Upgrading ACRN Configurations to Recent Releases

The configuration files, introduced in Types of Configurations, are refined every release for richer features, clearer organization, and more user-friendly presentation. Due to the strict validation ACRN adopts, configuration files for a former release may not work for a latter if they are not upgraded. This tutorial introduces the steps to upgrade those files.

Board XML

A board XML file lists the characteristics of a board and is generated by the Board Inspector. Each ACRN release adds more information to that file in order to enable new features. Thus, always regenerate the board XML using the Board Inspector of the new release when you upgrade.

For the steps to use the latest Board Inspector, refer to Board Inspector Tool.

Scenario XML

A scenario XML file captures the configurations of hypervisor features and definitions of VMs. Starting from v3.0, the highly recommended way to upgrade a scenario XML is to use the scenario XML upgrader found at misc/config_tools/scenario_config/upgrader.py. Run this script from the command line in the following way:

misc/config_tools/scenario_config/upgrader.py <your scenario XML> <out file>

  • <your scenario XML> is the path to the scenario XML file for a previous release.

  • <out file> is the path to the new scenario XML file generated by the script.

The script generates the new scenario XML file by migrating as many data in <your scenario XML> as possible, based on the latest schema. If any data cannot be migrated, the script generates messages. For example:

WARNING:root:hv/DEBUG_OPTIONS/some = '1' is discarded
INFO:root:vm[1]/os_config/name = 'OS Name': Guest OS names are no longer needed in scenario definitions.

A warning message indicates that some data are discarded unintendedly, while an info message indicates an intended drop of obsoleted data.

Note

The upgrader’s best efforts at migrating data from scenario XMLs of former releases do not guarantee that all data can be migrated. Thus, you should carefully review all messages from the upgrader tool. In case any meaningful data is lost, use the ACRN Configurator to open the upgraded scenario XML for further edits.

Launch XML

Starting from ACRN v3.0, data in a launch XML are merged into the scenario XML. You can use the same upgrader tool to upgrade a pair of scenario XML and launch XML files into the merged format:

misc/config_tools/scenario_config/upgrader.py --launch <your launch XML> <your scenario XML> <out file>

The upgrader migrates all data in both XMLs into the <out file> and shows messages about discarded data in the same way as upgrading a scenario XML alone.