s=http://10.10.0.1:8000/</entry>
>>>       <entry>anaconda:method=http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/25/x86_64/os</entry>
>>>     </oemStrings>
>>>
>>> use of a application specific prefix as illustrated above is
>>> recommended, but not mandated, so that an app can reliably identify
>>> which of the many OEM strings are targetted at it.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrange <berrange at redhat.com>
>>> ---
>>>  docs/formatdomain.html.in     | 13 ++++++++++++
>>>  docs/schemas/domaincommon.rng |  9 +++++++++
>>>  src/conf/domain_conf.c        | 47 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>  src/util/virsysinfo.c         | 33 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>  src/util/virsysinfo.h         | 10 +++++++++
>>>  5 files changed, 112 insertions(+)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/docs/formatdomain.html.in b/docs/formatdomain.html.in
>>> index d272cc1ba6..6af2d26209 100644
>>> --- a/docs/formatdomain.html.in
>>> +++ b/docs/formatdomain.html.in
>>> @@ -411,6 +411,10 @@
>>>      <entry name='version'>0B98401 Pro</entry>
>>>      <entry name='serial'>W1KS427111E</entry>
>>>    </baseBoard>
>>> +  <oemStrings>
>>> +    <entry>myappname:some arbitrary data</entry>
>>> +    <entry>otherappname:more arbitrary data</entry>
>>> +  </oemStrings>
>>>  </sysinfo>
>>>  ...</pre>
>>>  
>>> @@ -498,6 +502,15 @@
>>>              validation and <code>date</code> format checking, all values are
>>>              passed as strings to the hypervisor driver.
>>>            </dd>
>>> +          <dt><code>oemStrings</code></dt>
>>> +          <dd>
>>> +            This is block 11 of SMBIOS. This element should appear once and
>>> +            can have multiple <code>entry</code> child elements, each providing
>>> +            arbitrary string data. There are no restrictions on what data can
>>> +            be provided in the entries, however, if the data is intended to be
>>
>> s/, however/; however
> 
> Using a ; instead of , before "however" is rather wierd / unusual.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Daniel
> 

Strange - that's the way I've been taught when joining compound
sentences. Even Google I think agrees with usage of the semi-colon in
this case. Consider the following:

If this, however, was some other way to describe the usage, then using a
comma would be right; however, you're joining two sentences and using it
a compound sentence.

In the long run, I don't really care that much - I'm not an
english/grammar major ;-)

John