[Qemu-devel] Sparc Softmmu

[P. Wilhelm]

I've been able to install Solaris 8 using CDs on the Sparc Softmmu 
client system. Kudos to those responsible for Sparc development!

I've been able to run a number of applications without problems on the 
client machine. I noticed something odd, however, and have been trying 
to isolate the cause. Hopefully, someone here will have an idea or two 
for me to try.

The issue:
The syslogd seems to accept and post to the appropriate log file only a 
small number of messages before no longer updating the log file when 
further messages are posted, the syslogd seems to hang. The symptom does 
not appear to be different when rebooting or restarting the syslog 
daemon. The daemon will post a couple of message to the log file and 
then stop accepting any more.

Why ask here?
I've done a couple of things to see if I can isolate the source of the 
oddity and they seem to point to qemu.

What I've done so far:
1) I've tried using "logger" and a C program I wrote to use the syslog() 
function. - Both have the same issue noted above.
2) I've used both the OpenBios and SS5.bin bios. - Symptom does not 
change between the two.
3) I checked my /etc/syslog.conf on real hardware running the same 
version of Solaris 8. Syslogging works as you'd expect there. (Note - I 
don't have real SparcStation 5 hardware. I've been using an old Sun4u 
machine, Ultra-1 -- hopefully, that does not invalidate my "real 
hardware" checks.).
4) I ran syslogd in debug mode on both the client and the real hardware, 
but did not see anything in the output from each that gave a clue as to 
the issue. Generally, the output confirmed that I had syslogd configured 
the same way on both.

How to proceed?
I am a reasonably adept software developer, however, I do not have 
experience at the guts-level of Solaris OS or Sparc hardware. My work on 
Solaris/Sparc has been at the application level, but I have worked at 
the hardware level on other (proprietary) systems. If I had access to 
syslogd source code, I'd be comfortable working from there, but I am 
fairly certain that is not available - let me know if I am wrong. I've 
thought about looking for an open source syslog daemon and trying to use 
it instead of the Solaris version.

Any thoughts about next steps are appreciated.


Respectfully,
Paul